Climate Change (NASA) occurs when changes in Earth's climate system result in new weather patterns that remain in place for an extended period of time. But how do we know it's there? One of the most key pieces of evidences is that Earth's average surface temperature rose about 1.62 degrees Fahrenheit since the late 19th century. It may not seem like a lot, but it actaully can cause major changes. The oceans have absorbed much of this increased heat with the top 700 meters warming more than 0.4 degrees Fahrenheit since 1969. Ice sheets are also shrinking in places such as Greenland and Antarctica. In Greenland, the average loss of ice per year was 286 billion tons between 1993 and 2016. And, Antarctica lost about 127 billion tons per year during the same time period. In the past decade, the rate of ice loss has tripled in Antarctica. How did these changes happen? We call the causes of climate change the "greenhouse effect". The greenhouse effect is when gases in the atmosphere block heat from escaping. Some gases that contribute to it are:
On Earth, human activities are changing the greenhouse effect. Over the last century, the burning of fossil fuels like coal and oil has increased the amount of atmospheric carbon dioxide. This happens because the coal or oil burning process combines carbon and oxygen to make carbon dioxide. The consequences are pretty obvious. On average, Earth will become warmer and warmer. In some places that means droughts, not enough water to grow food, causing hunger and poverty. But a this is good for some crops because some crops and other plants may respond to the extra carbon dioxide by growing more vigorously and using water more efficiently. There are many ways you can stop climate change. One way is by planting trees. We have enough place to plant trees so why not? After all, tree "breathe" in carbon dioxide. Researchers at a Swiss university say that if we plant as many trees as we have room for, these forests could store a combined 205 billion tons of carbon dioxide. This is about 2/3 of the amount of carbon dioxide released since the Industrial Revolution.