Summary: New page: [[Image:ClimateChange1.jpg|630px|thumb|left|Fueling disaster. Photo by Mikael Miettinen/[http://www.flickr.com/photos/mikaelmiettinen/4248409028/ flickr]/CC]] [http://www.wired.com/wireds...
[[Image:ClimateChange1.jpg|630px|thumb|left|Fueling disaster. Photo by Mikael Miettinen/[http://www.flickr.com/photos/mikaelmiettinen/4248409028/ flickr]/CC]]
[http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/tag/climate-change/ Global Climate Change], also known more colloquially as ?Global Warming,? sometimes seems like a topic better left to the experts. After all, it involves massive computer models of intricate weather systems, arctic ice flows, various chemicals released into the atmosphere, and all sorts of other heady, science information. But it?s important for each of us to understand the basics because we are the ones who can help reverse its effects. Here is a remedial outline showing how to explain climate change to the layperson and make it stick.
==Scientific Accounts==
Go online and you will find thousands of people spouting off their opinion on global climate change. Many of them don?t know what they?re talking about. Why should they? They are politicians, reporters, pundits. They have no training in climate science. When your car breaks down, do you go to your local coffee guy and ask him how to fix your ?98 Hyundai Sonata, or do you go to a mechanic? To arm you with some credibility when explaining this scientific theory, we reached out to some actual scientists.
Caspar Ammann is a Project Scientist at the [http://ncar.ucar.edu/ National Center for Atmospheric Research] in Boulder, Colorado. He has a PhD in Geosciences and has worked at NCAR for over ten years studying natural climate variability.
Juanita Constible is the Science and Solutions Director for [http://climaterealityproject.org/ The Climate Reality Project]. She holds a Masters degree in Biology, and is the author of a college and high school textbook on climate change entitled ?Climate Change Pole to Pole: Biological Investigations.?
==The Basics==
?In the most simple terms, when we burn dirty sources of energy like coal and oil, we release carbon pollution to the atmosphere,? explains Constible. ?That carbon pollution traps heat- not permanently but temporarily- and recycles that heat back to the surface of the Earth. Over the last 150 years or so we?ve seen an increase in global temperatures that is directly related to the change in pollution in the atmosphere.?
If you explained nothing more than this to your climate change Luddite, you will have done your job. There is, of course, all sorts of data to back this up, and there are other elements to the theory of global warming that you could go into, but it all boils down to: Human activity is releasing carbon into the atmosphere. The carbon mixes with oxygen to become carbon dioxide. That carbon dioxide traps heat that would otherwise vent off into space. The Earth gets hotter.
==The Facts==
The Earth is getting warmer and we have the records to prove it. ?Since 1880 we?ve seen a what seems like a small increase, slightly less than one degree Celsius (little over a degree and a half in Fahrenheit),? says Constible. ?While that doesn?t seem like much, remember that it is a global average. So some places are warming up to 5 times the global average.?
It?s important to remember that it?s not American Climate Change, it?s GLOBAL Climate Change. You can?t look at one spot on the planet that has a cold spell and denounce Climate Change, you have to look at the average global temperature- and that?s been steadily rising. ?2010 was tied for the warmest year on record with 2005.? Says Constible. ?More telling is that last decade was the warmest year on record. The 10 hottest years on record have all occurred in the last 13 years.?
Climate fluctuates from year to year due to a thousand different elements. So if 2011 ends up not being as warm as 2010, that doesn?t mean the problem went away- you have to pull back and look at the bigger picture. ?As the planet goes through warming, you would expect that over time, more and more records get broken.? Says Ammann. ?If you have an overall warming trend, then around that trend you will still have the variability from year to year, but now the baseline shifts up higher and higher? and that?s what we?re observing.?
==Moisture and Snow==
The winter of 2010 was especially brutal for Washington D.C., with record snowfall, and Republican Senator James Inhofe and his family famously built an igloo on Capitol Hill. They named the igloo in honor of former Vice President and environmentalist Al Gore, mocking Gore and the theory of global warming, suggesting that since there was so much snow, it proved that global warming was a hoax.
The joke was on them.
?Those record snowfalls might be a sign of how the water cycle is changing,? says Constible. ?As we heat up the world?s oceans? we?re evaporating more and more water into the atmosphere. And with that increased level of moisture in the atmosphere, we can see more intense rain and snow storms.?
The world?s temperature has risen less than two degrees Fahrenheit since we started keeping track. So on average, if it was twelve degrees Fahrenheit 100 years ago, it might be fourteen degrees now ? still plenty cold enough to snow. What?s different is the larger volume of moisture in the atmosphere available to turn to snow. ?As the temperature of the planet goes up, particularly in the lower latitudes where it stays warm all year round, with every degree Celsius that this air warms up, it can carry 7% more moisture.? Says Ammann.
