Anthropogenic climate change
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Anthropogenic climate change refers to climate changes directly or indirectly resulting from human activities. Such changes can involve any of the variables that are commonly used to describe the climate, including changes in the temperature of the air, soil, ocean, etc, but also modifications of precipitation patterns, the planetary albedo, the kinetic and potential energy content of the atmosphere, or its composition (gases, aerosols, clouds).
Not all climate changes need be catastrophic, but, on balance, most are expected to result in serious undesirable effects, either on individuals and societies, or on agriculture and industry, not to mention the environment. Determining whether observed climate changes are of anthropogenic origin (or not) is thus a crucial scientific objective which has enormous human implications, because such causal links may result in the attribution of responsibilities for such changes. But at the same time, these findings may point to policies and actions that may be taken to address the problems, either through mitigation or adaptation.
See also
- Earth's atmosphere for information on atmospheric composition and temperature distribution.
- Global warming for recent climate changes thought to be of anthropogenic origin.
- Effects of global warming for a description of various effects of climate change.
- Attribution of recent climate change for a discussion of how we know the extent to which recent climate change is anthropogenic.
References
- Hans von Storch and Nico Stehr (2002) Towards a History of Ideas on Anthropogenic Climate Change, (PDF) [link]
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