What Is The Cause Of Climate Change In Nebraska?

Weather can be defined as the state of the atmosphere including movements of energy like wind and precipitation. Climate is the generally prevailing weather patterns of a region. The climate of a region is made up of the different weather patterns. The weather patterns are usually repetitive according to the seasons. Where I’m from in southwest Nebraska it snows in the winter, rains in the spring, and is hot in the summer. The question is, has the weather and climate always been like this in Nebraska? We have proof that climate has changed in the past. Seventy million years ago there may have not been any ice on the North Pole. The region was most likely covered in forest. The amazing part of this hypothesis is that without the polar ice caps
(Pg. 15) The “Third Assessment Report” released by the IPCC in 2001 found that our planet has shown clear signs of warming over the past century. Since 1960 snow and ice cover has decreased by about ten percent, and mountain glaciers are in retreat everywhere except near the poles. Paralleling the changes in the climate is an unprecedented increase in the concentration of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere. This increase is produced by human activities such as burning fossil fuels, the clearing of vegetation, and in the case of methane, cattle and rice production. Not for at least the last four-hundred and twenty years has there been so much carbon dioxide and methane in the atmosphere. (Pg. 15-16) What will happen if we continue to emit increasing amounts of gasses into the atmosphere, and global warming continues to increase? According to the Third Assessment Report, between 1990 and 2100, average global temperatures will rise by at least 1.4°C, and by as much as 5.8°C. Although these average rises in temperature might seem small, even a 1°C rise in the average temperature would be greater than any change that has occurred in a single century in the past ten-thousand years. Moreover, some regional changes will be more
I believe the best and most effective answer to that question is reduce the amount of energy that we use. The first and simplest step is to reduce your power consumption. Creating power is one of the largest uses of fossil fuels which means the less power made, the less fossil fuels used. Everybody can use less power by simply turning off lights and unplugging appliances when not in use. Most appliances continue to consume power even after they have been turned off, if everybody just unplugged their electronics or switched off the power strip energy would become a lot more sustainable. Another huge problem with the world is automobiles. While most people love their cars and don’t want to lose the freedom to go anywhere their thoughts might be changed when they look at all the negatives cars produce. First, is all the time, energy, and resources used to make a car. Most car parts are made from expendable ores and minerals and then shipped across the globe. This not only uses up mineral reserves in the production of the parts but consumes large amounts of petroleum energy in the transportation process. Then, as everybody knows all these cars consume huge amounts of energy in the form of gas every day, this will deplete our oil supply in no time. Cars also need roads to drive on. Roads are the leading consumer of the United States mineral resources, and the