Which change would be considered a short-term environmental change? Check all that apply.
Answers
Explanation:
Climate, if it changes at all, evolves so slowly that the difference cannot be seen in a human lifetime. That was the opinion of most people, and nearly all scientists, through the first half of the 20th century. To be sure, there were regional excursions, such as long spells of drought in one place or another. But people expected that after a few years "the weather" would automatically drift back to its "normal" state, the conditions they were used to. The planet's atmosphere was surely so vast and stable that outside forces, ranging from human activity to volcanic eruptions, could have no more than a local and temporary effect.
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Full discussion in
<=Public opinion
<=Simple models
Looking to times long past, scientists recognized that massive ice sheets had once covered a good part of the Northern Hemisphere. The Ice Age was tens of thousands of years in the past, however, and it had been an aberration. During most of the geological record, the Earth had been bathed in uniform warmth — such was the fixed opinion of geologists. As one meteorologist complained as late as 1991