by Luke Towstego

Created on: May 09, 2008

Possibly the hottest subject in the news these days is "Global Warming", but what is it? What causes it? And can we stop it? Global warming is the single most important challenge our generation faces and we must either rise to meet this unprecedented challenge, or there will be no ground to stand on for future generations.

Let's start with the easiest question; "What is global warming?" Global warming is "an increase in the average temperature of the earth's atmosphere, especially a sustained increase sufficient to cause climatic change." Global warming is a change in the temperature of the atmosphere, but what causes the change? With the advent of the Industrial Revolution came the invention of many machines that we use every day, unfortunately, all of these technologies in use, release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Since the 1860s, increased industrialization and shrinking forests have helped raise the CO2 level in the atmosphere by almost 100 parts of CO2 per million parts oxygen.

So what effect does global warming have on the environment? World wide, over the last century, the temperature has risen 1 degree Fahrenheit, and The United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) projects that global temperatures will rise an additional 3 to10 degrees Fahrenheit by the end of the century. The spring ice thaw in the Northern Hemisphere now typically occurs 9 days earlier than it did 150 years ago and the fall freeze now typically starts 10 days later. The ice of the Arctic Circle acts as an "air conditioner" for the world, but rising temperatures have a drastic effect on the ice, Since 1978, the area of ice in the Arctic Sea has shrunk by some 9 percent per decade; it has thinned, as well. The ACIA (Arctic Climate Impact Assessment) projects that at least half of the Arctic's summer sea ice will melt by the end of the century, and that the Arctic region is likely to warm 7 to 13 degrees Fahrenheit during this same time period.

What sort of effect does global warming have on glaciers around the world? It has caused Montana's Glacier National Park to decrease from having 150 large glaciers when it was created in 1910, to currently having only 30 shrunken glaciers. Tropical glaciers are also in trouble. The legendary snows of Tanzania's Mount Kilimanjaro 19,340-foot peak have melted by some 80% since 1912 and could be gone by 2020.

So what does the melting of glaciers mean? Just as in the movie, "The Day After Tomorrow," the "ocean conveyor

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