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Climate Change Explained
Simply put, climate change is any significant and long-term change in the average weather of our earth as a while, or even just a specific region. The term “average weather” may include averages of precipitation, wind patterns and average temperature taken over a length of time. It can be very long lengths of time as well, spanning the changes in the atmosphere over years, decades, all the way to millions of years. There are also several reasons why the average may change, including variations in the sun’s intensity, the dynamic processes on earth, as well as the effect we as humans have had on the earth. We may not immediately bring it to mind when we are thinking about climate change, but everything from our growing population to the evolution of our business and factories has caused changes in our climate, and will continue to shape it for as long as we are here.
You may have noticed recently, especially with the emergence of the green movement, that there has been a greater focus on climate change and the effects we have on our planet. In the context of environmental policy, when we use the term “climate change” we are usually referring to changes in modern climate; changes that we have all been able to see and feel over our lifetimes, and several generations back. At this point in time, human activity is thought to have the most effect on our climate, although climate changes are also dependent on any variation of the earth’s atmosphere, such as changes in the earth’s ice caps and oceans. There are also external factors that have an effect on climate change, and they are known as climate forcings. These climate forcings include variations in the earth’s orbit, greenhouse gas concentrations, and solar radiation, among others. It is thought that glaciers are the most sensitive indicators of climate changes, as they advance substantially when the climate becomes cooler, and retreat during what our moderate time scales determine as a climate warming. Unfortunately, during the last century, glaciers have proven unable to regenerate enough ice during wintertime than what they lost during the earth’s summer months. This has led many to believe that we are experiencing global warming.
When it comes to climate change, everyone seems to have a different opinion as to where we are heading. Many scientists believe that we are in a state of global warming, and that the world as we know it is in trouble. Others believe that the world is actually in a cooling state. Whether these are changes that we have caused or changes the earth uses to clean and replenish itself remains to be seen. However, we can all agree that we as a population need to be doing everything we can to ensure our world is clean and safe for years to come. This includes recycling, making a move to a more sustainable and greener lifestyle, and generally caring about what effect we are having on our environment. If we are all able to do this, we have a much better chance of keeping our environment stable.