Global Warming

GLOBAL WARMING HISTORY

Relative to the period 1860–1900, global temperatures on both land and sea have increased by 0.75 °C (1.4 °F), according to the instrumental temperature record; the urban heat island is not believed to be significant. Since 1979, land temperatures have increased about twice as fast as ocean temperatures (0.25 °C/decade against 0.13 °C/decade) (Smith, 2005). Temperatures in the lower troposphere have increased between 0.12 and 0.22 °C per decade since 1979, according to satellite temperature measurements. Over the one or two thousand years before 1850, temperature is believed to have been relatively stable, with possibly regional fluctuations such as the Medieval Warm Period or the Little Ice Age.

Based on estimates by NASA's Goddard 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. Estimates prepared by the World Meteorological Organization and the UK Climatic Research Unit concluded that 2005 was the second warmest year, behind 1998.

The attribution of recent climate change is clearest for the most recent period of the last 50 years, for which the most detailed data are available.

Note that the anthropogenic emissions of other pollutants—notably sulphate aerosols—exert a cooling effect; this partially accounts for the plateau/cooling seen in the temperature record in the middle of the twentieth century, though this may also be due to intervening natural cycles.

INDEX

   Terminology
   History of warming
   Causes
Greenhouse gases in the atmosphere
Solar variation
   Attributed and expected effects
   Mitigation
Kyoto Protocol
   Climate models
   Other related issues
Ocean acidification
Relationship to ozone depletion
Relationship to global dimming
Pre-human global warming
Pre-industrial global warming                References