Climate change
This topic deals with its causes, symptoms and consequences for nature and people
Natural factors
Climate change took place long before humans ever existed, because natural factors can affect the Earth's climate.
Learn what effects the natural causes of climate change can sometimes have, by the following task:
The activities of this star fluctuate. A variable amount of energy is released and this can affect the Earth’s climate.
It has an influence on the tides and therefore on the great ocean currents which in turn have an influence on the climate due to their warm or cold nature.
Like during a volcanic eruption, particles are thrown into the atmosphere, which may have climate change as a consequence.
In a 100,000 year cycle it changes from almost circular to elliptical. This factor affects the mean annual temperature.
These gases and ash are thrown far into the atmosphere, which can prevent or enhance the radiation of heat energy and thus lead to a warming or cooling of the Earth.
If the weather changes on average over a long period, it not only has to do with the atmosphere, but also with the mantle, oceans and waters, ice and snow, the biosphere, and ultimately with the solar system. Plate tectonic changes and fluctuations in solar radiation due to variations in the Earth's orbit over long time scales play a secondary role in relation to climate change in the 20th Century. Changes in the climate, which result from volcanic eruptions, only last for a few years, well-known examples are the eruption of El Cichon (1984 Mexico) or Pinatubo (Philippines, 1991). Solar activity changes about every eleven years, the number of sunspots either decreases or increases, which in turn raises or lowers the radiated energy, but only by tenths of a degree. Active factors in the climate system are also the carbon and water cycles as well as the vegetation and oceans’ circulation. Exploring natural causes is thus very complex and is made more complicated by the occurrence of interactions between factors. If the sun's rays are reduced, for example, the sea ice in the Arctic and Antarctic spreads, thereby reflecting the sunlight more and cooling the atmosphere further. Cool oceans may in turn absorb more CO2 from the atmosphere, reducing the greenhouse effect and also adding to the cooling. Heating reverses these processes.
Sources
Woodward, John (2008): Klimawandel. Ursachen, Auswirkungen, Perspektiven. Hildesheim: Gerstenberg Verlag
www.wikipedia.org
www.ans.geesthacht.de
blogs.ethz.ch
bildungsserver.hamburg.de
Precipitation has a greater chance of forming ice and snow at the poles when there is land there. Ice and snow form more easily on landmasses, because they reflect more solar radiation than water. Ice and snow in turn reflect more solar radiation, which leads to a cooling of temperature and ice formation progresses. The displacement of the plates of the earth's crust will therefore affect climate.