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Climate Change : Global Warming

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Donya Curtis
April 19, 2017
English 1001-rough draft
Global Warming Global warming ' is one facet of the broader term 'climate change. It is the increase in the average temperature of the Earth 's surface air and oceans from the mid 20th century and the projected continuation. The Global warming is primarily the consequence of building up greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere. Emission rates for most important anthropogenic greenhouse gas, CO2, have increased 120 fold in the past 140 years. While in the 19th century, emissions were mostly from deforestation and the other land use changes, now they are predominantly from burning fossil fuels. As CO2 in the atmosphere has the lifetime of more than a century, the historic emissions play the …show more content…

Today, developed countries like the United States, Germany, Japan and many others with only 26 percent of the Globe 's population, are responsible for more than 70 percent of accumulated greenhouse gas pollution in the atmosphere. If we take a global average, then each person on the planet is responsible for the emission of approx 6000 kg of GHG emissions every year. In the developed countries, it is 14,000 kg per person. The USA tops the list with 24,000 kg per person, and at bottom of the list comes Chad with 30 kg per person.
Earth 's climate changes in response, to external forcing, include variations in its orbit around the Sun, changes in the solar luminosity, atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations and volcanic eruptions. Detailed causes of the warming remain an active field of research, although the scientific consensus is that increase in atmospheric greenhouse gasses by human activity caused most of the warming observed since the start of the industrial era. None of these effects of forcing are instantaneous. The thermal inertia of the Earth 's oceans and very slow responses of the other indirect effects mean that Earth 's current climate is surely not in equilibrium with forcing imposed. The Climate commitment studies indicate that even if the greenhouse gasses were stabilized on 2000 levels, a further warming of approximately 0.5 deg;C will still occur.

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