Global climate change: review of important causal mechanisms and consequences

Resumo

The process known as global climate change is very serious. While we do not exactly know what the future may hold, our scientific models and studies of similar past events can give us a good idea. Our goal is to provide some background information on the processes that contribute to climate change as well as to list some of the consequences. Our approach was a bibliographical research that included a literature review on the topic accompanied by conceptual discussion. Our results indicated that the ma­jor problem that we run into today is that we are taking the carbon in coal and petroleum, carbon that was gradually sequestered by ancient plants over millions of years, and re-releasing it back into our at­mosphere at rates far faster than we plants are able to re-sequester it. Furthermore, we have contributed to the increased release of different, mostly anthropogenic, greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Un­derstanding the basic mechanisms that potentially cause global climate change is important to help us make intelligent and informed daily decisions to help limit global climate change as much as possible.