Week 11 16 May 2014 Climate Change

What is climate change exactly?
 The climate of the world has been changing, particularly in the last half century.
There has been an increas in average tempratures and also evidence that this increase is because of humans' actions.
Climate change has global effects and will also effect our environment, our community and our economy.  Unless we do something about it. (http://www.climatechange.vic.gov.au/what-is-climate-change)
What can we do? Most importantly, we have to reduce greenhouse gases and get ready for the impacts. Yes, the impacts can already be seen now. What do we actually see? We see that indicators which are expected to increase in a warmer world are all increasing. And the indicators expected do decrease in a warmer world are all decreasing. (http://nca2014.globalchange.gov/highlights/overview/overview) Here are some of these indicators:
1 Temperature over land: rising
2 Sea level: rising
3 Temperature over oceans: rising
4 Water Vapor: rising
5 Air Temperature near Service: rising
6 Sea service temperature: rising
7 Ocean Heat Content: rising
8 Glaciers and Ice Sheets: diminishing
9 Snow Cover: diminishing
10 Sea Ice: diminishing (http://nca2014.globalchange.gov/highlights/overview/overview )

One other thing also mentioned in the 2014 National Climate Assessment was the separating of Human and Natural influences on climate. Because natural forces also have an influence on the Global Climate, I find it exceptionally good that they measured all these and measurements show that Climate Change is being affected by both natural and human cause and that the natural force only would not have these devastating effects on the earth as the combination of both has now. It also shows that extreme heat is becoming more common and extreme cold is becoming less common (http://nca2014.globalchange.gov/highlights/overview/overview).

In the IPCC report is stated that GHG emissions have continued to increase from 1970 to 2010 with larger amounts of emission towards the end of the period. CO2 emission has the greatest contribute in the total of GHG emissions (78%). If we look at GHG emissions by economic sector, then electricity and Heat production contributes the most to GHG emissions. Overall, population growth and economic activity contribute the most to still rising levels of GHG emissions (http://report.mitigation2014.org/spm/ipcc_wg3_ar5_summary-for-policymakers_approved.pdf).