Global Warming Fast Facts

National Geographic News

Updated June 14, 2007

Global warming, or climate change, is a subject that shows no sign of cooling down.

Here's the lowdown on why it's happening, what's causing it, and how it might change the planet.

Is It Happening?
Yes. Earth is already showing many signs of worldwide climate change.
• Average temperatures have climbed 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit (0.8 degree Celsius) around the world since 1880, much of this in recent decades, according to NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies.
• The rate of warming is increasing. The 20th century's last two decades were the hottest in 400 years and possibly the warmest for several millennia, according to a number of climate studies. And the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports that 11 of the past 12 years are among the dozen warmest since 1850.
• The Arctic is feeling the effects the most. Average temperatures in Alaska, western Canada, and eastern Russia have risen at twice the global average, according to the multinational Arctic Climate Impact Assessment report compiled between 2000 and 2004.
• Arctic ice is rapidly disappearing, and the region may have its first completely ice-free summer by 2040 or earlier. Polar bears and indigenous cultures are already suffering from the sea-ice loss.
• Glaciers and mountain snows are rapidly melting—for example, Montana's Glacier National Park now has only 27 glaciers, versus 150 in 1910. In the Northern Hemisphere, thaws also come a week earlier in spring and freezes begin a week later.
• Coral reefs, which are highly sensitive to small changes in water temperature, suffered the worst bleaching—or die-off in response to stress—ever recorded in 1998, with some areas seeing bleach rates of 70 percent. Experts expect these sorts of events to increase in frequency and intensity in the next 50 years as sea temperatures rise.
• An upsurge in the amount of extreme weather events, such as wildfires, heat waves, and strong tropical storms, is also attributed in part to climate change by some experts.

Are Humans Causing It?

• "Very likely," the IPCC said in a February 2007 report. The report, based on the work of some 2,500 scientists in more than 130 countries, concluded that humans have caused all or most of the current planetary warming. Human-caused global warming is often called anthropogenic climate change. • Industrialization, deforestation, and pollution have greatly increased atmospheric concentrations of water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide, all greenhouse gases that help trap heat near Earth's surface. (See an interactive feature on how global warming works.) • Humans are pouring carbon dioxide into the atmosphere much faster than plants and oceans can absorb it. • These gases persist in the atmosphere for years, meaning that even if such emissions were eliminated today, it would not immediately stop global warming. • Some experts point out that natural cycles in Earth's orbit can alter the planet's exposure to sunlight, which may explain the current trend. Earth has indeed experienced warming and cooling cycles roughly every hundred thousand years due to these orbital shifts, but such changes have occurred over the span of several centuries. Today's changes have taken place over the past hundred years or less. • Other recent research has suggested that the effects of variations in the sun's output are "negligible" as a factor in warming, but other, more complicated solar mechanisms could possibly play a role. What's Going to Happen? A follow-up report by the IPCC released in April 2007 warned that global warming could lead to large-scale food and water shortages and have catastrophic effects on wildlife. • Sea level could rise between 7 and 23 inches (18 to 59 centimeters) by century's end, the IPCC's February 2007 report projects. Rises of just 4 inches (10 centimeters) could flood many South Seas islands and swamp large parts of Southeast Asia. • Some hundred million people live within 3 feet (1 meter) of mean sea level, and much of the world's population is concentrated in vulnerable coastal cities. In the U.S., Louisiana and Florida are especially at risk. • Glaciers around the world could melt, causing sea levels to rise while creating water shortages in regions dependent on runoff for fresh water. • Strong hurricanes, droughts, heat waves, wildfires, and other natural disasters may become commonplace in many parts of the world. The growth of deserts may also cause food shortages in many places. • More than a million species face extinction from disappearing habitat, changing ecosystems, and acidifying oceans. • The ocean's circulation system, known as the ocean conveyor belt, could be permanently altered, causing a mini-ice age in Western Europe and other rapid changes. • At some point in the future, warming could become uncontrollable by creating a so-called positive feedback effect. Rising temperatures could release additional greenhouse gases by unlocking methane in permafrost and undersea deposits, freeing carbon trapped in sea ice, and causing increased evaporation of water. What is Climategate? In late November 2009, hackers unearthed hundreds of emails at the U.K.'s University of East Anglia that exposed private conversations among top-level British and U.S. climate scientists discussing whether certain data should be released to the public. [Do we know who the hackers were? Were they skeptics? Might be worth noting] The email exchanges also refer to statistical tricks used to illustrate climate change? trends, and call climate skeptics idiots, according to the New York Times. One such trick was used to create the well-known hockey-stick graph, which shows a sharp uptick in temperature increases during the 20th century. Former U.S vice president Al Gore relied heavily on the graph as evidence of human-caused climate change in the documentary An Inconvenient Truth. The data used for this graph come from two sources: thermostat readings and tree-ring samples. While thermostat readings have consistently shown a temperature rise over the past hundred years, tree-ring samples show temperature increases stalling around 1960. On the hockey-stick graph, thermostat-only data is grafted onto data that incorporates both thermostat and tree-ring readings, essentially presenting a seamless picture of two different data sets, the hacked emails revealed. But scientists argue that dropping the tree-ring data was no secret and has been written about in the scientific literature for years. Climate change skeptics have heralded the emails as an attempt to fool the public, according to the Times. Yet climate scientists maintain that these controversial points are small blips that are inevitable in scientific research, and that the evidence for human-induced climate change is much broader and still widely accepted

