CLIMATIC CHANGES, PHYSICAL EVIDENCES AND EFFECTS

I'm sure you've come across the phrase "Climate Change". Probably on television, radio or casual discussions. But, do you really understand what it means?

Well you might have an idea, afterall it's just two English words joined together "Climate" and "Change" it's no rocket science.

Climate is simply the pattern of weather in a particular place; how much sunlight and rainfall it gets, how windy it is, and so on. It is better defined as the manifestations of weather and other atmospheric conditions in a given area.

_Pixabay

For a better understanding, we would be explaining exactly how it works. The sun powers the earth, it is earth's main source of energy and heat. Due to the fact that the earth rotates on a tilted axis, it is only natural that different parts of our planet are heated with different amounts of heat from the sun and at different times of year, this explain why some regions are hotter in temperature than others and this also explain the causes of the different seasons.

According to Gay-Lussac, temperature affects air pressure. Well, this is a well known theory, a scientist doesn't need to prove this, it happens everyday. Changes or increase in temperature might leads to disparity in winds, storms and hurricanes.

The Sun's heat doesn't affect pressures alone, it's also responsible for ocean currents. In places such as the Pacific, the Links between the atmosphere and the oceans currents has been proved to be the cause of complex weather patterns such as "El-Niño" —a kind of abnormal and erratic weather that happens every few years.

With a perfect understanding of what climate is, it is now easier to understand the concept of "climate change".

Basically, change was added to climate. It's self explanatory, change in climate. The climate of the earth has been changing regularly for hundreds of thousands of years of its existence, sometimes making some part of the world to be getting colder and some parts warmer. Have you heard about the Ice Ages? When Earth was reported to be far colder than it is today. The change we are experiencing now is gradual, so, little concerns are shown towards climatic changes.

The change in weather we would be experiencing in most recent times if certain precautionary steps are not taken would be everything on the extreme. This means heavier rainfall on certain occasions, more snow in some places, longer periods of drought, more storms and hurricanes, and more frequent heatwaves and we most certainly don't want that.

The time to act is now, not tomorrow, but now! We all have a crucial role to play in saving this planet if not for ourselves but for our generations yet unborn. We have no other plannet that we can call our own. So the responsibility to make the earth safe again and free from eminent danger of destruction is on me and you. We all are at risk of extinction.

_Pixabay

I know you will be wondering where I'm driving at. How about we discuss some evidences of climatic changes.

Physical Evidences of Climatic Changes.

There are lots of physical evidences that proves that the average temperature of the earth's atmosphere and oceans have increased over the years.

Let's take a look at some of these evidences. Scientists has used this as a guide to monitor the changes.

• Rise in global temperature: The earth's average surface temperature has risen about 1.69 degrees Fahrenheit, the highest in 2016. Rise in average temperature is caused by increase in green house gases such as carbon dioxide,methane,ozone,water vapour and nitrous oxide. The 2000s was the warmest decade . Rise in earth temperature also causes starvation,typhoons, drought, wildfires, and habitat loss. E.t.c
• Rise in Sea level : Sea level has risen at an accelerating rate too. The rate in the last twenty years has almost doubled compared to the last decade. There have been an increase Melting ice which increase the earth water and leads to a rising sea level.
• Droughts: Research shows that climate change is already making many parts of the world drier. As the climate warms further ,our planet get drier. Droughts has hit some countries such as USA ,Brazil Russia, Ukraine e.t.c which have affected water supplies and instability of food prices.
• Diminution of Arctic sea ice: This is another reliable physical evidence of climate change. The lesser the ice at the poles, the faster global warming will occur. Arctic sea ice has declined rapidly over the decades. Increase in melting of the arctic sea ice has also led to rise in sea level.
• Ocean acidification: It is often expressed in terms of the pH of seawater. According to scientist, around a third to a half of the CO2 released by human activities is absorbed into the oceans. Increase in the development of industries globally have contributed to more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere which have led to more absorption into oceans. When carbon dioxide dissolves in seawater, the water becomes more acidic. The acidity of the oceans has increased drastically in the last century.

_Pixabay

THE EFFECT OF CLIMATE CHANGE

We need to know what it has caused.

Climate changes has greatly affected our planets, and the harm is ongoing, there is every need to care for our mother earth, else the earth will die. Whether you like it or not the earth is a living organism and if it dies, we all will die.

Overtime, man has eaten up the fabrics that holds the planet together, like drug addicts we have over consumed the substance that forms the earth. over time man has burnt fuels, bred livestock that produces methane, the worst of it all is that man has cut down lots of forests that's would naturally absorb carbon dioxide from the air.

These are some of the categories that can be affected by climatic change;

1. Physical negative effects.
2. Social negative effects.
3. Ecological negative effects.

Physical negative effects of climatic change are in food production, water pollution, health.

Social negative effects of climatic change are in Migration and conflict and economy system of a country. Of course the level of unemployment will increased because there will be unavailability of raw materials for productions. If there is nothing to work with, there will be no work.

Ecological negative effects of climatic change. Although, this has been discussed in the introductory part, but, it will be great of I list it.

• There is risk of urban flooding in riverine and coastal area.
• It can leads to near drought situation.
• There will be rise in acidic levels of water bodies.

DEFORESTATION AND ITS EFFECT ON MAN AND OUR PLANET

_{Image taken by @hilltop}

Forests are very essential to man and the environment, trees soak up carbon dioxide, forests are habitats for countless animals and plants species, what we do not seem to understand is that the more the trees are being destroyed, the more the global temperature rises.
At any point in time when forests are being destroyed, it consequences are enormous as every species depended on the habitat for survival dies. Any destroyed tree releases to the atmosphere its reservoir of carbon dioxide, which the resultant effects is global warming.

The extinction of animals like tigers, snow leopards, asian rhinos, African elephants, polar bears, etc is because of climate change, these species are severely affected by climate change. These examples are just a tip of the iceberg to how greatly climate change is affecting the planet, an average level of climate change has the capacity to cause high level of extinction, this is because these species would not be able to withstand the global temperature and adaptability becomes very difficult. With time, I mean in future, if the global warming persist man too will find it difficult to adapt.

_{Image taken by @hilltop.}

Reflect on the simple analogy I shall be concluding with, it's obvious the trees cleans the air, man destroys the trees, man builds industries, industries produces poisonous air, eventually man breathes the air, man shall finally die. This is the lot we have marked for ourself, we shall become victims of our pervasive ambition if necessary precautions are not taken into consideration.

This post is more like an awareness. We hope it's worth the read.

REFERENCES

Climate changes/Global warming

WWF - Effects of climate changes.

Effects of global warming

Physical evidence 1

Physical evidence 2

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This is @steemiansarena first joint post. A topic is chosen, then, members submits their quality entries, after which it is being compiled together.

Members that contributed to this are: @hilltop, @ayoshewa, @michaelemmanuel and @simaoatb.

It was compiled by @afolwalex.

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