by James Apple

Created on: March 04, 2007   Last Updated: May 09, 2007

Global warming will be worse than it is made out to be. A recent report from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) shows that scientists are very certain about the catastrophic things that will happen to our planet within the next few decades.

Proof that it is already happening:
The IPCC examined more than 30,000 environmental data sets, and found that 85% of them show changes that scientists had expected due to global warming. According to these reports: glacial lakes are growing rapidly, permafrost is melting (which will cause landslides), and animals are already migrating towards higher altitudes and cooler climates. Seasonal snow packs are also melting faster, which means increased risk of flooding during the spring and water shortage during the summer.

Problems that will soon occur:
As more glaciers melt and glacial pools spill into the ocean, sea levels will rise. This will be a serious rise, something that could put most of the San Francisco Bay Area underwater. As seawater heats up, it will release the carbon dioxide that it has been absorbing for so many years, only making our problem worse and possibly unstoppable.

The most important thing to remember from the recent United Nations IPCC report was the certainty that these scientists had about global warming. Every sentence has been furiously debated between scientists from nearly every country, and their report uses phrases such as "strong certainty" and "very strong certainty" to show that the debate is over. It is time to stop debating about whether global warming is happening and put full effort into solving this problem.

Learn more about this author, James Apple.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.