To understand climate change fully, the causes of climate change must be

first identified
The earths climate is influenced and changed through natural causes like
volcanic eruptions, ocean current, the earths orbital changes and solar
variations.
Volcanic eruptions - When a volcano erupts it throws out large volumes of
sulphur dioxide (SO2), water vapour, dust, and ash into the atmosphere.
Large volumes of gases and ash can influence climatic patterns for years by
increasing planetary reflectivity causing atmospheric cooling. Tiny particles
called aerosols are produced by volcanoes. Because they reflect solar energy
back into space they have a cooling effect on the world. Ocean current The oceans are a major component of the climate system. Ocean currents
move vast amounts of heat across the planet. Winds push horizontally
against the sea surface and drive ocean current patterns. Interactions
between the ocean and atmosphere can also produce phenomena such as El
Nio (El Nio or ENSO is a quasi-periodic climate pattern that occurs across
the tropical Pacific Ocean on average of three to seven years. This happens
when the surface of the tropical eastern Pacific Ocean warms up. It is known
to cause extreme weather such as floods, droughts and other weather
disturbances in many regions of the world.) which occur every 2 to 6 years.
Deep ocean circulation of cold water from the poles towards the equator and
movement of warm water from the equator back towards the poles. Without
this movement the poles would be colder and the equator warmer. The
oceans play an important role in determining the atmospheric concentration
of CO2. Changes in ocean circulation may affect the climate through the
movement of CO2 into or out of the atmosphere.Earth orbital changes The earth makes one full orbit around the sun each year. It is tilted at an
angle of 23.5 to the perpendicular plane of its orbital path. Changes in the
tilt of the earth can lead to small but climatically important changes in the
strength of the seasons, more tilt means warmer summers and colder
winters; less tilt means cooler summers and milder winters. Slow changes in
the Earths orbit lead to small but climatically important changes in the
strength of the seasons over tens of thousands of years. Climate feedbacks
amplify these small changes, thereby producing ice ages.Solar variations The Sun is the source of energy for the Earths climate system. Although the
Suns energy output appears constant from an everyday point of view, small
changes over an extended period of time can lead to climate changes. Some
scientists suspect that a portion of the warming in the first half of the 20th
century was due to an increase in the output of solar energy. As the sun is

the fundamental source of energy that is instrumental in our climate system

it would be reasonable to assume that changes in the sun's energy output
would cause the climate to change. Scientific studies demonstrate that solar
variations have performed a role in past climate changes. For instance a
decrease in solar activity was thought to have triggered the Little Ice Age
between approximately 1650 and 1850, when Greenland was largely cut off
by ice from 1410 to the 1720s and glaciers advanced in the Alps.
Continental drift
You may have noticed something peculiar about South America and Africa on
a map of the world - don't they seem to fit into each other like pieces in a
jigsaw puzzle?
About 200 million years ago they were joined together! Scientists believe
that back then, the earth was not as we see it today, but the continents were
all part of one large landmass. Proof of this comes from the similarity
between plant and animal fossils and broad belts of rocks found on the
eastern coastline of South America and western coastline of Africa, which are
now widely separated by the Atlantic Ocean. The discovery of fossils of
tropical plants (in the form of coal deposits) in Antarctica has led to the
conclusion that this frozen land at some time in the past, must have been
situated closer to the equator, where the climate was tropical, with swamps
and plenty of lush vegetation.
The continents that we are familiar with today were formed when the
landmass began gradually drifting apart, millions of years back. This drift
also had an impact on the climate because it changed the physical features
of the landmass, their position and the position of water bodies. The
separation of the landmasses changed the flow of ocean currents and winds,
which affected the climate. This drift of the continents continues even today;
the Himalayan range is rising by about 1 mm (millimeter) every year
because the Indian land mass is moving towards the Asian land mass, slowly
but steadily.
The earths climate is influenced and changed through

Greenhouse Gases
Human activities result in emissions of four principal greenhouse gases:
carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O) and the halocarbons
(a group of gases containing fluorine, chlorine and bromine). These gases
accumulate in the atmosphere, causing concentrations to increase with time.

