Climate Change
A Guide to Understanding Global Warming & Climate Science
Welcome to my guide. I've written a number of articles about climate change with the goal of educating people about the basics of climate science. Articles are linked in the order I'd recommend to someone who knows nothing, though you can skip sections you already understand. I'm in the process of adding new guides regularly, in order to help educate and provide links to detailed information about the environment. See the section below if you're curious why I've taken on this side project. To begin, we'll answer a simple question that will be explained in further detail.
What is Climate Change?
Climate change is a process our planet is currently experiencing. Due to an increase in gases that cause our planet to warm over time, the global average temperature is slowly rising. It is important to understand that, when looking at averages, one year may be cooler than the one before. By saying Earth is warming, scientists mean that it is warming over time and on a global scale. As the temperature creeps up, more water vapor makes it into the air, allowing for further global warming. With the increase in temperature, the planet's glaciers and permafrost are melting faster than they are restored each winter. This, in combination with the fact that warmer water expands in size, is causing our sea levels to rise very gradually. While the world's oceans have long helped to protect us by absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, they are growing more acidic as they do so due to chemical processes. This ocean acification threatens delicate species and could upset marine ecosystems.
Warmer temperatures cause some areas of the world to experience drought, while others get more rainfall. Rainfall is expected to increase overall, but dry areas will become drier and expand in size. The world's water supplies in these areas are evaporating, threatening the people who live there. As glaciers and snow on mountains melt faster than they're replenished, people downstream will also have less water to drink. Food supplies can be damaged by storms and, with warmer weather, pests can expand to new areas that are not prepared for their invasion. This can cause a hit to farmers' ability to produce food for the public and their families, and forests may be damaged by pests spreading to those areas where there are no natural predators to cull their population. Overall, our planet's ecosystems are vulnerable to change. Species are and will be going extinct due to the inability to adapt quickly. Not only humans, but also plants and animals are adapted to their current environment, and many will not survive a change that is too rapid.
All of this is rather complicated and hard to understand from a few simple news articles. New science comes out all the time as our understanding grows. Due to the complexity, I've surely made my fair share of mistakes. However this is my pet project, so I'll work to correct them as I learn more about climate change myself. Hopefully this guide can help a few people to have a basic understanding of what is happening with the planet and encourage them to reach out to their representatives in government. We need to act gradually to make necessary changes, else we may be called to make rapid changes that are more damaging to our economies, jobs, and communities.
Guides
What is the Climate?
In this absolute beginners guide, I explain the very basics of climates from the perspective of a person who knows nothing. It introduces the idea of a climate as distinct from weather and elaborates on a few of the types of climate people will easily recognize from around the globe. This serves as an introduction to help people better understand other guides and the fields of science participating in current studies on global climate change. This links to the Koppen climate classification system for someone who wants to know even more about the various types of climate on Earth.
The Greenhouse Effect
The greenhouse effect is a natural process, as the gases help to regulate Earth's temperature and actually make it habitable. Venus is the hottest planet, despite not being closest to the sun, because of a runaway greenhouse effect. Earth's greenhouse gas concentrations are just right, but we've altered them since the Industrial Revolution.
How do we know the climate is warming?
This article looks at some of the signs that point toward a warming earth, all of which are observable. Rising average temperatures on a global level definitely comes across as 'global warming'. The ocean can be measured as well for acidity as well as the sea level. Sea levels rising is perhaps the most commonly-known factor in global warming.
What Will Happen? The Consequences of Climate Change
This is a long list of events that are occurring or are projected to occur due to climate change on a global scale. The list includes the warming itself and its effects: rising sea levels, extinction of many species, changes in weather, wildfires, and drought.
How long Have we Known? When did we find out about Global Warming
A guide that looks narrowly into the history of climate science with links to very detailed information for those who want to go deeper. This highlights some key scientists and leads you to further information about them, their discoveries, and how they were scientific pioneers. My main point in producing this article is to try to correct the record: We have known about climate change and humanity's potential impact on the world for decades, yet little has been done. People create conspiracy theories to discredit valid science. If they were, they're playing the long con. We've known since the 1950s!
Why I am Interested in Climate Change
I like science, but I'm no scientist. I'm merely passing on what I have learned the past several years while this has interested me. My goal is educating and summarizing things to make it easier to digest. People need knowledge in order to make educated decisions, but many people only hear a news bit about a recent study or else hear nothing at all. Media bias has made us less-informed individuals. I did not make this site for political reasons and hate that this is an issue that has become politicized. I realize that the solutions themselves would be politicized, but we aren't even talking about them as of 2016.
I will never convince anyone who believes that science is their enemy, and I realize that. However, I do believe in sound science and know there is bad science out there. I listen when someone's conducted a study and try to stay informed, their goal is often to inform humanity and further knowledge. The many scientists from many fields who are working (and have worked for decades) to educate the public, government, and private sector are not in collusion to trick us and justify their jobs.
Science is in ever-flux, nothing is fully known it is just waiting to be discovered. Scientists work as hard as anyone else to come up with information, it is up to us to do what we will with it. Not discard it just because we refuse to believe. Denying that things are changing does nothing. Saying it's not human-caused implies we are powerless. It implies that we are absolutely unable to stop global warming and should proceed forward without any changes. Until we talk constructively and avoid fighting about the issue, we won't come up with actionable solutions.
Before anyone accuses me of being a tree-hugging environmentalist, I'm a moderate with children I love that I hope will have a better go at life than they will if we do nothing. I agree that damaging the economy to save the environment and harming the current generation is not worth it, especially if the damage control would be marginal. Those of us caring for a new generation must care about the world they will grow up in and must seek our legislators to change their minds and consider intelligent solutions that work for the public and corporations.
Had we started 50 years ago, we would not face drastic change. Now we push the limits and may find that radical changes in how we do things are the only option. I hope not, but the sooner we begin the process, the better the outcome. The clock is ticking and we do not have an alternative rock to habitate.
