Most of us have been taught the basics of the glasshouse issue : The sun dissipate its rays through the air ( orozone holes ) ; those rays bounce off the Earth ’s open and , when they essay to escape back into place , are trapped by atomic number 6 dioxide , methane , and other heat - trapping gas . eject too many of these so - promise greenhouse gases , repeat the process , andvoila!You have global warming .
A slightly warmer globe will not necessarily deepen the climate . ignite the planet enough , however , and you get lots of groundless , indirect aftermath — which scientists like to put under the blanket termclimate change . While global thawing is a specific function of these trapped gases , mood variety is just more complicated .
Ocean acidification is one decipherable good example of climate change that is n’t at all part of global thawing . Sure , the surface temperature of the ocean is getting warm , saltiness is changing due to ice melt , and the ocean levels are rising . All of this can be attributed to a warming planet . But sea also lay in half of all the carbon copy released by man and nature . A side effect of more carbon in the gentle wind is increasing the carbon absorb by the ocean , which changes the acidity of the urine — a withering problem , especially to ocean creatures whose shell ca n’t handle the change . Acidification may be due to a particular greenhouse gasoline , but not its office in warming the atmosphere . “ We are dumping carbon paper into the sea which is exchange the pH , ” saysJohn Abraham , a prof of thermal science at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul . “ Is that global warming ? Not really . ”
In another example , was Superstorm Sandy in 2012 — and other massive storms like it — cause by global warming or climate change ? To many scientists , this conditions event was a exculpated product of global warming . thaw temperature go to more vapor and more wet in the gentle wind , warm oceans , and a more energetic storm . Then there was the strange movement of a cold jet current that made a free fall to the south from Canada , giving oodles of energy to Sandy and helping it down where it did . This pass due to a variety in the North Atlantic Oscillation , a pressure system that likely flipped because of a ascension in arctic ice melting due to — swot up scroll please — warm temperatures .
“ Events like Sandy are more probable and made worse because of warming , ” Abraham tell Mental Floss . “ But they ’re manifested in other ways : heavier hurriedness events , and flooding , and ocean level procession . Most people do n’t relate [ thing care ] precipitation directly to ball-shaped warming . ” This , in a nutshell , is the reason scientists prefer the termclimate change — it ’s a unspoiled way to describe devilishly complex systems .
