Climate change is the long-term alteration of temperature and typical weather patterns in a place.
A distinction is made between:
global warming, which is caused by humans
natural fluctuations of the climate (climate variability)
Climate change - global warming
Humans, in particular, contribute significantly to the warming of the earth. Many different human activities influence the energy system of the atmosphere and thus the temperature on earth:
Deforestation
Mining
Agriculture
Release of gases (e.g. ) by fossil fuels
Changes in the water balance
Land sealing
All these interventions increase the greenhouse effect in the atmosphere and cause temperatures on earth to rise. As a result, the climate is becoming more extreme, with devastating consequences worldwide. The global temperature increase of 0.6°C since 1850 is very likely due to human activity.
Climate change - natural climate variability
In the course of Earth's history - even before the appearance of humans - the climate has changed continuously. These changes are called natural climate variability or natural climate fluctuations.
An example of short-term natural climate variability is a volcanic eruption. It ejects gases and dust into the atmosphere. Due to the higher concentration of particles (e.g. dust and ash particles) in the upper layers of the atmosphere, the earth cools down: the many small particles prevent the heat radiation of the sun from reaching the earth. The natural greenhouse effect is thus weakened and the earth cools down.
Example: In 1991, the volcano Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines erupted and caused a decrease of up to 0.8 °C in global temperature for 2-3 years.
Sources:
National Geographic https://www.nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/climate-change/
Climate change: Climate wiki and physical geography compact by Rüdiger Glaser et al. (2010)
Climate influence by humans: Spektrum Lexikon Geographie
Temperature increase: 5th Assessment Report of the IPCC (2014)
Volcanic eruption: Earth System Knowledge Platform and Wikipedia on Mount Pinatobu
Pictures by WikiImages on Pixabay
