The future with climate change

H2 Geography - syllabus 9173, 2027

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Use past climates and present evidence to explain warming, trace unequal impacts, and evaluate mitigation and adaptation.

• Quaternary climates and proxy evidence

  Ice and ocean cores preserve indirect climate evidence. Comparing dated records reveals repeated warming and cooling, with uncertainty that must be assessed.

• Solar change and ice-albedo feedback

  Changes in incoming energy can start a climate response. Growing reflective ice can amplify cooling; melting ice can amplify warming.

• Thermohaline circulation and climate

  Temperature and salinity affect seawater density. Changes in deep-water formation alter ocean heat transport and can interact with climate feedbacks.

• Human changes to the carbon cycle

  Burning fossil carbon and weakening sinks add carbon faster than land and oceans remove it, increasing the atmospheric store.

• Greenhouse warming and attribution

  The greenhouse mechanism, observations and attribution studies agree that human influence is the main cause of contemporary global warming.

• Carbon and climate feedbacks

  A feedback returns to the original change. Human emissions can trigger amplifying responses as well as limited stabilising responses.

• Climate impacts through ecosystems

  Climate changes ecosystems, and those changes affect food, water, livelihoods and protection. Trace the full chain to the people affected.

• Unequal impacts of climate change

  Climate change is spatially uneven, and vulnerability is unequal. Local gains do not cancel losses experienced by other places or groups.

• Uncertainty in climate impacts

  Uncertainty has several sources. Identify which one matters to the claim rather than treating all climate knowledge as equally uncertain.

• Mitigation through emissions and sinks

  Mitigation reduces greenhouse-gas emissions or enhances their removal. Judge the net effect, durability and trade-offs of each strategy.

• Adaptation choices and limits

  Adaptation adjusts to climate effects. It works best when it reduces vulnerability without locking people into greater future risk.

• Firms, NGOs and states in climate action

  States set conditions, firms provide investment and expertise, and NGOs can connect knowledge and communities. Their roles work best with clear accountability.

• Why climate responses succeed or fail

  Success depends on capacity, incentives, politics and uncertain future conditions, as well as the technical design.