Climate Feedback In Global Warming

Climate change is a complex global issue that encompasses a multitude of physical systems ranging from the atmosphere to the carbon cycle to the cryosphere and the ocean. This brief provides an introductory overview of the current state of climate science, using data on historical and future trends from recent scientific literature. It explores the methodologies of scientific research on climate change; the role of the atmosphere and greenhouse gases (specifically carbon dioxide) in climate change; the effects of climate change on the ocean (temperatures, sea levels, cryosphere, ocean acidification); and the consequences of climate change on extreme weather. Before delving into the climate science, two terms are unnecessary to grasp patterns in climate change: climate forcing and climate feedback. Climate forcing occurs when a factor external to the climate system changes the actual climate system. A climate forcing could be seen as a “foundational” independent variable to climate change. Forcing factors can be caused by both human activity (i.e., anthropogenic emissions of carbon dioxide or using land) or by natural events (i.e., volcanic eruptions and solar irradiation) (Rosenzweig and …show more content…
Scientists measure the concentration of carbon dioxide in ice cores from the Arctic and Antarctic and use these measurements to estimate historic atmospheric emissions (Lewis 2015). These reconstructions and recent observed data show that the pre-industrialization atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration ranged between 200 and 300ppm while post-industrialization concentrations have steadily increased from approximately 300ppm to 400ppm. As mentioned earlier, scientific research shows that human activity is a major factor in this rapid increase in atmospheric carbon