CLIMATE CHANGE- WHAT IS IT?
Climate change- we all know about it. It refers to long-term shifts in temperatures and weather patterns. These shifts may be natural, but since the 1800s, human activities have been the main driver of climate change, primarily due to the burning of fossil fuels (like coal, oil, and gas), which produce heat-trapping gases.
​Burning such fossil fuels results in greenhouse gas emissions, especially carbon dioxide and methane, which do not let heat escape from the Earth and eventually cause warming of the planet and changes in the climate. Industry,transport, agriculture, and energy are among the main emitters.
Emissions continue to rise. As a result, the Earth is now about 1.1°C warmer than it was in the late 1800s. The last decade (2011-2020) was the warmest on record.
Temperature rise is only the beginning of the story. The consequences of climate change now include, among others, intense droughts, water scarcity, severe fires, rising sea levels, flooding, melting polar ice, catastrophic storms, and declining biodiversity.
-
Earth’s temperature has risen by 0.14° Fahrenheit (0.08° Celsius) per decade since 1880, but the rate of warming since 1981 is more than twice that: 0.32° F (0.18° C) per decade.
-
2021 was the sixth-warmest year on record based on NOAA’s temperature data.
-
The nine years from 2013 through 2021 rank among the 10 warmest years on record.
-
Average global sea surface temperatures have been increasing for the past century or so and now threaten to alter warm and cold ocean currents.
-
This essentially threatens marine biodiversity and increases the severity of natural catastrophes such as cyclones
-
Increased heating of the oceans threatens to change storm tracks and can have drastic consequences for the environment.
​
-
Over the past 30-40 years the globe has seen an increase in greenhouse gas emissions accompanied by an increase in average global surface temperature.