Climate Change Essay: Evidence, Impacts, and Future Challenges

This essay provides a detailed analysis of climate change, beginning with a definition and an overview of supporting evidence. It examines the impacts of industrialization and globalization on climate patterns, highlighting the cyclical nature of climate change and the adverse effects of human activities. The essay reviews eight journal articles, discussing topics such as regional climate modeling, glacier shrinkage, local warming trends, climate change hotspots, air pollution, biodiversity impacts, phenotypic changes in species, and the global imprint of climate change on marine life. The author concludes that the evidence of climate change is compelling, citing rising temperatures, increased greenhouse gases, glacier shrinkage, and the adverse effects on biodiversity and marine ecosystems. The essay emphasizes the need for action to mitigate the effects of climate change and protect the environment.

Running head: CLIMATE CHANGE
Climate Change
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author’s Note:

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This essay defines climate change along with the evidence of the climate change.
Additionally, the essay also discusses whether the evidence of climate change is compelling or
not. The essay introduces eight journals on climate change and discusses the implications of the
topic. It has been seen that the Earth has encountered several cycles of glacial retreats and
climatic change over the years. Additionally, the advanced industrialization and globalization
have adversely affected the climatic change.
The paper by Estrada et al. (2012), highlights and reviews the methodology implemented
for developing the changes of the regional climate. The generated changes are used as significant
documents in the National Documents of Mexico such as The Economics of Climate Change in
Mexico, the Fourth National Report to the Convention on Biological Diversity and Fourth
National Communication to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The
regional climate changes in Mexico are considered as important inputs in order to support the
assessments that are presented in the documents. In this report, the Mexican government has
published several documents for supporting the decision making in terms of climate change,
Moreover, the documents are considered as an example of wrongly used statistical techniques.
According to the critical evaluation highlighted in the article, it can be said that the work used for
writing the article needs to be revised. Therefore, it can be concluded that the documents used for
laying the foundation of the article are not adequate for supporting the national decision-making.
According to the article by Thompson (2010), the main indicators of climate change are
the glacier serve. The article highlights the drastic climatic and environmental changes over the
past years in the polar region of 16 different countries. However, as argued by Estrada et al.,
(2012), observing the climatic change in the 20th and the 21st century suggests that the society is
reluctant regarding the climate. This has eventually resulted in the acceleration of global carbon

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emission thereby, resulting in drastic climatic changes. The increased rate of glaciers in the polar
region over the years suggests that huge climatic and environmental changes have been
occurring continuously. Increased rate of glacier shrinkage has been noticed in the mountains
such as the Himalayas, the Andes, and the Kilimanjaro. The changes in the polar region along
with increased rate of glacier shrinkage thereby, suggest that the climate condition in the past
varies drastically from the present day climatic condition. The current climatic condition
highlights increased the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere along with the
direct rise in temperature.
In context of the previous article, according to the article by Zaval et al. (2014), the local
warming is considered for determining the climatic change. The article compares and reviews the
past and present local temperatures in order to describe the climatic changes over the years.
Climatic change can be determined by the change of the temperature abnormalities. The article
emphasizes in explaining and communicating the phenomenon of climatic change in terms of
temperature abnormalities to the people. The climatic changes due to reluctant individual
behaviour have to lead to the global warming. However, as criticized by Thompson (2010), the
rate of emission of greenhouse gases has increased due to individual lack of knowledge and
concern regarding the environment. Therefore, increased rate of greenhouse gases due to carbon
dioxide emission has resulted in drastic climatic changes. The article also determines whether the
local warming effect is due to the global warming. The article has successfully found that global
warming has directly affected the local rise in the temperature over the years. Therefore, it can be
concluded that the variation of temperature influences the opinion of the individuals regarding
the climatic change.

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In regards to the previous article, according to the article by De Sherbinin (2014), the
efforts to highlight the hotspots of climatic change have been discussed. The author has
conducted a research over five years in mapping the hotspots, as the environment is vulnerable to
climatic changes. As the hotspots are considered as a significant learning factor, mapping the
hotspots has increased over the years. This signifies that some of the regions are vulnerable to
climatic impacts thereby, exposing the environment to potential risks. Mapping the hotspots over
five years has provided the opportunity of identifying the potential environmental risks. The
author has also identified the policies that can be used for addressing the vulnerability of a region
to climatic changes. However, as argued by Toth (2013), the author in the article fails to address
the negative aspects of understanding the climatic change by hotspot mapping. Therefore, it can
be concluded that in order to justify the significance of the research, the researcher has heavily
relied on the studies. According to the hotspot mapping, the regions with increased carbon
dioxide are due to the high rate of commercial and industrialization activities (Toth 2013).
In respect to the previous article, according to the journal Air Quality and Climate
Change (2017), the main objectives were to spread knowledge and practical experience
regarding air pollution and methods of controlling air pollution. Due to globalization and
increased industrialization, the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere has
increased over time. This has led to air pollution and global warming that needs to be mitigated
for the betterment of the environment. However, on the contrary, the evidence of climatic change
is compelling as the organizations and countries are showing growing interest in terms of
climatic change. The Clean Air Society has a significant role to play in terms of mitigating the
level of air pollution. After researching the past records of air pollution, it can be seen that the
rate of air pollution as only increased over the years thereby, leading the climatic change. For

