Is global warming for real – how is the current climate change different from warm periods before?
It is right that the climate varies naturally. It is also right that the Arctic and the globe have seen warmer periods before. But there is a broad consensus among climate scientists that there has been an abnormally steep rise in global surface temperature since the industrial revolution (c. 1750), with a sharp rise at the end of the 20th century. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, a UN expert panel) the warmest century in the past thousand years was the 1900s, the warmest decade since weather monitoring started was the 1990s and there is 30% more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere now than before the industrial revolution, when people started burning fossil fuels (coal, oil and gas). As climate changes, the major way for plants and animal species to adapt is to migrate to new areas to find a suitable climate. Therefore, it is crucial that the rate of the climate change isn’t greater than the ability of the species to move and establish in a new place.
