Transcript Slide 1

Smog in Beijing
Global warming is the effect of green house gases (CO2,S02) trapping the sun’s infer-red
radiation high up in the atmosphere and so deflecting it back onto earth, which increases the
temperature. There have always been greenhouse gases in the atmosphere as they retain heat
unlike oxygen and nitrogen, and so prevent the earth from becoming covered in ice. However
humans are emitting extra C02 and other greenhouse gases which has resulted in a man made
catastrophe, which could resolve in many plants and animals becoming extinct to due human
fault. Once the global temperature goes past 2 degrees the earth will reach a tipping point of no
return. Canada will become the heart of agriculture whilst cites like Los Angles will become one
of the first ghost towns due to the expansion of deserts. London would be at the bottom of the
English channel, as the Thames barrier would be not sufficient to block the the water level
which would of increased by 10’s of metres. Mauritius, the Maldives and Seychelles would be
submerged by the Indian ocean, countries like Bangladesh would have daily flooding whilst the
neighbour India would have wide-spread drought and famine. Hurricanes would rage the seas,
tornado’s would tore there ways threw the southern states of America. Our planets landmass
would be altered so much and the oceans spread.
Smog would be a constant presence in many over populated cities, such as; Shanghai, Mumbai
and Tokyo. Oxygen levels would of decreased due to deforesting of all the major rainforests this
would affect the human population along with many other factors such as acid rain being a
constant presence. However there could be cooling trap as the gulf stream which keeps the
British Isles 10 degrees warmer could shut down forcing freezing in Europe, also the atmosphere
could become so filled up with green house gases that the sun’s light doesn’t reach the earths
surface. The climate would be so extreme it would shape a new look for the planet, it would be
like the Permian extinction reincarnating it-self.
Ecosystems such as rainforests and reefs have maintained a rough balance between the
biomass of vegetation and carbon dioxide until now. The human population is growing
continuously all the time putting pressure on the rainforest’s resources. War has forced
refuges to clear forests and so resulting in the death of many rare animals that only live in
in these very rare habitats. Deforestation has resulted in vast areas of these biological
treasures being destroyed resulting in less CO2 being absorbed from the air, contributing
to global warming. The decision whether to stop deforestation has started disputes
between countries making relations poor.
Rainforests once covered 14% of the earths surface now they cover less than 6% and once
there gone so are billions of species of animals and plants of which still haven't been
discovered. Experts have suggested that 137 plants and animals are being lost every day
and that all rainforests should disappear in less than 40 years. Over the next coming years
more greenhouse gases will be pumped into the atmosphere, when rain falls it will be more
acidic which is bad for the oceans as too much acid makes the animals that live there
dissolve as bone structure is destroyed, experts suggest that over the next 100years the
oceans will be more acidic than they have been in the last 3million years, endangering all
marine life. Reefs which support many species would be lost making the oceans barren and
empty. Human waste and fishing is also effecting the survival of the oceans as waste
makes them toxic and fishing has made many one of our primary food sources(-fish)
decline in numbers. By the year 2108 the oceans will loose there minerals and ecosystems
such as reefs which support many exotic fish and plants, this would effects humans dearly
as most of our protein comes from the oceans resulting in famine.
Global warming would most certainly have an affect on human behaviour, population and
economic growth. With the climate being degrees hotter and so food and water less available
countries will start to put themselves first which could start disputes and war. The planet would
be hit with nuclear wars in every country, again adding more green house gases into the
atmosphere. Democracy's would fail leaving no order in countries, economic development would be
at a halt due to no trade between countries, leaving the less developed vulnerable to famine and
population decrease.
The once rich and stable economies of the developed world would decrease day by day leaving
people out of work and civil war on the rampage through the city streets. A once strong species
would be starving as crops would be failing, the food we once ate would be dying or extinct, water
would be only pure in minor parts of the world as the oceans would be toxic, acidic or evaporated.
Life expectancies would be very low as people were sent from a very young age to fight in the war,
disease would be every where eating the immune system away, skin cancer, malaria and cholera
would be common appearances. Famine would kill the elderly, bodies staked up on each other, the
scene like a hurricane had hit however this would be a every day appearance. Animals would
evolve to adapt to this new planet, however how would we be able to adapt in some much little time?
