climate change

• Greenhouse Effect

  The natural warming process of the Earth that results when gases in the atmosphere trap heat from the earth that would otherwise escape into space
• Greenhouse Gases

  • Carbon dioxide
  • Methane
  • Nitrous oxide
  • Hydro fluorocarbons (HFCs)
  • Per fluorocarbons (PFCs)
  • Sulfur hexafluoride
  • Water vapor
• Global Warming

  Caused by factors such as man-made, anthropogenic, or natural. Examples include the release of methane gas from arctic tundra and wetlands, and burning of fossil fuels resulting in pollution
• Global warming can bring sea levels to rise due to the melting of ice caps and glaciers, leading to severe weather disturbances like strong typhoons, heavier rainfalls, and climate change
• The greenhouse effect, where the earth’s atmosphere accumulates additional greenhouse gases and traps the earth’s infrared radiation, raises the earth’s temperature and causes climate change
• Deforestation is the primary cause of carbon dioxide release because forests and trees store carbon dioxide
• Key indicators of global climate change

  • Land and ocean temperature increase
  • Rising ocean levels
  • Melting of ice at Earth’s poles and in mountain glaciers
  • Severe and frequent changes in extreme weather phenomena like hurricanes, heat waves, wildfires, droughts, floods, and precipitation
  • Cloud and vegetation cover changes
• • Among the different greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide absorbs the least amount of energy
• • Global warming is caused by several factors such as man-made, anthropogenic, or natural
• • Burning fossil fuels is one of the man-made causes of global warming resulting to pollution
• • When fossil fuel is burned it gives off carbon dioxide
• • Greenhouse gases in the lower atmosphere trap the heat, that should be reflected back to the outer space, and contributed much to the increase of the Earth’s average surface temperature
• • El Niño is a lengthy warming in the eastern part of the Pacific Ocean
• • Normally, as trade wind moves from east to west, it collects warm air
• • But when trade winds is weakened, it causes the piling up of warm surface water and making the part of the Pacific Ocean warmer leading to El Niño phenomenon
• La Niña

  • This event is triggered by the cooling of the eastern part of the Pacific Ocean