• Question: what the actual proof climate change exists

    Asked by korey to Aileen, Caroline, Christopher, Rehemat, Stephanie, Stephen on 7 Mar 2018.
    • Photo: Christopher Nankervis

      Christopher Nankervis answered on 7 Mar 2018:

      Warming has been observed on all continents of Earth. The Arctic has warmed a lot over a short timescale.

    • Photo: Stephanie Mann

      Stephanie Mann answered on 8 Mar 2018:

      There is over 50 years of satellite observations of earth’s temperature that show the earth has been heating up steadily over all this time. The proof it is largely affected by man made emissions is harder – one big nut of proof is looking back at old data and seeing that global temperature rises started slowly during the industrial revolution when we started burning coal for energy… And atmospheric scientists know that burning things like coal warm our planet because of the greenhouse effect

    • Photo: Rehemat Bhatia

      Rehemat Bhatia answered on 8 Mar 2018:

      The Keeling Curve is a graph of measurements from 1950 – today that shows that carbon dioxide has been rising slowly. https://scripps.ucsd.edu/programs/keelingcurve/ <– have a look! you can find out much CO2 is in the air today too!

    • Photo: Stephen Twomlow

      Stephen Twomlow answered on 8 Mar 2018:

      We have historic evidence from the ice cores taken in both the Arctic and the Antarctic, mud cores taken from lakes that all show changes in the earths gases and which plants grew where and when. In more recent times we have record of daily rainfall and temperatures going back 100 to 150 years that show both long term cycles in our weather patterns, but also shifts towards increasing temperatures and changes in rainfall

    • Photo: Aileen Baird

      Aileen Baird answered on 9 Mar 2018:

      As you can see from all the other scientist’s responses below, there is * a lot* of evidence. Many thousands of scientists are working in climate change research and making sure that this evidence is as good as it can be. The proof is very strong so we should believe it!
      Another link for you to check out is this graph from NASA showing the increase in the surface temperature of the Earth since 1880. If you take a look, you can see that the trend isn’t a perfect straight line (there are some wobbly squiggly bits), but overall the temperature is definitely increasing a lot.

      https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/global-temperature/

    • Photo: Caroline Hickman

      Caroline Hickman answered on 12 Mar 2018:

      There are some great scientific answers here from everyone else.

      I would add that there has been evidence or proof of climate change for many many years, but there has also been a lot of denial about it (and there still is!). For me as a psychologist and the groups that I work with it is really important that we start to face these fears and denial so that we can make more changes needed. If people are in denial because they are too anxious, then they will not face the facts

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