Global warming is the consequence of humans over the past two centuries burning fossil fuels to provide transport, to provide power in ever increasing amounts to power factories to produce goods for the ever growing numbers of people on this planet of ours. The burning of coal and/or coke(a more useful and efficient fuel than coal but is similar.) is both cheaper and more efficient than using wood or other bio-fuels. Oil was adopted to provide most people with personal vehicles, nowadays in cities the streets are often congested and many families have at least 2 cars. Also most goods are transported by both trains, trucks and boats which in total causes huge amounts of CO2 to be released into the atmosphere.
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The rise of temperature caused by CO2 happens because the heat from the sun enters our atmosphere is absorbed by the earth’s surface or is reflected. The heat that the earth’s surface is shedding and the heat that is being reflected off the surface not all off it can escape because the greenhouse gases are trapping it in the atmosphere. This is the cause for the average surface temperature increase of 1°c. This may not seem like much but this causes more droughts, more floods and increases the extremes.
One of the effects of global warming is that the polar ice caps are melting more and more each year. This is causing the sea level to rise and this will cause some low lying areas next to the sea to flood and some animals that live in the Arctic and Antarctic are losing the ice that they hunt and/or live on. A basic slightly funny video to explain the basic theory.
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Global Warming is causing adverse weather in Europe and causing cold snaps. This is caused by the Arctic ice melting earlier and this causes changes in atmospheric circulation because the exposed water that used to be covered by sun-reflecting ice is now absorbing the heat from the sun and this heat furthermore causes circulation. This causes cold air from the Arctic to be circulated southwards over Europe causing cold snaps.
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