CLIMATOLOGY
Concept of climatology & climate
Climate change
Global warming
Climatology (from Greek –kÆ›iʯa, klima, meaning “place, zone” and -Æ›oyia, logia) is the study of climate, scientifically defined as weather conditions averaged over a period of time. This modern field of study is regarded as a branch of the atmospheric sciences and a subfield of physical geography, which is one of the earth sciences. Climatology now includes aspect of oceanography and biogeochemistry.
Climatology is approached in a variety of ways:
i. Paleoclimatology seeks to reconstruct past climate by examining records such as ice cores and tree rings (dendroclimatology). Paleotempestology uses these same records to help determine hurricane frequency over millennia. The study of contemporary climates incorporates meteorological data accumulated over many years, such as records of rainfall, temperature and atmospheric composition. Knowledge of the atmosphere and its dynamics is also embodied in models, which are either statistical or mathematical, which help by integrating different observation and testing how they fit together. Modeling is used for understanding past, present and potential future climate.
ii. Historical climatology studies climate in relation to human history and thus focuses only on the last few thousand years. Climate research is made difficult by the large scale, long time periods, and complex processes which govern climate. Climate is governed by physical laws which can be expressed as differential equation. These equations are coupled and non-linear, so that approximate solutions are obtained by using numerical methods to create global climate models.
Climate change entails the earth’s climate which has changed over the last century. Increases in average temperature have been seen around the globe and there are new and stronger evidences that most of the warming observed in the 50 years is due to human activities.
While climate change is a global issue, it will affect us all. Climate change has the potential to adversely affect our environment, communities and our economies unless we act to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions and prepare for the impacts.
Global warming is one of the bulky resultant effects of the change in the earth’s atmospheric constituent/climate. In the 20th century, the average temperature of the earth has increased 0.6 0C, which is attributed mainly to the emission of carbondioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gases in increasing quantities to the atmosphere. Some of the gases in the atmosphere, particularly water vapour and carbondioxide have the ability to absorb infrared radiation (heat), they do not prevent sunlight from reaching the earth surface and warming it, but they trap some of the heat released back to space by the earth; thus increasing the earth’s surface temperature. Though greenhouse
gases are naturally present in the atmosphere, but human activities have increased the concentration of these gases and thereby resulting in increasing temperature. Some of the human activities that increase greenhouse gases quantity include:
Burning of fossil fuels: which contain large amount of carbondioxide
Release of chloroflourocarbons, CFCs (commonly present in refrigerants) into the atmosphere
High rate of deforestation
However, these activities have triggered some impacts on the human environment, which include:
Rapid change in climate will affect many ecosystem and the rate of species extinction will most likely increase
Desertification of areas, drought and famine
Despite these ravening effects of global warming, there are remedial measures that can be adopted to control and manage it. Chiefly of these measures, is the reduction in the use of fossil fuel and encouraging the use of renewable energy sources like solar energy, biofuel, wind energy etc. And, reducing the rate of deforestation, and thereby encouraging adequate afforestation.
This is a guest post by
Author: Stephen Odelowo
About the author: Stephen Odelowo is a seasoned geographer and writer who have huge interest in research, astronomy/space exploration, editing and sports.
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