The scariest of all the global warming facts is that if we don’t do something about it now, it’s only going to get worse. Learning more about global warming can help us understand how and why it’s happening, and encourage us to do more to stop the domino effect of climate change before it gets any worse.
1. Global Warming Facts are Facts not Fiction
Despite a lot of evidence, the debate over climate change and global warming continues. Don’t believe the hype! Over 90% of scientists and all the major international accredited scientific bodies agree that global warming is a reality.
2. Global Warming is Our Fault
Scientists agree that global warming since at least the 1950s has been the result of human activities. The technical term for global warming caused by human activities is anthropogenic global warming or anthropogenic climate change.
3. Different Local Weather Changes Happen as a Result of Global Warming
Effects of global warming vary depending upon where in the world you live. While global warming may mean increased rainfall for one area, it may mean a drought for another region.
4. Greenhouse Gases Cause Global Warming
This is the perhaps the most well known of global warming facts. Greenhouse gases prevent energy from escaping the Earth’s atmosphere. The sun’s energy warms the Earth, which is a good thing, as we couldn’t survive without it. Like the glass roof of a greenhouse, which prevents heat from leaving, greenhouse gases prevent some of the sun’s energy escaping through the Earth’s atmosphere.
5. There Are Three Major Countries that Produce Greenhouse Gases
The United States, China and India account for the vast majority of all greenhouse gases emitted on Earth.
6. Global Warming Is Heating Our Oceans
The rise in the Earth’s temperature that we refer to as global warming is most noticeably apparent as a rise in the ocean temperatures of the Earth. Scientists get most of their global warming facts from measurements of ocean and air temperature.
7. The Earth’s Temperature Has Increased Nearly One Degree in the Last 30 Years
Since 1980, the global temperature of the sea and the atmosphere has increased by approximately one degree Fahrenheit. While this may seem like a small amount, the Earth is a fragile interconnected system, and even seemingly small changes can have huge impacts.
8. Global Warming Facts are Cold Hard Truth
One of the main concerns of rising ocean temperatures relates to the melting of sea ice in the Earth’s Polar Regions. As polar ice melts as a result of global warming, it enters the ocean as water, causing sea levels to rise. Perhaps one of the most quoted of all global warming facts is the fact that sea levels have risen more than 6 inches in the last 100 years.
9. Global Warming is Creating A New Definition of Beach Front Property
A large proportion of the Earth’s population lives in coastal areas that are threatened by rising sea levels. The rise in sea levels from global warming is also a result of melting glaciers.
10. Cars aren’t the Only Cause of Global Warming
The power outlets in the walls of your home contribute as much to global warming as the car you drive. In the United States, greenhouse gases from electric power plants account for 40% of total emissions.
11. Global Warming Facts are Not Easy to Confirm
Global weather patterns are the result of the complex interaction of the temperature and composition of the oceans, air and land. The heating and cooling cycles of the seasons and the gravity of the moon also affect global weather. Measuring greenhouse gases and establishing global warming facts is an ongoing challenge for scientists.
12. Climate Change Can Be Proven
A sad fact of global warming is that the effects can be measured now. What most people don’t realize is that global warming is like a domino effect. While we are just beginning to see the impact and measurable effects now, the overall impact and more long-term effects will continue.
13. The Damage is Already Done
Due to the domino effect of climate change, new global warming facts will continue to emerge as the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere increases. Even if we reduced carbon dioxide emissions by 80% this instant, global temperatures would still remain near their highest level for many hundreds of years in the future.
14. Global Warming is also National Warming
We can’t ignore global warming facts in the United States. The impacts of the decisions we make are affecting our weather now. In America, the average temperature has increased by 2 degrees Fahrenheit in the last 50 years.
15. It’s Going to Get Hotter and Wetter
The rising temperature of the sea and air increases the amount of rainfall we get. Global warming also affects patterns of rainfall. Some areas will experience massive flooding as a result of global warming, while other areas may suffer extreme periods of drought.
16. Global Warming Causes Extreme Weather
One of the scary global warming facts is that the increased temperature of the oceans allows storms to build more power. This further threatens the lives of people who live in coastal areas. Some scientists predict the emergence of so-called Super Storms, which are hurricane-like storms on a devastating scale.
17. Arctic Wildlife are Threatened by Global Warming
File this one as another cold global warming fact: the melting of sea ice in some cases literally eliminates the habitats of Arctic animals. These animals depend on the ecosystem that surrounds sea ice, and many are beginning to face the very real possibility of extinction.
18. Some Scientists Predict All Sea Ice Will Melt
While it’s hard to accurately predict global warming facts about the future, some scientists have predicted that the Arctic regions will see an ice-free summer sometime between 2030 and 2050. This would be the first time in thousands of years that the Arctic regions did not have ice all year long.
19. Global Warming is Nothing New
Research into global warming has been going on for over 50 years. Some people say that a 1957 paper by Roger Revelle and Hans Seuss marked the beginning of the global warming debate. Revelle and Seuss established some basic global warming facts. Their most important discovery was that the oceans are not able to absorb carbon dioxide at the rate previously thought.
20. The Most Basic Global Warming Facts Were Established in the 1950s
It was during this time in the 1950s that Revelle and Seuss established the most basic of global warming facts — that the Earth simply cannot absorb all of the carbon dioxide (or CO2) that we generate. The direct result of this is that CO2 levels in the atmosphere will increase.
21. Global Warming is a Domino Effect
The changes that result from excess amounts of CO2 and other greenhouse gases lead to further changes in the Earth’s environment, which limit the Earth’s ability to absorb greenhouse gases. Additional domino effects may include the release of large amounts of carbon dioxide from permafrost as it melts. The depletion of the Amazon rainforest may further impact our planet’s ability to absorb the carbon dioxide that we generate.
22. The 10 Warmest Years on Record Have Been in the Last 15 Years
The effects of climate change are escalating as a direct result of the domino effect. Every decade since the 1970s has been hotter than the decade before.
23. Many Global Warming Facts Remain Unknown
Because the Earth is a complex system, and the tools that we have for measurement are limited, many global warming facts have yet to be confirmed. For instance, the amount of turnover between the surface waters and the waters deep in the ocean is yet to be established or fully understood.
24. If We Started Global Warming, Then We Can Stop It
Global warming facts paint a grim picture, but the good news is, we can act now to stop the effects of global warming for future generations. By changing the way we travel and the way we use power in our everyday lives, we can drastically reduce our greenhouse gas emissions.
25. There Are Many Organizations Dedicated to Stopping Climate Change
If you want to help to stop climate change, you have plenty of options available to you. There are hundreds of groups around the world that are dedicated to making global warming a thing of the past.
Facts about global warming and climate change are undeniable. The impact we’ve had on the temperature of the Earth can be measured. While we don’t yet know the exact mechanisms of global warming, we do know that greenhouse gas emissions contribute to the effect.
Learning global warming facts helps us to come to terms with the issue. By teaching our kids about global warming, we can be sure that each generation takes the issue more seriously than the one before, and commits more to make a change. While it’s a serious problem, learning about global warming should be fun. We should always remember that we have the power to leave a positive impact on our environment.
Global Warming Facts
