Global Climate Change
...now most obvious that earth is becoming warmer as a whole. In fact, the ten hottest years ever recorded in history all fall within the last fourteen year time period, with the year 2005 as the hottest recorded year ever. Far from being a skeptical argument, the concern is now a topic of global interest. Global warming and greenhouse gases have become two words of intense discussion in almost every arena.
Global warming:
Global warming was once an uncommon term used by a few scientists who were growing concerned over the effects of decades of pollution on long-term weather patterns. Today, the idea of global warming is well known, if not well understood. It is not unusual to hear someone complaining about a hot day or a freak storm and remark, "It's global warming."
Global warming is a significant increase in the Earth's climatic temperature over a relatively short period of time as a result of the activities of humans.
In specific terms, an increase of 1 or more Celsius degrees in a period of one hundred to two hundred years would be considered global warming. Over the course of a single century, an increase of even 0.4 degrees Celsius would be significant. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a group of over 2,500 scientists from countries across the world, convened in Paris in February, 2007 to compare and advance climate research. The scientists determined that the Earth has warmed .6 degrees Celsius between 1901 and 2000. When the timeframe is advanced by five years, from 1906 to 2006, the scientists found that the temperature increase was .74 degrees Celsius. Other observations from the IPCC include:
The warming trend of the last 50 years is nearly double that of the last 100 years, meaning that the rate of warming is increasing.
The ocean’s temperature has increased at least to depths of 3,000 meters (over 9,800 feet); the...
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