According to the theory of global climate change, extreme weather events are likely to become stronger as the effects of climate change continue unabated. While scientists cannot blame any particular storm, such as Katrina or Irene, on global warming, they again step back and look at the larger picture, predicting that there will be more extreme weather events ? including heat waves, droughts, extreme rainfall ? and that these events will be more severe.
==Industrial Gas Effect==
We know that our planet is getting warmer because there are more greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere, but it is really our fault?
Yes.
There have always been these greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere- in fact life would not have evolved without them. But since the dawn of the industrial age, the amount of carbon in the atmosphere has risen to levels that have never before been seen by this planet. ?Over the last thirty or forty years, we have found that this warming can now be traced back to these greenhouse gasses,? explains Ammann. ?The other factors that have been naturally operating are no longer capable of explaining the warming that we have observed.? So the question becomes, where are the elevated levels of greenhouse gasses coming from? Look in the mirror. ?We are releasing gasses or particles into the atmosphere every day, and these get transported around the world effectively.? Says Ammann. It?s all about taking carbon which is being stored in the Earth, and letting it loose into the atmosphere to wreak havoc.
?We?ve basically put the greenhouse effect on steroids,? explains Constible. ?Because of that, we?re warming quicker than we should be and seeing some dramatic changes as a result. In the last three decades we?ve seen an increase [in global temperature] that is ten times faster than any time in the last 21,000 years. We know that the levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere right now are higher than at any time in the last 800,000 years. Those two pieces of evidence together go a long way to telling us that human activity is what?s causing this.?
==The Myth Controversy==
As we mentioned earlier, go to your mechanic to fix your car, not your coffee guy. There is no controversy in the scientific world over whether global climate change is happening, and what the causes are. ?97% of climate experts who publish in the field regularly all agree that the climate is changing, and that humans are causing it,? says Constible. ?This is one area of science that probably has the strongest consensus of any.?
So if the scientists who study climate science all agree that it is a serious problem that is exacerbated by human activity, who are we to argue? After all, if your mechanic shows you your worn brake pads as evidence of impending brake failure, do you ignore him because your coffee guy said your brakes seem fine to his untrained eye?
==Helpful Links==
Here are links to some more thorough information on the truth behind Global Climate Change:
NASA - [http://climate.nasa.gov/ Global Climate Change: Vital Signs of the Planet]
BBC News? [http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/static/in_depth/sci_tech/2000/climate_change/evidence Global Climate Change charts and graphs]
The EPA?s [http://epa.gov/climatechange/ Climate Change page]
Here?s a great [http://vimeo.com/28991442 made-for-kids video overview] of the topic, narrated by Bill Nye the Science Guy.
''Original article by David Neilsen, Wired.com.''
[[Category:Green]]
[[Category:Science]]
[[Category:Health]]
[http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/tag/climate-change/ Global Climate Change], also known more colloquially as ?Global Warming,? sometimes seems like a topic better left to the experts. After all, it involves massive computer models of intricate weather systems, arctic ice flows, various chemicals released into the atmosphere, and all sorts of other heady, science information. But it?s important for each of us to understand the basics because we are the ones who can help reverse its effects. Here is a remedial outline showing how to explain climate change to the layperson and make it stick.
==Scientific Accounts==
Go online and you will find thousands of people spouting off their opinion on global climate change. Many of them don?t know what they?re talking about. Why should they? They are politicians, reporters, pundits. They have no training in climate science. When your car breaks down, do you go to your local coffee guy and ask him how to fix your ?98 Hyundai Sonata, or do you go to a mechanic? To arm you with some credibility when explaining this scientific theory, we reached out to some actual scientists.
Caspar Ammann is a Project Scientist at the [http://ncar.ucar.edu/ National Center for Atmospheric Research] in Boulder, Colorado. He has a PhD in Geosciences and has worked at NCAR for over ten years studying natural climate variability.
Juanita Constible is the Science and Solutions Director for [http://climaterealityproject.org/ The Climate Reality Project]. She holds a Masters degree in Biology, and is the author of a college and high school textbook on climate change entitled ?Climate Change Pole to Pole: Biological Investigations.?
==The Basics==
?In the most simple terms, when we burn dirty sources of energy like coal and oil, we release carbon pollution to the atmosphere,? explains Constible. ?That carbon pollution traps heat- not permanently but temporarily- and recycles that heat back to the surface of the Earth. Over the last 150 years or so we?ve seen an increase in global temperatures that is directly related to the change in pollution in the atmosphere.?
If you explained nothing more than this to your climate change Luddite, you will have done your job. There is, of course, all sorts of data to back this up, and there are other elements to the theory of global warming that you could go into, but it all boils down to: Human activity is releasing carbon into the atmosphere. The carbon mixes with oxygen to become carbon dioxide. That carbon dioxide traps heat that would otherwise vent off into space. The Earth gets hotter.
==The Facts==
The Earth is getting warmer and we have the records to prove it. ?Since 1880 we?ve seen a what seems like a small increase, slightly less than one degree Celsius (little over a degree and a half in Fahrenheit),? says Constible. ?While that doesn?t seem like much, remember that it is a global average. So some places are warming up to 5 times the global average.?