Global Warming Facts, Data & Statistics

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While many people theorize whether or not global warming exists, we here at EcoWorld believe that global warming and climate change are not only real – but they are both topics we need to understand more about. With this in mind, our editors have worked on the following list of global warming facts…
Editor’s Note: Viewing the global temperature records shown on the tables and analysis to follow, one might immediately ask: Even if recent warming may be leveling off since temperature records are arguably flat for the last ten years – what if they aren’t? That is the classic, and not cavalierly dismissed, question from the global warming alarmists. Then again, what if we successfully cool the planet, avoiding climate catastrophe by banning spurious combustion, only to regret that in the process we never developed a fleet of passenger and cargo transport aerospaceplanes, and as a result were unable to spacelift the throw-weight necessary to stop an asteroid from hitting our planet and wiping us out?
Beware of how often you play the “we-do-this-or-we-all-perish” card while relying on the precautionary principle. How often must we transform and reorganize our entire industrial base, just to avoid a plausible, but somewhat (if not extremely) low probability of leaving ourselves vulnerable to certain slaughter? And should we shift our focus away from ridding the air of really noxious pollutants; micro-particulates, sulpher dioxide, carbon monoxide, lead, ozone, just to reduce C02 emissions?
Global Warming Data
The data in the following set of tables, compiled by Dr. Richard Lindzen, an atmospheric scientist from MIT, only goes back to the mid 19th century; there are only about 150 years of data. Per-WWI data could be skewed. Depending on whether or not that is true, or even so, there is only about a 0.5 (one-half degree) centigrade change in global temperature that is clearly indicated. But what if the recent 25 year rising trend doesn’t fall? What are the 500 year trends, year by year? Do we know? What are the 10,000 year trends?
What if the earth really is warming – what if the data takes another leap, then another, instead of settling back to the 150 year mean? Do we combat this by curtailing and controlling all burning?
Why instead don’t we simply replace more of the 40% of forests that have been lost in the last 150 years, and restore to life 30% of the deserts that have marched forward over the last 150 years? We can plant trees in the cities while we’re at it, to ameliorate the hugely significant additional effect of the urban heat islands of our world’s new mega-cities. Do we strip the last forests to grow biofuel, instead of simply constructing (usually on rooftops) photovoltaic and solar-thermal arrays that consume – by well over two orders of magnitude – far less space? Wouldn’t we rather replace desert with rangeland and farms, and rangeland and farms with forest, and put canopies of green across our cities, rather than regulate all burning?
Global Warming Statistics
There is broad agreement about the behavior of the global mean temperature.
While there is agreement regarding the historical data, that does not mean that the resulting observations are very solid. The point of the following tables is simply to render transparent the global temperature records underlying most global warming observations and predictions, and comment on what they may or may not indicate.

GLOBAL MEAN ANNUAL SURFACE TEMPERATURE Per Year from 1900 through 2005

Source: UK Meteorological Office

The tables above and below this paragraph are the records commonly displayed by the IPCC. Interestingly, the record is essentially flat since 1995. The modest spike in 1998 is commonly associated with an El Nino. The temperature records reflected in these two tables are completely consistent with a rapid rise from 1976 to 1986 and a leveling off since. This would be more like what is referred to as a regime change than a response to global greenhouse warming.

GLOBAL MEAN ANNUAL SURFACE TEMPERATURE Per Year from 1995 through 2005

Source: UK Meteorological Office

When considering global temperature trends it is important to take into account uncertainty bands. When this is done, as the table below indicates, there is no basis for claiming an significant global warming trend since 1986, though there might very well be one.

GLOBAL MEAN ANNUAL SURFACE TEMPERATURE WITH UNCERTAINTY BANDS Per Year from 1855 through 2005

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It is sometimes claimed that the recent warming period involves much more rapid warming than the mean warming for the past century or so. This is, of course, true of any warming period in a record that includes periods of cooling as well as periods of relatively stationary temperature. For example, the rate of warming during 1910-1940 is somewhat more rapid than the recent rate. More over, if one looks for short periods, there is no difficulty in finding rates that are many times the rate over the last century.
There are only a few groups that compile records of the global mean temperature, and at least two of these groups are strongly committed to the popular view of global warming. On the three tables below, the planets yearly fluctuations in surface temperature are shown against the average measurements from 1961 to 1990 in the case of the first table, and 1951 to 1980 in the 2nd and 3rd tables. Each of these groups of researchers have used the same data, in a range of years which begins between 1851 and 1880, and ends in 2006.

GLOBAL ANNUAL SURFACE TEMPERATURE DEPARTURES FROM THE 1961 TO 1990 AVERAGE Per Year From 1850 through 2005

Note: The 95% confidence limits for the annual global estimate are shown (black error bars). Sources: NOAA/NCDC, HadCRUT, and NASA GISS

Of the three groups compiling each of the above graphs, at least two of these groups are strongly committed to the popular view of global warming. All the groups use the same data, but differ a bit in how they treat the data. Reassuringly, the records look pretty much the same. Two groups (Hansen’s at GISS and NOAA) claim that 2005 was a record breaker, but by a statistically insignificant amount, and clearly the difference between this result and the others is well within the uncertainty as displayed by the error bars. The table from NOAA shows a total warming of only .45C over the length of the record.
The matter of error bars is not without interest. Hansen doesn’t show any. However, the error bars in NCDC analysis are noticeably larger than those from the UK. As best I can tell, the NCDC uses stricter quality control, leading them to reject data from obviously suspect stations (like those in rapidly urbanizing regions). The UK, on the other hand, keeps these stations, and “corrects” them in a largely subjective manner. Thus, the UK has a larger number of points going into the mean, many of which have been “corrected” to look like the mean. This leads to an artificially small error bar.
In all cases, the error bar refers simply to the scatter of points going into the mean. In the next three tables, the late Stan Grotch of the Livermore Radiation Lab showed the nature and implications on the error bars of this scatter.

DEVIATIONS OF ANNUAL MEAN TEMPERATURE FROM LONG-TERM AVERAGE Per Year From 1851 to 1984

Data points averaged to obtain time record of global mean temperature. Note points range from less than -2C to more than +2C. Source: S.L. Grotch, Lawrence Livermore Laboratory)

Note that the error bars (below tables) are based solely on the scatter of the individual station data points (above table). They don’t include any information about other sources of uncertainty such as changes in land usage, changes in instrumentation, etc.

GLOBALLY AVERAGED DEVIATIONS FROM AVERAGE TEMPERATURE PLOTTED ON A SCALE RELEVANT TO THE INDIVIDUAL STATION DEVIATIONS Per Year from 1851 to 1984

Each value here is based on the average of all the points for each year in the previous figure. Source: S.L. Grotch, Lawrence Livermore Laboratory)

Another major problem in interpretation arises from the existence of natural internal variability. This is a frequently misunderstood issue. The point is that the earth’s global mean temperature varies even in the absense of any external forcing at all. This is an inevitable property of a turbulent fluid where the greenhouse effect (mostly due to water vapor and clouds) varies dramatically with location. Moreover, the ocean is continually moving in and out of equilibrium with the surface for a variety of reasons. An example of such behavior is El Nino. However, there are similar phenomena in other regions.

