Climate change is usually regarded as a statistical approach to measuring how weather is distributed over a set length of time. This time period can be from a few decades to several million years. Today, climate change is often in reference to modern weather patterns and the climate change in recent years, specifically global warming.

Causes of Climate Change

Plate Tectonics: The movement of the plates of the Earth can gradually reshape and redistribute land masses and large bodies of water, affecting global weather patterns.

Solar Activity: The Sun often varies in the amount of energy that it delivers to the Earth over periods of time. These changes can affect weather patterns and cause climate change.

Orbit Changes: As the Earth orbits around the Sun, small changes can result in a change in the distribution of sunlight during the seasons.

Human Contributions: Activities such as carbon emission, deforestation, and land use can contributes to climate change and global warming.

Evidence of Climate Change

The melting of glaciers is one of the easiest ways to identify climate change. Over the past 17 years, glaciers have been shown to be regularly and drastically reducing. Similar to glaciers, ice cores can be drilled from sheets of ice in the poles and analyzed to discover changes in global climate of a number of years. Finally, sea level change can also be measured to support evidence provided by a reduction in world wide glaciers.