The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has improved our understanding of climate change and its consequences for atmospheric alterations and global warming. The IPCC Fourth Assessment Report from 2007 indicates an increase in confidence (since the Third Assessment) that the net effect of human activities caused a global warming trend. Atmospheric changes are expressed in terms of radiative forcing, which is used to compare how a range of factors can drive climate change.
"The understanding of anthropogenic warming and cooling influences leads to very high confidence that the global average net effect of human activities since 1750 has been one of warming, with radiative forcing of +1.6 W m-2" (IPCC 2007).
What does this radiative forcing indicate?
- An increase in long-lived greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide.
- An observed change in land-use and albedo
- An increase in extreme weather events (see table below)
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| Source: IPCC Fourth Assessment Report 2007 |
Future projections for climate change indicate an increase of 0.2 degrees Celsius per decade for the
next two decades, and this increase would be similar even if forcing agent levels had been held constant at year 2000 levels. Continued greenhouse gas emissions at or above current rates will cause further warming and exacerbated changes, including increased atmospheric carbon dioxide and the weather events indicated above.
I like your inclusion of this page. I myself practically assumed that my audience was knowledgeable in the background information, but your inclusion of it helps to add some extra say for those readers that are not reading all about climate change. I may see about adding a more thorough background section to mine as well.
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