Global Warming

Embed Doc
Copy Link
Readcast
Collections

CommentGo Back

Download

Global warming

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to:navigation,search Global mean surface temperatures 1856 to 2005.Mean surface temperature anomalies during the period 1995 to 2004 with respect to the averagetemperatures from 1940 to 1980.

Global warming

is the observed increase in the average temperatureof the E arth's atmosphereandoceans in

recent

decades. The Earth's average near-surface atmospheric temperature rose 0.6 ± 0.2 °Celsius(1.1 ±0.4 °Fahrenheit) in the 20th century[1]. The currentscientific consensusis that "most of the observed warming over the last 50 years is likely tohave beenattributable to human activities"[2]. The extent of this consensus was the subject of a study— published in December 2004 in the journal

—that considered the abstracts of 928 refereedscientific articles in theISI citation databaseidentified with the keywords "global climate change". Thisstudy concluded that 75% of the 928 articles either explicitly or implicitly accepted the consensus view — the remainder of the articles covered methods or paleoclimate and did not take any stance on recentclimate change[3] [4]. The primary causes of the human-induced component of warming are the increased amounts of carbondioxide(CO

2

) and other greenhouse gases (GHGs). They are released by the burning of fossil fuels, land clearing and agriculture, etc. and lead to an increase in the greenhouse effect. This effect was first described by Joseph Fourier in1824, and first investigated quantitatively in 1896 by the Swedish chemist Svante Arrhenius[6], although thegreenhouse effectdid not enter into popular awareness until the 1980's. Climate sensitivityis a measure of the equilibrium response to increased GHGs, and other anthropogenic and natural climate forcings. It is found by observational[7]andmodelstudies. This sensitivity is usually expressed in terms of the temperature response expected from a doubling of CO

2

in the atmosphere. The2001 IPCC reportestimates a likelyhood between 66% and 90% for a climate sensitivity in the range 1.5– 4.5 °C (2.7–8.1 °F)[8]. This should not be confused with the expected temperature change by a given date,which also includes a dependence on the future GHG emissions and a delayed response due to thermal lag, principally from the oceans. Models referenced by theIntergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

(IPCC), using a range of SRES scenarios, project that global temperatures will increase between 1.4 and5.8 °C (2.5 to 10.5 °F) between 1990 and 2100.An increase in global temperatures can in turn cause other changes, including a rising sea leveland changes in the amount and pattern of precipitation.These changes may increase the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events, such asfloods,droughts,heat waves,hurricanes, andtornados. Other consequences include higher or lower agricultural yields,glacial retreat,reduced summer stream flows, speciesextinctionsand increases in the ranges of diseasevectors. Warming is expected to affect the number and magnitude of these events; however, it is difficult to connect particular events to globalwarming. Although most studies focus on the period up to 2100, warming (and sea level rise due tothermal expansion) is expected to continue past then, since CO

2

has an estimated atmospheric lifetime of 50 to 200 years.[9].Only a small minority of climate scientists discount the rolethat humanity's actions have played in recent warming. However, the uncertaintyis more significant regarding how much climate change should be expected in the future, and there is a hotly contested political and public debateover implementation of policies that deal with predicted consequences, what, if anything, should be done toreduce or reverse future warming, and how todeal wi th the predicted consequences.

Historical warming of the Earth

See also:Temperature record of the past 1000 years

Two millennia of mean surface temperatures according to different reconstructions, each smoothed on adecadal scale. The unsmoothed, annual value for 2004 is also plotted for reference.Relative to the period 1860–1900, global temperatures on both land and sea have increased by 0.75 °C(1.4 °F), according to theinstrumental temperature record. Since 1979, land temperatures have increasedabout twice as fast as ocean temperatures (0.25 °C/decade against 0.13 °C/decade (Smith, 2005).Temperatures in the lower tropospherehave increased between 0.12 and 0.22 °C per decade since 1979,according tosatellite temperature measurements.Over the one or two thousand years before 1850, world temperature is believed to have been relatively stable, with possibly regional fluctuations such as theMedieval Warm Periodor the Little Ice Age. Based on estimates by NASA'sGoddard Institute for Space Studies,2005 was the warmest year since reliable, widespread instrumental measurements became available in the late 1800s, exceeding the previous record set in 1998 by a few hundredths of a degree Celsius. Similar estimates prepared by theWorld M eteorological Organizationand theUK Climatic Research Unitconcluded that 2005 was still only the second warmest year, behind 1998[11] [12]. Depending on the time frame, a number of temperature recordsare available. These are based on differentdata sets, with different degrees of precision and reliability. An approximately globalinstrumentaltemperature recordbegins in about 1860; contamination from theurban heat islandeffect is believed to be small and well controlled for. A longer-term perspective is available from various proxy records for recentmillennia; see temperature record of the past 1000 yearsfor a discussion of these records and their differences. Theattribution of recent climate changeis clearest for the most recent period of the last 50years, for which the most detailed data are available.Satellite temperature measurements of the tropospheric temperature date from 1979.

Causes

Main articles: Attribution of recent climate change and Scientific opinion on climate c hange

Carbon dioxideduring the last 400,000 years and the rapid rise since theIndustrial Revolution; changes in the Earth's orbit around the Sun, known asMilankovitch cycles, are believed to be the pacemaker of the100,000 year ice agecycle.The climate system varies both through natural, "internal" processes as well as in response to variations inexternal "forcing" from both human and non-human causes, including solar activity,volcani cemissions, andgreenhouse gases. Climatologists agree that the earth has warmed recently. The detailedcauses of this changeremain an active field of research, but the scientific consensus identifies greenhouse gases as the primary cause of the recent warming. Outside of the scientific community, however, this conclusion can becontroversial.Addingcarbon dioxide(CO

2

) or methane(CH

4

) to Earth's atmosphere, with no other changes, will makethe planet's surface warmer; greenhouse gases create a naturalgreenhouse effectwithout whichtemperatures on Earth would be an estimated 30 °C (54 °F) lower, and the Earth uninhabitable. It istherefore not correct to say that there is a debate between those who "believe in" and "oppose" the theorythat adding carbon dioxide or methane to the Earth's atmosphere will, absent any mitigating actions or effects, result in warmer surface temperatures on Earth. Rather, the debate is about what the net effect of the addition of carbon dioxide and methane will be, when allowing for compoundingor mitigating factors. One example of an important feedback process is ice-albedo feedback. The increased CO

2

in theatmosphere warms the Earth's surface and leads to melting of ice near the poles. As the ice melts, land or open water takes its place. Both land and open water are less reflective than ice, and so absorb more solar radiation. This causes more warming, which in turn causes more melting, and the cycle continues.Due to the thermal inertia of the earth's oceans and slow responses of other indirect effects, the Earth'scurrent climate is not in equilibrium with the forcing imposed by increased greenhouse gases. Climatecommitment studiesindicate that, even if greenhouse gaseswere stabilized at present day levels, a further warming of perhaps 0.5 °C to 1.0 °C (0.9–1.8 °F) would still occur.

Greenhouse gases in the atmosphere

Plots of atmosphericCarbon dioxideand global temperature during the last 650,000 years.Greenhouse gases are transparent toshortwave radiationfrom the sun. However, they absorb some of thelonger infrared radiationemitted as black body radiationfrom the Earth, thereby slowingradiational coolingand raising the 'equilibrium' temperature of the Earth. How much they warm the world by is shownin their global warming potential.

of 00

Leave a Comment