Written by: Ashish Dahal - 27004, Grade VII
Posted on: 21 June, 2021
Climate change includes both global warmings driven by human-induced emissions of greenhouse gases and in the resulting large-scale shift of the weather patterns. Although there have been previous climate changes since the mid 20-century humans have unexpectedly impacted the earth's climate change system. Global warming is often linked to the burning of fossil fuels—coal, oil, and natural gas—by industries and cars. It is also linked to the destruction of tropical forests. Such human activity has increased the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere by more than 20 percent in the past 100 years.
The term global warming first appeared in geochemist Wallace Broecker's 1975 Science magazine article, "Climatic Change Are We on the Brink of a Pronounced Global Warming?" Scientists began studying the effect of greenhouse gases on Earth's climate more than a century prior, however, as early as 1820. It was during this time that French scientist Joseph Fourier first discovered that Earth's atmosphere functions to retain the sun's heat. In the early 1900s, Serbian astrophysicist Milutin Milankovitch also identified the long-term climate change effects of natural fluctuations in Earth's orbit as well as the tilt and precession of its axis.
Since then, scientists and policymakers have worked to better understand the workings of the atmosphere, as well as how to respond to challenges created by climate change. As a human I think this cross-cutting issue of global warming and climate change should be taken very seriously. It has an adverse effect on our environment and our lives directly. The more we are concerned about climate change, the more effective our steps would be to protect our mother earth.