GLOBALLY AVERAGED DEVIATIONS FROM AVERAGE TEMPERATURE PLOTTED ON A SCALE STRETCHED TO FILL THE GRAPH Per Year from 1851 to 1984

Each value here is based on the curve in the previous figure stretched to fill the graph. Note that range is now about -0.6C to +.3C. Source: S.L. Grotch, Lawrence Livermore Laboratory

There is argument as to the significance of natural internal variability, but it is clear from the temperature record that changes of 0.5C over short periods are not particularly uncommon. Natural internal variability, or “noise” in systems such as the earth are generally reflected in temperature observations. Finally, it is characteristic of noise that it is random. Data indicates natural internal variability or “noise” should be represented by a horizontal band of width 0.4 – 0.5 centigrade. The below table shows that it is rare so far to find that the noise band and the sampling error bars don’t overlap.

OBSERVATIONS VS. INTERNAL VARIABILITY Per Year From 1851 to 2000

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We have not given much attention, so far, to systematic errors due to instrument changes. Two warrant some mention. Over much of the world, traditional thermometers have been replaced by electronic thermometers, which have much shorter response times. This appears to have contributed a bit to recent warming. Perhaps more serious are problems with pre World War I ocean measurements. Note that 70% of the earth’s surface is ocean. Crudely speaking, before WWI, temperatures were measured by collecting sea water in a canvas bucket, and measuring the temperature. After that, the temperature was taken by measuring the temperature in the engine intake.
In the late ’80’s there was a cooperative program between the late Prof. Reginald Newell at MIT and the UK Meteorological Office to intercalibrate the two methods. The resulting paper showed ocean temperatures about 0.2 centigrade warmer (for the pre WWI period) than those given in the paper that finally appeared. Professor Newell was extremely upset with the change, since he could not find out what the basis for it was. Such a change accounts for about 0.14 centigrade of the century long term trend commonly cited.
The point of all this is not to claim that there has been no warming. After all, the system’s temperature is always varying. However, when dealing with small temperature changes in a turbulent system, there is little appropriateness to dogmatism. Perhaps the most important message one gets from the data is that the change in temperature has been on the order of 0.5 centigrade, and the main question should be whether we have any solid basis for considering such a change to be large or small, serious or inconsequential.
About the Author: Richard S. Lindzen is the Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Atmospheric Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Statistics

India initiates project to study impact of global warming

NEW DELHI: India on Thursday announced that it would initiate "hazard mapping" across its 7,500 km long coastline to study the impact of globalwarming and assist in protecting coastal communities and infrastructure. The study will be done in a span of two years using an aerial mapping system by the Survey of India through a World Bank-funded project Integrated Coastal Zone Management (ICZM). The hazard mapping is a part of the Rs.1,156 crore ICZM project cleared by the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) on Thursday. The World Bank will give Rs.897 crore (87 percent) of the total money while the rest will come from the Ministry of Environment and Forests. The project would develop capacity and institutions to effectively implement the Coastal Regulation Zone Notification 1991, to control pollution of coastal waters and to expand livelihood options for coastal communities. "The elaborate and extensive exercise of mapping, delineation and demarcation of the hazard lines along the coastline, which is being done for the first time, at a cost of Rs.125 crore will greatly assist in protecting coastal communities and coastal infrastructure," Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh told reporters after the CCEA meeting. The special focus of the project will be identification and demarcation of coastal fragile areas like mangroves, brackish water wetlands, coral reefs based on which a new category of "Critically Vulnerable Coastal Areas" (CVCAs) would be designated and appropriate management plans implemented for their preservation and regeneration. Ramesh said the hazard mapping will mark the danger areas due to global warming and will be based on four factors - receding shore lines, waves, tides and mean sea level rise. "The project assumes special significance in the context of climate change since one of the definitive findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) relates to the increase in mean sea levels as a result of global warming," he said. The project in the first phase will focus on three of the eight coastal states - Orissa, Gujarat and West Bengal. A National Centre for Sustainable Coastal Management at Anna University in Tamil Nadu will also be set up under the project at a cost of Rs.166 crore for carrying out work related to coastal management. "The total number of direct beneficiaries of the project is close to 15 lakh, while the number of indirect but identifiable beneficiaries will be close to six crore," he added.

Global warming may take a pause in India: study

Kiel/Germany: A study conducted in Germany suggests that at least over the next five years there will be no effects of global warming in India. In fact, there may be some cooling.

"We made a forecast till 2015. What we see in our forecast is that global warming will basically take a pause, also in Asia, in South Asia and especially in India. Warming may not continue till 2015" says Prof Mojib Latif.

Scientists conducted an extensive study of ocean currents and temperatures to arrive at the theory. Whats more, they say, the cooling trend may well continue beyond 2015.

"In principle, natural fluctuations can lead to a pause of global warming for an even longer time, until 2020 or 2025. However, this then would also mean that there after global warming will be accelerated by the same processes" said Latif.

The happy side to the forecast may well be that we can look to cooler summers in India over the next many years.

The impact of global warming in Asia

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The impact of global warming in Asia

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The Asian region spans polar, temperate, and tropical climates and is home to over 3 billion people. As the climate warms, many mountain glaciers may disappear, permafrost will thaw, and the northern forests are likely to shift further north. Rapid population growth and development in countries like China and India will put additional pressures on natural ecosystems and will lead to a rapid rise in the release of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere unless steps are taken to curtail emissions.

