Introductory Chapter: Lake Urmia - A Witness to the Simultaneous Effects of Human Activities, Climate Change, and Global Warming

Abstract

Additional information is available at the end of the chapter 1. Climate change and global warming In spite of the irregular behavior on a daily basis, observations show that, in the atmospheric character of some geographic area, there is some long-time regularity. However, in the twentieth century, the world temperature increased which influenced the world climate. Climate scientists reported that humankind's growing emission of greenhouse gases will make the long-term change in the climate and global temperature. As organizations, governments, and people have moved onward with strategies and actions to decrease greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, to adapt to the impacts of climate change, the need for information to support climate-related decisions has grown rapidly in recent years. There is a lack of credible information system to inform climate adoptions and estimate their efficiency. Greenhouse gases enter the atmosphere through burning coal, natural gas, oil, solid waste, wood products, and trees. The greenhouse gases are emitted during the production and transport of fossil fuels or as a result of livestock and other agricultural practices. Changes in greenhouse gas emissions are influenced by many long-and short-term factors. Larger releases of greenhouse gases result in higher concentrations in the atmosphere. However, as a part of the biological carbon cycle via a certain chemical reactions, carbon dioxide, as a main greenhouse gas, is removed from the atmosphere when it is absorbed by plants. The removal and emissions of greenhouse gases by natural processes tend to balance. Human activities, since the industrial revolution, by adding heat-trapping gases to the atmosphere, have contributed substantively to climate change. It seems that there are enough scientific evidences to prove that the greenhouse gases caused the climate alteration and global warming [11]. In addition, we realized that global temperature was increased over the last decades. However