Lesson 13: Personal Examples of Climate Change

The climate changes. It's what it does. We just learned this week about how the Earth has gone through many hot and cold shifts. Through ice cores, fossil pollen, tree rings, and other proxy data, scientists have concluded this much and the evidence for it is increasing.This graph to the right illustrates their findings. It shows the estimated average global temperature differences over the last 8 million years. You can see there has been times where the average temperature was much lower, and times where it is much higher.

For us, we are in a time where the average global temperature is rising. While human processes may be causing this process to quicken, it is part of a natural cycle of heating and cooling. I can't say that I've seen noticeable changes in my lifetime as far as heat go, but this was a really cool website where you can look up temperature trends in your country, state, or even region. https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cag/time-series/us/10/9/tavg/ytd/12/1967-2017?base_prd=true&firstbaseyear=1901&lastbaseyear=2000. When I graphed Idaho's (pictured on left) over the past 100 years or so, it did look like it was, on average going up, if just slightly. Other data I've looked at also confirms this. This doesn't mean it's always going to be a warmer summer than the next, but over a long period of time, you can see the shift.

Additionally, just to further illustrate how climate change may affect people in the future, this is an article from my local news station about how deadly heat waves are becoming more common because of climate change. http://www.localnews8.com/news/national-world/deadly-heat-waves-becoming-more-common-due-to-climate-change/552114759. Overall, the climate is changing. We can ignore it until it is too late, or try to learn as much as we can to better prepare ourselves for this natural part of Earth's processes.