WHAT IS CLIMATE CHANGE?
Climate change can be termed as the shift from previous weather patterns to new ones. This change usually occurs slowly over long periods of years. To know climate change one needs to understand weather patterns because climate change can only be understood as the change in the seasonal weather patterns that occur in a particular area. The climate change is an analysis of weather patterns over a long period of time like several decades.
Although there are instances of natural climate change, sometimes change is generated by humans. The climate change is seen as the effect of humans on the environment where they live. Things like global warming are generally attributed to human factors that alter the atmospheric balance.
There are many causes of climate change ranging from natural to artificial ones. Some of the natural changes include:
Oceanic changes
Ocean is a major component of the climatic system. Any slight changes in oceanic levels and the oscillation will cause the El-Niño’s that we had recently. The redistribution of heat in the world’s oceans is the greatest cause of ocean related climatic changes.
The other factors that affect the climate or rather make it to change are the changes in the carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere.
Changes in the earths orbit
Any small change in the orbit of the earth will cause great variations in climate. The orbit changes will affect the way sunlight is redistributed over a given area. This variation is sunlight results in changes in temperature that causes variations in water vapors available in the atmosphere.
Solar output
The changes in the solar output happens once in several years. These changes in the intensity of the sun vary after a period of some billion years. The result usually is a change in climate.
Volcanic activity
It is the other cause of change in the atmospheric composition. The gases released during the activity will temper with the transmission of solar heat from the sun. As we all know the sun is the energy that moves all else on earth.
Plate tectonic or the movement of the plates that form the earth’s surface has an effect of altering the climate of a region. This movement happens over a million year periods and that is why it is emphasized that climate change has to be something that takes long periods of time. The position of these plates influences the circulation of the ocean waters. This results in massive transfer of atmospheric pressure across the globe that in turn results in change of weather and in the long-term climate.
Glaciers
Glaciers also have an effect on climate. The melting of glaciers in the northern hemisphere recently that has caused major oceanic water circulation with visible effects.
On a general sense the causes of climate change have some sort of multiplier effect where one cause results in another that further generates the next. Not one cause stands on it own.
No related posts.
Category: Environment
