Lesson 7 Climate Change
Current Climate Change
How does the climate change we are seeing today differ from past climate change?
D7.10 Temperature rising
The climate change we are seeing today is happening at an accelerated rate when compared to past climate change. In the past, temperature changes of 4 to 7 ËšC happened over thousands of years. In the past century (100 years), our current global temperature changed 0.7 ËšC. That
is approximately 10 times faster than previous temperature increases!
According to NASA’s Earth Observatory, current models suggest Earth will warm between 2 ˚C and 6 ˚C in the next century. This predicted rate of warming is a whopping 20 times faster than past climate change.
According to NASA’s Earth Observatory, current models suggest Earth will warm between 2 ˚C and 6 ˚C in the next century. This predicted rate of warming is a whopping 20 times faster than past climate change.
D7.12 Industrial revolution
We have learned natural phenomena can affect climate, but those natural factors have remained relatively unchanged in the last 100 years. So what could be the cause of this increased pace in climate change? The only difference is human activity. Since the industrial revolution, humans have played a much larger role in changing the environment around us. During that time, our cities started to expand and we started to create more emissions that were released into the atmosphere. Using complex models, changes in global temperature can be attributed to natural events until about 1950. After that, we can only explain these changes if we include human activity and the emissions we create.
Please note: Earthobservatory.nasa.gov was used as a reference for the information on this page.
Please note: Earthobservatory.nasa.gov was used as a reference for the information on this page.
Watch This
How global warming stacks up © NASA
Watch this video for a visual of the natural and human causes of climate change. The video will show you how the changes in the causes of climate change compare to the climate change we are currently seeing. Please note, there is no sound in this video.
Take Notes
Make sure you take notes on your readings to study from later. You should focus on the difference between past and present climate change as well as the reasons for this difference. Remember, if you have any questions or you do not understand something, ask your teacher!
Practice Questions
Complete the following practice questions to check your understanding of the concept you just learned. Make sure you write complete answers to the practice questions in your notes. After you have checked your answers, make corrections to your responses (where necessary) to study from.- How does the climate change we are currently experiencing differ from past climate changes?
The current climate change is occurring much faster than previous climate changes.