News tagged with global warming
Ocean microbe communities changing, but long-term environmental impact is unclear
As oceans warm due to climate change, water layers will mix less and affect the microbes and plankton that pump carbon out of the atmosphere but researchers say it's still unclear whether these processes ...
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Feb 09, 2012 |
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Ocean warming causes elephant seals to dive deeper
Global warming is having an effect on the dive behaviour and search for food of southern elephant seals. Researchers from the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in the Helmholtz Association cooperating ...
Feb 09, 2012 |
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Global warming could kill off snails
(PhysOrg.com) -- Climate change models must be reworked in a bid to save some of the worlds smallest and slimiest creatures from extinction, a Flinders University PhD candidate warns.
Feb 07, 2012 |
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ASU, Stanford examine implications of bioenergy crops
A team of researchers from Arizona State University, Stanford University and Carnegie Institution for Science has found that converting large swaths of land to bioenergy crops could have a wide range of effects ...
Feb 01, 2012 |
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Earth's energy budget remained out of balance despite unusually low solar activity
(PhysOrg.com) -- A new NASA study underscores the fact that greenhouse gases generated by human activity -- not changes in solar activity -- are the primary force driving global warming.
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Jan 30, 2012 |
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Climatic warming-induced change in timings of 24 seasonal divisions in China since 1960
Changes of seasonal cycles are important to social and economic activities, agricultural planning in particular. Qian et al. quantified changes in the timings of 24 seasonal divisions conventionally known ...
Jan 24, 2012 |
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Ecologists gain insight into the likely consequences of global warming
A new insight into the impact that warmer temperatures could have across the world has been uncovered by scientists at Queen Mary, University of London.
Jan 20, 2012 |
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New study evaluates impact of land use activity in the Amazon basin
A new paper published today in Nature reveals that human land use activity has begun to change the regional water and energy cycles-the interplay of air coming in from the Atlantic Ocean, water transpiration by the forest ...
Jan 18, 2012 |
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Climate balancing: Sea-level rise vs. surface temperature change rates
Engineering our way out of global climate warming may not be as easy as simply reducing the incoming solar energy, according to a team of University of Bristol and Penn State climate scientists. Designing the approach to ...
Jan 18, 2012 |
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Tropical clouds hold clues for the global water cycle
(PhysOrg.com) -- To study the wellspring of atmospheric water, you have to start with tropical clouds. Scientists at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory showed that global climate models are not accurately ...
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Jan 16, 2012 |
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New study urges smart targeting of pollution sources to save lives and climate
Researchers at the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) at the University of York have played a key role in a new study that shows that implementing 14 key air pollution control measures could slow the pace of global warming, ...
Jan 13, 2012 |
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India 'won't sign binding emissions pact': minister
India said Tuesday it would reject any global pact legally binding it to cut greenhouse gas emissions as such a move could stifle economic growth needed to eradicate poverty.
Dec 27, 2011 |
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In hot water: Ice Age findings forecast problems
(PhysOrg.com) -- The first comprehensive study of changes in the oxygenation of oceans at the end of the last Ice Age (between about 10 to 20,000 years ago) has implications for the future of our oceans under global warming. ...
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Dec 20, 2011 |
3.5 / 5 (8) |
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Scientists find genes to tackle climate change in outback rice
(PhysOrg.com) -- University of Queensland scientists have discovered that an ancient relative of rice contains genes that could potentially save food crops from the devastating effects of global warming.
Dec 19, 2011 |
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Global warming threatens France's precious truffle
Truffle farmers have never had to worry about demand. It is the supply side that is worrying, with global warming an ever more present threats to their success.
Dec 15, 2011 |
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Global warming
Global warming is the increase in the average temperature of the Earth's near-surface air and oceans since the mid-20th century and its projected continuation. Global surface temperature increased 0.74 ± 0.18 °C (1.33 ± 0.32 °F) during the last century. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concludes that increasing greenhouse gas concentrations resulting from human activity such as fossil fuel burning and deforestation are responsible for most of the observed temperature increase since the middle of the 20th century. The IPCC also concludes that variations in natural phenomena such as solar radiation and volcanoes produced most of the warming from pre-industrial times to 1950 and had a small cooling effect afterward. These basic conclusions have been endorsed by more than 45 scientific societies and academies of science, including all of the national academies of science of the major industrialized countries.
Climate model projections summarized in the latest IPCC report indicate that the global surface temperature will probably rise a further 1.1 to 6.4 °C (2.0 to 11.5 °F) during the twenty-first century. The uncertainty in this estimate arises from the use of models with differing sensitivity to greenhouse gas concentrations and the use of differing estimates of future greenhouse gas emissions. Some other uncertainties include how warming and related changes will vary from region to region around the globe. Most studies focus on the period up to the year 2100. However, warming is expected to continue beyond 2100 even if emissions stop, because of the large heat capacity of the oceans and the long lifetime of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
An increase in global temperature will cause sea levels to rise and will change the amount and pattern of precipitation, probably including expansion of subtropical deserts. The continuing retreat of glaciers, permafrost and sea ice is expected, with warming being strongest in the Arctic. Other likely effects include increases in the intensity of extreme weather events, species extinctions, and changes in agricultural yields.
Political and public debate continues regarding climate change, and what actions (if any) to take in response. The available options are mitigation to reduce further emissions; adaptation to reduce the damage caused by warming; and, more speculatively, geoengineering to reverse global warming. Most national governments have signed and ratified the Kyoto Protocol aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions. A small number of scientists dispute the consensus on global warming science.
For more information about Global warming, read the full article at
Wikipedia.
This text uses material from Wikipedia and is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.