Author: No authors were given Date: No date was given Chapter 15: Air, Weather, and Climate Content of the Article: http://www.wmo.int/pages/themes/climate/causes_of_climate_change.php Summary The problem in the article is anthropogenic (human-caused) climate change because we have increased the amount of greenhouse gas emissions ever since the Industrial Revolution and we have increased the amount of atmospheric aerosols and we have decreased the amount of forests in order to create farm land. All of these human activities have led to warmer climates because 1) the increased amount of gases which ''absorb heat'' has lead to more heat being captured and not released, which increases the ''global average surface temperatures,'' 2) the high amounts of atmospheric aerosol ''scatter and absorb solar and infrared radiation'' which creates global cooling, and 3) the cutting down of forests results in changes in the amount of sunlight reflected from the ground back into space and it changes the evapotranspiration. The humans and the environment are the ones being affected because the humans will suffer from extreme climate changes and the environment will become too cold or too hot and the air polluted, which in turn will sicken plants and animals. The players are the humans because we have changed the natural climate change of the Earth by using harmful gas ingredients and messing with nature (such as cutting down the forests). Solutions to this problem would be to prevent further climate change by reducing and eventually stopping the use of harmful products such as aerosol hairsprays, gas-fueled cars, and by growing forests instead of cutting them down. I feel that this article made me realize that once again, humans are the ones destroying themselves. We are our own destroyers and if we do not act immediately to prevent future damage, we might as well kiss this Earth goodbye, unfortunately. This article relates to AP Environmental Science because in chapter 15, anthropogenic climate change was discussed and the changes in temperature from earlier years to present day were presented. Chapter 15 described the greenhouse effect as being ''the fact that gases in our atmosphere prevent long-wavelength (terrestrial) energy leaving the earth's surface from escaping to space'' and chapter 15 agrees that recent climate changes which started in the Industrial Revolution are man-made. I have learned that climate change not only refers to the warming of our planet, but also to the cooling of our planet. Different human activities serve to either change climate change by making our climate warmer or by cooling our climate.
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