Human Contribution To Climate Change

The Earth’s climate is an extensive and complex thing. Science has studied it a great deal, but there is still much that is unknown. One thing that is known however is that humans can directly and indirectly affect the climate. One way they do this is by contributing to climate change. Climate change is very real and will have terrible effects if left unchecked. The early days of looking at Climate change was full of hesitance because the technology to measure it was simply not present. One of the earliest comprehensive set of books on climate change research was a three volume set called Climate Change 1995. It was compiled by 78 experts from 20 different countries. These volumes held most of the current research. Much of the evidence, even

People to this day still doubt the validity of human’s contribution to climate change or even its existence. However much progress has been made since the 90’s both in tools and research. Much of this doubt likely comes from simply misunderstanding what climate change means. People confuse weather for climate. Weather is daily in one place. Climate happens over many years to a hefty geographic area (Nye and Powell 19-21). Weather fluctuates naturally, and is a great example of Natural variability. It is caused by a number of natural daily variations, but also by changes in the composition of the atmosphere caused by humans (Philander XXV). People tend to think the Earth is only going to get warmer. However not every place is going to become warmer all the time, it is more complicated than that. The increased energy in the atmosphere could actually lead to more extremes in weather. Bill Nye mentioned Chicago did not have tornados or snowdrifts on roofs in Boston for months at a time. These individual events obviously are not concrete proof, but they contribute to a larger pattern (Nye and Powell 19-33). Generally, Earth’s climate changes slowly at its own pace (Nkemdirim566+). The CO2 levels in the atmosphere have increased dramatically since the industrial age, and that is part of the problem. The rate humans add to the carbon levels is causing the greenhouse effect to get stronger and stronger. The greenhouse effect is closely associated to global warming. It occurs because of how carbon molecules are shaped. They allow light to pass by them but they block reradiated infrared rays because these rays are longer than the light. That trapping is effectively how greenhouses function and is where the name comes from. And because of how much carbon gets released into the air this effect is amplified (Nye and Powell