The population would be at the most low, our species could become extinct due to our own errors.
and
Hurricanes form when strong clusters of thunderstorms drift over warm ocean waters, they are known as typhoons in the pacific ocean and
cyclones in the Indian ocean. The very warm air form the storm and ocean surface mix together and so begin to rise, this creates low pressure at
the surface. Trade winds blowing in the opposite direction cause the storm to start spinning, rising warm air causes pressure to decrease at
higher altitudes. Then air rises faster and faster to fill this low pressure, in turn drawing more warm air off the sea and sucking cooler, drier air
downwards. As the storm moves over the ocean it picks up more warm and moist air, resulting in wind speeds to increase as more air is sucked
into the low pressured centre, it then can take the storm hours or days to form into a hurricane. The strength decreases or increases depending
on how long the hurricane has stayed over the ocean, if only over a short amount of time such as several hours the storm is relatively weak
compared to one the has been ocean born for days. The destruction however is still bad but does vary slightly between each category for example
a category 2 storm would have minor flooding with some roofs and tree’s damaged, a category 3 would severe flooding with houses damaged so
the extremes do vary. Yet there would be more devastation in poorer countries such as Bangladesh than to more developed countries such as the
U.S.A, M.E.D.C have more resources and have enough money to arrange evacuation plans in small amounts of time and have medial resources for
the injured and so can be independent, not waiting for outside help. So it does depend on wealth as L.E.D.C would probably suffer famine, disease,
huge casualties (as most are over populated) and water shortages after such an incident unlike M.E.D.C which would just have small casualties of
which would endure hospital treatment.
and
Tornadoes form in particularly intense or unseasonable heat, as the temperature increases warm moist air
rises to the surface, when reaching the cool the cool air it explodes upwards puncturing the layer above
resulting in a thunder cloud building up. The upward movement of the air came become very rapid winds
from each direction causing the storm to rotate, a visible tunnel drops from the cloud to meet the ground.
The vortex of the winds vary in shape and can be hundreds of km wide, tornadoes can last 10sec or a
hour but may travel dozens of miles, the strength of tornadoes is measured in Fujita scale and can vary
like hurricanes, for example a F2 would do considerable damage, mobile homes damaged, tree’s uprooted
and destroyed and cars thrown over ten’s of meters. However a F3 would make severe damage with trains
over turned, homes destroyed and almost all tree’s uprooted so the change is dramatic and do could
millions or even billions of pounds of damage if a storm were to form, but thankfully due to the temperate
and not too humid climate of the U.K tornadoes are very rare occurrences. But with global warming there
have been minor storms winch have caused a considerable amount of damage and so to imagine a
warmer Briton would mean more tornadoes and the higher risk of people dying, this could cause the
economy to fail, because money would be spent on repairs all the time, which increases tax and could
break into a civil war with huge protests against the government on increasing tax.
Economic growth would be impossible in the year 2108 as for growth you need trade and
with relations poor, by this time we probably would have used up all the planets natural
resources like oil, petrol making travel hard. Countries will be fighting over water and
food which would mean development being at the bottom of the agenda.
Currencies will become worthless due to so much extra money pumped into the country,
law & order will be forgotten and so civil war will brake out, arson attacks will be
common offences and deaths made by simple incidents the authorities can longer handle.
War will take the lives of young and elderly either on the battle field or off, money only
spent on the military weapons and defences, democracies failed and so gangs fight baron
territories with no official country leaders the world is left in turmoil.
Technology will turn against us as how would we be able to cope with no cars, planes and
communication. The most affected areas will be in the more developed world as all of us
rely on high tech equipment however the less developed world is more simple and so would
know how to deal with the situation leaving less casualties in them areas as adaptation
would be easier. However the more developed world would have the resources for curing
disease unlike continents like Africa which would suffer from manly famine disease and
lack of food and water.
Terrorism is becoming amore and more a frequent event, killing innocent civilians at the expense of
putting fear into the world. The world of 2108 could be put under pressure or not depending on the way
we deal the situation now. The government should put further investment into education for teaching
children the right and wrong, designing safer buildings which can withstand bombs and aeroplane
impacts, and as they have already continue the strict airport restriction to make flying safer for
people. We should also try to understand different cultures more as if we don’t 2108 could be filled
with the scenario's that occur in countries like Iraq now except it this would be in the U.K, which would
be hard for the British public to deal with that there country has become a terrorist capital, this could
result in the government going into war with many countries that simply don't have anything to do
with terrorism but have key instigators of whom are related to terrorism, this would mean millions of
innocent people dying for a war they never started.
Super volcanoes pump so much sulphur (that is why sulphur is in the atmosphere now) into
the air causing acid rain and short ice ages, this affects life on earth and so for some
animals they simply have not enough time to adapt making huge extinctions take place. They
also create tsunami’s as when a pluralistic flow reaches the ocean it travels over the
surface at extreme speeds however some of the particles are submerged due to the great
weight which create waves which slowly increases in size. When humans taken in sulphur
small needles in the gas puncture the lungs causing internal bleeding, death can be in a
matter of seconds so there could be a population decrease, however I doubt the entire
species would become extinct as humans are very good at adapting as that is why we have
become so successful.
Yet there still would be casualties in the millions all over the world, agriculture would be
difficult so food supplies would be at a shortage along with fresh water supplies so the
people who survive the initial catastrophe will still suffer afterwards as it takes decades
for our planet to become stable again. As past incidents suggest that many died it leaves a
grim thought for the future and even for now as the super volcano in yellow stone park is
over due to erupt so a extinction could be round the corner. Super volcano’s have the
power to destruct however after an eruption the ground touched by the ash becomes very
fertile and within years lush plants grow creating new ecosystems, so super volcanoes may
have a trap of death but the leave behind emerging fresh life.
