The scientific phenomenon in which carbon dioxide absorbed by the ocean changes the water’s ph balance, making it more acidic. Often referred to as “the sister problem to climate change.” Organisms that build calcium carbonate shells for themselves are the first to be negatively effected by OA as they are unable to pull the carbonate they need from [..]

The amount of light or radiation reflected by a surface of the Earth. Using a spectroradiometer, albedo is calculated by dividing reflected light by incident light. A change in albedo is crucial to the many glacier examples used to prove the existence of climate change because it drastically affects the water temperature, sea level, glacial melt an [..]

The resulting effect of human activity on any object. Here, it is used as a categorical descriptor of climate change.

The frozen portion of the Earth’s surface that is the second largest component to climate change. It includes snow, river and lake ice, sea ice, glaciers and ice caps, ice shelves, ice sheets and frozen ground. It is a significant aspect of climate change study due to how crucial and visible its transformations are.

Derived from the words permanent and frost, permafrost is a classification of soil or ground. It can be classified as continuous, discontinuous and sporadic depending on how much of the land it covers. In general, permafrost gets colder and thicker — up to 1500 meters — farther north and in some cases can melt and refreeze. Thawing of permafrost ca [..]