Global Warming and Cooling

GLOBAL WARMING AND COOLING

by Antonio C. Antonio

March 8, 2015

“The most general definition of “climate change” is a change in the statistical properties of the climate system when considered over long periods of time, regardless of cause.  Accordingly, fluctuations over periods shorter than a few decades, such as El Niño, do not represent climate change.  The term sometimes is used to refer specifically to climate change caused by human activity, as opposed to changes in climate that may have resulted as part of Earth's natural processes.  In this sense, especially in the context of environmental policy, the term “climate change” has become synonymous with anthropogenic global warming.  Global Warming refers to surface temperature increases while “climate change” includes global warming and everything else that increasing greenhouse gas levels will affect.” (Antonio, 2014)

“Climate change is a significant and lasting change in the statistical distribution of weather patterns over periods ranging from decades to millions of years. It may be a change in average weather conditions, or in the distribution of weather around the average conditions (therefore, more or fewer extreme weather events).  Climate change is caused by factors such as biotic processes, variations in solar radiation received by Earth, plate tectonics, and volcanic eruptions.  Certain human activities have also been identified as significant causes of recent climate change, often referred to as “global warming” (Antonio, 2014)… or global cooling.

Talking purely of global warming as the only means to characterize climate change will not at all be accurate.  There is another equally important phenomenon that also influences climate change; global cooling.  Global cooling is the exact opposite of global warming.  If our definition of global warming as the global increase in the average temperature on earth, global cooling can then be defined as the decrease of the earth’s average temperature.  Global cooling was a term coined in the 1970s as a means to describe, label and understand the reverse effects of global warming.

Like global warming, the proposed policy responses to global cooling are (1) mitigation, (2) adaptation, and (3) climate engineering.  (For details, please click on this link: http://antonantonio.blogspot.com/2014/04/proposed-policy-responses-to-global.html)

Climate change is a phenomenon (meaning: a fact or situation that is observed to exist or happen, especially one whose cause or explanation is in question) that has yet to be fully explained because of the many environmental and climactic dynamics that we yet have to discover.  But for now, however, it is important to view climate change not only from the viewpoint of global warming but from two opposing worldviews… global warming and cooling.

Just my little thoughts…

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REFERENCES:

Antonio, A. C., (2014). Climate Change. Retrieved on the 8^th day of March 2015 from http://antonantonio.blogspot.com/2014/04/climate-change.html

Antonio, A. C., (2014). Proposed Policy Responses to Global Warming. Retrieved on the 8^th day of March 2015 from http://antonantonio.blogspot.com/2014/04/proposed-policy-responses-to-global.html