Climate Change issues

Climate change is one of the most important issues of our time. If twenty years ago it was discussed only in scientific circles, today it has become obvious to the majority. We notice that it is getting warmer, and the weather as a whole is becoming ever more volatile. The fact that the climate of our planet is changing and changing rapidly is no longer in doubt. See for yourself: over the past 130 years, the average temperature on Earth has increased by 1 ° C. Even such a seemingly small increase in temperature on a planetary scale is dangerous for its inhabitants: plants, animals, and for you and me. In addition, 1 degree is the world average. But in some regions, especially in the Arctic, it is warming much faster! It is more correct to say not “global warming”, but “climate change”, since temperature increase, that is, warming, is only one part of the processes of climate change on Earth. Together with the climate, all nature goes out of balance: glaciers and permafrost melt, the level of the World Ocean rises, floods, droughts and hurricanes began to happen more often, the weather is becoming more and more changeable. Climatic changes lead to the death of many animals and plants that are not adapted to the new conditions, they cause significant economic damage and threaten the health and even life of people.

The planet is heating up! Since the beginning of the twentieth century, the average temperature on Earth has increased by 1 ° C. 10 of the last 13 years were among the ten warmest in the history of meteorological observations, and 2016 was the record year. In the Northern Hemisphere, there has not been such a warm period as from 1983 to 2016 over the past 1,400 years.

Picture . 1. Map of observed surface changes temperatures from 1901 to 2016

There are many hypotheses about the reasons for such changes. Some researchers talk about the influence of astronomical processes on our planet (the activity of the Sun increases, the inclination of the Earth's axis changes), others pay attention to the fact that a person with his excessive energy consumption has caused climatic disasters. We can influence some processes occurring on our planet, but not some. And if we are not in control of solar activity or changing the angle of inclination of the earth's axis, then a person can affect the volume of greenhouse gas emissions.

Material from the Climate Change Handbook, Dushanbe, 2018.