You've heard about it; so what, exactly, is it?
Climate vs. weather |
Now, Change...? |
To really understand climate change you must first understand what climate is, and how it differs from weather.
According to NASA, "The difference between weather and climate is a measure of time." This essentially boils down to the fact that weather is the day-to-day measure of the atmosphere's conditions. These conditions cause precipitation, wind, cloudiness, and all of the other things that we associate with a forecast. Climate is the measure of how the atmosphere tends to behave over a long period of time. |
Once you understand climate, climate change is pretty straightforward. Pretty much any change in the atmosphere leads to some type of climate change, whether it be rising temperatures or greater amounts of precipitation in certain areas. Climate change often isn't a world-wide occurrence either. Most climate change only effects small parts of Earth, and these affects are different in different places.
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Let's get down to business
For you Skeptics |
Global Impact |
There is plenty of scientific evidence that climate change is real and is effecting the world around us right now. Some of these include:
No time to read a few scholarly articles? Just step outside. Rises in both the global sea level and the global temperature as well as decreasing snow cover, retreating glaciers, ocean acidification, shrinking ice sheets, and increases in extreme events make it hard to deny the changes undoubtedly occurring right now. In the past century, global sea level has risen about 17 centimeters (6.7 inches), but the rate of increase has nearly doubled in the last decade. This means that our oceans are rising, and they are rising faster the longer we wait. Since 1950, the number of record high temperatures recored has increased, while, in the same time span the number of record low temperatures has decreased and the number of intense rainfalls has also increased. This combined with all of the other facts mentioned above makes climate change very hard to disagree with people who want to stop climate change. |
Climate change has various potential consequences both now and in the future. As of 2015 some of the global issues we're really worried about are:
Scientists use climate models to show current climate change and predict future impacts. Using these models, they have determined that if the sea levels keep rising as they have been for the past decade (that's optimistic, that rate will probably increase a lot) we could be facing a rise of up to 7 meters (23 feet) by 2100. That amount of water would be enough to submerge London. |
A couple videos about climate change
The following videos provide two different, but equally import and views on climate change.
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In this video, numerous early career scientists are interviewed about their views on climate change. It really helps you understand the important things that no one talks about. |
Hank Green of SciShow explains climate change and some of the options we have for stopping it. |
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