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Global Warming



             Increasing the concentration of greenhouse gases beyond today's level will cause the climate to diverge markedly from its present state. Climatic zones shift by about 100 miles for each 1 C of global warming. Sea level will rise all over the planet. Major weather patterns, for example, the tropical monsoons and jet streams are altered. A warming of about 4 C, to which we may be committed in less than 50 years, would result in an ice-free Artic Ocean which will not only devastate arctic ecosystems, but will further climate change and weather. A warming of this extent could also begin an irreversible disintegration of the West Antarctic ice sheets which would result, within a few hundred years, in a further rise in sea level by at least 6 meters. .
             The following greenhouse gases contribute to global warming at different degrees. Carbon dioxide, the single most important greenhouse gas, accounts for about half of the warming that has been experienced as a result of past emissions and also for half of the projected future warming. The present concentration is now about 350 parts per million (ppm) and is increasing about 0.4% (1.5 ppm) per year, retaining an additional 3 billion tons of carbon per year. For a very long period of time before the industrial age, the atmospheric concentration was essentially constant. Beginning about 1850, however, the CO2 level began to rise, due in large part to the industrial burning of coal, oil, and natural gas. The atmospheric CO2 level in 1850 was approximately 270 ppm; thus it has already increased by about 30%. Human activities are now causing at least 7 billion tons of carbon, as carbon dioxide, to be released into the atmosphere. Fossil fuel use releases about 6 billion tons per year to the atmosphere. In addition, the clearing and burning of forests causes the pool of carbon which has been tied up in trees to be released. .
             Deforestation is in part the result of population expansion in the tropics and the use of land for agriculture and wood for energy.


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