{"id":10842,"date":"2021-11-14T02:33:48","date_gmt":"2021-11-14T02:33:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rationalemagazine.com\/?p=10842"},"modified":"2022-09-09T18:57:49","modified_gmt":"2022-09-09T08:57:49","slug":"the-science-everyone-needs-to-know-about-climate-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rationalemagazine.com\/index.php\/2021\/11\/14\/the-science-everyone-needs-to-know-about-climate-change\/","title":{"rendered":"The science everyone needs to know about climate change"},"content":{"rendered":"

With the United Nations’ climate conference in Scotland turning a spotlight on climate change policies and the impact of global warming, it’s useful to understand what the science shows.<\/span><\/p>\n

I’m an <\/span>atmospheric scientist<\/span><\/a> who has worked on global climate science and assessments for most of my career. Here are six things you should know, in charts.<\/span><\/p>\n

The primary focus of the negotiations is on carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas that is released when fossil fuels \u2013 coal, oil and natural gas \u2013 are burned, as well as by forest fires, land use changes and natural sources.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Industrial Revolution of the late 1800s started an enormous increase in the burning of fossil fuels. It powered homes, industries and opened up the planet to travel. That same century, scientists <\/span>identified carbon dioxide’s potential<\/span><\/a> to <\/span>increase global temperatures<\/span><\/a>, which at the time was considered a possible benefit to the planet. Systematic measurements started in the mid-1900s and have shown a steady increase in carbon dioxide, with <\/span>the majority of it directly traceable<\/span><\/a> to the combustion of fossil fuels.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Once in the atmosphere, carbon dioxide tends to stay there for a very long time. A portion of the carbon dioxide released through human activities is taken up by plants, and some is absorbed directly into the ocean, but <\/span>roughly half<\/span><\/a> of all carbon dioxide emitted by human activities today stays in the atmosphere \u2014 and it <\/span>likely will remain there for hundreds of years<\/span><\/a>, influencing the climate globally.<\/span><\/p>\n

During the <\/span>first year of the pandemic in 2020<\/span><\/a>, when fewer people were driving and some industries briefly stopped, carbon dioxide emissions from fuels fell by roughly 6%. But it <\/span>didn’t stop the rise in the concentration of carbon dioxide<\/span><\/a> because the amount released into the atmosphere by human activities far exceeded what nature could absorb.<\/span><\/p>\n

If civilization stopped its carbon dioxide-emitting activities today, it would <\/span>still take many hundreds of years<\/span><\/a> for the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to fall enough naturally to bring the planet\u2019s carbon cycle back into balance because of carbon dioxide’s long life in the atmosphere.<\/span><\/p>\n

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How we know greenhouse gases can change the climate<\/b><\/h3>\n

Multiple lines of scientific evidence point to the increase in greenhouse emissions over the past century and a half as a driver of long-term climate change around the world. For example:<\/span><\/p>\n