Nathan Shirley's Global Warming Page

This is my Global Warming page. If you find any flaws in this wiki, please edit it.

The above is a view of Earth from space.

If you found this website, you were most likely searching for something to do with Global Warming. I will prove to you beyond a reasonable doubt that Global Warming is real.

I will first show you some data about temperatures from 1900 to 2000. The data and the graph were both collected and made by The National Center for Atmospheric Research and the UCAR Office of Programs.

The blue line on the graph above represents how Earth's temperature has gone up and down in the past and how it should have continued to go. The black line shows the actual temperatures that were recorded. As you can see, the black line goes above the expected natural occurrence, thus proving that Global Warming is currently happening.

One question that is frequently asked by people who have just started learning about Global Warming is, "Why is the Earth getting warmer?" I will explain this next.

It all started when we began burning fossil fuels to run our modern machines. This released massive amounts of carbon dioxide (CO₂) into our atmosphere. Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse¹ gas, which caused the Earth's atmosphere to trap more heat from the Sun.

Below is a diagram of a CO₂ molecule.

Carbon dioxide used to keep Earth in a steady range of temperatures, cycling from iceage to a warm period, but now it is getting warmer and has not stopped warming like it should have.

Below is a chart of the level of C0₂ in the atmosphere from 1958 to 2004.

Below is a graph of the level of CO₂ in the atmosphere from 400,000 years ago to now.

There is an obvious pattern to the graph above; if the CO₂ rises, the temperature rises; if the CO₂ falls the temperature falls. If you look to the far right of the graph you will see that the CO₂ levels (in red) today are alarmingly higher than they have ever been. What do you think the temperature will do?

Now that you have a clear understanding of what is happening and what was happening, I can explain what scientists think will happen.

First things will happen such as the ice caps starting to melt. Then more major things will happen like sea-level rising around the world. When the polar ice caps are gone and sea level rises, the earth will heat more and more. As the earth heats, more water from the ocean evaporates, creating more clouds. The clouds will then build up and reflect so much sunlight that it will become colder and colder, thus sending us into another ice age or at least cooling it down a little.

sources:

http://www.earthdayenergyfast.org/IMAGES/earth.jpg

http://www.ucar.edu/research/climate/images/pcmensembles.gif

http://smid.blueprint.org/images/mod1050.png

http://www.aip.org/history/climate/images/maunaloa.jpg

http://www.daviesand.com/Choices/Precautionary_Planning/New_Data/IceCores1.gif

Created by: Nathan Shirley
Last update: 9:50 PM 12 April, 2007