Atmospheric Chemistry and Climate in the Anthropocene / Chemia Atmosferyczna I Klimat W Antropocenie

• Authors: Paul J. Crutzen , Stanisław Wacławek
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

Humankind actions are exerting increasing effect on the environment on all scales, in a lot of ways overcoming natural processes. During the last 100 years human population went up from little more than one to six billion and economic activity increased nearly ten times between 1950 and the present time. In the last few decades of the twentieth century, anthropogenic chlorofluorocarbon release have led to a dramatic decrease in levels of stratospheric ozone, creating ozone hole over the Antarctic, as a result UV-B radiation from the sun increased, leading for example to enhanced risk of skin cancer. Releasing more of a greenhouse gases by mankind, such as CO2, CH4, NOx to the atmosphere increases the greenhouse effect. Even if emission increase has held back, atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations would continue to raise and remain high for hundreds of years, thus warming Earth’s climate. Warming temperatures contribute to sea level growth by melting mountain glaciers and ice caps, because of these portions of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets melt or flow into the ocean. Ice loss from the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets could contribute an additional 19-58 centimeters of sea level rise, hinge on how the ice sheets react. Taking into account these and many other major and still growing footprints of human activities on earth and atmosphere without any doubt we can conclude that we are living in new geological epoch named by P. Crutzen and E. Stoermer in 2000 - “Anthropocene”. For the benefit of our children and their future, we must do more to struggle climate changes that have had occurred gradually over the last century.

PL

Człowiek wywiera coraz większy wpływ na środowisko na różne sposoby, w wielu przypadkach ostro ingerując w procesy naturalne. W ciągu ostatnich 100 lat liczebność ludzkiej populacji wzrosła - z nieco ponad 1 mld do 6 mld, a od 1950 roku do chwili obecnej nastąpił dziesięciokrotny rozwój działalności gospodarczej. W ciągu kilku ostatnich dekad XX wieku antropogeniczna emisja freonów doprowadziła do drastycznego spadku poziomu ozonu stratosferycznego, tworząc dziurę ozonową nad Antarktydą. Następstwem tego zjawiska jest wzrost promieniowania UV-B, który pociąga za sobą katastrofalne skutki, m.in. zwiększa ryzyko zachorowań na raka skóry. Uwalniane do atmosfery, przez człowieka, w dużych ilościach gazy cieplarniane, takie jak CO2, CH4, NOx, powodują zwiększenie efektu cieplarnianego. Nawet jeśli wzrost emisji zostanie zatrzymany, stężenia gazów cieplarnianych w atmosferze będą nadal rosnąć i pozostaną na wysokim poziomie przez setki lat, a to doprowadzi do ocieplenia klimatu na Ziemi. Wzrost temperatury przyczyni się do aprecjacji poziomu wód morskich. Będzie to spowodowane topnieniem lodowców górskich i czap lodowych. Utrata lodu Grenlandii i lądolodów Antarktydy, w zależności od tego, w jaki sposób zareagują na ocieplenie, może przyczynić się do wzrostu poziomu mórz i oceanów nawet o dodatkowych 19-58 centymetrów. Biorąc pod uwagę wyżej wymienione przykłady i wiele innych ważnych, wciąż wzrastających, śladów działalności człowieka na Ziemi bądź w atmosferze, bez żadnych wątpliwości można stwierdzić, że żyjemy w nowej epoce geologicznej nazwanej przez P. Crutzena i E. Stoermera w 2000 roku Antropocenem. Dla dobra naszych dzieci i ich przyszłości musimy intensywniej walczyć ze zmianami klimatycznymi, które miały miejsce w ciągu ostatniego stulecia.

Keywords

EN

greenhouse gases; greenhouse effect; climate changes; ozone hole; Anthropocene

PL

gazy cieplarniane; efekt cieplarniany; zmiany klimatyczne; dziura ozonowa

• Publisher: De Gruyter Open
• Journal: Chemistry-Didactics-Ecology-Metrology
• Year: 2014
• Volume: 19
• Issue: 1-2
• Pages: 9-28

Dates

published

1 - 12 - 2014

online

6 - 2 - 2015

Contributors

author

Paul J. Crutzen

• Max Planck Institute for Chemistry, Mainz, Germany

author

Stanisław Wacławek

• Technical University of Liberec, Liberec, Czech Republic

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Identifiers

DOI

10.1515/cdem-2014-0001