Overview of Climate ResearchHere is an internet article that d.docxalfred4lewis58146
Overview of Climate Research
Here is an internet article that describes the climate research data.
Click http://www.exploratorium.edu/climate/primer/index.html link to open resource.
The Little Ice Age
[http://www.grisda.org/origins/header.htm]
THE LITTLE ICE AGE
Richard D. Tkachuck
Geoscience Research Institute
Origins 10(2):51-65 (1983).
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Have climatic changes taken place over centuries? If so, what were the causes and effects?
INTRODUCTION
The changeability of weather is a phenomenon known to all who live on Earth. Daily fluctuations in temperature, moisture and wind represent the most rapid weather changes that we experience. Changes in weather patterns through the seasons, the annual cycles, as well as multi-annual cycles are generally predictable. Spring does, in fact, follow winter year after year. Climate is defined as the composite of all the components that determine weather in a particular area averaged over time (i.e., a number of years). A particular region can be defined by the dominant weather feature(s) which affect the environment to the greatest extent: polar, monsoon, desert, tropical, etc. While a climate is described in terms of certain weather features, the presence of anomalies such as an unusual rainstorm or high-velocity wind need not change one's opinion about the overall climate for a specific region. In other words, extremes in a particular weather factor can be included just as long as the measurable weather characteristics approximate some average value over long periods of time.
Long-term climate changes measured in decades or centuries are difficult to quantify. Reminiscences of old-timers who recount the rigors of winters in the olden days are often taken with the proverbial grain of salt. Yet such comments do indeed raise the question: Has the climate in different parts of the earth changed over the centuries? The answer appears to be yes, but the basis for this answer is complex and, of necessity, relies on inferential data. It is the purpose of this article to examine a postulated climatic change in recent history. More specifically we shall analyze a time spanned by the dates 1450 AD to about 1850 AD when, at least in the Northern Hemisphere, there appeared to be temperatures much cooler than at present, a time which some have named the "Little Ice Age."
As we examine this topic, it will be seen that evidence for a significant fundamental climatic change is substantial, but — and perhaps more interestingly — the specific reasons for this change are not understood. It is hoped that the reader will gain an appreciation for the very delicate balance that allows life on Earth to continue, and for the serious changes in this balance that could result from catastrophic events.
There are certain difficulties in attempting a historical study of climate because the most common instruments of today such as the thermometer, wind gauge, barometer and rain gauge are all of .
What is climate change doing to us and for us?Paul H. Carr
What are we doing to our climate? Emissions from fossil fuel burning have raised carbon dioxide concentrations 35% higher than in the last millions of years. This increase is warming our planet via the Greenhouse Effect. What is climate change doing to and for us? Dry regions are drier and wet ones wetter. Wildfires have increased threefold, hurricanes more violent, floods setting record heights, glaciers melting, and seas rising. Parts of Earth are increasingly uninhabitable. Climate change requires us to act as a global community. Climate justice enjoins emitters to pay the social-environmental costs of fossil fuel burning. This would expedite green solar, wind, and next-generation nuclear energy sources. Individuals should conserve resources, waste less food, and eat a plant rich diet.
2. The Little Ice Age begins There is no agreed beginning year to the Little Ice Age, although there is a frequently referenced series of events preceding the known climatic minima. Starting in the 13th century, pack ice began advancing southwards in the North Atlantic, as did glaciers in Greenland. The three years of torrential rains beginning in 1315 ushered in an era of unpredictable weather in Northern Europe which did not lift until the 19th century. There is objective evidence of expanding glaciers almost worldwide.
3. Life during the Little Ice Age When the ice cap in eastern North America reached as far south as Pennsylvania, the world was about nine degrees cooler. In France, the harsh winter of 1788-89 added to the misery and discontent of the peasants, and cold and erratic weather patterns produced numerous crop failures in northerly areas such as Scotland and Norway. Native American tribes such as the Iroquois relocated their villages to escape the cold. These migrations stirred up political conflict among tribes. The hardest hit were the Norse settlements in Iceland and Greenland. The population of famine-ridden Iceland dwindled during the Little Ice Age to half its previous numbers.
4. What caused the Little Ice Age? Most of the Little Ice Age occurred well before the Industrial Revolution and the widespread burning of fossil fuels, so scientists are confident that its climatic convulsions had purely natural causes. In the 1970s, scientists, noticed the correlation of sunspot numbers with major ups and downs in Earth's climate. For example, it was found that a period of low activity from 1645 to 1715 matched perfectly one of the coldest spells of the Little Ice Age. Scientists considered other possibilities such as shifts in ocean currents, heightened volcanic activity, and greenhouse gases -- mainly carbon dioxide and methane.
5. Climate patterns In the North Atlantic, sediments accumulated since the end of the last ice age, nearly 12,000 years ago, show regular increases in the amount of coarse sediment grains deposited from icebergs melting in the now open ocean, indicating a series of 1-2°C (2-4°F) cooling events recurring every 1,500 years or so. The most recent of these cooling events was the Little Ice Age. The most recent of these cooling events was the Little Ice Age. These same cooling events are detected in sediments accumulating off Africa, but the cooling events appear to be larger, ranging between 3-8°C (6-14°F).
6. The end of the Little Ice Age Beginning around 1850, the climate began warming and the Little Ice Age ended. Some global warming critics believe that Earth's climate is still recovering from the Little Ice Age and that human activity is not the decisive factor in present temperature trends, but this idea is not widely accepted. Mainstream scientific opinion on climate change is that warming over the last 50 years is caused primarily by the increased proportion of CO2 in the atmosphere caused by human activity. The clear message of science and history is that climate change has always been a natural phenomenon on Earth and a matter of vital human interest.
7. SOURCES Wikipedia, "Little Ice Age". Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., . August 9, 2010 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_ice_age. Cutler, Alan. "The Little Ice Age ". Washington Post. August 9, 2010 <http://www.geology.um.maine.edu/ges121/lectures/11-little-ice-age/little-ice-age.html>.
