Introduction

In these pages you will learn about climate change:

• What is climate change?

• What is the difference between weather and climate?

• What are the effects of climate change?

• What can we do about it?

Go through each of the pages and then you will have to create a presentation (info on the last page)

What is climate change?

Climate change describes a change in the average conditions — such as temperature and rainfall — in a region over a long period of time. For example, 20,000 years ago, a big part of the Earth was covered in glaciers. Nowadays we have a warmer climate and fewer glaciers.

Global climate change refers to the average long-term changes over the entire Earth. These include warming temperatures and changes in precipitation, as well as the effects of Earth’s warming, such as:

• Rising sea levels

• Diasappearing mountain glaciers

• Ice melting at faster than usual in Greenland, Antarctica and the Arctic

• Changes in flower and plant blooming times.

Earth’s climate has constantly been changing. However, scientists have observed unusual changes recently. Earth’s average temperature has been increasing much more quickly over the past 150 years.