Climate Summit
2021 | Global
Climate Events | Climate
Congress | Global
Warming Meetings
Fortunately,
climatic change also leaves a variety of signatures in the natural world.
Climate influences the growth of trees and corals, the abundance and geographic
distribution of plant and animal species, the chemistry of oceans and lakes,
the accumulation of ice in cold regions, and the erosion and deposition of
materials on Earth’s surface. Most of these climate changes are attributed to
very small variations in Earth’s orbit that change the amount of solar energy
our planet receives. Ice cores drawn from Greenland, Antarctica, and tropical
mountain glaciers show that Earth’s climate responds to changes in greenhouse
gas levels. Ancient evidence can also be found in tree rings, ocean sediments,
coral reefs, and layers of sedimentary rocks. This ancient, or paleoclimate,
evidence reveals that current warming is occurring roughly ten times faster
than the average rate of ice-age-recovery warming. Carbon dioxide from human
activity is increasing more than 250 times faster than it did from natural
sources after the last Ice Age.