Global Warming

The term global warming refers to a warming in the earth's climate. Global temperatures have changed throughout earth's history; however, in common usage, the term global warming refers to the anthropogenic (human induced) warming that results from an increase in atmospheric concentrations of certain gases due to the burning fossil fuels since the Industrial Revolution. This phenomenon is also called the greenhouse effect, and is a specific case of the more general term global climate change (which also refers to climate cooling both human induced and otherwise). Average global temperature has risen 0.6 ± 0.2 degrees C over the 20th century. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports that most of the warming observed over the past 50 years is attributable to human activities. ...