Gamma ray bursts form when a star 8-20 times bigger than ours collapses to form a super nova explosion
when this happens a black hole is formed . Energy released as jets along the axis forms a gamma ray
burst. This could happen at any time and if it did there would be serious consequences for the earth as at
first smog would cover the earth it would look like there was another star in the sky blinding the people
who had no cover, at the same time the ozone layer would be reduced by half resulting in ultra high
radiation killing many plants and animals vaporising us instantly and altering our DNA, acidic nitrogen
oxides would be made and the sky would go green with auras all over the planet, then after that there
would be a brown haze made by the gases in the atmosphere reacting with the gamma ray burst shortly
after a ice age would occur, and this would all take place in a matter of hours.
However this scenario would only be at 1000light years away, at 100light years the atmosphere would be
blown away completely leaving the earth vulnerable to the sun’s solar flares, and the surface of the earth
would be melted leaving behind a ocean of magma but this would only happen to half of the earth, as the
other half being in it’s shadow, yet the human population would be decreased by 10-15% and many other
species of plants and animals would die resulting in a mass extinction. Gamma ray bursts are main
candidate for the Ordovician mass extinction which occurred 440 million years ago, these blasts are so
powerful that one lasting 10sec could result in damaging the ozone layer and killing so many species and
what’s worrying is they can’t be predicated or stopped.
The Siberian traps are made up of flood basalt and are considered to be a mantle plume which impacted the base of the crust and
erupted through the Siberian Craton another theory is that the traps where formed by a very large asteroid impact, the area they are
made up of expands bigger than Europe, evidence of this event was found in the cerew basin in Africa. They are thought to be the
suspect for the greatest mass extinction of all, the Permian-Triassic period extinction this occurred 250-251 million years ago as they
were very active at that time. The first affects would be acid rain due to the high amounts of sulphur dioxide being released into the
atmosphere making the oceans highly acidic killing all surface marine life, and eroding the soil and killing the plants. There would also
be a drastic change as there would be short ice age’s made by the small particles in the sulphur deflecting sun light plummeting the
temperature covering the northern hemisphere in ice.
The affects were long lasting as this eruption went on for 1 million years releasing millions of tons of gas, needing 150,000 Krakatoa’s
to match up to power of the Siberian traps which concluded in wiping 95% of all life on earth leaving only 1 in 20 species to survive, at
first global temperatures would increase due to the high levels of C02 more than six times more than we have pumped in to the
atmosphere now causing a heat wave making deserts expand and droughts, famine and disease spread. Then plant eating animals die
from not eating anything and then the predators die. There was nearly no oxygen left in the sea, this happened because the ocean
circulation system shutdown due to the oceans being heated to temperatures of 100’c at the equator. Hydrogen sulphide was released
into the air by deadly bacteria killing the last remaining animals who had survived this deadly extinction. If the Siberian traps were
erupt like this again I do doubt the existence of our species as the conditions which were explained earlier would certainly kill the
majority off us off and if some of our species were to survive it would be using simplest of materials, and so basically taking us back
to the stone age leaving advanced civilisation behind and heading towards war and famine.
Asteroids are located manly between mars and Jupiter however they are also located in the ort cloud and Kuiper belt which hare found in the
furthest most reaches of the solar system. Asteroids along with comets formed from the solar nebula, however gas giants like Jupiter have
so much gravity they stopped the lumps of gas, ice and rock from forming into a planet. An asteroid impact would have serious consequences
for the life on earth, at first the asteroid would dominate the sky when begging to burn up as it enters the atmosphere. When slamming into
the earths crust shockwaves would race threw killing everything in it's path surging huge tsunamis in the oceans, then the fire balls left by
the asteroid from burning up in the atmosphere would slam down to ground.
The sky would be darkened for days due to the thick sulphur dioxide had build up in the atmosphere from initial impact which stops light from
touching the planet resulting in harsh winters, plants wouldn’t be able to photosynthesise eventually killing mass ecosystems, the help of acid
rain would contaminate the water not sparing marine life. Famine would spread as crops would fail and so the last remaining animals left
would suffer breathing in toxic gases. It would take the earth decades to recover and stable it’s climate and so the remaining humans left
would fight wars over food and territory as some areas in earth may still be in- hospitable as they haven’t recovered from the disaster.
The asteroid could possibly bring new diseases from space to earth which would finish us off as a new diseases would spread extremely fast
with our bodies not being immune which would result in death. The asteroid could bring bacteria of what could evolve on earth as a new
species of life which could rival our own, so a impact from outer space could conclude in many harmful incidents challenging our existence of
which is uncertain, however scientists are developing knew ways of stopping impacts as one theory is that they could send a missile into
space or ,so maybe the future isn’t that blink after all.