Publications that relate to california were targeted, although references that cover other. Co2 is main driver of climate change skeptical science. Earths climate is undergoing substantial change due to anthropogenic activities ch. Drivers of climate change natural and anthropogenic substances and processes that alter the earths energy budget are drivers of climate change. Human induced drivers of climate change have been much larger than. Actors and drivers 2 china is the worlds largest greenhouse emitter. Changes in the atmospheric abundance of greenhouse gases and aerosols. Natural climate drivers include changes in the suns energy output, regular changes in.
The greenhouse gases that affect earth include carbon dioxide. The economics of climate change hitherto, the economics of climate change has been focussed on modelling the implications of growth for emissions, examining and modelling the economics of technological options, calculating social costs of carbon, and exploring tax, market and other structures. Some of these changes have a direct or indirect impact on the energy balance of the earth and are thus drivers of climate change. China has become the largest co2 emitter in the world and presently accounts for 30% of global emissions. Numerical values from wikipedia 50 are graphed at figure 1. This chapter lays out the foundation of climate change by describing its physical drivers, which are primarily associat. Climate and environmental physics, and oeschger centre for climate change research, university of bern, 3012 bern, switzerland benjamin d. It presents the three critical drivers of change in the short, the medium and the long term for a variety of businesses. Co2 emissions are of global concern because of climate change. Pdf physical drivers of climate change researchgate. When heat energy from the sun strikes the earth, gases known as greenhouse gases trap the heat in the atmosphere, as do the glass panes of a greenhouse keep heat from escaping. Global change research rogram 76 climate science special report. Students will use these parameters to analyze surface maps of the united states and form a relationship with the patterns that will show up on the map. Professor john mitchell frs met office hadley centre.
Physical drivers of climate change climate science special report. Understanding the causes of past and present climate change and confidence in future projected changes depend directly on our ability to understand and model the physical drivers of climate change. These gases warm the earths surface by trapping heat in the. The model the burkelitwin model1 shows the various drivers of change and.
Such impacts of climate change occur at all organisational levels from the individual level e. Climate data from volcanic events indicate that just one large eruption is enough to cause global cooling of around 0. This could be a change in earths usual temperature. Surprisingly, extinctions occurred at sites with smaller changes in mean annual temperatures but larger increases in hottest yearly temperatures. Addressing drivers of migration, including adverse effects of climate change, natural disasters and humanmade crises, through protection and assistance, sustainable development, poverty eradication, conflict prevention and resolution. The increase in sea level is another source of empirical evidence of climate change which is consistent with global warming. Surprisingly, extinctions occurred at sites with smaller changes in mean annual temperatures but larger. The data shows a correlation between the timing of temperature changes and drivers of climate change. Drivers of climate change impacts on bird communities.
Drivers of climate change and variability on the northeast shelf climate change process deriving naturally and from human activities on a global scale, there are various components figure 1 that contribute to climate change and variability in the u. In 2014, the intergovernmental panel on climate change ipcc reported on the decline of arctic marine, freshwater, and terrestrial ecosystems, with changes in permafrost, sea ice, and ocean conditions. The last few decades have witnessed more changes in. Drivers of ecosystem change 143 main messages drivers of ecosystem change act in distinct ways in different regions. Physical drivers of climate change climate science.
The science of climate change australian academy of science. Contribution of working group iii to the fifth assessment report of the intergovernmental panel on climate change edenhofer, o. Internal and external drivers of change john olaghere overview. It has a poor reputation on environmental issues, and it was seen to play a negative role at the copenhagen climate change negotiations in 2009. Drivers of global climate change biology for majors ii. The climate system is influenced by its own internal dynamics andby changes in external factors or forcings. More broadly, human driving forces, in this context, are the range of characteristics of. Greenhouse gases are the major humaninfluenced drivers of climate change. Important direct drivers include climate change, plant nutrient use, land conversion leading to habitat change, and invasive species and diseases. Introduction intergovernmental panel on climate change. This could be a change in how much rain a place usually gets in a year. Although similar drivers were present in different regions, the processes through which these interacting drivers cause ecosystem change differed among the subglobal assessments. Pdf greenhouse gas emissions, global warming and climate. Radiative forcing14 rf quantifies the change in energy fluxes caused by changes in these drivers for 2011 relative to 1750, unless otherwise indicated.
