Climatic change: a review of causes

Abstract

The earth's climate is constantly changing. Climatic change is effected by many factors: the influence of continental drift, variations in solar intensity, volcanism, the impact of meteors and comets, changes in the earth's orbital parameters, ice accumulation and depletion, variations in oceanic circulations and chemistry, changes in terrestrial and aquatic life, and changes in atmospheric composition and circulation. Despite these influences, many of them large, and despite changes in the sun's radiant intensity over the past 4.5 billion years, the average temperature of the earth's surface has remained remarkably constant, hovering near 15 °C. This implies the presence of strong negative feedbacks reacting to any major environmental change. During the past century, man's influence on his environment has been increasing at an unprecedented rate. Under this influence, and particularly because of the effect of the so-called "greenhouse gases," the global mean temperature is expected to rise approximately 2.5 °C by the middle of the 21st century. There remains a degree of uncertainty in this prediction because of unresolved problems in estimating various positive and negative feedback mechanisms in air, earth, ocean, ice, and vegetation interaction and in the unknown magnitude of volcanic activity. The finest numerical models and the fastest computers are, at present, inadequate to resolve all of the problems. However, the best scientific evidence points to a return by the middle of the 21st century to a climate similar to that of the climatic optimum 5000–6000 years ago. The degree of confidence in the direction, speed, and magnitude of the impending climatic change is sufficient that affected agencies should be actively mapping strategies to respond most advantageously to the expected changes. This is particularly true of forestry in Canada where climatic changes are expected to be large and the lifetime of current plantings will extend well into the period of anticipated change.