Global warming
From Envirowiki
Global warming generally refers to the increase of heat in the atmosphere and subsequently in the oceans. most often, it refers to increase of heat due to human influences such as greenhouse gas emissions.
Global Warming is easily misunderstood, as it actually refers to increase in the average global temperature, and not to all temperatures. It is possible that a higher average global temperature would actually cause more intense cold snaps in some regions[reference needed]. For this reason, as well as it causing other effects, it is frequently referred to with the more general climate change (especially in Europe, and Australia - in the US, "Global Warming" is still more common), which includes other effects, such as floods and droughts and secondary effects such as increased spread of disease.
[edit] 1 Basic Science of Global Warming
Anthropogenic Global Warming theory (AGW), rests on some basic points:
- That CO2 is a greenhouse gas. This was first show by John Tyndall ~1859.
- Hence that adding more CO2 to the atmosphere will gradually increase the over-all temperature of the biosphere.
- That CO2 levels are rising, as shown first by Charles Keeling in the 1950s, in Hawaii, but now also in many other monitoring stations all over the world.
- That the observed increase in CO2 levels is largely anthropogenic. This is understood by way of radioisotope dateing. There being no other know mechanisms that could account for the large increase.
- That temperatures are gradually rising. There are multiple programs that confirm this (ie. NASA's GISS, Hadley Centre's CRUT, etc.)
- Very close correlation of increase in CO2 levels and increase in temperature over the past ~150 years (ie. since the start of the industrial revolution), with no other mechanisms to account for the temperature increase.
Also, Paleoclimatology indicates that increased CO2 levels (eg. volcanic) have had a similar impact in the distant past.
