GEOG422 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Sea Level Rise, Permafrost, Meteorology
8 Mar 2019
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Document Summary
Global average temperature increased by 1. 7 degree from 1901 to 2016 - observational evidence does not support any credible natural explanations for this amount of warming. Evidence consistently points to human activities, esp. Long term temp observations are among the most consistent and widespread evidence of a warming planet. 16 of the last 17 years have been the warmest ever recorded by human observations. Global annual average temperatures for the period since 1986 appear to have risen at a more rapid rate than for any similar climatological (20 30 year) time period in at least the last 1,700 years. Other indicators of global climate changing includes melting glaciers and ice sheets, shrinking snow cover and sea ice, rising sea levels, more frequent high temperature extremes and heavy precipitation events. Emissions of greenhouse gases from fossil fuel combustion, deforestation, and land-use change, are primarily responsible for the climate changes observed in the industrial era - especially over past 6 decades.
