Earth´s Climate Change and Its Causes

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Over the past decades, the Earth experiences disasters continuously. Many scientists identified them as signs of climate change. The causes of climate change can be divided into two main factors; they are natural events and human activity. “As human beings, we are vulnerable to confusing the unprecedented with the improbable. In our everyday experience, if something has never happened before, we are generally safe in assuming it is not going to happen in the future, but the expectation can kill you and climate change is one of those exceptions”, expressed by the former United States vice president Al Gore (Climate Change Quotation, Internet). Although it is uncertain whether these changes are caused by nature, human activities are surely the strongest contributors that lead to changes in the atmosphere. This essay will illustrate the connections between human activities and natural events towards climate change.
Climate change is a long-term change in the statistical distribution of weather patterns over periods of time. It may be changes in the average weather conditions or a change in the distribution of weather events with respect to an average. Climate change is a global phenomenon; therefore its effects impact every single corner of the Earth (Defining Climate Change, 2011). For instance, climate change can decrease or increase rainfall, affect agricultural crop yields, influence human health, increase the risk of dangerous flooding, high winds, temperature increase, stimulate changes to forests and other ecosystems, or even alter our energy supply. According to the IPCC fourth assessment report, in 2100 the average global temperatures are estimated to increase by 2°F to 11.5°F, rely on the level of future greenhouse gas emis...

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...specially by burning fossil fuels. As compared to the natural processes, our output of CO2 was about 29 gigatons and it is just a small amount, but it adds up into the atmosphere because land and ocean can only absorb about 40% of the additional CO2. So, it seems that man-made CO2 emissions alter the natural balance of the carbon cycle and the extra amount is cumulative because the natural process cannot absorb all the additional CO2 (How do Human CO2 emissions compare to Natural CO2 emissions, 2007).
In conclusion, it is true that human activity has played a larger role than natural events as a contributor due to the changes in climate. And if there is no prevention, the earth’s temperature will reach its critical level in the future. So any actions should be taken as fast as possible to ensure that all the human kinds could live comfortably and safely on earth.

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