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A change in the type, distribution and coverage of vegetation may occur given a change in the climate. Some changes in climate may result in increased precipitation and warmth, resulting in improved plant growth and the subsequent sequestration of airborne CO 2. Though an increase in CO 2 may benefit plants, some factors can diminish this increase.
Future global warming potential for long lived drivers like carbon dioxide emissions is not represented. The scientific community has been investigating the causes of climate change for decades. After thousands of studies, it came to a consensus, where it is "unequivocal that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, ocean and land since pre ...
Common and special causes are the two distinct origins of variation in a process, as defined in the statistical thinking and methods of Walter A. Shewhart and W. Edwards Deming. Briefly, "common causes", also called natural patterns, are the usual, historical, quantifiable variation in a system, while "special causes" are unusual, not ...
Climate change can also be used more broadly to include changes to the climate that have happened throughout Earth's history. [38] Global warming—used as early as 1975 [39] —became the more popular term after NASA climate scientist James Hansen used it in his 1988 testimony in the U.S. Senate. [40] Since the 2000s, climate change has ...
Milankovitch studied changes in these movements of the Earth, which alter the amount and location of solar radiation reaching the Earth. This is known as solar forcing (an example of radiative forcing). Milankovitch emphasized the changes experienced at 65° north due to the great amount of land at that latitude.
Genetic variation is the difference in DNA among individuals [1] or the differences between populations among the same species. [2] The multiple sources of genetic variation include mutation and genetic recombination. [3] Mutations are the ultimate sources of genetic variation, but other mechanisms, such as genetic drift, contribute to it, as well.
Evolutionary biology. Genetic drift, also known as random genetic drift, allelic drift or the Wright effect, [1] is the change in the frequency of an existing gene variant (allele) in a population due to random chance. [2] Genetic drift may cause gene variants to disappear completely and thereby reduce genetic variation. [3]
Solar activity and climate. Solar irradiance (yellow) plotted with temperature (red) since 1880. Patterns of solar irradiance and solar variation have been a main driver of climate change over the millions to billions of years of the geologic time scale. Evidence that this is the case comes from analysis on many timescales and from many sources ...