How Extreme Weather affects by global warming (Climate change)

How Extreme Weather affects by global warming (Climate change) ?

There is currently a massive storm churning over the Atlantic that spans the entire ocean basin, stretching all the way from Canada to Europe, and from Greenland to the Caribbean.

It's the same weather system that brought a massive spring blizzard to much of the United States and Canada earlier this week (on Tuesday (March 26), 44 of 50 states had some snow on the ground), and which has now ballooned in size, according to Jason Samenow, chief meteorologist with the Washington Post's Capital Weather Gang.

Robert Oszajca, lead forecaster for the National Weather Service's Ocean Prediction Center, explained that the storm got this big by merging with several low-pressure systems that were hanging out over the Atlantic Ocean. The merging weather systems gave it more power, which was accentuated by a gradient between warm moisture from the southeast, delivered by the Gulf Stream, and frigid air from the north. This intensified the storm, causing it to spin, elongate and grow in size, Oszajca told OurAmazingPlanet.

Normally, the system would have drifted into Europe several days ago. However, a high-pressure system over Greenland blocked the low-pressure system's advance, which allowed it to strengthen further, fed by cold air from the north. This created winds (which move from high pressure to low pressure) up to 75 mph (120 km/h), equivalent to a Category 1 hurricane, Oszajca said. 

"We're impressed with the size of this storm," he said. Nevertheless, storms this big form about once or twice every winter.

The storm, which looks like a large comma whose tail stretches into the Caribbean, ranges from Eastern Canada all the way to Spain and north to Greenland. It has created waves up to 42 feet (13 meters) high, Oszajca said.

The storm has already begun to weaken, however, as the high-pressure "blocking" system to the north has eased. Oszajca said the central low-pressure system that has powered the storm will soon break up into several separate centers, and the storm will fragment before hitting Portugal in about four days. The storm isn't expected to be very intense by the time it reaches Europe.

Resource: weather.yahoo.com

Cow Farts causing Global Warming!?

Scientists and farmers around the world are debating a very serious subject at the moment. You may not know it, but cows are actually one of the rudest animals around. In fact, they burp and fart so often and in such huge figures that the methane they release may be an affecting part of global warming. Yes, they are really talking about farting and burping cows.
Why are scientists talking about this? Good question, let's start with the science behind passing gas. Farts and burps are essentially pockets of gas that get released from human and animal bodies. Some of it is created inside our bodies as we digest food and some is ingested, when we eat or talk. This mixture is not useful to us, so our bodies propel it out as best they can, “passing gas or flatulence.”
One of the gases found in farts and burps is methane. Certain amounts of methane in the atmosphere are normal. Right along with other greenhouse gases, methane collects in the sky and traps warm air around our planet. The problem starts when the layer of greenhouse gases is too thick and too much heat is shut in. This effect is called global warming my friends!
A report published in the state of California a while back declared that dairy cows in the area were producing almost 20 lbs of gas every year. That is a ridiculously large amount of gas. If that number is correct, it could mean that cow farts are causing more greenhouse gases than pollution from cars, since California has millions of cows.
Scientists around our globe have known for a long time that animal gases could be trouble. What they cannot agree on is how big of a problem it can actually be. Even if scientists manage to measure the size of the farts or burps, they then have to work out how much methane they contain. It is very hard to measure just how much methane an animal is burping and farting out.
A Swedish university has taken this matter very seriously and has been awarded close to $600,000 in support to research this occurrence. Jan Bertilsson of the Swedish University for Agricultural Sciences stated that 20 cows will be involved in the study.
By attaching special collars around the cow’s necks, they hope to calculate the amount of methane released with each burp depending on the kind of food they consume. Mind you this is only a study on burps not farts.
I am not a scientist or anything but it looks like if we want to make a real effort at slowing down our climate change, we simply can’t only go after the cows. It just doesn’t seem to me to be the only source of the problem. What does the rest of the planet think?

Second Cause of Global Warming

Chlorofluorocarbons were introduced to the world in the 1920s and are used in a range of industrial, commercial, and residential uses and is a big part of Global Warming. Chlorofluorocarbons, along with others like chlorine- and bromine-containing compounds, have been implicated in the boost of reduction of ozone in our planet’s stratosphere. This stuff is non-flammable, non-toxic, and non-reactive with other chemical composites. These nice safety characteristics make them useful as coolants in air conditioners and refrigerators, propellants for aerosol sprays, and blowing agents. Production and use of Chlorofluorocarbons increased as a demand by us humans for production of these common products.
It was not until 1973 that chlorine was found to be a catalytic agent in ozone devastation. Catalytic obliteration of ozone gets rid of the odd O2 species while leaving chlorine unchanged. We knew that this was potentially damaging to the ozone layer, but beyond question evidence of stratospheric ozone depletion was not exposed until 1984. An intricate situation of atmospheric dynamics, chemical reactions, and solar radiation, was found to explain the abnormal low levels of ozone during the polar springtime. Current missions to the Arctic areas show that related processes can occur in the northern hemisphere, but to a lesser level due to warmer temperatures. We as a nation have to do something soon before this climate change takes a real toll on our planet!