Heating Up!

Over the centuries climates have changed a lot. Sometimes a region will be warmer than average for 100 years! Until recently, warmer temperatures have occurred for natural reasons. Today, people may be changing the climate and making it warmer.

Unfortunately, human activity can have a negative impact on the environment. People destroy the habitats of animals and plants when they build cities and cut down forests. When people burn oil, coal, and natural gas, they can also change the climate. How does this happen?

Pollution from factories and cars add toxic gases to the air. These gases rise to the Earth’s atmosphere. As the sun's rays warm the Earth, the gases work much like the glass in a greenhouse. They help trap the heat in the atmosphere, which makes the Earth grow warmer. That's why they are nicknamed "greenhouse gases."

If the Earth continues to warm up, all of the ice on the North and South Poles could melt. Global warming would cause the oceans to rise and cover more land. Many places along the coasts of every continent, including the city of New York, would be underwater.

Many people are sceptical about global warming. they don’t believe that it is a real problem. But in the last 100 years, average temperatures have risen 0.7 degrees Celsius, or about 2 degrees Fahrenheit. This may not sound like a lot. Yet, this change is more than twice as much as previous temperature increases. The average temperature rose only 5 degrees Celsius over the last 5,000 years. Scientists think the average temperature could rise another five degrees in the next 100 years.