Global Warming is Happening
Kevin E. Trenberth
National Center for Atmospheric Research
P. O. Box 3000
Boulder, CO 80307
email: trenbert@cgd.ucar.edu
voice: (303) 497 1318
fax: (303) 497 1333
The latest 2001 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report
reaffirms in much stronger language that the climate is changing and the major
cause is from human effects on changing the composition of the atmosphere
through use of fossil fuels and deforestation. The long lifetime of several
greenhouse gases (carbon dioxide lasts for over a century) suggests that we can
not stop the changes, but we can show them down. Moreover, the slow response of
the oceans to warming, means that we have not yet seen all of the climate change
the planet is already committed to. Major climate changes are projected under
all likely scenarios of the future and the rates of change are much greater than
occur naturally, and so are likely to be very disruptive.
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Hongjun Zhang:
zhangho@ucar.edu