Global warming project

Global warming describes the current rise in the average temperature of Earth’s air and oceans. Global warming is often described as the most recent example of climate change. Earth’s climate has changed many times. Our planet has gone through multiple ice ages, in which ice sheets and glaciers covered large portions of Earth. It has also gone through warm periods when temperatures were higher than they are today. Past changes in Earth’s temperature happened very slowly, over hundreds of thousands of years. However, the recent warming trend is happening much faster than it ever has. Natural cycles of warming and cooling are not enough to explain the amount of warming we have experienced in such a short time—only human activities can account for it. Scientists worry that the climate is changing faster than some living things can adapt to it. In 1988, the World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations Environment Programme established a committee of climatologists, meteorologists, geographers, and other scientists from around the world. This Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) includes thousands of scientists who review the most up-to-date research available related to global warming and climate change. The IPCC evaluates the risk of climate change caused by human activities. According to the IPCC’s most recent report (in 2007), Earth’s average surface temperatures have risen about 0.74 degrees Celsius (1.33 degrees Fahrenheit) during the past 100 year...

In early April, 29 countries pledged more than $5 billion to the UN-backed Global Environment Facility ( major boost to international efforts to protect biodiversity and curb threats to climate change, plastics and toxic chemicals”. But why such a major boost? Well, the GEF is a multilateral fund that serves as a financial mechanism for several environmental conventions including the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and the UN Convention on Biological Diversity. It has its own Small Grants Program (SGP) which grants of up to $50,000 directly to local communities including indigenous peoples, community-based organizations and other non-governmental groups investing in projects related to healing our planet. The initiative is implemented in 127 countries by the UN Development Program ( Here at UN News, we want to highlight just five of the over 25,000 projects implemented since 1992, the year the GEF started working. Though the Fund’s projects span the globe, this list features a few initiatives currently improving the future of humankind and wildlife in Latin-America and the Caribbean. 1. Indigenous women solar engineers bringing light to rural Belize The three Mayan solar engineers who are bringing electricity to rural villages in Belize. For people living in cities is sometimes hard to believe that in 2022 there are still communities that don’t have electricity, but more than 500 million people worldwide don’t have access to this kind of service that many conside...

A: Since the Industrial Revolution, the global annual temperature has increased in total by a little more than 1 degree Celsius, or about 2 degrees Fahrenheit. Between 1880—the year that accurate recordkeeping began—and 1980, it rose on average by 0.07 degrees Celsius (0.13 degrees Fahrenheit) every 10 years. Since 1981, however, the rate of increase has more than doubled: For the last 40 years, we’ve seen the global annual temperature rise by 0.18 degrees Celsius, or 0.32 degrees Fahrenheit, per decade. The result? A planet that has Environmental Research Letters, have disproved this claim. The impacts of global warming are Now A: Global warming occurs when carbon dioxide (CO 2) and other air pollutants collect in the atmosphere and absorb sunlight and solar radiation that have bounced off the earth’s surface. Normally this radiation would escape into space, but these pollutants, which can last for years to centuries in the atmosphere, trap the heat and cause the planet to get hotter. These heat-trapping pollutants—specifically carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, water vapor, and synthetic fluorinated gases—are known as greenhouse gases, and their impact is called Though Curbing dangerous A: Scientists agree that the earth’s rising temperatures are fueling longer and hotter heat waves, more frequent droughts, heavier rainfall, and In 2015, for example, scientists concluded that a lengthy drought in California—the state’s The earth’s ocean temperatures are getting warm...

Global warming is the long-term warming of the planet’s overall temperature. Though this warming trend has been going on for a long time, its pace has significantly increased in the last hundred years due to the burning of fossil fuels. As the human population has increased, so has the volume of fossil fuels burned. Fossil fuels include coal, oil, and natural gas, and burning them causes what is known as the “greenhouse effect” in Earth’s atmosphere. The greenhouse effect is when the sun’s rays penetrate the atmosphere, but when that heat is reflected off the surface cannot escape back into space. Gases produced by the burning of fossil fuels prevent the heat from leaving the atmosphere. These greenhouse gasses are carbon dioxide, chlorofluorocarbons, water vapor, methane, and nitrous oxide. The excess heat in the atmosphere has caused the average global temperature to rise overtime, otherwise known as global warming. Global warming has presented another issue called climate change. Sometimes these phrases are used interchangeably, however, they are different. Climate change refers to changes in weather patterns and growing seasons around the world. It also refers to sea level rise caused by the expansion of warmer seas and melting ice sheets and glaciers. Global warming causes climate change, which poses a serious threat to life on Earth in the forms of widespread flooding and extreme weather. Scientists continue to study global warming and its impact on Earth.

To determine El Niño’s arrival and its strength, scientists look at sea surface temperatures and wind patterns along the equator in the eastern and central Pacific Ocean. During El Niño, those waters are unusually warm, while key tradewinds that normally blow across the Pacific from east to west weaken or reverse direction altogether. El Niño is associated with spikes in Earth’s average temperatures, as it encourages more heat to be trapped in the atmosphere. Given how much the planet has been steadily warming, scientists say El Niño could bring Earth close to a benchmark global leaders have sought to avoid — average temperatures 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) higher than preindustrial times.

EDITOR’S NOTE: On April 4, 2022, the IPCC released the Working Group III Sixth Assessment report on climate change mitigation. The report describes how, despite gains in the clean energy revolution, nations are falling far too short of reducing climate pollution quickly enough to avoid severe damage, cost, and upheaval. “The good news is that we have the climate solutions needed, and they work,” says NRDC president Manish Bapna. “For our economic and national security, and for the future of all life on earth, lawmakers must act without delay.” Read more about the IPCC report Rising sea levels. Raging storms. Searing heat. Ferocious fires. Severe drought. Punishing floods. The effects of climate change are already threatening our health, our communities, our economy, our security, and our children’s future. What can you do? A whole lot, as it turns out. Americans, on average, produce But it’s important to remember the equally vital contributions that can be made by private citizens—which is to say, by you. “Change only happens when individuals take action,” says clean energy advocate Here are a dozen easy, effective ways each one of us can make a difference. 1. Speak up! What’s the single biggest way you can make an impact on global climate change? “Talk to your friends and family, and make sure your representatives are making good decisions,” Haq says. By voicing your concerns—via social media or, better yet, 2. Power your home with renewable energy. Choose a utility compa...