Earth’s climate is changing rapidly. We know this from billions of observations, documented in thousands of journal papers and texts and summarized every few years by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The primary cause of that change is the release of carbon dioxide from burning coal, oil and natural gas. The carbon dioxide that accumulates in the atmosphere insulates the surface of the Earth. It’s like a warming blanket that holds in heat. This energy increases the Earth’s surface average temperature, heats the oceans and melts polar ice. As consequences, sea level rises and weather changes. Since 1880, after carbon dioxide emissions took off with the Industrial Revolution, the average global temperature has increased about 1.5F (0.85C). Each of the last three decades has been warmer than the preceding decade, as well as warmer than the entire previous century. The Arctic is warming much faster than the average global temperature; ice in the Arctic Ocean is melting and the permafrost is thawing. Ice sheets in both the Arctic and Antarctic are melting. Ecosystems on both land and in the sea are changing.
Posted on: Sun, 11 Jan 2015 19:28:01 +0000
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