The Analytics of Climate Change
Climate change is one of the biggest challenges of my generation’s time. Climate change is already happening: drought and forest fires, extreme rises in temperature, and polar ice caps are melting.
We as one of the main inhabitants of this planet have a social responsibility to reduce and prevent our footprint. Emissions linked to human activities can be prevented and carefully monitored so as to make clean and environmentally conscious decisions.
The air we breathe contains many gases, These gases — especially CO2, nitrous oxide (N2O) and methane (CH4) — absorb radiation from the Earth’s surface as well as clouds and gas molecules and then trap it as heat within the lower levels of the atmosphere. Through the usage of data analytics tools, we can map the rise of these gases to gain a better sense of the reason for rising temperature.
The image above represents the change in temperature from 1983 to 2008. The temperature in this case is represented by the difference in degrees Celsius between the average global temperature in that period and a certain reference value. It is clear that this difference increases dramatically through the years.
The graphs to the left represent the extreme rises in temperature of the various gases that make up the “Greenhouse Effect”.
CO2- Carbon Dioxide is not the most powerful greenhouse gas, but is the most common and is the largest contributor to climate change
CH4-Each methane molecule has 25 times the global warming potential of a carbon dioxide molecule.
N2O- A single nitrous oxide molecule has 298 times the global warming potential of a carbon dioxide molecule.
Because Carbon Dioxide is the most common greenhouse gas we may as ourselves how much does it really correlate with the rise in temperature and is this correlation a reliable one? Using linear regression tools, we are able to model the relationship between Carbon Dioxide and temperature.
After performing a linear regression model, we observe a clear relationship between temperature and Carbon Dioxide.
Note that the p-value, is extremely small. P-values in a linear regression model that are <0.05 declare a significance to the model and imply reliability. The linear regression model between temperature and Carbon Dioxide having a p-value of 2.2e-16 significes a strong correlation between the two variables.
So, yes, the Carbon Dioxide we are emitting into the atmosphere is directly affecting global warming.
Another important factor to consider when analyzing climate change trends is the Multivariate El Niño/Southern Oscillation, or more commonly, the MEI. The MEI is a “naturally occurring anomalous state of tropical Pacific coupled ocean-atmosphere conditions” — used as the primary predictor for global climate disruptions. This cyclical weather pattern influences temperature and rainfall across the global.
Although the MEI seems to vary quite a bit over the years, depicting its seemingly lowering trend is important. If we can predecit the MEI, we can predict its associated extreme events. Better estimations of the MEI of where and when extreme weather may occur can help people prepare for natural disasters as well as prevent them.
The MEI’s variation leads us to conclude that natural disasters go hand in hand with climate change. It is valuable to take a look at the trends in natural disaster frequency to see if a correlation exists between the frequency and the rise in temperature.
Taking a look at the above graph, we notice a clear corrrelation between the rise in temperature we observed, and the rise in natural disasters. It is important to note, though, that reporting and recording of events today is much more advanced and complete than in the past. This can lead to underreporting or uncertainty of events in the distant past. Still, the increase in natural disasters is no mistake, it occurs as a direct result of global warming.
The increase in Earth’s temperature and the increase of Greenhouse Gases is significant enough for us to worry. Human activities, especially careless emissions of heat-trapping gases from fossil fuel combustion, the cutting down of forests, and the conversion of land into agricultural areas, are the primary drivers of the climate changes observed on our planet. We must not take this lightly and pledge to actively choose environmental consciousness.
The data used for this analysis comes from : https://ourworldindata.org/natural-disasters and https://www.kaggle.com/vageeshabudanur/riseintemp-dataset
