Climate Change

Years of industrialization and little to no regulation on what can be emitted into the atmosphere has led to a changing climate which will only grow worse with time. The current shared opinion among scientists is that humans need to limit the rise in temperature to only two degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels in order to avoid a point where the increase in temperature reaches a point where it would no longer be able to be controlled or averted. Currently, climate change is occurring because of the presence of “greenhouse” gases in the atmosphere, mostly methane and carbon dioxide. These gases act as a blanket of sorts for the earth and trap incoming radiation from the sun, thus heating the planet. This process drives other factors that then contribute to the increased temperatures as well. With the increase in temperature, glaciers and other land bound ice are melting and raising sea levels. This affects global temperature in two ways. The first is that the ice normally serves as a source of albedo that stops the sunlight from being absorbed by the darker colored earth and reflects it back into the atmosphere. The second is that as sea levels rise, it provides more water to absorb heat, again raising temperatures. These are just two examples of how climate change has the potential to reach a tipping point that, if reached, will not be able to be stopped.