This was one of the most active hurricane season in recent memory as five storms were a category three or higher. In a span of just four weeks, from August 25 to September 20, four major hurricanes formed off the coast of Africa and impacted the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico. First, Hurricane Harvey hit Houston and flooded the city. Then Hurricane Irma tore through Florida and devastated the Keys. Next was Hurricane Jose which ripped through the U.S Virgin Islands. Finally, Hurricane Maria walloped Puerto Rico, and, weeks later, most of the island is still without power. Is Mother Nature simply on a fury-induced rampage, or are these severe hurricanes the result of global warming?

Eighth-grade science teacher Ms. Sara Featherston doesn’t think so. “Hurricanes are not caused by global warming, but [global warming] create[s] conditions that breed stronger storms,” she said. “When water surface temperatures are warmer, more water evaporates, creating more powerful hurricanes.”

Hurricanes are formed when water evaporating from the oceans feeds a swirling mass of clouds. The warmer the water, the more energy available for the storm. A high amount of shear, in which wind speeds change swiftly with altitude, can make a storm spin more rapidly. So global warming could turn, for example, a Category 3 storm into a more dangerous Category 5 storm because of ocean temperatures being higher.

However, global warming, a phenomenon which many people debate as to whether it is actually happening or not, is something in which Featherston believes. “Yes, greenhouse gas emissions due to human activity are the driving force behind climate change,” she said. “When humans burn fossil fuels to get energy, one of the byproducts is carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, which is the main contributor to global warming.

Global warming, or climate change, is the overall increase in the planet’s temperature. Many members of the scientific community believe it is due to carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere which absorb sunlight and solar radiation. The burning of gas and coal via factories and vehicles creates these emissions, and, instead of the radiation escaping into space, it is trapped within Earth’s atmosphere, making the planet incrementally hotter.

The term “global warming,” according to a NASA article by Erik Conway, first appeared in The Hammond Times which detailed research into the effects of man-made CO2. The research noted “a large scale global warming, with radical climate changes may result.” However, in 1975, the term gained more prominence when Wallace Smith Broecker published a scientific paper on the topic, “Climatic Change: Are We on the Brink of a Pronounced Global Warming?” In addition, as environmental responsibility and conservation became more prominent in the public consciousness, concerned citizens all over the world became more aware of man’s effect on the ecosystem. According to the article published by the American Institute of Physics by Spencer R. Weart,  NASA climate scientist James Hansen gave testimony to Congress on global warming in 1986 and 1987. Former Vice President Al Gore’s 2006 Academy Award-winning documentary An Inconvenient Truth aimed to inform the world about the dangers of global warming, bringing the phenomenon to an international audience.

If global warming does exist as a result of CO2 emissions, the United States is making its fair share of contributions. According to the Natural Resource Defense Council website (www.nrdc.org), “In the United States, the burning of fossil fuels to make electricity is the largest source of heat-trapping pollution, producing about two billion tons of CO2 every year. Coal-burning power plants are by far the biggest polluters. The country’s second-largest source of carbon pollution is the transportation sector, which generates about 1.7 billion tons of CO2 emissions a year.”

According to cartalk.com, a website for car enthusiasts, there are 1.015 billion motor vehicles in use in the world. Burning one gallon of gas creates 20 pounds of carbon dioxide, and the average car emits about six tons of carbon dioxide every year. That’s a whole lot of carbon dioxide in the world’s atmosphere.

In addition, in its report “Summary for Policymakers,” the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) noted that the scientific consensus as of 2013 that it “is extremely likely that human influence has been the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century.”

However, despite the evidence produced by the scientific community, there are some people who believe the planet’s warming is natural.

“From what I’ve researched, Earth’s temperature naturally declines,” said eighth grader Madeline Comorat. “People are also releasing gas into the air from cars and airplanes which makes it hotter, so that could be another reason global warming does not exist.”

“I think the earth is just running its course,” said fellow eighth grader Sai Chigurupati. “Sometimes it gets really hot and sometimes it gets really cold.”

In May of 2014, the White House tweeted “Ninety-seven percent of scientists agree: #climate change is real, man-made and dangerous.” However, in an October 2015 article titled “The 97 Percent Solution” published by nationalreview.com,  journalist Ian Tuttle wrote that in “a study of 1,868 scientists working in climate-related fields, conducted just this year by the PBL Netherlands Environment Assessment Agency, three in ten respondents said that less than half of global warming since 1951 could be attributed to human activity, or that they did not know.”

Regardless what the percentage is, however, it seems that the majority of the scientific community believes global warming is a man-made issue. Also, there does seem to be evidence that the Earth is getting warmer.  According to a March 2017 article appearing on www.theguardian.com, “One main outcome of [a recent] study [published by www.sciencemag.org] is that it shows [the oceans] are warming about 13% faster than we previously thought. Not only that, but the warming has accelerated. The warming rate from 1992 is almost twice as great as the warming rate from 1960. Moreover, it is only since about 1990 that the warming has penetrated to depths below about 700 meters.”

Research such as this helps support those who are adamant about global warming being a real threat. “[Global warming is] not a belief, it’s a fact,” said Middle School Science Department Chair Ms. Gabriele St. Martin. “There is scientific evidence proving it and it is here. Weather is the short term – a hurricane, a storm, a pressure system, a drought. Climate is what happens long term. Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is the biggest cause of global warming,” she said. “The earth is indeed getting warmer.”

Global warming is not just affecting the United States, but the entire world. According to an October 14, 2015 article by Eric Holthaus on slate.com, a magazine website that offers analysis and commentary on politics, news, and culture, scientists measured that the Antarctic ice sheet is losing 134 billion metric tons per year. In addition, Greenland is losing 287 billion tons per year. Due to this statistic, experts are predicting that this rate could speed up because all over the world, people are burning fossil fuels and releasing harmful gasses into the air. The result may be a significant rise (several meters) in sea levels over the next 50 to 150 years. This could cause catastrophic flooding in areas throughout the world.

“What happens in global warming is the extremes become more extreme,” said St. Martin. “Hot gets hotter, cold gets colder, wet gets wetter, dry gets drier. People think snow storms prove that global warming is wrong. No! Everything becomes more intense, including snow storms.”

According to conservative American news site dailywire.com, the UK’s University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit was hacked in 2009 and had 1,079 emails and 72 documents stolen. In the emails, the research unit was found to be guilty of over-exaggeration of global warming data, possibly illegal destruction of embarrassing information, organised resistance to disclosure, manipulation of data, private admissions of flaws in their public claims, and much more. Yes, global warming may be real but, in some cases, it has been over exaggerated.

Still, the reality is, global warming, no matter what the cause, seems to be real. Unfortunately, so too are the consequences.

“[Humans] function as any other animal on this planet,” said St. Martin, “so the rules are if  the population of an animal, including humans, becomes so big or makes such changes to its environment that it can no longer produce enough food, space, or things that those animals need to live, there will be a decline in the population.”