Fingerprints

1. Llasa, Tibet -- Warmest June on record, 1998. Temperatures hovered above 77�F for 23 days.
59. Garhwal Himalayas, India -- Glacial retreat at record pace. The Dokriani Barnak Glacier retreated 66 ft (20.1 m) in 1998 despite a severe winter. The Gangorti Glacier is retreating 98 ft (30 m) per year. At this rate scientists predict the loss of all central and eastern Himalayan glaciers by 2035.
62. Tien Shan Mountains, China -- Glacial ice reduced by one quarter in the past 40 years.
90. Southern India - Heat wave, May 2002. In the state of Andhra Pradesh temperatures rose to 120�F, resulting in the highest one-week death toll on record. This heat wave came in the context of a long-term warming trend in Asia in general. India, including southern India, has experienced a warming trend at a rate of 1�F (0.6�C) per century.
91. Nepal - High rate of temperature rise. Since the mid-1970s the average air temperature measured at 49 stations has risen by 1.8�F (1�C), with high elevation sites warming the most. This is twice as fast as the 1�F (0.6�C) average warming for the mid-latitudinal Northern Hemisphere (24 to 40�N) over the same time period, and illustrates the high sensitivity of mountain regions to climate change.
93. Taiwan - Average temperature increase. The average temperature for the island has risen 1.8-2.5�F (1-1.4�C) in the last 100 years. The average temperature for 2000 was the warmest on record.
94. Afghanistan - 2001 - Warmest winter on record. Arid Central Asia, which includes Afghanistan, experienced a warming of 0.8-3.6�F (1-2�C) during the 20th century.
95. Tibet - Warmest decade in 1,000 years. Ice core records from the Dasuopu Glacier indicate that the last decade and last 50 years have been the warmest in 1,000 years. Meteorological records for the Tibetan Plateau show that annual temperatures increased 0.4�F (0.16�C) per decade and winter temperatures increased 0.6�F (0.32�C) per decade from 1955 to 1996.
96. Mongolia - Warmest century of the past millennium. A 1,738-year tree-ring record from remote alpine forests in the Tarvagatay Mountains indicates that 20th century temperatures in this region are the warmest of the last millennium. Tree growth during 1980-1999 was the highest of any 20-year period on record, and 8 of the 10 highest growth years occurred since 1950. The 20th century warming has been observed in tree-ring reconstructions of temperature from widespread regions of Eurasia, including sites in the Polar Urals, Yakutia, and the Taymir Peninsula, Russia. The average annual temperature in Mongolia has increased by about 1.3�F (0.7�C) over the past 50 years.
119. Chokoria Sundarbans, Bangladesh - Flooded mangroves. Rising ocean levels have flooded about 18,500 acres (7,500 hectares) of mangrove forest during the past three decades. Global sea-level rise is aggravated by substantial deltaic subsidence in the area with rates as high as 5.5 mm/year.
120. China - Rising waters and temperature. The average rate of sea-level rise was 0.09 +/- 0.04 inches (2.3 +/- 0.9 mm) per year over the last 30 years. Global sea-level rise was aggravated locally by subsidence of up to 2 inches (5 cm) per year for some regions due to earthquakes and groundwater withdrawal. Also, ocean temperatures off the China coast have risen in the last 100 years, especially since the 1960s.
126. Bhutan - Melting glaciers swelling lakes. As Himalayan glaciers melt glacial lakes are swelling and in danger of catastrophic flooding. Average glacial retreat in Bhutan is 100-130 feet (30-40 m) per year. Temperatures in the high Himalayas have risen 1.8�F (1�C) since the mid 1970s.
127. India - Himalayan glaciers retreating. Glaciers in the Himalayas are retreating at an average rate of 50 feet (15 m) per year, consistent with the rapid warming recorded at Himalayan climate stations since the 1970s. Winter stream flow for the Baspa glacier basin has increased 75% since 1966 and local winter temperatures have warmed, suggesting increased glacier melting in winter.
130. Mt. Everest - Retreating glacier.The Khumbu Glacier, popular climbing route to the summit of Mt. Everest, has retreated over 3 miles (5 km) since 1953. The Himalayan region overall has warmed by about 1.8�F (1�C) since the 1970s.
131. Kyrgyzstan - Disappearing glaciers. During 1959-1988, 1,081 glaciers in the Pamir-Altai disappeared. Temperatures in the mountains of Kyrgyztan have increased by 0.9-2.7� F (0.5-1.5�C) since the 1950s.
142. Siberia - Melting permafrost. Large expanses of tundra permafrost are melting. In some regions the rate of thawing of the upper ground is nearly 8 inches (20 cm) per year. Thawing permafrost has already damaged 300 buildings in the cities of Norilsk and Yakutsk. In Yakutsk, the average temperature of the permanently frozen ground has warmed by 2.7 �F (1.5�C) during the past 30 years.