Climate change, on the other hand, occurs because the amount of energy in the entire climate system is changed which affects each and every component in the system. Human activities continue to significantly affect earths climate by altering factors that change its radiative balance. The rf patterns of shortlived climate drivers with inhomogeneous source distributions, such as aerosols, tropospheric ozone, contrails, and land cover change, are leading examples of highly inhomogeneous forcings. Climate change drivers printerfriendly version pdf version today, scientists know that climate variation has both natural and anthropogenic of, relating to, or resulting from the influence of human beings on nature. Current climate theory asserting that earths climate is changed by the net forcings, natural and manmade is able to account for present and past climate change, qualitatively and quantitively, using only known physics.
Climatechange science will continue to help society make. Here, we analyze the major drivers of energyrelated co2 emissions in china from 1978 when the reform and openingup policy was launched. Learn how climate has changed since the last ice age and throughout longer stretches of geologic time. Here, we address the specific changes in climate that were associated with recent population extinctions, using data from 538 plant and animal species distributed globally. Climate change impacts in the terrestrial realm contd evolutionary effects changes in species abundance, distribution, and phenology suggest changes in species fitness in response to climate change. Direct drivers are any natural or humaninduced factors that cause a change in an ecosystem. Another way to refer to climate forcings is to call them climate drivers. A change of climate which is attributed directly or indirectly to human activity that alters the composition of the global atmosphere and which is in addition to natural climate variability observed over comparable time periods. In reading this chapter, it needs to be borne in mind.
Drivers of ecosystem and climate change in tropical west africa over the past 540 000 years article pdf available in journal of quaternary science 317 september 2016 with 3,273 reads. Greenhouse gases are probably the most significant drivers of the climate. Ippc definition under united nations framework convention on climate change or fccc. Greening of the earth and its drivers nature climate change. The 5 th assessment report of the intergovernmental panel on climate change ipcc, 20 reported that warming of the global climate system is. Important direct drivers include climate change, nutrient pollution, land conversion leading to habitat change, overexploitation, and invasive species and diseases. Social science perspectives on drivers of and responses to. The drivers of climate change are explored in a wide range of scientific and climate assessment literatures. The ma categories of indirect drivers of change are demographic, economic, sociopolitical, scienti. By contrast you seem to believe that instead climate is changed by some unmeasurable, undetectable natural cause which is. This activity focuses on the relationship between barometric pressure, wind speed and wind direction. Climate change is expected to modify ecological responses in the ocean, with the potential for important effects on the ecosystem services provided to humankind. T over the temperature range of interest for earth climate. It is a major aspect of climate change which, in addition to rising global surface temperatures, also includes its effects, such as changes in precipitation.
The climate change agenda has risen substantially in global and national importance and the topic has thus been given a dedicated chapter in this 2. According to the intergovernmental panel on climate change, humandriven releases of ghg emissions disrupt the natural processes occurring in the atmosphere and are likely to be the dominant cause of the. Climate change is a change in the usual weather found in a place. Social science perspectives on the drivers of climate the many humaninduced and natural drivers of climate change are explored in a wealth of scientific climate assessment literature. Our understanding is challenged by the 31 complexity and interconnectedness of the components of the climate system that is, the 32. Physical drivers of climate change unl digital commons. Rapid emergence of climate change in environmental drivers. Yet there is no question that china will be central to any serious global effort to tackle. Seismic testing and human security in nunavut april 2017 when considering the tolls on human security because of climate change, we generally direct our attention to the future as we contemplate the catastrophic effects of our fossil fuel dependence. Or it could be a change in a places usual temperature for a month or season. The state of the climate system professor brian hoskins frs. Shirley fiske, klaus hubacek, andrew jorgenson, jia li. Drivers of change in chinas energyrelated co2 emissions. In the last century, the global average sea level rose 1.
Climate change, the periodic modification of earths climate caused by changes in the atmosphere and interactions between the atmosphere and various other geologic, chemical, biological, and geographic factors. Volcanic activity is well known to change the climate. By identifying and exploring emerging trends, it can help accountants and business leaders prepare for. Global warming is the ongoing rise of the average temperature of the earths climate system and has been demonstrated by direct temperature measurements and by measurements of various effects of the warming. Recent responses to climate change reveal the drivers of. The response of species to climate change is of increasingly urgent importance. Drivers of climate change australian research council. Pdf drivers of ecosystem and climate change in tropical.