Warming trend

Although there has been a warming trend over the past 100 years, it is not necessarily due to the greenhouse effect. The concern of the scientific community about accelerating changes in the next 40 to 50 years is based not only on the recent observations of temperature compared with past observations, but also on the physical principles related to the greenhouse effect. 

Until we know which perspective is more reflective of Earth s climate as a whole—the last ten thousand years, or a longer period of time—it will be difficult to put recent warming trends in perspective, or to relate those trends to potential impacts on the climate and on Earth s flora and fauna. 

Possible Longer Building Season with the warming trend (e.g., in Ontario and Quebec). 

IncreasedNeed for Air Conditioning and Refrigeration resulting from the warming trend. 

The 10-degree warming in the northern waters is thought to be part of a warming trend across a broad part of the Northern Hemisphere. This caused increased precipitation that was far reaching. In Greenland, the thickness of the annual ice layers showed that snowfall doubled in a single year. 

Figure 3.49 summarizes the oxygen isotope curve for the last 65 Ma. The most pronounced warming trend is expressed by a 1.5%o decrease in 8 0 and occurred early in the Cenozoic from 59 to 52 Ma, with a peak in Early Eocene. Coinciding with this event is a brief negative carbon isotope excursion, explained as a massive release of methane into the atmosphere (Norris and Rohl 1999). These authors used high resolution analysis of sedimentary cores to show that two thirds of the carbon shift occurred just in a few thousand years, indicating a catastrophic release of carbon from methane clathrates into the ocean and atmosphere. 

Bradley, R. S., and P. D. Jones, Little Ice Age Summer Temperature Variations Their Nature and Relevance to Recent Global Warming Trends, The Holocene, 3, 367-376 (1993). 

We have to understand that global warming is not like a pendulum. Global temperature by itself will not return to where it was. The thermal processes of our planet have such immense inertia that they cannot be stopped overnight. On the other hand, a well-planned, orderly transformation can gradually slow the warming trend and stabilize our climate. 

Enormous amounts of natural gas and petroleum products are burned daily. Of course, in the combustion process, it is the heat produced that is more important, not the chemical products of the reaction, carbon dioxide and water. However, many scientists are concerned that the production in this reaction of enormous quantities of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, might be initiating a global warming trend. 

Conversely, generating hydrogen from sustainable sources would reduce emissions of carbon monoxide and NOx, with a consequent fall in tropospheric ozone levels. This would improve air quality in many regions of the world. Furthermore, C02 emissions would be reduced, thereby slowing the global warming trend. 

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