Harbingers

18. Indonesia -- Malaria spreads to high elevations. Malaria was detected for the first time as high as 6,900 feet (2103 m) in the highlands of Irian Jaya in 1997.
50. Philippines -- Coral reef bleaching.
51. Indian Ocean -- Coral reef bleaching (inclues Seychelles; Kenya; Reunion; Mauritius; Somalia; Madagascar; Maldives; Indonesia; Sri Lanka; Gulf of Thailand [Siam]; Andaman Islands; Malaysia; Oman; India; and Cambodia).
52. Persian Gulf -- Coral reef bleaching.
77. Korea -- Heavy rains and flooding. Severe flooding struck during July and August, 1998, with daily rainfall totals exceeding 10 inches (25.4 cm).
87. Indonesia -- Burning rainforest, 1998. Fires burned up to 2 million acres (809,371 hectares) of land, including almost 250,000 acres (101,172 hectares) of primary forest and parts of the already severely reduced habitat of the Kalimantan orangutan.
88. Khabarovsk, Russia -- Wildfires threaten tiger habitat, 1998. Drought and high winds fueled fires that destroyed 3.7 million acres (1,497,337 hectares) of taiga and threatened two important nature reserves that are habitat for the only remaining Amur tigers.
103. Bangladesh - Link between stronger El Ni�o events and cholera prevalence. Researchers found a robust relationship between progressively stronger El Ni�o events and cholera prevalence, spanning a 70-year period from 1893-1940 and 1980-2001. There has been a marked intensification of the El Ni�o/Southern Oscillation phenomenon since the 1980s, which is not fully explained by the known shifts in the Pacific basin temperature regime that began in the mid-1970s. Findings by Rodo et al. are consistent with model projections of El Ni�o intensification under global warming conditions. The authors make a strong case for the climate-health link by providing evidence for biological sensitivity to climate, meteorological evidence of climate change, and evidence of epidemiological change with global warming. The study likely represents the first piece of evidence that warming trends over the last century are affecting human disease.
105. Lake Baikal, Russia - Shorter freezing period. Winter freezing is about 11 days later and spring ice breakup is about 5 days earlier compared to a century ago. Some regions of Siberia have warmed by as much as 2.5�F (1.4�C) in just 25 years.
147. Iran - Desiccated wetlands, 2001 Ninety percent of wetlands have dried up after 2 years of extreme drought. Much of South West Asia has experienced a prolonged three-year drought that is unusual in its magnitude. Out of 102 years of record, 1999, 2000, and 2001 rank as the fifth, third, and seventh driest on record. 1999-2000 was the driest winter on record.
148. Pakistan - Longest drought on record, 1999-2001. The prolonged three-year drought, which covers much of South West Asia, has affected 2.2 million people and 16 million livestock in Pakistan.
149. Tajikistan - Lowest rainfall in 75 years, 2001. 2001 marked the third consecutive year of drought, which has destroyed half the wheat crop.
150. Korea - Worst drought in 100 years of record, 2001. It coincided with an average annual temperature increase in Asia�s temperate region, which includes Korea, by more than 1.8�F (1�C) over the past century. The warming has been most pronounced since 1970.
155. China - Disappearing Lakes, 2001. More than half of the 4,000 lakes in the Qinghai province are disappearing due to drought. The severity of the impact is exacerbated by overpumping of aquifers. Annual average temperature in China has increased during the past century, with pronounced warming since 1980. Most of the warming has been in northern areas, including Qinghai Province, and in the winter.

How Global Warming will affect India

We keep reading about rising temperatures and sea-levels in other parts of the world like United States and the UK, but actually India is one of the most vulnerable countries when it comes to effects of global warming. India has a vast coastal line and the rising sea levels caused by global warming will cause an ecological disaster. This is according to a 1989 United Nations Environment Programme study.
As this article explains:

“In India, the signs already back up forecasts that as the mercury rises the Indian subcontinent, home to one-sixth of humanity, will be one of the worst-affected regions.”

Bengal will suffer
The Himalayan glaciers have started to melt and the average rate of retreat is almost twice (34 metres) per year as compared to the 1971 levels of 19 metres. The melting glaciers will cause temperatures and sea-levels to rise and there will be a cascading effect on the crops and the monsoons. Worse – whole islands are expected to vanish! In fact two have already gone under – two islands in the Sunderbans, an area which India shares with Bangladesh. Temperatures in the group of islands has already gone up by one degree centigrade. You can get the details here. A quote:

“Rising sea levels have submerged two islands in the Sunderbans, where tigers roam through mangrove forests in the Ganges River delta, and a dozen more islands are under threat…official records list 102 islands on the Indian side of the vast Sunderbans…but scientists found that two have been swallowed up.”

And this msn site talks about a six year study which has reported that 10,000 people have already been displaced.
Rising sea-levels will be a disaster
While some climatologists say that sea levels will increase by just 4-35 inches from 1990 levels in another hundred years…some feel that the range could be higher – 20-55 inches. Thats a lot and will affect human habitat in a big way.
In fact, as far back as 1993 a study to evaluate the impact of rising sea levels on India was carried out by JNU (Jawaharlal Nehru University). They calculated what would happen if the sea-levels rose by just 1 metre…and they found that as many as 7 million people would be displaced and 5,764 sq km of land and 4,200 km of roads would be lost!
Orissa will suffer too
Orissa is another state which is already being hit hard by global warming. Whole villages in the coastal regions are disappearing. As this article explains:

“As village after village in Orissa’s coastal Kendrapara district vanishes into the Bay of Bengal, one thing is clear: sea levels are rising …the state’s geographical location at the head of the Bay of Bengal, with a landlocked sea and a deltaic plain, makes the state extremely vulnerable to rises in sea level caused by global warming.”

In September 2002, scientists at the National Centre for Agricultural Economics and Policy Research conducted a people’s perception survey on climate-induced natural disasters in the Kendrapara district of Orissa. The results showed that the frequency and intensity of droughts have increased and so have the incidents of flooding. Also, the intensity of cyclones has increased and people believed that the sea-water had become warmer.
These poor villagers do not know why this is happening but climatologists know why. Global Warming. Ironically these poor villages hardly contribute to global warming…they hardly emit any greenhouse gases. There is an interesting chart at this site and it shows that the countries which contribute the maximum to global warming per capita are Australia, Canada and the United States.
Why is the east coast of India being affected more?
This is because the Bay of Bengal is landlocked from three sides and there is a huge delta of the rivers Brahmaputra and the Ganga. These rivers will carry the water from the melting Himalayan snows. However this does not mean that the western coastal regions are immune…just that the eastern coast is more vulnerable at this stage.

So what are these green house gases which are causing the snows to melt?
According to the Wiki greenhouse gases are “include water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and ozonecomponents of the atmosphere that contribute to the greenhouse effect. Some greenhouse gases occur naturally in the atmosphere, while others result from human activities.

Effects of global warming on India

Lakshadweep, comprising tiny low-lying islands, are at risk of being inundated by sea level rises associated with global warming.

The effects of global warming on the Indian subcontinent vary from the submergence of low-lying islands and coastal lands to the melting of glaciers in the Indian Himalayas, threatening the volumetric flow rate of many of the most important rivers of India and South Asia. In India, such effects are projected to impact millions of lives. As a result of ongoing climate change, the climate of India has become increasingly volatile over the past several decades; this trend is expected to continue.

