What is Climate Change?
“The planet 's climate has constantly been changing over geological time.” The average global temperature currently remains around 15 Degrees Celsius. However, this figure has constantly been a subject to change in the past. Climate change threatens the world’s economy, climate and population “it is clear that coal, oil and gas will play a significant part in meeting the world’s energy needs for the foreseeable future, and we need to find ways to reduce their emissions” (HM Government). The current span of global warming seems to be much more rapid than before. Scientists are concerned that this natural process “is being overtaken by a rapid anthropogenic (human-induced) warming that has serious implications for the stability of the planet 's climate” (BBC NEWS, 2015). Kevin Trenberth once claimed that “global warming is contributing to an increased …show more content…
The data below from NASA’s GRACE satellites provide evidence that the land ice sheets are decreasing heavily. There is sufficient evidence in the graphs to prove that “the continent of Antarctica has been losing around 134 gigatons of ice per year since 2002” ,as shown in figure 8, and the Greenland ice sheets have been losing “an estimated 287 gigatons per year” as shown in figure 9 (GRACE Satellite Data) (NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, 2016). The polar ice caps help keep the earth at a nice average temperature however the melting of polar ice caps increases the rate of global warming. The limited solar energy paves the way for cold temperatures and very little precipitation (rain or snow) which helps maintain the polar ice-caps. The ice caps hold more than 75 percent of the earths’ fresh water. They melt directly into the ocean causing the volume of water to rise and it forces seas to move higher and closer to land. This puts many places such as the Republic of Maldives in figure 7 at the risk of
“The planet 's climate has constantly been changing over geological time.” The average global temperature currently remains around 15 Degrees Celsius. However, this figure has constantly been a subject to change in the past. Climate change threatens the world’s economy, climate and population “it is clear that coal, oil and gas will play a significant part in meeting the world’s energy needs for the foreseeable future, and we need to find ways to reduce their emissions” (HM Government). The current span of global warming seems to be much more rapid than before. Scientists are concerned that this natural process “is being overtaken by a rapid anthropogenic (human-induced) warming that has serious implications for the stability of the planet 's climate” (BBC NEWS, 2015). Kevin Trenberth once claimed that “global warming is contributing to an increased …show more content…
The data below from NASA’s GRACE satellites provide evidence that the land ice sheets are decreasing heavily. There is sufficient evidence in the graphs to prove that “the continent of Antarctica has been losing around 134 gigatons of ice per year since 2002” ,as shown in figure 8, and the Greenland ice sheets have been losing “an estimated 287 gigatons per year” as shown in figure 9 (GRACE Satellite Data) (NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, 2016). The polar ice caps help keep the earth at a nice average temperature however the melting of polar ice caps increases the rate of global warming. The limited solar energy paves the way for cold temperatures and very little precipitation (rain or snow) which helps maintain the polar ice-caps. The ice caps hold more than 75 percent of the earths’ fresh water. They melt directly into the ocean causing the volume of water to rise and it forces seas to move higher and closer to land. This puts many places such as the Republic of Maldives in figure 7 at the risk of