<\/p>\n
Does global warming exist?\u00a0 <\/span>Yes.\u00a0 <\/span>Did global warming exist before the industrial age?\u00a0 <\/span>Yes.\u00a0 <\/span>Is global warming a natural occurrence?\u00a0 <\/span>Yes.\u00a0 <\/span>Do humans have an effect on global warming?\u00a0 <\/span>Absolutely.\u00a0 <\/span>Though global warming is a natural phenomenon, its present rate of increase is not.<\/p>\n \u201cThe natural patterns of climate change have been altered,\u201d said the Union of Concerned Scientists, a science-based nonprofit organization.<\/p>\n A study by the European Project for Ice Coring in Antarctica found that greenhouse gases today are higher than at any time in the past 650,000 years.\u00a0 <\/span>That translates to eight ice ages.\u00a0 <\/span>Additionally, the Environmental Protection Agency reports the eight warmest years on record have been recorded since 1998, the warmest being 2005.<\/p>\n \u201cAlthough local temperatures fluctuate naturally, over the past 50 years the average global temperature has increased at the fastest rate in recorded history,\u201d said the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental action group.<\/p>\n It isn\u2019t just the atmosphere that\u2019s heating up.\u00a0 <\/span>In the past 50 years oceans have absorbed 20 times as much heat as the atmosphere, even to a depth of 1,500 feet below the surface, according to the UCS Web site.<\/p>\n \u201cThe measured increases in water temperature lie well outside the bounds of natural climate variation,\u201d said the UCS.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n What about global cooling periods?\u00a0 <\/span>Aerosols, a subset of air pollution, cause global cooling.\u00a0 <\/span>Unlike greenhouse gases, aerosols leave the atmosphere within a few days, weeks or years, according to the UCS.\u00a0 <\/span>However, greenhouse gases stay in the atmosphere for decades or centuries.<\/p>\n \u201cEven accounting for the occasional short-lived cooling . . . heat-trapping emissions far outweigh any other current climate driver.\u00a0 <\/span>Once again, our scientific fingerprinting identifies human activities as the main driver of our warming climate,\u201d said the UCS.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Does global warming exist?\u00a0 Yes.\u00a0 Did global warming exist before the industrial age?\u00a0 Yes.\u00a0 Is global warming a natural occurrence?\u00a0 Yes.\u00a0 Do humans have an effect on global warming?\u00a0 Absolutely.\u00a0 Though global warming is a natural phenomenon, its present rate of increase is not.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[508,1976,571],"class_list":["post-2207","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tartan-news","tag-global","tag-meagan-ewton","tag-warming"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5s3vR-zB","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2207","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2207"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2207\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15437,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2207\/revisions\/15437"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2207"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2207"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2207"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}