A Warming World

Photographs taken from space have confirmed that the North Pole is melting. Each summer, the spread of the sea ice shrinks a little further and the habitat of the polar bear could be gone by the turn of this century. The world’s temperature is rising.

Eleven of the last twelve years have been the hottest years in the entire instrumental record with the hottest ever being recorded in 1998 and 2005 respectively. In fact, over the last 150 years global temperatures have risen by around 0.8oC.  This may not sound like an enormous change but when you consider that the last ice age was triggered when temperatures were between 3o and 5oC cooler than at present you will realise that small changes in global temperature can have an enormous impact on Earth and its climate.

In 1988, the terms global warming and climate change arrived on the international scene when the World Meteorological Organisation and the United Nations Environment Program established the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (“IPCC”). The IPCC brings together the leading climate scientists from around the world to provide a comprehensive and impartial view of the science and solutions to climate change. Because its reports must reflect the consensus view of its contributors the IPCC has a reputation for being conservative when reporting its findings.

The IPCC published the most comprehensive study of climate change science ever recorded in 2007. Over 2,500 scientists participated in the research, which considered a staggering 29,000 sets of observational data. The IPCC concluded that ‘warming of the climate system is unequivocal’ and that there was a greater than 90 per cent probability that most of the warming that we have seen since the mid-20th Century has been caused by human activity – primarily the burning of fossil fuels and changes in land use, most notably deforestation.

Further studies have since been published that show beyond all reasonable doubt that humans have already caused significant changes to the climate. There is also mounting scientific evidence that highlight the potential perils of climate change, which make it essential for each and everyone of us to understand why our planet is heating up.