Assignment 15: Global Climate and Climate Change

Introduction

The climate of a region or city is its typical or average weather. For example, the climate of Hawaii is sunny and warm. But the climate of Antarctica is freezing cold. Earth's climate is the average of all the world's regional climates.

Climate change describes a change in the average conditions — such as temperature and rainfall — in a region over a long period of time. For example, 20,000 years ago, much of the United States was covered in glaciers. In the United States today, we have a warmer climate and fewer glaciers.

Global climate change refers to the average long-term changes over the entire Earth. These include warming temperatures and changes in precipitation, as well as the effects of Earth’s warming, such as:

• Rising sea levels
• Shrinking mountain glaciers
• Ice melting at a faster rate than usual in Greenland, Antarctica and the Arctic
• Changes in flower and plant blooming times.

Earth’s climate has constantly been changing — even long before humans came into the picture. However, scientists have observed unusual changes recently. For example, Earth’s average temperature has been increasing much more quickly than they would expect over the past 150 years.

Directions: 

1) This assignment is designed to assist you in learning the concepts of this module as well as assess your understanding and application of the content. 

2) This assignment has no time limit for completion and does not have to be completed in one sitting. Please do not click "Submit Assignment" until you have completed it. 

3) This assignment must be completed by the due date assigned or the course late policy will be applied. 

4) To begin this assignment, click the "Take the Quiz" button below.