Climate change is one of humanity's most severe
and urgent challenges. As can be expected from anything that has
a worldwide impact, climate change and global warming are often shrouded in controversy
and competing narratives. With that in mind, let's begin by understanding
what exactly climate change is and what makes it so dreadful for our planet. The term climate change is used to denote
the long-term changes in the weather patterns in a given region. Another term often interchanged with climate
change is global warming. Global warming is formally defined as a rise
in Earth's temperature that persists for a decade or longer.
There could be several causes for climate
change, but the biggest one is the rising concentration of greenhouse gases. Simply put, greenhouse gases are those gases
in our atmosphere that trap heat. Some examples include carbon dioxide, methane,
chlorofluorocarbons, nitrous oxide and ozone. How these gases affect climate change depends
on their amount and their global warming potential or GWP. This metric tells us how long a gas remains
in the atmosphere, on average, and how strongly it absorbs energy.
Naturally, gases with a higher GWP absorb
more heat, and thus contribute more to increasing Earth's overall temperature, or in other words,
warming it. Natural sources and human activities both
result in the emission of greenhouse gases. One of the most common ways these gases get
released into the atmosphere is through the burning of fossil fuels. Burning coal or oil to run industrial processes
or giant factories increases the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide.
Indeed, fossil fuels' contribution to greenhouse
gas emissions is the largest, in the range of 70- 80% of total emissions. Agriculture is another serious factor; greenhouse
gas emissions from agriculture come from livestock, such as cows, agricultural soils, and rice
production, and are in the range of 10-15% of all emissions. Clearing forests for cultivation, industry
and other human activities also increases concentrations of greenhouse gases, especially
carbon dioxide. The share of changes in land use patterns
represents 5-10% of all emissions. Carbon dioxide concentration is the highest
among all greenhouse gases in the atmosphere; therefore, it is a significant contributor
to global warming. Since the industrial revolution, a drastic
increase in economic activity has triggered a sharp uptick in carbon dioxide emissions
worldwide.
These emissions are higher than the amount
that can be captured by the earth’s natural carbon cycle. This is why rising carbon dioxide emission
is a point of great concern to every nation on the planet. The rise in global temperature changes several
other weather patterns and geographical conditions. For example, an increase in temperature directly
impacts the snow, river and lake ice, sea ice, glaciers, ice caps, ice shelves and ice
sheets, as well as frozen ground, also known as permafrost. The rising surface temperature causes a decline
in ice mass. Ice mass measurement by NASA's satellite shows
that the Antarctic and Greenland mass is declining at an unprecedented rate. Glaciers are also retreating almost everywhere,
including the Alps, Himalayas, Andes, Rockies, Alaska, and Africa. Furthermore, oceans absorb almost 90% of the
excess heat from the surrounding air, making it warmer. Although most of the heat is absorbed in the
surface, as the rate of warming increases, the heat permeates to deeper waters and harms
marine ecosystems.
Sea level rise is caused primarily by water
from melting ice sheets and glaciers and the expansion of seawater as it warms. Satellite observations indicate that the sea
height is increasing rapidly and will continue to rise at an increasingly rapid pace. The rise in sea levels negatively affects
the populace of coastal areas. It also plays a role in flooding and leads
to an increase in storms. Climate change also leads to changes in the
frequency, intensity, spatial extent, duration, and timing of weather and climate extremes. Some extreme weather events include floods,
droughts, hurricanes, and heat waves. Weather and climate extremes occur when the
weather or climate metric is above or below a threshold value of the variable.
Some of the changes in weather patterns include
an increase in the number of warm days and nights, a decrease in cold days and nights,
and an increase in the frequency and intensity of daily temperature extremes. As you can imagine, climate change or global
warming doesn't happen overnight; these changes occur over decades or even centuries. Thus, it stands to reason that it's impossible
to either stop or completely reverse its effects in just a few weeks or months. However, as a community, we could do many
things to slow down global warming and eventually embrace ways to stop or reverse it. The first and most crucial aspect of recovery
is awareness, namely understanding and spreading awareness about the risks associated with
climate change. On a personal level, we could look at our
transportation and power consumption habits. Since industrial and automobile emissions,
along with the consumption of electricity, which is primarily generated by burning fossil
fuels, are the most significant reasons for increasing carbon dioxide concentrations in
the atmosphere, rethinking these consumption patterns would make a measurable dent in our
collective carbon emissions.
Climate change is a real threat, but if we
all come together, take a stand, and be more environmentally conscious in our decisions,
we can still save our beautiful blue planet..