Greenhouse gases in India

Elevated carbon dioxide emissions contributed to the greenhouse effect, causing warmer weather that lasted long after the atmospheric shroud of dust and aerosols had cleared. Further climatic changes 20 million years ago, long after India had crashed into the Laurasian landmass, were severe enough to cause the extinction of many endemic Indian forms.^[1] The formation of the Himalayas resulted in blockage of frigid Central Asian air, preventing it from reaching India; this made its climate significantly warmer and more tropical in character than it would otherwise have been.^[2]

Effects of global warming on India and Bangladesh

Several effects of global warming, including steady sea level rise, increased cyclonic activity, and changes in ambient temperature and precipitation patterns, have affected or are projected to affect India. Ongoing sea level rises have submerged several low-lying islands in the Sundarbans, displacing thousands of people.^[3] Temperature rises on the Tibetan Plateau, which are causing Himalayan glaciers to retreat.

Environmental

Increased landslides and flooding are projected to have an impact upon states such as Assam.^[4] Ecological disasters, such as a 1998 coral bleaching event that killed off more than 70% of corals in the reef ecosystems off Lakshadweep and the Andamans, and was brought on by elevated ocean temperatures tied to global warming, are also projected to become increasingly common.^[5][6][7]
The first among the countries to be affected by severe climate change is Bangladesh. Its sea level, temperature and evaporation are increasing, and the changes in precipitation and cross boundary river flows are already beginning to cause drainage congestion. There is a reduction in fresh water availability, disturbance of morphologic processes and a higher intensity of flooding and other such disasters. Bangladesh only contributes 0.1% of the world’s emissions yet it has 2.4% of the world’s population. In contrast, the United States makes up about 5 percent of the world's population, yet they produce approximately 25 percent of the pollution that causes global warming.^[8]

Economic

The Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research has reported that, if the predictions relating to global warming made by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change come to fruition, climate-related factors could cause India's GDP to decline by up to 9%; contributing to this would be shifting growing seasons for major crops such as rice, production of which could fall by 40%. Around seven million people are projected to be displaced due to, among other factors, submersion of parts of Mumbai and Chennai, if global temperatures were to rise by a mere 2 °C (3.6 °F).^[9]
Villagers in India's North Easter state of Meghalaya are also concerned that rising sea levels will submerge neighbouring low-lying Bangladesh, resulting in an influx of refugees into Meghalaya^{[citation needed]}—which has few resources to handle such a situation.
If severe climate changes occur, Bangladesh will lose land along the coast line.^[10] This will be highly damaging to Bangalies especially because nearly two-thirds of Bangladeshis are employed in the agriculture sector, with rice as the single-most-important product. The economy has grown 5-6% over the past few years despite inefficient state-owned enterprises, delays in exploiting natural gas resources insufficient power supplies, and slow implementation of economic reforms. However, Bangladesh remains a poor, overpopulated, and inefficiently-governed nation.^[11] If no further steps are taken to improve the current conditions global warming will affect the economy severely worsening the present issues further.^{[citation needed]}

Social

Climate Change in India will have a disproportionate impact on the more than 400 million that make up India's poor (See Poverty in India). This is because so many depend on natural resources for their food, shelter and income. More than 56% of people in India work in agriculture, while many others earn their living in coastal areas.^[12]
Indian journalist, Praful Bidwai, argues that the Indian Government's climate policy does not address the interests of the majority of these peoples for whom climate change will mean hunger, food insecurity, and destruction of livelihoods but is instead focused on maximising Indian elite’s freedom to consume by maintaining high emissions-intensive GDP growth.^[13]

Past climate change

Thick haze and smoke along the Ganges River in northern India.

However, such shifts are not new: for example, earlier in the current Holocene epoch (4,800–6,300 years ago), parts of what is now the Thar Desert were wet enough to support perennial lakes; researchers have proposed that this was due to much higher winter precipitation, which coincided with stronger monsoons.^[14] Similarly, Kashmir, which once had a warm subtropical climate, shifted to a substantially colder temperate climate 2.6–3.7 mya; it was then repeatedly subjected to extended cold spells starting 1 years ago.^[15]

Pollution

Thick haze and smoke, originating from burning biomass in northwestern India^[16] and air pollution from large industrial cities in northern India^[17], often concentrate inside the Ganges Basin. Prevailing westerlies carry aerosols along the southern margins of the steep-faced Tibetan Plateau to eastern India and the Bay of Bengal. Dust and black carbon, which are blown towards higher altitudes by winds at the southern faces of the Himalayas, can absorb shortwave radiation and heat the air over the Tibetan Plateau. The net atmospheric heating due to aerosol absorption causes the air to warm and convect upwards, increasing the concentration of moisture in the mid-troposphere and providing positive feedback that stimulates further heating of aerosols.^[17]

Awareness

Tribal people in India's remote northeast plan to ^[18] honour former U.S. Vice President Al Gore with an award for promoting awareness on climate change that they say will have a devastating impact on their homeland.
Meghalaya -- meaning 'Abode of the Clouds' in Hindi -- is home to the towns of Cherrapunji and Mawsynram, which are credited with being the wettest places in the world due to their high rainfall.
But scientists state that global climate change is causing these areas to experience an increasingly sparse and erratic rainfall pattern and a lengthened dry season,^[19] affecting the livelihoods of thousands of villagers who cultivate paddy and maize. Some areas are also facing water shortages.

