Climate change - origin of the problem
Increasing GHGH emission changing the global climate - temperature on Earth increasing.
According to the opinion of the scientists of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPPC), continuation of the traditional development trends in the world, particularly a large scale utilisation of fossil fuels, causes unwanted global climate change. Fuel combustion is accompanied by emissions of the so-called greenhouse gases (GHG) – mainly carbon dioxide CO2. As a result the concentration of these gases in the atmosphere increases and the higher GHG concentration leads to the overall warming of the global climate.
The scientists consider a range of scenarios for GHG emission growth up to the end of 21st century. Figure 1 and the Table, presents the probable consequences of the forecasted GHG emissions, in particular the expected growth of the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere and the corresponding increase of the average temperature on Earth.
FIGURE 1. The relationnship between the global mean temperature, above the preindustrial level [°C], and the concenration of CO2 in the atmosphere [PPM CO2 EQUIVALENT] , for various scenarions of GHG emissions up to 2100.
The central curve in the diagram determines the basic relationship between growth of the atmospheric CO2 concentration and global mean temperature. The bordering lines (top and bottom) show the range of uncertainty in the modelling simulations. The shaded areas depict six analysed scenarios of possible future GHG emissions. Scenario I describes the lowest emissions scenario, while scenario VI relates to the scenario with the highest emissions. Higher GHG emissions result in higher atmospheric CO2 concentrations and a larger increase in the average temperature on Earth.
TABLE 1. GHG concentration in the atmosphere and the global mean temperature rise under different global scenarios of GHG emission.
All the scenarios indicate warming of the global climate. This warming could potentially be very high and dangerous for mankind in a situation in which economic development is accompanied by extremely high CO2 emissions (darker fields on the graph).
The first four scenarios of more moderate emissions show an estimated increase of global average temperature of up to 4.0 °C to 2100 (considering the possible margin of error this increase could even be up to 6.4 °C).
We have already observed the occurrence of natural phenomena, which in the opinion of IPCC scientists, are the likely consequence of the global climate warming. Further temperature increase is predicted to cause these phenomena to intensify, potentially becoming dangerous for mankind.
Scientists foresee that growth of the worldwide average temperature by 6.4 °C will result not only in melting of Arctic ice and more extreme and frequent heat waves and tropical cyclones in the tropics, but also in other unfavourable changes of the global ecosystem.
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