Socioeconomic Issue in Climate Change
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Introduction
The climate is changing. The earth is warming up, and there is now overwhelming scientific consensus that it is happening, and human-induced. With global warming on the increase and species and their habitats on the decrease, chances for ecosystems to adapt naturally are diminishing. Climate Change (CC) is a burning global issue and is extremely vulnerable to climate change (IFPRI, 2009)
Climate change refers to the variation in the Earths global climate or in regional climates over time. It describes changes in the variability or average state of the atmosphere–or average weather–over time scales ranging from decades to millions of years. These changes may come from processes internal to the Earth, be driven by external forces (e.g. variations in sunlight intensity) or, most recently, be caused by human activities.In recent usage, especially in the context of environmental policy, the term “climate change” often refers only to the ongoing changes in modern climate, including the rise in average surface temperature known as global warming.
The 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) defines “climate change” as “a change of climate which is attributed directly or indirectly to human activity that alters the composition of the global atmosphere. . . ” (UNFCCC, article 1.2, 1999). In contrast, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) defines climate change more broadly and includes reference to land use change: “climate change refers to a statistically significant variation in either the mean state of the climate or in its variability. . . Climate change may be due to natural internal processes or external forcings, or to persistent anthropogenic changes in the composition of the atmosphere or in land use” (IPCC, 2001).
Climate change factors
Climate changes reflect variations within the Earths environment, natural processes going on around it, and the impact of human activity. The external factors which can shape climate are often called climate forcings and include such processes as variations in solar radiation, the Earths orbit, and greenhouse gas concentrations.
3.1. Non-climate factors driving climate change
3.1.1. Greenhouse gases
Current studies indicate that radiative forcing by greenhouse gases is the primary cause of global warming. Greenhouse gases are also important in understanding Earths climate history. According to these studies, the greenhouse effect, which is the warming produced as greenhouse gases trap heat, plays a key role in regulating Earths temperature.
Over the last 600 million years, carbon dioxide concentrations have varied from perhaps >5000 ppm to less than 200 ppm, due primarily to the impact of geological processes and biological innovations. Curiously, it has been argued (Veizer et al. 1999) that variations in greenhouse gas concentrations over tens of millions of years have not been well correlated to climate change, with plate tectonics perhaps playing a more dominant role. However, there are several examples of rapid changes in the concentrations of greenhouse gases in the Earths atmosphere that do appear to correlate to strong warming, including the Paleocene-Eocene thermal maximum, the Permian-Triassic extinction event, and the end of the Varangian snowball earth event.During the modern era, rising carbon dioxide levels are implicated as the primary cause to global warming since 1950.
3.1.2. Plate tectonics
On the longest time scales, plate tectonics will reposition continents, shape oceans, build and tear down mountains and generally serve to define the stage upon which climate exists. More recently, plate motions have been implicated in the intensification of the present ice age when, approximately 3 million years ago, the North and South American plates collided to form the Isthmus of Panama and shut off direct mixing between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.
3.1.3. Solar variation
The sun, as the ultimate source of nearly all energy in the climate system, is an integral part of shaping Earths climate. On the longest time scales, the sun itself is getting brighter as it continues its main sequence evolution. Early in Earths history, it is thought to have been too cold to support liquid water at the Earths surface, leading to what is known as the Faint young sun paradox.
On more modern time scales, there are also a variety of forms of solar variation, including the 11-year solar cycle and longer-term modulations. However, the 11-year sunspot cycle does not manifest itself clearly in the climatological data. These variations are considered to be influential in triggering the Little Ice Age and for some of the warming observed from 1900 to 1950.
3.1.4. Orbital variations
In their impact on climate, orbital variations are in some sense an extension of solar variability, because slight variations in the Earths orbit lead to changes in the distribution and abundance of sunlight reaching the Earths surface. Such orbital variations, known as Milankovitch cycles, are a highly predictable consequence of basic physics due to the mutual interactions of the Earth, its moon, and the other planets. These variations are considered the driving factors underlying the glacial and interglacial cycles of the present ice age.
3.1.5. Volcanism
A single eruption of the kind that occurs several times per century can impact climate, causing cooling for a period of a few years. For example, the eruption of Mount Pinatubo in 1991 is barely visible on the global temperature profile. Huge eruptions, known as large igneous provinces, occur only a few times every hundred million years, but can reshape climate for