The recyclable golf balls of Dixon Golf

Do you think of recycling as something new? 100 years ago people were returning glass bottles for refills of a new beverage called Coca Cola. Recycling is certainly not new. Most of the items we call disposable and allow to fill our landfills with today were at one time expected to be repaired and reused. Another example would be shoes. A good pair of shoes was meant to last 20 years as long as you had them resoled from time to time.
Recently some clever people at Dixon Golf set out to create a recyclable golf ball. They took on this challenge because golf balls, being as durable as they are, represent an item that is virtually indestructible. Nearly 300 million golf balls are discarded yearly in the United States alone representing a definitive green Earth hazard.
Of course a golf ball is not a soda bottle or a plastic bag. It is not a simple item to grind up and melt down to make other goods. In fact, the chemical components of most major manufacturer’s golf balls are some of the toughest to breakdown in existence. Golf ball ingredients include heavy metals such as tungsten, cobalt and even lead. With that said, the folks at Dixon Golf knew that making a biodegradable golf ball was not really an option.
But, like our Coke bottle and pair of Wingtip shoes, perhaps a golf ball could be refilled or resoled. That was the exact development direction Dixon Golf chose. To make a golf ball that could be rebuilt and consequently reused.
This was accomplished by creating a ball that used a different material for its core. The core of a Dixon Golf Ball is made from a special polymer that is 100% renewable. Also, the covers of Dixon Golf Balls are made of materials that are easily recycled to make other consumer products. Every part of a Dixon Golf Ball is reusable from the core to the cover.
Golf balls are manufactured to exacting standards. All of those little dimples in a golf ball act as tiny wings to give the ball aerodynamic lift and control. Inside, the core of a golf ball is designed to compress upon forceful impact from the club. The head of a golf club, swung by an amateur, strikes the ball at an average speed of eighty miles per hour. The release of that compression sends the ball outward at a great speed. Making a golf ball that meets the requirements of amateur and pro golfers alike is no small feat. Making a ball that is also recyclable is almost impossible.
We say “almost” of course, because making a completely recyclable golf ball is precisely what Dixon Golf has done. Dixon Golf has created a superbly crafted high quality golf ball that is the equal of any ball in play today. In independent testing Dixon Golf balls outperformed higher priced Titleist, Nike and Callaway balls. The same test showed that the Dixon Golf “Earth” ball received a 92% approval rating.
So how did Dixon Golf founders and Principals William Carey and Dane Platt create a recyclable golf ball that can out play the best on the market? Fortunately, the owners of Dixon Golf had spent years working in the golf ball industry for a manufacturer that made name brand balls. The construction of a Titleist differs greatly from a Nike ball and neither company is sharing their design secrets. But the principals of Dixon Golf didn’t need anyone else’s secret technology to aid them. They had a combined 30 years of ball making experience between them and knew firsthand the design characteristics that went into making a competitive ball. The trick would be to make a ball out of green materials that was designed from the outset to be rebuilt and resoled. Further, the 100 percent recyclable golf balls would need to perform equally as well as other brand name balls.
But green golf doesn’t stop there. Marketing is a major part of Dixon’s Green Golf Planning. When you purchase a Dixon Golf ball you can trade in your old Dixon Golf ball for a one dollar credit towards the purchase of Dixon Golf balls. Dixon Golf will even give you a 50 cent credit on any non Dixon Golf balls returned. Following through on this marketing swing, all of the materials used to make and market Dixon Golf Balls are recyclable including packaging and displays.
At the present time there are two grades of Dixon Golf Balls, Earth, and Wind. The Dixon Golf Fire ball will be available beginning this summer. Each of these is designed for particular playing conditions and player abilities.
While it is true that a Dixon Golf ball shanked into a pond will still need to be rescued by a diver, at least when it is recovered it can be recycled.

2009 – An increase in scientific and political division

Conflicting arguments from climate change scientists
The concept of tipping points, those being if indicators of a nonlinear growth curve so substantial that many scientists believe planetary damage from global warming can no longer be reversed has split the scientific community in two. Whereas 10 years before consensus was divided between camps believing in the existence of global warming as a threat versus a normal cyclical climate change, the issue now becomes whether or not warming is so pervasive as to be unstoppable and irrevocable.
Results are release stating that approximately 100,000 years ago a global warming event caused sea levels to rise by more than 20 feet. Once again mankind’s relative participation in climate change is questioned when scientific data is used as a means of discounting industrial global warming cause and effect.
The level of CO2 molecules in the atmosphere has now reached 385 parts per 1,000,000. The average five year temperature of the Earth is now 14.5° C. Both the warmest recorded and warmest calculable temperature in approximately 10,000 years.
Environmental changes as a direct result of global warming are now spreading at a rate of ¼ kilometer per year from the location of the equator northward and south. This rate of expansion makes it physically impossible for plant life to migrate thus placing thousands of species at risk for extinction.
Scientists at Stanford University release an analysis showing that the emissions from commercial industries are now responsible for 15 to 20% of all global warming.
The Copenhagen Climate Conference yields no significant agreements
The International Energy Agency in cooperation with the government of China announces that CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions from Chinese industry are expected to double over the next decade. China, still considered to be a developing nation, continues to avoid legitimate participation in global warming emissions reduction.
The long awaited climate change conference at Copenhagen fails to result in extension of the expiring Kyoto protocols for emissions controls. Even nonbinding regulations are shunned by the vast majority of United Nations conference participants.
China, now the world’s largest producer of greenhouse gases announces at the Copenhagen conference plans to reduce its carbon footprint by 40% by the year 2020. This marks the first time that China has agreed to reduce the acceleration of its emissions.
Economic slowdowns still yield increased emissions
Despite the existence of a massively recessed economy, global greenhouse gas emissions increased for the year 2009.
During a visit to Australia, religious leader, the Dalai lama suggests that global warming is so much so no longer a scientific agenda and now so human an agenda that mankind consider climate change as result of industrial pollution to be the number one priority for global legislative cooperation.
A Senate panel in the United States Congress proposes that the U.S. take responsibility for financial assistance to developing aka poor nations in decreasing greenhouse emissions produced as a direct result of US imports.

2008 – Global environmental changes spark U.S. election year debate

Unusual weather patterns and ocean life changes are made better known
Core samples and carbon dating (no pun intended) reveal that methane gas released 635 million years ago created a global warming catastrophe. Scientists set up models for present day comparison.
Once again United Kingdom rainfall levels are at record lows for the winter months. Global warming studies point to extreme northern and extreme southern latitude weather patterns as indicative of true global warming effects.
2008 marks the acknowledgment of definitive ocean dead zones now called oxygen deprived hypoxic zones due to their inability to support fish and other marine life.
Siberia announces huge releases of methane from thawed tundra similar to several million year old global events.
Environmental issues become an intense U.S. election year topic
Global warming becomes an immense political football as U.S. Vice Presidential Candidate, Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska, emphasizes her constituency’s direct involvement in climate change effects.
Investors begin rampant speculation in world financial markets on possibilities of environmentally based lawsuits affecting corporate bottom lines. A company that is a good candidate for liability is an even better company for a short investment.
The rapid relocation of Alaskan native populations
In the last 50 years temperatures have risen in Alaska more so than any other spot on the Earth. As a definite global warming result entire villages of coastal Alaska are disappearing into the sea prompting the relocation of native Eskimo populations. Almost 200 native Eskimo Villages are facing critical flooding and forced evacuation. The concept of incapable migration as demonstrated by flora, fauna and wildlife finally juxtaposes with human life.

