Heat is one of the most impactful things to experience in the world. Many factors play into this such as the increase of Greenhouse Gases which adds to the overall heat increase of the Earth. This leads to other problems such as heatwaves which is one of the issues caused by climate change. Knowing about heat waves is essential in the way climate change should be combated.
It might be normal for summer to be hot but when the increase of heat waves across the world is more frequent there are a lot of effects. According to an article by the EPA it shows charts where there have been an increase in heatwave frequency, duration, season, and intensity that took place in 50 metropolitan areas across the United States. In the picture we can clearly see that the biggest changes of heatwaves were the frequency and season. The heat wave impacts have come from the green house gasses that trap the suns heat in the earth’s atmosphere.
The way in which the conditions of heat waves are created was stated in the article by Adeel Hassan who wrote “….begin when high pressure in the atmosphere moves in and pushes warm air toward the ground. That air warms up further as it is compressed, and we begin to feel a lot hotter”. This is interesting as the article mentions how the warmer air would minimize wind and cloud cover making the effect much worse. Other effects is the dryness in the environment with trees and soils being impacted as well as the growing number of droughts or wildfires, due to increasing heatwaves. If there is an increase in dry soil, the trees and plants would be unable to combat one type of green house gas which is Co2. Drought would lead to an increase in water vapor which is the biggest type of green house gas around.
Simple ways in combating this is the same as combating climate change; for example changing from fossil fuel energy to battery or solar produced energy. Although this solution isn’t fully adopted it has been increasing in the popularity with Electric Vehicles (EV), for example. The EV provides a cleaner air system in which these cars would not produce harmful gases into the environment compared to traditional cars. Even Just in general increasing the portable electric batteries such as lithium ion or other types would benefit as an energy source. Solar panels are similar to batteries because they hold and store the energy for use whenever it’s needed and could supplement as a power source from the main electric grid system.
Overall, climate change has a big impact on the world with heat waves being one of the main contributing factors . This leads to many impacts on agriculture and people as the heat wave issue continues to grow. Some ways to help combat climate change and help fight heat waves is to plant more trees and switch to fully sustainable, electrified devices. Over time this should help mitigate the exponentially growing heat waves that are a major part of climate change.
References
“Climate Change Indicators: Heat Waves.” EPA, Environmental Protection Agency, https://www.epa.gov/climate-indicators/climate-change-indicators-heat-waves
Hassan, Adeel. “What to Know about the Heat Waves.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 24 July 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/article/heat-wave-cause.html
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