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As most people know, global warming (or global climate change) is to increase the average temperature of the atmosphere and oceans near the surface to be detected since the mid-twentieth century and its future projection. The global surface temperature has risen 0.74 º C ± 0.18 ° C in one hundred years that ended in 2005, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concludes that "very probably" tempratura increased since the mid-twentieth century is due to increased concentrations of greenhouse gases. Natural phenomena such as solar variation and volcanoes probably had minor effects on global warming in preindustrial times to 1950 and a small cooling effect from 1950 to date. These conclusions were supported by at least 30 scientific societies and academies of science, including all national academies of the major industrialized countries. Although there has been a minority who have disagreed with these findings, the vast majority of scientists working on climate change are in agreement with the main conclusions of the IPCC. Yet there is considerable evidence that current climate models are overly optimistic, because usually fail to consider nonlinear effects such as the Clathrate gun, which may lead to irreversible climate change.
Projections of climate change models suggest that global surface temperature will increase between 1.1 and 6.4 º C during the twenty-first century. The range of variation in this estimate comes from various estimates regarding future emissions of greenhouse gases and the use of models with variable climate sensitivity. Another uncertainty is based on changes in temperature and other related may vary from region to region on the planet. Although studies focusing on the period up to 2100, warming is expected to continue for more than 1000 years even if greenhouse gas levels are stabilized, unless you use geoengineering. This is due to the high heat retention capacity of the oceans.
Temperature increases will cause rising sea levels and affect the amounts and patterns of precipitation, most likely by increasing the extent of the subtropical desert regions. Other effects will decrease in areas Arctica and release of methane in these regions, increasing the intensity of weather events, changes in agricultural productivity, changes to migration routes, thawing glaciers, species extinctions and increased ranges of disease vectors.
Most countries have signed and ratified the Kyoto Protocol aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Public and political debate continues over what actions should be taken (if he takes one) to reduce or reverse future warming or to adapt to the expected.
Approaches to resolving the issue of global warming fall into three categories:
- Geoengineering, direct intervention on the climate, using management techniques such as solar radiation.
- Adaptation address the effects of change, for example, dams for flooding.
- Mitigation, reduce carbon emissions by using renewable energy and improving efficiency in its use.
Among the most notable things in these past 12 years since the inception of the site, has been the reluctance of the U.S. to participate in the issue, the two terms of President George W. Bush was a curse for the progress and efforts to address a problem that every day was observed more clearly. In his last year in office there was a sharp change of attitude towards the climate change issue, deny and obstruct, to accept and attempt to take a leadership attitude, which was too little, too late. Personally I think the damage that Bush did was huge, history will tell if he was as destructive as I believe it was.
Today we see a new president Barack Obama take a very strong leader, with elections for key posts in the topic, especially open to professionals and educated on the subject and very clear in his attitude of taking the problem seriously. This opens up hope that the problem will be faced with leadership from the front and from the main consumer of resources and major polluters, which is U.S.. No longer cover the sun with your thumb, have shown they want to do something quick and hopefully we can prove it too. Meanwhile each of us must follow their personal changes, switch off, recycle, improve efficiency, less car use, to require their leaders to improve conditions for cyclists and pedestrians, and so on. Etc. Do not expect others to change unless we do.
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Article based mostly on an article in Wikipedia
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