Significant increases in all of these gases have occurred in the industrial era
(see Figure 1). All of these increases are attributable to human activities.
Carbon dioxide has increased from fossil fuel use in transportation,
building heating and cooling and the manufacture of cement and other
goods. Deforestation releases CO2 and reduces its uptake by plants. Carbon
dioxide is also released in natural processes such as the decay of plant
matter.
Methane has increased as a result of human activities related to
agriculture, natural gas distribution and landfills. Methane is also released
from natural processes that occur, for example, in wetlands. Methane
concentrations are not currently increasing in the atmosphere because
growth rates decreased over the last two decades.
Nitrous oxide is also emitted by human activities such as fertilizer use and
fossil fuel burning. Natural processes in soils and the oceans also release
N2O.
Halocarbon gas concentrations have increased primarily due to human
activities. Natural processes are also a small source. Principal halocarbons
include the chlorofluorocarbons (e.g., CFC-11 and CFC-12), which were used
extensively as refrigeration agents and in other industrial processes before
their presence in the atmosphere was found to cause stratospheric ozone
depletion. The abundance of chlorofluorocarbon gases is decreasing as a
result of international regulations designed to protect the ozone layer.
surface mining and industrial processes have increased dust in the
atmosphere. Natural aerosols include mineral dust released from the surface,
sea salt aerosols, biogenic emissions from the land and oceans and sulphate
and dust aerosols produced by volcanic eruptions

Ozone is a greenhouse gas that is continually produced and destroyed in

the atmosphere by chemical reactions. In the troposphere, human
activities have increased ozone through the release of gases such as
carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons and nitrogen oxide, which chemically
react to produce ozone. As mentioned above, halocarbons released by
human activities destroy ozone in the stratosphere and have caused the
ozone hole over Antarctica.
Water vapour is the most abundant and important greenhouse gas in the
atmosphere. However, human activities have only a small direct influence on
the amount of atmospheric water vapour. Indirectly, humans have the
potential to affect water vapour substantially by changing climate. For
example, a warmer atmosphere contains more water vapour. Human
activities also influence water vapour through CH4 emissions, because CH4
undergoes chemical destruction in the stratosphere, producing a small
amount of water vapour.

 Aerosols are small particles present in the atmosphere with widely varying
size, concentration and chemical composition. Some aerosols are emitted
directly into the atmosphere while others are formed from emitted
compounds. Aerosols contain both naturally occurring compounds and those
emitted as a result of human activities. Fossil fuel and biomass burning have
increased aerosols containing sulphur compounds, organic compounds and
black carbon (soot). Human activities such as
Man-made (Anthropogenic) Causes
Most man-made causes of global warming result from an increase in
greenhouse gases, which are gases that trap or absorb infrared radiation
emitted from the planet.
Burning of Fossil Fuels
Carbon dioxide is the most significant cause of global warming, and most
carbon dioxide emissions result from the burning of fossil fuels. Each time a
fossil fuel burns, carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere increase. Carbon
dioxide absorbs infrared energy emitted from the earth, preventing it from
returning to space.

Electricity Production: Electricity generation through the burning of

fossil fuels accounts for 40 percent of carbon dioxide emissions in the
United States. Coal is the largest producer of carbon dioxide emissions,
giving off nearly twice as much carbon per energy unit as natural gas.

Automobiles: Carbon emissions from the burning of gasoline to power

cars, trucks, and other methods of transportation is one of the leading
global warming causes in the United States. Pollution created by cars
and light trucks accounts for nearly one-third of American carbon
emission, and emissions of carbon dioxide from airplanes is responsible
for an additional 3.5 percent of global warming.

Deforestation
All living plants are capable of storing carbon, but as the number of plants on
the planet declines, the amount of carbon dioxide free to build up in the
atmosphere increases. Moreover, decaying plants give off stored carbon,
thereby releasing a large abundance of carbon into the air during the
clearing of forests or grasslands for building purposes.
Fluorocarbons
Hydro-chlorofluorocarbons and chlorofluorocarbons are used in refrigeration.
While these gases occur in lower atmospheric concentrations than carbon
dioxide, they are substantially more potent.

Fertilizer Use
Each time humans add fertilizer to soil, nitrogen oxide escapes into the
atmosphere. Nitrogen oxides trap 300 times more heat per volume than
carbon dioxide, making fertilizer use in farming one of the leading causes of
global warming.
Mining
Mining oil and coal allows methane, a greenhouse gas, to escape from the
earth. Any time the soil is disturbed, stored gases make their way into the
environment.
Population Increase
As the population on Earth increases, food and housing demands also
increase. Manure from cattle, a primary food source worldwide, contributes
to methane gas levels. The cutting down of forests to make room for housing
and other buildings accounts for as much as 12 percent of carbon emissions