NASA issues guide on global warming
NASA issues guide on global warming
mongabay.com
May 22, 2007
NASA issued a guide to global warming on its Earth Observatory web site, possibly marking a shift for the agency, which in recent years has often skirted use of the term “global warming”, famously censoring comments on the subject by James E. Hansen, the director of the agency’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies.
The guide includes sections the several sections–What is Global Warming; Evidence for Global Warming; Building a Climate Model; Predicting Future Warming; and Potential Effects of Global Warming–and states,
The effects of global warming are already being felt worldwide. The Larsen-B Ice Shelf on the Antarctic Peninsula collapsed over 35 days in early 2002, prompted by 3°C of warming since the 1940s. (NASA image by Jesse Allen, based on MODIS data.) |
“Far from being some future fear, global warming is happening now, and scientists have evidence that humans are to blame. For decades, cars and factories have spewed billions of tons of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, and these gases caused temperatures to rise between 0.6°C and 0.9°C (1.08°F to 1.62°F) over the past century. The rate of warming in the last 50 years was double the rate observed over the last 100 years. Temperatures are certain to go up further.”
The guide warns that climate change is capable of “producing significant changes in our environment and way of life,” including more frequent heat waves, rising sea levels, and altered weather patterns.
