Is Climate Change Real?

Scientific evidence for warming of the climate system is unequivocal.

- Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

Hi! For this time, i will write in my blog about an issue that i think sounded smaller nowadays  than issue about politic both before and after the ellection. This issue is...

Climate change.

Actually, I am not an expert for this. But one thing that I hold is: We dont have to be a master to start a kindness. So, I realize and very welcome for correction, criticism, and advice to both my grammar and information that exist bellow.

Okay, first, we need to clarify two concepts often mistaken for synonyms: climate change and global warming. There is an important difference between them, however, given that it is global warming that causes climate change. As the planet’s temperature rises more than it would naturally, the climate varies. Climate change is a change in the statistical properties of the climate system that persists for several decades or longer—usually at least 30 years. These statistical properties include averages, variability and extremes. Climate change may be due to natural processes, such as changes in the Sun’s radiation, volcanoes or internal variability in the climate system, or due to human influences such as changes in the composition of the atmosphere or land use.

Global warming is caused by the greenhouse effect. Greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, including water vapour, carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide, absorb heat energy and emit it in all directions (including downwards), keeping Earth’s surface and lower atmosphere warm. Adding more greenhouse gases to the atmosphere enhances the effect, making Earth’s surface and lower atmosphere even warmer. Human activities—especially the burning of fossil fuels since the start of the Industrial Revolution—have increased atmospheric CO₂ concentrations by about 40%, with more than half the increase occurring since 1970. Since 1900, the global average surface temperature has increased by about 0.8 °C (1.4 °F). This has been accompanied by warming of the ocean, a rise in sea level, a strong decline in Arctic sea ice, and many other associated climate effects. Long-term climate change over many decades will depend mainly on the total amount of CO₂ and other greenhouse gases emitted as a result of human activities.

Carbon dioxide (CO₂) has both natural and human sources, but CO₂ levels are increasing primarily because of the combustion of fossil fuels, cement production, deforestation (which reduces the CO₂ taken up by trees and increases the CO₂ released by decomposition of the detritus), and other land use changes. Increases in CO₂ are the single largest contributor to global warming. Methane (CH₄) has both human and natural sources, and levels have risen significantly since pre-industrial times due to human activities such as raising livestock, growing paddy rice, filling landfills, and using natural gas (which is mostly CH₄, some of which may be released when it is extracted, transported, and used). Nitrous oxide (N₂O) concentrations have risen primarily because of agricultural activities such as the use of nitrogen-based fertilisers and land use changes. Halocarbons, including chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), are chemicals used as refrigerants and fire retardants. In addition to being potent greenhouse gases, CFCs also damage the ozone layer. The production of most CFCs has now been banned, so their impact is starting to decline. However, many CFC replacements are also potent greenhouse gases and their concentrations and the concentrations of other halocarbons continue to increase.

The global temperature increase brings disastrous consequences, endangering the survival of the Earth’s flora and fauna, including human beings. The worst climate change impacts include the melting of the ice mass at the poles, which in turn causes rising sea level, producing flooding and threatening coastal environments through which small island states risk disappearing entirely. Climate change also increases the appearance of more violent weather phenomena, drought, fires, the death of animal and plant species, flooding from rivers and lakes, the creation of climate refugees and destruction of the food chain and economic resources, especially in developing countries.

Indonesia is a vast tropical archipelago with more than 17,000 islands, a population of 257.6 million, and Southeast Asia’s largest economy. Climate variability and change increasingly threaten Indonesia’s coastal population and infrastructure, as well as the country’s ecologically and economically important tropical forests and coastal ecosystems. Indonesia is vulnerable to other weather-related disasters such as forest and land fires, landslides, storms and drought that have destroyed infrastructure and degraded forest and coastal ecosystems, leading to loss of life, property, ecosystem services and livelihoods. For example, heavy rainfall in January 2013 inundated Jakarta, causing $550 million in loss and damage (Kirono et al. 2016).

USAID ATLAS 2017

A child's photograph sits on dry ground due to long dry season in India. Photo: Chinmoy Biswas/CIMEM 2018

Though often referred to, the term of climate change in Indonesia haven’t popular yet, particularly to be discussed by youth. Statement that climate change impact still so far to happen, totally not right. Actually we already feel the impact. It is just the impact that have appeared always relate to various other causes. So the impact that exists regarded as another problem and not effects of climate change.

Tropical forests store carbon on soils and trees. Tropical forests absorb carbon dioxide resulting from the burning of fossil fuels as an energy source. We need forests with large area  to muffle and fight climate change. However, in Indonesia, the peat swamp forest disappears due to the illegal logging, drought, expansion of palm land by being burned. Peatlands retain large carbon. When peatlands are dried and burned it will be a carbon bomb that releases nearly 2 billion tonnes of harmful CO₂ every year. Due to deforestation of peatlands and forests, Indonesia became a third pollutant country after the United States and China.

Since the last century, the Earth's temperature increased approximately 1.5 °F and is expected to continue up to 0.5-8.6 °F over the next 100 years (IPCC 2018). Animals and plants are difficult to adapt to this condition. If one species alone is extinct it will cause a domino effect on the food chain. There is no life of animals and plants and there is no human life. 

Rising Earth temperatures make the oceans hotter. Thus, it will increase the acidity of the sea water as CO₂ reacts with salt water. The increase of sea water acidity endangers marine animal life and is the main cause of coral reefs damage. The rise of sea water temperatures up to 4 degrees due to global warming will also spread around 89% of the coral reefs of the Western Pacific and the surrounding areas die. It will be a big problem. Because marine life can be primary source of protein.

Climate change also causes intense natural disasters such as floods, typhoons, heat waves, tornadoes, and even droughts. In Indonesia, the National Disaster Management Agency (BNPB) records in the last ten years there are approximately 17 thousand natural disasters in Indonesia occur due to climate change. In Indonesia, global warming impacts on the sinking of two parts of a village in Demak district, Central Java because of a flood of skirts. The impact of climate change also led to the sinking of 2000 small islands in the homeland in 2030. The analysis was published by the Ministry of Maritime and Fisheries and the United Nations in 2009.  

So, do u think climate change is real ?

And then, how can we take part for avoiding climate change ?