Chapter 1: What is climate change?

What is climate change?

‘Climate’ is weather parameters averaged out over several years. Of course, the climate of a place can also change over time but the current climatic changes, initiated by people will change more drastically across the entire planet.

Earth's temperature has risen by only 0.8 ° C in 100 years, and we are already observing climate change. Greenhouse gases increase the energy that reaches the Earth's surface, but the oceans, which have enormous thermal inertia, have not yet warmed up significantly. Much higher warming, reaching 2-3 ° C, is being observed above the land and above icesheets, especially in central Asia, and in the Arctic.

What is the greenhouse effect?

The greenhouse effect is best understood using the example of a greenhouse where glass lets in the sun's light. In the same way that the earth absorbs solar energy and radiates in the infrared - the air trapped by the glass also absorbs energy and heats up. The air warms up under the hot glass.

The greenhouse effect in the atmosphere is more complicated - there is not one thin layer, but different greenhouse gases are dispersed at different heights:

  • H2O water vapor has a dominant influence on the greenhouse effect and its content in the Earth's atmosphere it is variable over time and varies over individual areas of our planet, human activity has a negligible impact on its quantity;
  • carbon dioxide (CO2) is the second component of the atmosphere that is important for the greenhouse effect, since the beginning of the industrial era the content of carbon dioxide in the air has increased steadily;
  • CH4 methane,
  • O3 ozone,
  • nitrogen oxides NOx,
  • and freons. Their presence in the atmosphere is associated exclusively with human activities.

Added to this is convection and conduction, the influence of clouds and many other phenomena.

Experiment: Can the greenhouse effect be measured?

Our group conducted an experiment in which we tried to find the answer to the question: "Does the increase in the concentration of carbon dioxide in the air affect its temperature?"

Hypothesis: An increase in the concentration of CO2 in the air causes an increase in its temperature.