Humanity is Responsible For Climate Change
As seen on Slashdot this morning: Humanity Responsible For Current Climate Change. The Slashdot article cross-references 3 other articles, one from The LA Times headlined “Core Evidence That Humans Affect Climate Change”, one from the Guardian headlined “Sea level rise doubles in 150 years”, and a quote from The Times in an article headlined “Oceans rise at record rate as industrial age gathers momentum”.
The gist of it - and here I quote slashdot directly as they have kindly summarised it for me:
Scientists working with Antarctic ice have found that the level of greenhouse gases is at the highest level in over half a million years. Carbon dioxide is 27% higher now than any other time over the last 650 000 years. Methane, an even stronger greenhouse gas is 130% higher. The period of time studied covers eight full glacial cycles including a time when the earth’s position relative to the sun is the same as it is today.
Other scientists have found that the annual rate at which the sea has risen since the industrial revolution is twice that of over the last 5000 years. It is predicted that by 2100 the sea level will be 40cm higher. These results provide strong evidence that human activity since the industrial revolution, rather than just natural processes, has strongly altered the world’s climate.
As one of the scientists involved in the research put it: ‘The levels of primary greenhouse gases such as methane, carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide are up dramatically since the Industrial Revolution, at a speed and magnitude that the Earth has not seen in hundreds of thousands of years.’”
-DS
Technorati Tags: climate change, eco, environment, global warming, meltdown, modelling, the beginning of the end
