Change And Change: What Is Climate Change?

What is climate change?

A change in global or regional climate patterns, a change which was noticed during the mid 20th century due to excessive use of fossil fuels.

Some reason why climate changes:

Natural causes:

• Continental drift- led to the change in the physical features of land, its position and a change in ocean currents.

• Volcanoes- the ash emitted during the eruptions cool the global temperature, in their absence the temperature has been on the rise.

• Ocean currents have been known to change direction or slow down. The heat that escapes from the oceans is in the form of water vapor, the most abundant greenhouse gas on Earth. Yet, water vapor also contributes to the formation of clouds and has a net cooling effect.

Human causes:

By cutting trees there won’t be enough oxygen available in the atmosphere and there will be high amount of CO2 available which will heat the earth up.

What are the effects of climate change?

A Climate effects in a very vigorous way.

• Due to the change in climate, natural disasters take place taking away lives of the people. For example, The Nepal earthquake which took place on 25th April, 2015 which killed over 8000 people and injured more than 21000 people.

• The change in climate also affect the ocean currents and heat up the land under the water causing tsunamis. For example, The Japan earthquake and tsunami which took place on march 11, 2011.

• Excessive heat emitted in the atmosphere causes excessive evaporation leading to sudden rains.

• High temperature causes the glaciers to melt which raises the sea level on earth which will cause having more frequent flooding and very low-lying land could get submerged completely, It will also affect the food as too much water flowing into the agricultural lands will spoil the

Is the present climate change a natural phenomenon or human induced?

The present climate change is mostly human induced; the increase in CO2 is mainly because of human activities. Activities like changes in land use pattern, deforestation, land clearing, agriculture, and other activities that have all led to a rise in the emission of carbon dioxide.

Methane is also another important greenhouse gas in the atmosphere is the resultant of human activities. It is infused in the atmosphere due to-

• Domestication of animals

• Fields being flooded during sowing & reaping of rice/paddy—mostly contributed by countries in Asia as rice is grown here and is the staple food of people

• It is also emitted when waste dumps are burnt which in turn releases CO2

• Methane is also released while drilling & coal mining or due to accidents that lead to leaking gas pipelines

Use of pesticides & other fertilizers infuse nitrogen oxide into the water bodies acidifying the water which kills the plants and aquatic animals living in