Climate change refers to the vacation in the earth’s global climate or regional climates over time if describes changes in the variability or average state of the atmosphere over time scales ranging from decades to millions of years. This change can be caused by processes internal to the earth’s external forces and human activities.
In recent usage, especially in the context of environmental policy, climate change is likely to have been caused by human action which, is refereed in the mainstream media as a global warning.
Causes of climate change
Climate changes reflect variation within the earth’s atmosphere, processes in other parts of the earth, and the effects of human activity. The external factors that change climate are often called climate forcing. They include such processes as variation in solar radiation, the earth’s orbit, and greenhouse gas concentrations.
Variation within earth’s climate
Climate is the average state of the weather, fairly stable and predictable; it includes the average temperature amount of precipitation, days for sunlight, and other variables that might be measured at any given site.
Glaciating
These are recognized as one of the most sensitive indicators of climate change, advancing substantially during climate cooling and retreating during climate warming on moderate time scales. Glaciers grow and collapse, both contributing to natural variability and greatly amplifying externally forced changes.
Ocean variability
This is a schematic of modern thermohaline circulation. Climate changes can also result from the interaction of the atmosphere and oceans. Many climate fluctuations (El Nino Southern Oscillation, pacific decadal oscillation, north Atlantic oscillation, and arctic oscillation) have their existence to different ways that heat can be stored in the oceans and more between different reservoirs. On longer time scales, ocean processes play a key role in redistributing heat, and can dramatically affect climate.
Non-climate factors /caused of climate change
Greenhouse gases- current studies indicate that radioactive forcing by greenhouse gases is the primary cause of global warming. The greenhouse effect, which is the warming produced as greenhouse gases trap heat, plays a key role in regulating the earth’s temperature
Over the last 600 million years carbon dioxide concentrations varied in very eagle degrees primarily due to the effect geological processes biological innovation: according to his argument by Veizer et al (1999) variations in greenhouse gas concentrations over tens of millions of years have not been well correlated to climate change, with plate tectonics perhaps playing a more dominant role
During the modern era, the naturally rising carbon dioxide levels are implicated as the primary cause of global warming since 1950 according to the intergovernmental panel on climate change (IPCC), 2007.
Plate Tectonics
Plate tectonics reposition continents, shape oceans, build and tear down mountains, and generally serve to define the stage upon which climate exists. Plate mentions have been implicated in the intensification of the present ice age
- Solar variation– variations in solar activity during the last several centuries based on observation of sunspots and beryllium isotopes. The sun is the ultimate source of essentially all the climate systems. The energy output of the sun which is converted into heat at the earth’s surface is an integral part of shaping the earth’s climate the sun is getting brighter with higher energy output, is slowly changing the earth’s atmosphere. Solar intensity variations are considered to have influential in triggering the little ice age.
- orbital variations– These are in some sense an extension of solar variability because slight variations in the earth’s orbit lead to changes in the distribution and abundance of sunlight reaching the earth’s surface such orbital variations (Milankovitch cycles) are lightly predictable consequences of basic physics due to the mutual interactions of the earth’s, its moon and the other planets. These variations are driving influences to glacial cycles and repeated advance and retreat of the Sahara Desert.
- Volcanism – Eruptions occurring several times per century can affect climate. Huge eruptions occur only a few times every hundred million years but can reshape the climate for millions of years and cause mass extinction. Volcanoes are also part of the extended carbon cycle. The use geological survey estimates that Human activities generate more than 130 times the amount of carbon dioxide emitted by volcanoes
Human activities influencing a climate change
Anthropogenic factors are acts by human chicks that change the environment and influence climate. The biggest concern is the increase in co2 levels due to commission from fossil fuel combustion, aerosols, land use, ozone depletion, and animal agriculture 4and deforestation that affect climate.
- Fossil fuels -Carbon dioxide due to industrials revelation began in the 1850s and accelerating ever since and also human consumption of fossil fuel has elevated CO2 levels. Along with the methane level, these changes are anticipated to cause global warming. Cement manufactures aerosols. Anthropogenic aerosols particularly Sulphate aerosols from fossil fuel combustion are believed to exert a cooling influence.cement manufacture is the third largest of Man-made carbon dioxide emissions it accounts for 2.5% of Total worldwide emissions from industrial sources
- Land use– These include results from irrigation, deforestation, and agriculture. They affect the amount of water going in and out of a given location, may change local albedo by influencing the ground cover and altering the amount of sunlight that is absorbed, etc. ‘William Ruddiman’ came up with a hypothesis called early anthropogenic, where he suggests that the rise in agriculture and the accompanying deforestation led to the increasing in carbon dioxide and methane during the period 5000-8000 years ago.
- Market failure –as used by economists describes a condition where the allocation of goods and series by a market is efficient. These market fractures could be due to three main reasons. Agent influence that may lead to imperfect competition externalities (lections of agent) that are innate to the methods of production or other conditions important is the market, and lastly due to nature of certain good or nature of their exchange.
Possible solutions to climate change and market failure
Since the first Earth Day in 1970 moves have been made towards clean up energy production and use Drilling for oil and gas and mining coal are how done less harmfully, power plants burn coal more cleanly and vehicles get better gas mileage and emit far fewer populates. There is a need to use an energy source that reflects our concerns about the environment and the sustainability of supply (Fisher, 1997).
Changing values and changing energy sources. There is a connection between changes in value systems and shifts in energy use motivation for technological development through innovative moves. There prime motivation behind energy choice has been to increase wealth and power retying on fossil fuels is because today because is cheap efficient, and bring the most profit to their developers.
- Human rights movements indicate that we are beginning o value people more highly than in the past.
- Rising and development of ISO 14,000 as a set of internationally accepted standards for environmental management systems, promoted by the international organization for standardizations.
- Accepting responsibility for the part in the environmental impact of a product through its entire life cycle.
- Population control- Global population will play an important role in determining how much food requirement attempts to calculate a future food requirement depends. Upon projections of population growth through national and international policies that provide family planning services, maternal education, social support systems that affect population growth.
- Efficiency should be increased through movement from farms to human months. It has two competent, one about marketing and distribution and about end-use.
- By its very nature, agricultural production has significant impacts upon natural ecosystems and the environment there is little question that agricultural production must increase to meet population growth, but the magnitude of the increased necessity to improve human welfare is very much a question policy trade-offs between demand management and supply promotion (William H. bender 1999).
References
- Robert w fisher (1998/1999), Energy analysts- global issues Annual, McGraw Hill. Editions p. 110-113
- Andy Rowell (2006) climate change. Politics climate change impacts. New York.