What is Global Warming?
Global warming is in the news a lot these days, you can't help but have heard the term. But what is it exactly? What does global warming mean?
Global warming is a complex process but it's definition is reasonably simple: it is the warming up of our planet. To your average person this means warmer air temperatures. So if you were outside enjoying a nice spring day today, global warming would result in that same day measuring something a little hotter.
To look at it a little more exactly lets take the last 100 years as an example. Each year we can measure the average temperature overall, worked out by adding up and averaging out the temperatures of each day in that year. In the years from 1905 until 2005 this average temperature rose by nearly a full degree celcius. Now, this doesn't sounds like a lot considering that every day is usually at least a degree different from the one before, but the balance of the earth's environment is very fragile and a rise of 1 or 2 degrees can have a dramatic impact.
The types of effects that global warming can cause are numerous, ranging from creating extremes of weather, to causing rising sea levels. These effects are always wide ranging and dramatic, however, and they are covered in more detail in the Consequences section.
