Climate change - Human Impact, Global Warming, Carbon Emissions

climate change

Table of Contents

Introduction
The Earth system
Evidence for climate change
Causes of climate change
- Solar variability
- Volcanic activity
- Tectonic activity
- Orbital (Milankovich) variations
- Greenhouse gases
- Feedback
- Human activities
Climate change within a human life span
- Seasonal variation
- Interannual variation
- Decadal variation
Climate change since the emergence of civilization
- Centennial-scale variation
- Millennial and multimillennial variation
  - Thermal maxima
  - ENSO variation in the Holocene
  - Amplification of the Indian Ocean monsoon
Climate change since the advent of humans
- Recent glacial and interglacial periods
  - The most recent glacial phase
  - The Last Glacial Maximum
  - The last deglaciation
  - Climate change and the emergence of agriculture
- Glacial and interglacial cycles of the Pleistocene
- The last great cooling
Climate change through geologic time
- Cenozoic climates
- Phanerozoic climates
- Climates of early Earth
  - Faint young Sun paradox
  - Photosynthesis and atmospheric chemistry
  - Snowball Earth hypothesis
Abrupt climate changes in Earth history

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Human societies have experienced climate change since the development of agriculture some 10,000 years ago. These climate changes have often had profound effects on human cultures and societies. They include annual and decadal climate fluctuations such as those described above, as well as large-magnitude changes that occur over centennial to multimillennial timescales. Such changes are believed to have influenced and even stimulated the initial cultivation and domestication of crop plants, as well as the domestication and pastoralization of animals. Human societies have changed adaptively in response to climate variations, although evidence abounds that certain societies and civilizations have collapsed in ...(100 of 12125 words)

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