Water Kidz: Climate change

Abstract

This past June saw World Environment Day celebrations being held all across the world. This year’s focus was on the effects of climate change – an issue affecting everybody on Earth. What’s the big deal? The climate of the world varies from one decade to another, and changing climate is natural and expected. Why are we worried about it now? Growing scientific evidence is suggesting that human industrial and development activities of the past two centuries are causing changes over and above natural variation. Climate change is the natural cycle through which the Earth and its atmosphere are going to accommodate the change in the amount of energy received from the sun. The climate goes through warm and cold periods, taking hundreds of years to complete one cycle (think of the ice age, for example). Changes in temperature also influence the rainfall, but the biosphere is able to adapt to a changing climate if these changes take place over centuries.

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