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instance, the ozone layer is depleting rapidly due to increased air pollution in the atmosphere.
Therefore, it can be concluded that air pollution has led to severe climatic changes and has
provided compelling evidence to the people (Fankhauser 2013).
In the article by Bellard et al. (2012), the multiple components of climatic change largely
affect the different levels of biodiversity. Due to climatic change, the temperature, rainfall, ocean
dynamics and carbon dioxide are affected that has made the environment vulnerable to global
warming. Increased rate of air pollution due to the higher rate of carbon dioxide in the
atmosphere along with the rise in temperature over the years has affected the marine ecosystem.
Due to climatic change, the rate of rainfall has decreased drastically over the years. Shortage of
rainfall and rise of temperature has affected the marine ecosystem. A large number of marine
ecosystem has been lost due to the impact of the climatic changes. For instance, the marine flora
and fauna are unable to adjust to the increased temperature due to which their survival has
decreased. Therefore, it can be concluded that the impact of climatic change is compelling in
terms of marine biodiversity as the loss of flora and fauna is predominantly noticed (Mendelsohn
et al. 2012).
According to the article by Merila and Hendry (2014), the climatic changes have resulted
in phenotypic changes in the natural population. The rise of industrialization and globalization
has led to the implementation of latest technologies in daily life. Considering the demand and
urge of development, the rate of deforestation has also increased. This has led to adverse climatic
changes in terms of decrease in rainfall and rise in temperature. As a result, the existing species
are unable to withstand and cope up with the continuous climatic changes. Therefore, the
existing species need to bring phenotypic adaptations within them in order to survive the major
climatic changes. The Earth and the atmosphere was a much cooler place previously that favored

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the survival of the species. Due to climatic changes, the rate of survival of the flora and fauna has
been severely affected. Many species of flora and fauna have become extinct due to the extreme
climatic changes. Therefore, the evidence of climatic changes is compelling as the phenotypic
changes are clearly visible.
The article by Poloczanska et al. (2013), discusses the global imprint of climatic change
on the marine life. The author of the article has used meta-analyses to estimate the mean shifts in
the climatic change over the past years. The article highlights that though the majority of the
sunlight is absorbed by the ocean, the thermal capacity of the ocean has led to the warming of the
surface waters three times slower compared to the land surface. Additionally, the oceanic and
land temperatures have risen drastically due to the climatic changes. As a result, the rate of
survival of the marine flora and fauna has been compromised because many of the species are
unable to withstand and adapt to the drastically changing climatic conditions. Therefore, the
evidence of the climatic change is compelling on the marine life that requires appropriate
measures to be undertaken (Scott et al. 2012).
In this essay, it can be concluded that temperature changes have adversely affected the
climatic conditions over the years. The eight articles discussed above highlights that heavy
commercial and industrialization activities have resulted in increased carbon dioxide gases.
Increased greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, variation in local temperatures over the years and
shrinkage of the glaciers highlight the climatic change over the years. In the articles, the authors
have used hotspot mapping, observing the glacier shrinkage over the 20th and the 21st century and
variation of the local temperatures over 5 years period in order to determine the climatic changes
over the millennial.

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References
Air Quality and Climate Change Volume 51 No.2. June 2017. (2017). CASANZ Air Quality and
Climate Change Journal – June 2017. [online] Available at: http://CASANZ Air Quality and
Climate Change Journal – June 2017 [Accessed 2 Nov. 2017].
Bellard, C., Bertelsmeier, C., Leadley, P., Thuiller, W. and Courchamp, F., 2012. Impacts of
climate change on the future of biodiversity. Ecology letters, 15(4), pp.365-377.
de Sherbinin, A., 2014. Climate change hotspots mapping: what have we learned?. Climatic
Change, 123(1), pp.23-37.
Estrada, F., Martínez-López, B., Conde, C. and Gay-García, C., 2012. The new national climate
change documents of Mexico: what do the regional climate change scenarios represent?.
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Fankhauser, S., 2013. Valuing climate change: the economics of the greenhouse. Routledge.
Mendelsohn, R., Emanuel, K., Chonabayashi, S. and Bakkensen, L., 2012. The impact of climate
change on global tropical cyclone damage. Nature climate change, 2(3), pp.205-209.
Merilä, J. and Hendry, A.P., 2014. Climate change, adaptation, and phenotypic plasticity: the
problem and the evidence. Evolutionary applications, 7(1), pp.1-14.
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Brander, K., Bruno, J.F., Buckley, L.B., Burrows, M.T. and Duarte, C.M., 2013. Global imprint
of climate change on marine life. Nature Climate Change, 3(10), pp.919-925.

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Scott, L., Neumann, F.H., Brook, G.A., Bousman, C.B., Norström, E. and Metwally, A.A., 2012.
Terrestrial fossil-pollen evidence of climate change during the last 26 thousand years in Southern
Africa. Quaternary Science Reviews, 32, pp.100-118.
Thompson, L.G., 2010. Climate change: The evidence and our options. The Behavior Analyst,
33(2), pp.153-170.
Tóth, F.L. ed., 2013. Fair Weather: Equity Concerns in Climate Change (Vol. 6). Routledge.
Zaval, L., Keenan, E.A., Johnson, E.J. and Weber, E.U., 2014. How warm days increase belief in
global warming. Nature Climate Change, 4(2), pp.143-147.