It?s important to remember that it?s not American Climate Change, it?s GLOBAL Climate Change. You can?t look at one spot on the planet that has a cold spell and denounce Climate Change, you have to look at the average global temperature- and that?s been steadily rising. ?2010 was tied for the warmest year on record with 2005.? Says Constible. ?More telling is that last decade was the warmest year on record. The 10 hottest years on record have all occurred in the last 13 years.?
Climate fluctuates from year to year due to a thousand different elements. So if 2011 ends up not being as warm as 2010, that doesn?t mean the problem went away- you have to pull back and look at the bigger picture. ?As the planet goes through warming, you would expect that over time, more and more records get broken.? Says Ammann. ?If you have an overall warming trend, then around that trend you will still have the variability from year to year, but now the baseline shifts up higher and higher? and that?s what we?re observing.?
==Moisture and Snow==
The winter of 2010 was especially brutal for Washington D.C., with record snowfall, and Republican Senator James Inhofe and his family famously built an igloo on Capitol Hill. They named the igloo in honor of former Vice President and environmentalist Al Gore, mocking Gore and the theory of global warming, suggesting that since there was so much snow, it proved that global warming was a hoax.
The joke was on them.
?Those record snowfalls might be a sign of how the water cycle is changing,? says Constible. ?As we heat up the world?s oceans? we?re evaporating more and more water into the atmosphere. And with that increased level of moisture in the atmosphere, we can see more intense rain and snow storms.?
The world?s temperature has risen less than two degrees Fahrenheit since we started keeping track. So on average, if it was twelve degrees Fahrenheit 100 years ago, it might be fourteen degrees now ? still plenty cold enough to snow. What?s different is the larger volume of moisture in the atmosphere available to turn to snow. ?As the temperature of the planet goes up, particularly in the lower latitudes where it stays warm all year round, with every degree Celsius that this air warms up, it can carry 7% more moisture.? Says Ammann.
According to the theory of global climate change, extreme weather events are likely to become stronger as the effects of climate change continue unabated. While scientists cannot blame any particular storm, such as Katrina or Irene, on global warming, they again step back and look at the larger picture, predicting that there will be more extreme weather events ? including heat waves, droughts, extreme rainfall ? and that these events will be more severe.
==Industrial Gas Effect==
We know that our planet is getting warmer because there are more greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere, but it is really our fault?
Yes.
There have always been these greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere- in fact life would not have evolved without them. But since the dawn of the industrial age, the amount of carbon in the atmosphere has risen to levels that have never before been seen by this planet. ?Over the last thirty or forty years, we have found that this warming can now be traced back to these greenhouse gasses,? explains Ammann. ?The other factors that have been naturally operating are no longer capable of explaining the warming that we have observed.? So the question becomes, where are the elevated levels of greenhouse gasses coming from? Look in the mirror. ?We are releasing gasses or particles into the atmosphere every day, and these get transported around the world effectively.? Says Ammann. It?s all about taking carbon which is being stored in the Earth, and letting it loose into the atmosphere to wreak havoc.
?We?ve basically put the greenhouse effect on steroids,? explains Constible. ?Because of that, we?re warming quicker than we should be and seeing some dramatic changes as a result. In the last three decades we?ve seen an increase [in global temperature] that is ten times faster than any time in the last 21,000 years. We know that the levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere right now are higher than at any time in the last 800,000 years. Those two pieces of evidence together go a long way to telling us that human activity is what?s causing this.?
==The Myth Controversy==
As we mentioned earlier, go to your mechanic to fix your car, not your coffee guy. There is no controversy in the scientific world over whether global climate change is happening, and what the causes are. ?97% of climate experts who publish in the field regularly all agree that the climate is changing, and that humans are causing it,? says Constible. ?This is one area of science that probably has the strongest consensus of any.?
So if the scientists who study climate science all agree that it is a serious problem that is exacerbated by human activity, who are we to argue? After all, if your mechanic shows you your worn brake pads as evidence of impending brake failure, do you ignore him because your coffee guy said your brakes seem fine to his untrained eye?
==Helpful Links==
Here are links to some more thorough information on the truth behind Global Climate Change:
NASA - [http://climate.nasa.gov/ Global Climate Change: Vital Signs of the Planet]
BBC News? [http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/static/in_depth/sci_tech/2000/climate_change/evidence Global Climate Change charts and graphs]
The EPA?s [http://epa.gov/climatechange/ Climate Change page]
Here?s a great [http://vimeo.com/28991442 made-for-kids video overview] of the topic, narrated by Bill Nye the Science Guy.
''Original article by David Neilsen, Wired.com.''
[[Category:Green]]
[[Category:Science]]
[[Category:Health]]
Source: http://feeds.wired.com/~r/howtowiki/~3/ioUuWAvF9Xs/Explain_the_Basics_of_Global_Climate_Change
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