Should We be Concerned About Climate Change?

• Main Author: Khezzani, Bachir
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Arid Zone Research Association of India 2022
• Subjects: Sea ice
• Online Access: https://epubs.icar.org.in/index.php/AAZ/article/view/131571

The climate represents a state of equilibrium of a complex system that consists of the Earth surface, cryosphere (sea ice, ice sheets), atmosphere, hydrosphere (essentially ocean) and biosphere (vegetation) (Fluteau, 2003). Climate change is defined as a long-term and radical change in the statistical distribution of weather patterns over periods ranging from decades to hundreds of thousands of years (Trtanj and Houston, 2021). The concept of climate was established in ancient Greece in a geographical context, while it gained statistical content (mean weather) in modern times after meteorological measurements became available (Koutsoyiannis, 2021). Climate change is caused by the interaction of external and internal factors that have been revealed and verified over a century; it includes galactic variations, orbital variations, solar activity variability, plate tectonics, volcanic activity, and variations in atmospheric composition (Hulme, 2005). In addition, human activities that have emerged and developed at an accelerating pace since the industrial revolution can also impose forcing by changing the atmosphere’s composition. Since the middle of the last century, the issue of climate change has sparked widespread controversy in the local and international media, and it has taken a great amount of discussion, whether at the scientific or political levels. Many studies confirm that climate change has occurred in the past where there was no effect of human activity; it is happening now; indeed, it will undoubtedly continue to happen in the future. It appears that modern definitions of climate are deficient because they are affected by the misconception of the past two centuries that the climate in a particular place must be regularly constant unless an external factor acts on it. Although the contribution of external factors in climate change has been identified early (Shindell et al., 2003; Stern and Kaufmann, 2014), the blame is often placed on human activities as the main factor in climate change, as recent ...