| Find out more about warming mysteries in Stuff You Never Knew About Global Warming For information straight from the experts, visit The Weather Channel’s |
TRUTH: Experts are starting to agree that satellites, which monitor temperatures high above the Earth’s surface, show a small warming over the past two decades. There are still differences that remain, but it’s not clear how much that has to do with the differences in behavior of at different altitudes. Higher up, temperatures fluctuate more widely than they do at the surface.
MYTH: The urban heat island effect has been a major cause of global warming.
TRUTH: The urban heat island effect is seen in cities where building materials, such as concrete and asphalt tend to be warmer than soil and grass – especially at night. Over land, given the population explosion, it’s easy to see why some believe urbanization, rather than increasing "greenhouse gases," may be the major cause of warming temperatures. But the warming has showed up in sea surface temperatures as well, so the urban heat island effect can’t solely be blamed for the warming.
MYTH: Greenhouse gas emissions and changes in temperature did not happen at the same time, so greenhouse gases shouldn’t be blamed.
TRUTH: The atmosphere is extremely complex, as there are so many influences upon it. It’s unreasonable to expect the two trends to match exactly. One major factor is the oceans, which take much longer to warm (and cool) than the atmosphere, and so the effects lag behind the emissions upsurge. Most computer models agree that greenhouse gas buildup will be a chief issue in the coming years.
MYTH: Carbon dioxide (CO2) is cleansed from the atmosphere quickly, so if global warming starts to interfere with our planet, we can address the problem then.
TRUTH: CO2, the byproduct of burning fossil fuels, is believed to be one of the primary cases of global warming. If emissions of the gas were halted today, it would take more than a century for the level of CO2 in the air to get back to normal – the way it was before industrialization. About 15 percent of it would remain airborne for thousands of years, causing an uncertain amount of warming. And remember - the oceans are slow to respond to change, so the damage done there would take a long time to resolve itself.
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