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Also called global warming denial. climate change feedback A natural phenomenon that may increase or decrease the warming that eventually results from a change in radiative forcing. climate change mitigation approaches to limit global warming, primarily by the substitution of fossil fuels with low-carbon sources of energy climate commitment How much future warming is "committed", even if ...
Climate change can also be used more broadly to include changes to the climate that have happened throughout Earth's history. [32] Global warming—used as early as 1975 [33] —became the more popular term after NASA climate scientist James Hansen used it in his 1988 testimony in the U.S. Senate. [34] Since the 2000s, climate change has ...
From ancient times, people suspected that the climate of a region could change over the course of centuries. For example, Theophrastus, a pupil of Ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle in the 4th century BC, told how the draining of marshes had made a particular locality more susceptible to freezing, and speculated that lands became warmer when the clearing of forests exposed them to sunlight.
A change in the type, distribution and coverage of vegetation may occur given a change in the climate. Some changes in climate may result in increased precipitation and warmth, resulting in improved plant growth and the subsequent sequestration of airborne CO 2. Though an increase in CO 2 may benefit plants, some factors can diminish this increase.
Cumulative land-use change contributions to CO 2 emissions, by region. [32]: Figure SPM.2b Local vegetation cover impacts how much of the sunlight gets reflected back into space , and how much heat is lost by evaporation. For instance, the change from a dark forest to grassland makes the surface lighter, causing it to reflect more sunlight.
On Earth, it is found mostly in oceans and other large bodies of water, with 1.6% of water below ground in aquifers and 0.001% in the air as vapor, clouds, and precipitation. [ 32 ] [ 33 ] Oceans hold 97% of surface water, glaciers , and polar ice caps 2.4%, and other land surface water such as rivers, lakes, and ponds 0.6%.
[45] [46] This is equivalent to a change of the semiminor axis of the planet's orbit from 99.95% of the semimajor axis to 99.88%, respectively. [47] Earth is passing through an ice age known as the quaternary glaciation, and is presently in the Holocene interglacial period. This period would normally be expected to end in about 25,000 years. [42]
On the Earth's surface, temperatures usually range ±40 °C (100 °F to −40 °F) annually. Over thousands of years, changes in the Earth's orbit have affected the amount and distribution of solar energy received by the Earth and influenced long-term climate. Surface temperature differences in turn cause pressure differences. Higher altitudes ...