We’ve been hearing the warnings of global warming problems for quite some time now. The push is on to promote green living to help save the environment and stop some of the effects of global warming.

Are those threats real or is this just hype to further political awareness? Global warming refers to the temperature of the earth near surface air. It allows the earth to be habitable, as it absorbs some of the heat from the sun.

Greenhouse gases that have been released into the earth’s atmosphere are contributing to the rise in the surface air temperature. What impact is this having on earth right now?

By studying gas bubbles frozen in ancient Greenland ice, University of Victoria researchers have dispelled a popular theory that marine gas hydrates caused a significant release of methane gas into the Earth’s atmosphere, triggering a period of global warming at the end of the last ice age.

“Understanding the behaviour of global atmospheric methane is important because it’s the third strongest greenhouse gas after carbon dioxide and water vapour,” says biogeochemist Dr. Michael Whiticar, part of the Canada-U.S. team that conducted the study. “Atmospheric methane concentrations have increased about 250 per cent in the last 250 years, and they continue to rise about one per cent a year.”

Methane in the Earth’s atmosphere is an important greenhouse gas with a global warming potential of 25 over a 100-year period. This means that a methane emission will have 25 times the impact on temperature of a carbon dioxide emission of the same mass over the following 100 years. Methane has a large effect for a brief period (about 10 years), whereas carbon dioxide has a small effect for a long period (over 100 years). Because of this difference in effect and time period, the global warming potential of methane over a 20 year time period is 72.

Global Warming – Information and Tips regarding Global Warming

Global Warming is the increase in the average measured temperature of the Earth’s near-surface air and oceans since the mid-20th century, and its projected continuation.

Average measured temperature is the instrumental temperature record shows the fluctuations of the temperature of the atmosphere and the oceans as measured by temperature sensors. Currently, the longest-running temperature record is the Central England temperature data series that starts in 1659. The longest-running quasi-global record starts in 1850.