Climate change
Learn the basics
The earth's climate is changing and people's activities are the main cause
Climate concepts
Climate is what we expect, weather is what we get. - mark twain
Weather versus climate
Today's Climate Change
The greenhouse effect
Greenhouse gases
Greenhouse gases come from all sorts of everyday activities such as using electricity, heating our homes, and driving around town. The graph below shows which activities produce the most greenhouse gases in the United States.
These greenhouse gases don't just stay in one place after they're added to the atmosphere. As air moves around the world, greenhouse gases become globally mixed, which means the concentration of a greenhouse gas like carbon dioxide is roughly the same no matter where you measure it. Even though some countries produce more greenhouse gases than others, emissions from every country contribute to the problem. That's one reason why climate change requires global action. The graph below the first shows how the world's total greenhouse gas emissions are continuing to increase every year.
Carbon dioxide
Carbon is an element that's found all over the world and in every living thing. Oxygen is another element that is in the air we breathe. When carbon and oxygen bond together, they form a colorless, odorless gas called carbon dioxide, which is a heat-trapping greenhouse gas. Whenever we burn fossil fuels such as coal, oil, and natural gas, whether it is to drive our cars, use electricity, or make products, we are producing carbon dioxide.
The atmosphere isn't the only part of the earth that has carbon. The oceans store large amounts of carbon and so do plants, soil, and deposits of coal, oil, and natural gas deep underground. Carbon naturally moves from one part of the earth to another through the carbon cycle. But right now, by burning fossil fuels, people are adding carbon to the atmosphere (in the form of carbon dioxide) faster than natural processes can remove it. That's why the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is increasing, which is causing global climate change.
Check out this video to learn more about the carbon cycle and how people are changing the natural balance.
People are adding cabon dioxyde to the atmosphere faster than it can be removed.
The earth's climate in the past
The Earth was formed about 4.5 billion years ago—that's a very long time ago! It's hard to say exactly what the Earth's daily weather was like in any particular place on any particular day thousands or millions of years ago. But we know a lot about what the Earth's climate was like way back then because of clues that remain in rocks, ice, trees, corals, and fossils.
These clues tell us that the Earth's climate has changed many times before. There have been times when most of the planet was covered in ice, and there have also been much warmer periods. Over at least the last 650,000 years, temperatures and carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere have increased and decreased in a cyclical pattern. Can you see this pattern in the graph below?
These graphs are based on the Vostok ice core from Antarctica. They do not include the most recent increases in carbon dioxide and temperature caused by humans. Notice the strong connection between carbon dioxide and temperature. Source: EPA's Climate Change Indicators (2014) and Petit et al. (2001)
Changes in the earth's orbit
The shape of the Earth's orbit around the sun naturally changes over time, and so does the way the Earth tilts toward the sun. Many of these changes happen in cycles that repeat over tens of thousands of years. These changes affect how much of the sun's energy the Earth absorbs, which in turn affects the Earth's temperature. Over at least the last few million years, these cycles likely caused the Earth to alternate between cold and warm periods. For the last few thousand years, we've been in a relatively warmer period.
Changes in the sun's energy
Photosynthesis
Volcanic eruptions
Today's climate change is different
Today's climate change is different from past climate change in several important ways:
- Natural causes are not responsible.None of the natural causes of climate change, including variations in the sun's energy and the Earth's orbit, can fully explain the climate changes we are seeing today.
- People's activities are the main cause. By burning lots of fossil fuels like coal, oil, and natural gas, people are overloading the atmosphere with carbon dioxide and adding to the greenhouse effect. People are also adding other heat–trapping greenhouse gases, such as methane and nitrous oxide, to the atmosphere.
- Greenhouse gases are at record levels in the atmosphere. For hundreds of thousands of years, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere stayed between 200 and 300 parts per million. Today, it's up to nearly 400 parts per million, and the amount is still rising. Along with other greenhouse gases, this extra carbon dioxide is trapping heat and causing the climate to change.
Special thanks to EPA US for all the information on this website.
This was all the information we have for you on the basics of climate change. Next month we will explore the signs of climate change and the effects it has on people and the environment. We learned a lot about climate change and we hope you did too .We love to hear from you so feel free to email us at anytime at isfsomeren@gmail.com .
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