"Responding To Climate Change"

     Climate changes in response to changes in the global energy balance. On the broadest scale, the rate at which energy is received from the sun and the rate at which it is lost to space determine the equilibrium temperatu re and climate of Earth. This energy is then distributed around the globe by winds, ocean currents, and other mechanisms to affect the climates of different regions. 

      Climate change is a significant and lasting change in the statistical distribution of weather patterns over periodsranging from decades to millions of years. It may be a change in average weather conditions or the distribution of events around that average. Climate change may be limited to a specific region or may occur across the whole earth.

      Global climate change has already had observable effects on the environment. Glaciers have shrunk, ice on rivers and lakes is breaking up earlier, plant and animal ranges have shifted and trees are flowering sooner.

Effects that scientists had predicted in the past would result from global climate change are now occuring: loss of sea ice, accelerated sea level rise and longer, more intense heat waves.