Nature, Economics and human well

2006 – Nature, Economics and human well being become more entwined in climate issues

The vulnerability of regions in the southern hemisphere is studied closely
Most of the European continent and specifically Spain is once again seeing record breaking temperatures for summer. The traditional holiday in Spain is circumvented by 113° F weather as predictions are made for an overall rise of another 7° during this century. Information is released that Spain’s greenhouse emissions rose by 50% between the years of 1990 and 2004.
Studies show that tropical areas in both the Andes and South Africa are open to massive extinction of plant and animal life as normal evolutionary migration is unable to keep pace with tropical change.
Marine life in the Pacific Ocean is directly impacted by higher levels of acidity created during the ocean’s absorption of carbon dioxide.
Serious financial implications of climate change are brought to the forefront
The state of California releases its own plans for roll back of greenhouse emissions levels to 1990’s levels.
World Bank economist Sir Nicholas Stern predicts global warming could cost as much as 20% of the gross domestic product of the entire world if left unchecked.
“An Inconvenient Truth” brings climate issues to mainstream movie goers
Former United States Vice President Al Gore raises global warming awareness to unprecedented levels with release of his documentary film “An Inconvenient Truth”. The film which does surprisingly well in theaters in America and worldwide graphically displays both causes and effects of global warming leading to climate change. Al Gore seizes upon the film’s popularity to create from the global warming cause a huge political agenda. While the film effectively attempts to reflect all sides of the global warming issue with facts, figures and photojournalism, it more effectively draws attention to Gore.

Positive political change for greenhouse emissions reduction

2005 – Positive political change for greenhouse emissions reduction

Harsh predictions for Earth’s future climate if changes are not made
News agency Workers International reports that humans are destroying the Earth at an alarming rate and therefore predicts failures of nature’s check and balancing system that may result in huge desertification on land masses as well as almost endless dead zones in the oceans. In corroboration of this statement the Atlantic conveyor current seems to shut down and warm Northern European borders to such a degree that fishing stocks in the region are noticeably diminished.
The signing of the Kyoto Protocols Agreement
2005 is marked by what is perhaps the single most important political act relative to climate change and global warming to take place in history. This is the Kyoto treaty taking effect. The set of protocols binding developed and developing nations throughout the world to both standards and goals for greenhouse emissions is officially launched. The Kyoto Protocols as they are soon to be known as had been ratified by all major and actual nations with the exception of the United States due to political opposition has brought forth by President George W. Bush. At the world political summit in Gleneagle, Scotland, a general consensus of world leaders acknowledges that climate change as caused by industrial interaction represents a serious and long-term challenge.
A series of powerful hurricanes raise concerns over a possible relation to climate change
Hurricanes in unprecedented number punctuated by hurricane Katrina ripped through the southern United States and Caribbean creating tremendous awareness and concern relative to global warming and climate change.
By year’s end over 100,000 people around the globe hold organized marches for the first worldwide demonstration against global warming. Protesters called for binding international treaty legislation to control pollution overall and greenhouse emissions in particular.

Conservative and Liberal climate

2004 – Conservative and Liberal climate opinions come to the forefront of media

Studies indicating concern over commercial jet emissions are released
Researchers state that pollutants and greenhouse gas emissions from commercial jets that are directly released into the upper atmosphere will potentially become the largest man made cause of changes in climate. This takes into account both particle disbursement into the troposphere and greenhouse gas emissions from jet fuel exhaust. In a similar tone it is shown that aerosols long considered the primary threat to the Earth’s ozone layer are now acting to cool the Earth through global dimming. Once again scientists warn that as use of aerosol diminishes in future years the greater threat of global warming will be unmasked.
Bush administration shows skepticism towards global warming
President George W. Bush of the United States and his administration steadfastly claim the entire prospect of global warming to be a hoax. China is acknowledged by the International Energy Agency worldwide as the second largest carbon emitter based on their tremendously expanded use of fossil fuels with little or no emissions regulation.







Entertainment media pushes climate change scenarios to extremes
2004 sees the first release of books, movies and documentaries featuring in discussing global warming. Overstatements of massive climate swings are depicted in movies such as The Day after Tomorrow and Michael Crichton’s book “State of Fear”.

Global warming is compared against

2002 – Global warming is compared against global dimming as climate shifts are still noted

Icy regions show shrinkage as some deserts continue to expand
The largest floating iceberg known to exist disconnects from the Antarctic Peninsula where it had been attached for thousands of years. It then collapses and breaks into hundreds of pieces which float away. In the same month on the other end of the globe recorded measurements of the world’s largest icecap Vatnajokull in Iceland result in report that this huge glacier could completely disappear by the end of the century if global warming continues to develop exponentially.
By summer China acknowledges that its northern deserts are growing at such a rate that they are now seven times the size of the entire United Kingdom. In Northern Africa desertification has reached a point where the entire Sahelian region is expected to be overcome and become devoid of inhabitants over the next 20 years if the expansion of new desert areas is not halted. These four examples mark the beginning of definitive signs of global warming effects.
Critics of global warming theories attempt to dispel its possibilty
The global warming “hoax” committee begins to develop as the term global dimming is used to invalidate global warming as a legitimate cause of climate change. Global dimming effectively shades the Earth by means of pollutant particles released into the atmosphere. Political representatives of the unregulated industry sectors cite temporal atmospheric cooling as a negation of surface Earth temperature increases. At the same time environmental activists predict that the eventual cleanup of these pollutants will result in an abrupt global warming event.
Discussion of forced species relocation takes place in Johannesburg
In Johannesburg, South Africa a conference known as Earth Summit 2002 was held. The conference, admittedly a forum for staunch green Earth advocates, differs from earlier Earth summit talks in that emphasis is now place on sustainable development. To that end, the assemblage includes representatives from the industrial corporate sector, farming, and indigenous peoples directly affected by global warming. Emphasis at the summit was based on forced migrations of both animal species and humankind.