Climate Change

Private and industrial carbon dioxide emissions will cause significant global environmental damage ("global warming") unless action is taken to reduce the level of carbon in the atmosphere.

Over the past 100 years, the Earth's global mean surface temperature has increased by between 0.4° to 0.8° Celsius. The World Meteorological Organization reports that the 10 warmest years in the past 140 have all occurred since 1983. Some of this change may be natural, but over the past 200 years human activity has altered the world's atmosphere, and there is increasing evidence that these atmospheric changes are having an influence on the climate through the enhanced greenhouse effect. *

This temperature change may not seem drastic at first glance, however even changes as small as 1 degree Celsius can have a dramatic effect on the Earth as we know it.

The effects of global warming are already in evidence. Global warming may cause regional rain patterns to change, while melting glaciers and the thermal expansions of seawater may raise global sea levels by between 15 and 95 cm by the year 2100.

 

This image shows the instrumental record of global average temperatures as compiled by the Climatic Research Unit of the University of East Anglia and the Hadley Centre of the UK Meteorological Office. Ref

Ref: Bruce C. Douglas (1997). "Global Sea Rise: A Redetermination". Surveys in Geophysics 18: 279-292. Ref

Both figures were prepared from publicly available data by Robert A. Rohde and are incorporated into the Global Warming Art project.

The Greenhouse Effect

A Diagram of the Greehouse EffectThe main gases in the Earth's atmosphere, nitrogen and oxygen, are almost completely transparent to the sun's rays. But water vapour, carbon dioxide and other gases form a blanket around the Earth, trapping heat. This process is known as the greenhouse effect. Human activity is increasing atmospheric concentrations of existing greenhouse gases (such as carbon dioxide and methane). A number of experts believe that these gases are linked to global warming and climate change by way of an enhanced greenhouse effect.

* (from Australian Bureau of Statistics Australia Now, Measuring Australia's Progress. The Headline Indicators: Greenhouse Gases 1370.0-2002) Relative to 1990, average annual temperatures may increase by 0.4° to 2° C by 2030 and by 1 to 6° Celsius by 2070 (CSIRO — Commonwealth (of Australia) Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation).