Global Warming

35 Amazing and Interesting Facts about Global Warming | Amazing Facts 4U

1. Global warming is the increase in the earth’s average surface temperature due to the effect of greenhouse gases. These greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane absorb heat that would otherwise escape from earth. Global warming has emerged has one of the biggest environmental issues in the two decades.
2. The earth is a natural greenhouse and is kept warm by water vapors, carbon dioxide (CO₂), and other gases in the atmosphere, which absorbs the sun’s energy and radiates it back toward the earth. This type of warming is called the “natural greenhouse effect.”
3. Enhanced greenhouse effect,” on the other hand, causes global warming due to excessive levels of CO₂ in the atmosphere.
4. Amazingly without the atmosphere to create a greenhouse-type effect, the average temperature on Earth would be just 5° Fahrenheit (F).
5. Natural levels of CO₂ in the atmosphere have varied throughout history between 180 and 300 parts per million (ppm). Current average global CO₂ levels are about 380 ppm, which is 25% more than the highest recorded natural levels.
6. The years 2005 & 2010 were the warmest on record and the years 1998 and 2007 were tied for the second warmest. In fact the nine warmest years on record have all occurred since 1998. Now 2014 has become the world’s hottest year on record, surpassing the previous records.
7. According to studies, average temperatures around the world have increased by 1.4° F since 1880, with most of the change occurring in recent decades.
8. Droughts, hurricanes, wildfires, extinction of endangered species, melting of polar ice caps, storms are a few of the effects of global warming.
9. Human activities release around 40 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide per year into the atmosphere. In fact, people dump carbon dioxide into the environment at 1000 tons per second.
10. During the twentieth century, the earth experienced two warming trends. The first was a burst in temperature from 1900-1930, and the second is a continuing increase in temperature beginning in the 1970s.
11. The last two decades of the twentieth century were the hottest decades in more than 400 years and may have been the hottest decades for several thousand years.
12. Scientists in fact expect a 3.5° F increase in average global temperatures by the year 2100, resulting in the warmest temperatures in the past million years.
13. Amazingly when the earth’s temperatures were roughly equivalent to today about 1.8 million years ago, sea levels were 12 to 18 feet higher.
14. Geologists expect sea levels could rise up to 2 feet by the end of the century if current warming trends continue.
15. It is estimated that Worldwide, about one hundred million people live within three feet of sea level in coastal areas. With global warming with the glaciers melting and the ocean levels rising cities such as London, New York, 2,100 Indonesian islands and other flat and low countries could be lost to the sea.
16. The first forced relocation due to the effects of climate change occurred in 2007 when 100 residents of Tegua Island in the Pacific Ocean were evacuated due to rising sea levels and subsequent flooding.
17. For the past million years, cool climate conditions have primarily prevailed throughout the world. The human species has evolved under these cool conditions.
18. The earth has always experienced cyclical bouts of climate change with occasional extreme periods such as the Little Ice Age of the 17 th & 18 th century and the Medieval Warm Period of the 11 th century.
19. Climate models predict the loss of Arctic sea ice earlier and more rapidly than the loss of Antarctic land ice if warming trends continue.
20. Since the 1950s, Arctic sea ice has declined by 15% and the average annual duration of northern lake and river ice has decreased by two weeks.
21. As Arctic ice disappears, it is believed that the Arctic will experience its first ice-free summer as early as the year 2040.
22. Average temperatures in the Arctic climates of Alaska, Canada, and Russia have risen at twice the global average in the last century.
23. The effects of global warming could destroy the habitats of and threaten extinction for over one million species of plants and animals.
24. Between the years 1961 and 1997, the world’s glaciers have lost about 900 cubic miles of ice.
25. In 1910, Glacier National Park in Montana boasted 150 glaciers today there are just 25.
26. Deserts worldwide are increasing as a result of warmer temperatures. Australia has lost 25% of crop production due to desertification.
27. Amazingly fossil fuel burning currently adds nearly six billion tons of CO₂ to the atmosphere every year. Roughly 75% of the annual increase in atmospheric CO₂ is due solely to the burning of fossil fuels. Only half of this CO₂ is removed by forests and oceans. Fossil fuels are the most dangerous contributors to global warming.
28. The vast majority of emitted CO₂ is a result of fossil fuel burning in power plants for electricity generation.
29. Rampant deforestation currently causes 20% of the world’s global warming pollution by reducing the reabsorption of CO₂.
30. The earth’s atmosphere now contains 40% more CO₂ than before the Industrial Revolution.
31. The United States represents less than 5% of the world’s population, yet Americans account for 25% of the world’s commercial energy consumption and 22% of the world’s industrial emissions of CO₂.
32. Cars are responsible for three-quarters of all transportation emissions. Amazingly at the current rate, the world will be driven on by more than a billion cars in 2030 and a billion more by 2050. About 20% of CO₂ emitted into the atmosphere comes from the gasoline burned in motor vehicle engines.
33. Due to global warming and pollution, coral reefs are suffering the worst bleaching with the highest dying record since 1980. Rising water levels put fragile coral reefs in danger as it relies on sunlight to survive.
34. The gases stay in the atmosphere for years. Amazingly even if emissions were eliminated entirely today, global warming would continue as a result of all the built-up carbon dioxide. That could cause temperatures and sea levels to rise for at least a century after the emissions stop.
35. It is estimated that the world will invest some $20 trillion in new energy research over the next 25 years in an attempt to slow the effects of global warming.

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By Amazing Facts 4U Team

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