True Facts about Global Warming
By: Want To Know It
There are a lot of different people with different opinions about global warming. They all have different facts to support their different claims. But what are some of the real facts about global warming? Here are some of those facts, without any other commentary. You can make up you own mind about global warming, and whether or not humans are causing climate change.
- Carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere has increased in the last 100 years. It has gone from about 280ppm to 385ppm. It continues to increase each year.
- Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas. This is an undeniable fact. The physics of the greenhouse effect are simple. Greenhouse gases absorb radiation and release heat when they absorb this radiation. Without the greenhouse effect, I wouldn’t be here to write this post (and you wouldn’t be here to read it either). For more information on how the greenhouse effect works see ‘Who Discovered the Greenhouse Effect‘
- Water vapor accounts for about 98% of the total concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. However, water molecules only last in the atmosphere for a few hours. It causes about 40-70% of the the total greenhouse effect, because it is not as strong a greenhouse gas as carbon dioxide, methane and ozone.
- There have been rapid changes in climate in the past. At the end of the last Ice Age, the earth had a sudden decrease in temperature after it had previously been warming slowly for many years (that is why it was the end of the Ice Age).
- Temperature has increased somewhere between 0.56 to 0.92C (1.01 to 1.65F) in the last 100 years.
- According to NASA, the hottest five years (in order) are: 2005, 1998, 2002, 2003, 2004. The hottest ten years NASA has on record all took place in the last 14 years.
- Plants remove carbon dioxide from the air in a process known as photosynthesis. The ocean also absorbs some carbon dioxide.
- Carbon dioxide lasts in the atmosphere for over 100 years.
Know any other facts about global warming? Then leave a comment! Feel free to also comment on your opinion about global warming.
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3 Comments for True Facts about Global Warming
1. mildred lee holman | March 31st, 2009 at 6:27 pm
i think global worming is true
2. ellie | April 6th, 2009 at 2:30 pm
thomas friedman quoted a date: 2013 when the polar caps will be melted, how true is this?
3. Want to know it | April 7th, 2009 at 4:35 am
Any ‘future’ dates are based on computer models. According to some models, the polar caps will melt by 2013. However, others predict a much later time. Older models predicted the polar caps would have melted in the early 2000’s (clearly, they were wrong). We can never be sure if the models are accurate- as weather patterns are very unpredictable.
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