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The averager temperature of planet Earth has gone up by 0.7 degrees Celsius over the past century. This may not sound like much, but a in your body this would cause you to feel ill. So it's natural to want to know what has caused this temperature rise.
In the early twentieth century a Swedish physicist named Arrhenius calculated that the burning of coal could release enough carbon dioxide into the atmosphere to raise the temperature of the planet. The idea was dismissed as preposterous by the science establishment, yet a century later it is now the view of the science academies of all the developed countries in the world that this is exactly what has happened.

So what can we expect as a result?
One thing which environmentalists don't like to mention too often is that current levels of warming are the result of carbon released into the air up to around 30 years ago. Since that time, about the same amount again has been added to the atmosphere. This means that even if everyone stopped burning fossil fuels overnight, the planet would continue to warm for at least another three decades. of course, this isn't going to happen. Emissions are still rising dramatically, so we can expect much higher levels of warming in future.
The consequences of global warming are the least certain area of the science. Computer modesl using the most powerful computers in the world can still only return results in terms of likelihood. However, the patterns of climate change are predictable. We can expect more extreme weather events, including stronger wind speeds, heavier downpours and more lightning. We can also expect sea levels to rise slowly. The slow rate may allow us time to respond. We'll need it: half the world's population live in coastal cities, and a third of all crops are grown on land which is likely to become the seabed.
I hope that one consequence of global warming, however, will be a renewed sense of how we all depend on each other and upon the world we live in - that we are not isolated units but at a very deep level, brothers and sisters.

Learn more about this author, Matt Carmichael.
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