Evidence for Global Climate Change

In such an apparent state that the world is in concerning climate change, it is not surprising to still hear people saying it is a hoax and that the big companies stand to gain from the panic that comes from it. Global warming has resulted in a severe shift in seasons and weather conditions with some areas that used to be dry receiving higher than normal rains while others that used to receive a lot of precipitation receiving low than average and even experiencing droughts. This is attributed to the imbalance between evaporation and precipitation that are attributed to temperature increase. The world has been emitting greenhouse gases at an alarming rate while clearing the forest cover that is supposed to maintain and ecosystem balance at a rather serious rate. There are many pieces of irrefutable and compelling evidence to support global climate change.

One of these is the increasing temperature globally. Since the late 19^th century, global temperature has been increasing at a steady rate of 1.1⁰C. Although this does not seem as much, many areas have been experiencing warmer summers and cooler winters as a result. The increase can be blamed on the CO2 gas that when produced, mostly through the burning of fossil fuels and other industrial operations, rises to the atmosphere and remains there trapping a lot of heat that is supposed to escape the earth’s atmosphere leading to cooling (Global Warming Science). When this heat is trapped, the effects are recorded in the increasing global temperature with the oceans exhibiting much of the effect of temperature rise as aquatic animals start migrating to cooler and more habitable regions. Most of 2016 was hardest as it was recorded to be the warmest year on record with the exception of four months including June, October, November, and December (Climate change: How do we know). It should be put on record that the current phenomenon is not new. Climate change has taken place in the past due to natural causes such as varying intensity of the sun, earth orbit fluctuations, and even volcanic activities. Regardless, the current changes are not attributed to any of this or any other unmentioned natural occurrence. Human beings are the primary causes of the current predicament that they are facing.

Ice sheets have also been recorded to shrink in areas that used to have a lot of it including Greenland and Antarctica. From NASA’s data, Greenland lost approximately 250 cubic kilometers of ice annually for a four-year period starting in 2002. Antarctica, on the other hand, lost about 36 cubic miles of ice between 20002 and 2005 (Climate change: How do we know). It has also been documented that glacier is retreating in almost all parts of the world and it is most evident in big mountains like the Himalayas, Rockies, Andes, and even Mt. Kilimanjaro of Africa. In the same way, the amount of snow cover in the Northern Hemisphere has decreased significantly over a period of the last five decades.

Although skeptics keep denying the obvious, the ice lost from these areas is converted to water and deposited in oceans. This leads to the other piece of evidence which is the rising ocean water. Global sea level has been recorded to have increased by around 8 inches in the previous century (Climate change: How do we know). While this does not appear as much, it is responsible for severe hurricanes in the areas that are prone to such natural disasters. This explains the occurrence of more frequent and more destructive hurricanes in the better part of 2017. Taking the US as an example, the country has been experiencing increased high-temperature events and decreasing low-temperature events not to mention an increasing trend of intense rainfall. All these pieces of evidence point to one thing, global climate change.

Another trend that many people might have noticed is the changing food prices and the need for more greenhouses. Food prices have been increasing because seasons have been affected severely and the farmers cannot produce as much as they used to either because of excess rains destroying the crops or inadequate rains leading to low production. Low production with the increasing demand of today’s world means an increase in prices. In other areas, farmers have resorted to improvising on how they produce because of the effect of heat on crops leading to the establishment of greenhouses that allow crops to grow in a controlled environment. Droughts have also increased with 12% of Americans experiencing the effects (Blakemore).

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In conclusion, there are many occurrences in today’s world that point to climate change. The most apparent is an increase in temperature because of an increase in accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Some of the effects include a change in precipitation, rise in sea level, and a severe reduction in ice on the mountain tops and cooler regions like Antarctica. It is also clear that agricultural production has been affected as is apparent through soaring food prices.