Project

Name :Areno Sheti

Theme:Global heating

Class:XII
 What Is Climate Change?
Climate change is a long-term change in the average weather
patterns that have come to define Earth’s local, regional and global
climates. These changes have a broad range of observed effects
that are synonymous with the term.

Changes observed in Earth’s climate since the mid-20th century are

driven by human activities, particularly fossil fuel burning, which
increases heat-trapping greenhouse gas levels in Earth’s
atmosphere, raising Earth’s average surface temperature. Natural
processes, which have been overwhelmed by human activities, can
also contribute to climate change, including internal variability
(e.g., cyclical ocean patterns like El Niño, La Niña and the Pacific
Decadal Oscillation) and external forcings (e.g., volcanic
activity, changes in the Sun’s energy output, variations in Earth’s
orbit).
Scientists use observations from the ground, air, and space, along
with computer models, to monitor and study past, present, and
future climate change. Climate data records provide evidence of
climate change key indicators, such as global land and ocean
temperature increases; rising sea levels; ice loss at Earth’s poles
and in mountain glaciers; frequency and severity changes in
extreme weather such as hurricanes, heatwaves, wildfires,
droughts, floods, and precipitation; and cloud and vegetation cover
changes

Scientists already have documented these impacts of climate change:

 Ice is melting worldwide, especially at the Earth’s poles. This includes

mountain glaciers, ice sheets covering West Antarctica and Greenland,
and Arctic sea ice. In Montana's Glacier National Park the number of
glaciers has declined to fewer than 30 from more than 150 in 1910.
 Much of this melting ice contributes to sea-level rise. Global sea levels
are rising 0.13 inches (3.2 millimeters) a year. The rise is occurring at a
faster rate in recent years and is predicted to accelerate in the coming
decades.
 Rising temperatures are affecting wildlife and their habitats. Vanishing
ice has challenged species such as the Adélie penguin in Antarctica,
 where some populations on the western peninsula have collapsed by 90
percent or more.
 As temperatures change, many species are on the move. Some
butterflies, foxes, and alpine plants have migrated farther north or to
higher, cooler areas.
 Precipitation (rain and snowfall) has increased across the globe, on
average. Yet some regions are experiencing more severe drought,
increasing the risk of wildfires, lost crops, and drinking water shortages.
 Some species—including mosquitoes, ticks, jellyfish, and crop pests—
are thriving. Booming populations of bark beetles that feed on spruce
and pine trees, for example, have devastated millions of forested
acres in the U.S.

Other effects could take place later this century, if warming continues.
These include:
 Sea levels are expected to rise between 10 and 32 inches (26 and 82
centimeters) or higher by the end of the century.
 Hurricanes and other storms are likely to become stronger. Floods and
droughts will become more common. Large parts of the U.S., for
example, face a higher risk of decades-long "megadroughts" by 2100.
 Less freshwater will be available, since glaciers store about three-
quarters of the world's freshwater.
 Some diseases will spread, such as mosquito-borne malaria (and the
2016 resurgence of the Zika virus).
 Ecosystems will continue to change: Some species will move farther
north or become more successful; others, such as polar bears, won’t be
able to adapt and could become extinct.

Climatic variation since the last glaciation

Global warming is related to the more general phenomenon of climate
change, which refers to changes in the totality of attributes that
define climate. In addition to changes in air temperature, climate change
involves changes to precipitation patterns, winds, ocean currents, and
other measures of Earth’s climate. Normally, climate change can be
viewed as the combination of various natural forces occurring
over diverse timescales. Since the advent of human civilization, climate
change has involved an “anthropogenic,” or exclusively human-caused,
element, and this anthropogenic element has become more important in
the industrial period of the past two centuries. The term global
warming is used specifically to refer to any warming of near-surface air
during the past two centuries that can be traced to anthropogenic
causes.

To define the concepts of global warming and climate change properly, it

is first necessary to recognize that the climate of Earth has varied across
many timescales, ranging from an individual human life span to billions
of years. This variable climate history is typically classified in terms of
“regimes” or “epochs.” For instance, the Pleistocene glacial epoch (about
2,600,000 to 11,700 years ago) was marked by substantial variations in
the global extent of glaciers and ice sheets. These variations took place
on timescales of tens to hundreds of millennia and were driven by
changes in the distribution of solar radiation across Earth’s surface. The
distribution of solar radiation is known as the insolation pattern, and it
is strongly affected by the geometry of Earth’s orbit around the Sun and
by the orientation, or tilt, of Earth’s axis relative to the direct rays of the
Sun.

Worldwide, the most recent glacial period, or ice age, culminated about
21,000 years ago in what is often called the Last Glacial Maximum.
During this time, continental ice sheets extended well into the middle
latitude regions of Europe and North America, reaching as far south as
present-day London and New York City. Global annual mean
temperature appears to have been about 4–5 °C (7–9 °F) colder than in
the mid-20th century. It is important to remember that these figures are
a global average. In fact, during the height of this last ice age, Earth’s
climate was characterized by greater cooling at higher latitudes (that is,
toward the poles) and relatively little cooling over large parts of the
tropical oceans (near the Equator). This glacial interval terminated
abruptly about 11,700 years ago and was followed by the subsequent
relatively ice-free period known as the Holocene Epoch. The modern
period of Earth’s history is conventionally defined as residing within the
Holocene. However, some scientists have argued that the Holocene
Epoch terminated in the relatively recent past and that Earth currently
resides in a climatic interval that could justly be called the Anthropocene
Epoch—that is, a period during which humans have exerted a dominant
influence over climate.

Though less dramatic than the climate changes that occurred during the
Pleistocene Epoch, significant variations in global climate have
nonetheless taken place over the course of the Holocene. During the
early Holocene, roughly 9,000 years ago, atmospheric circulation and
precipitation patterns appear to have been substantially different from
those of today. For example, there is evidence for relatively wet
conditions in what is now the Sahara Desert. The change from one
climatic regime to another was caused by only modest changes in the
pattern of insolation within the Holocene interval as well as the
interaction of these patterns with large-scale climate phenomena such
as monsoons and El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO).

During the middle Holocene, some 5,000–7,000 years ago, conditions

appear to have been relatively warm—indeed, perhaps warmer than
today in some parts of the world and during certain seasons. For this
reason, this interval is sometimes referred to as the Mid-Holocene
Climatic Optimum. The relative warmth of average near-surface air
temperatures at this time, however, is somewhat unclear. Changes in the
pattern of insolation favoured warmer summers at higher latitudes in
the Northern Hemisphere, but these changes also produced cooler
winters in the Northern Hemisphere and relatively cool conditions year-
round in the tropics. Any overall hemispheric or global mean
temperature changes thus reflected a balance between competing
seasonal and regional changes. In fact, recent theoretical climate model
studies suggest that global mean temperatures during the middle
Holocene were probably 0.2–0.3 °C (0.4–0.5 °F) colder than average
late 20th-century conditions.

Over subsequent millennia, conditions appear to have cooled relative to

middle Holocene levels. This period has sometimes been referred to as
the “Neoglacial.” In the middle latitudes this cooling trend was
associated with intermittent periods of advancing and retreating