Dr Waseem Razzaq Khan, head of the carbon programme at the Faculty of Agriculture and Forestry Sciences, Universiti Putra Malaysia Bintulu Campus (centre) with his students (from left) Haziq, Eliani, Iffah, Haziq Adilah and Ajmal.CLIMATE and weather are distinct concepts even though they are closely interconnected.
While weather refers to the temporary and rapidly changing conditions, climate establishes the enduring characteristics of a specific location such as whether it is temperate or tropical.
The correlation between weather and climate is vital as climate governs temperatures, weather variability, winter characteristics, precipitation amounts, and the characteristics of meteorological events, such as the intensity of storms.
The intricate correlation between these factors is responsible for the occurrence of elevated temperatures, increased frequency of extreme weather events and heightened occurrences of natural disasters as a consequence of climate change.
The earth atmosphere actually consists of many types of gases including those categorised as greenhouse gases.
Greenhouse gases are defined as the gases that are capable of absorbing the heat emitted from the sun that later can contribute to the greenhouse effect.
The heat from the sun that is supposedly reflected back to the space after reaching the earth surface is now trapped in the earth atmosphere due to the presence of the greenhouse gases.
The greenhouse gases naturally in the earth atmosphere. The greenhouse gases that can be found in the atmosphere almost at all levels are water vapours (H2O), carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), ozone (O3), nitrogen oxide (NO2) Hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), Perfluorocarbons (PFCs), Sulphur hexafluoride (SF6) and Nitrogen trifluoride (NF3).
Increasing industrial activities on a massive scale have led to the excessive release of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere which can be detrimental to the living organisms on earth.
Massive producers of greenhouse gases due to human activities are cattle production and the oil and gas industry for methane gas, deforestation activities and fossil fuel burning while nitrous oxide is emitted from the agricultural activities and wastewater treatment.
According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency (2021), gases that contribute the most to the greenhouse effect are the carbon dioxide gas which consists of 79 per cent of the greenhouse emission followed by the methane gas as much as 11.5 per cent, nitrous oxide (6.2 per cent) and other gases (3 per cent).
These greenhouse gases play a huge role in changing the climate of the earth.
Initially, the greenhouse gases maintain the warm temperature which is essential for living organisms to thrive on earth.
The absence of these gases will make the temperature on earth too cold or not optimum enough for living organisms to thrive.
The excess amount of the greenhouse gases currently has presently led to changes of the weather patterns.
The excess amount of greenhouse gases from anthropogenic or human activities traps more heat, increases the mean temperature and causes abnormal climate events such as droughts and typhoons to occur more often.
With a warmer earth atmosphere now, events like glacier melting will happen. thus increasing the global sea level. The rise in sea water temperature can affect the weather, leading to the extreme weather like typhoons that cause destruction.
Droughts can come from climate change caused by global warming. Droughts can affect human lives, agricultural activities, food production and food security.
Greenhouse gases, which occur naturally occur in the environment, help the life on earth to thrive, but increased industrialisation and other human activities have made the greenhouse gases increase uncontrollably.
Efforts to reduce the greenhouse gases must be supported by all people.
Society must always support the green lifestyle which reduces the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
