K. Trenberth

National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO

ABSTRACT: Global Warming is Happening

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 slow 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.

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #90906©2001 AAPG Annual Convention, Denver, Colorado