Global warming- the facts

Is global warming real?Is it really getting warmer?Whom should we trust?What are the facts?

Global warming is real. Many people still see global warmning as a mere theory that has yet to be proved. It is not. It is a fact, that can be measured and in many areas of the Earth seen with your naked eyes.

So what are the facts?

• The concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere has been steadily rising since the beginning of industrialisation and the burning of fossil fuels.

• The world is without any doubt getting warmer and the warming is consistent with the amount of greenhousegases, we are emit-ting to the atmosphere.

• The rising temperatures can be measured in the air and in the ocean.

• The effect of the rising temperatures can be observed in rising sea levels, melting glaciers, longer growing seasons and shifting wildlife.

• The consequences of the global warming can be felt as more extreme weather all over the world.

These are but a few of the facts of global warming.

Here’s how the world’s most presti-gious scientific bodies put it in a joint statement signed by the heads of the national science academies in Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Rus-sia, the UK and the US:

“Climate change is real. There will always be uncertainty in under-standing a system as complex as the world’s climate. However there is now strong evidence that signifi-cant global warming is occurring. The evidence comes from direct measurements of rising surface air temperatures and subsurface ocean temperatures and from phenomena such as increases in average global sea levels, retreating glaciers, and changes to many physical and bio-logical systems.”

Global warming - The facts

The arctic sea ice is melting. The extend of the arctic sea ice var-ies from year to year, but the tendency is clear. The summer melt is increasing and normally ice-locked sea lanes are now open in the summer months. The dark sea i soaking up more heat and increasing the global warming. Even the Greenland ice cap is melting rapidly and the speed is increasing as a re-sult of higher than normal sum-mer temperatures.

The last decade from 2000 - 2009 is the hottest decade ever measured, leaving no doubt, that the global warming is real and is here to stay. From the late 1970s each decade has been warmer than the one before. And with very little sunspot activity or others factors that might offer an explanation, only the human caused emis-sions of greenhouse gasses can explain the rapidly warming world.

The sea is rising. It is not much yet, but enough to be felt in many places in the Pacific Ocean where the rising sea level is slowly destroying coastal areas and washing away houses on the shoreline. On many lowlying islands, seawater is seeping into the freshwater reservoirs because of the rising sea level destroying crops and making life impossible for the islanders.

Global average temperature 1850 - 2009Temperature differende from 1961 - 1990 average (°C)Source: The UK Met Office

Global warming - The facts

Spring arrives earlier each year. That is the conclusion from observations of the behaviour of a large number of plants and animals. In Northern Europe spring arrived 11 days earlier in the middle of the past decade than it did in the middle of the 70s, and the rate of change is growing. Signs of the changing seasons can be seen all over the world.

The weather is getting more ex-treme. There was more rainfall in 2010 than in any other year recorded. And the rain is get-ting more intense. Australia has started 2011 with record flood-ing. At the same time drought and heatwaves are more wide-spread and intense leading to more wildfires. The extreme weather already has severe con-sequences for people as well as for crops especially in the poor-er countries.

Corals are among the marine species most vulnerable to global warming. And they are dying. Coral bleaching is the first sign of stressed corals, and bleaching is now happening all over the world, in the Carib-bean as well as in the Pacific Ocean. If the too-warm sea tem-peratures continues, the corals will die. Coral reefs are home to 25 to 30 percent of all marine species.

One of the key indicators of a warming world is the shrink-ing glaciers all over the world. Glaciers are shrinking in North America, in the Andes in South America, in Alps and the Pyre-nees in Europe, in Africa and even in the Himalayas. Glacier National Park in Montana, USA had 190 glaciers when the park opened in 1910. Now there are less than 30 glaciers left and soon the park will have to be renamed.

Permafrost is frozen soil where only the thin top layer thaws during the summer. Arctic permafrost areas stores huge amounts of carbon, both as peat and as methane. But because of the rising temperatures in the arctic, the permafrost is retreat-ing. The southern limit of per-manently frozen ground is now more than 100 km further north than it was 50 years ago, and the emissions of methane from the arctic is rising.

All key indicators show a warmer world, global warming is real!Even the recent cold winters in northern Europe and North America

are clearly connected to global warming.And the facts tells us beyond any reasonable doubt, that the global warming

is man made. Denying the facts will only make things worse.

Global warming - The facts

NOAH Friends of the Earth Denmark