(See related pages)
|
|
|
| Chapter 10 Summary
Modern burning of fossil fuels has been increasing the amount of carbon dioxide in the air. The resultant greenhouse-effect heating is melting alpine glaciers, edges of the Greenland ice cap, Arctic sea ice, and permafrost and contributing to the thermal expansion of seawater, causing a rise in global sea level. If this continues, flooding of many coastal areas could result. Global warming may influence the oceans' thermohaline circulation and the occurrence of El Niño events. Other probable consequences include changes in global weather patterns, including amount and distribution of precipitation, which may have serious implications for agriculture, and more-intense storms. Warming appears to be expanding the occurrence of certain diseases, thus affecting human health. Cores taken from ice sheets provide data on past temperature and greenhouse-gas fluctuations over several hundred thousand years.
Climatic projections for the future are complicated by the number and variety of factors to be considered, including other greenhouse gases, a variety of positive and negative climate feedback mechanisms, and complex interactions between oceans and atmosphere. |