Global warming emerged on the public stage in the late 1980's, when many scientists agreed that the earth was (and still is) getting warmer. The debate centered around whether humans were influencing climate change. The skeptics argued that carbon dioxide emitted by humans exploded in 1940, after World War II, yet there was no corresponding increase in global temperatures.

Since the ocean stores heat at deeper levels before releasing it, researchers hypothesized that this could cause a delay in the warming. New findings on sulfate in the air shed new light on the delay or masking of the warming effect of greenhouse gases. When burned, coal and oil also release sulfate into the air. The sulfate particles stay at lower level in the atmosphere and reflect sunlight back into space. HOWEVER, sulfate only remains airborne for a few weeks, whereas carbon dioxide can stay in the atmosphere for as many as 200 years. So the sulfate umbrella is only a temporary mask rather than an offset (not to mention the pollution itself, which causes lung disease, crop damage, and acid rain).

Skeptics of global climate change were truly put in their place in 1995 by a study by David J. Thompson, a systems analyst at AT&T Bell Labs. The study evaluated a century of summer and winter temperature data. His findings showed that the accumulation of greenhouse gases overwhelmed the relatively weak effects of solar cycles on climate. What he found was that the timing of the seasons had begun to shift. Spring is now arriving a week earlier than twenty years ago. Researchers believe that the shift in the timing of the seasons could be the driving force behind extreme weather events which have been occurring more frequently recently.

Thus, the lack of correlation between the increase in the burning of fossil fuels and the increase in global temperatures can be explained. Between 1940 and 1980, much of the newly generated carbon dioxide was absorbed by oceans and forests, and warming was also temporarily neutralized by a noxious sulfate cover in the atmosphere. Today, there is a consensus among scientists worldwide that human-induced global climate change is occurring now. (see section on Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change)

IPCC: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

The IPCC was established by the United Nations Environmental Program and the World Meteorological Organization in 1988. The role of the IPCC is "to assess the scientific, technical and socioeconomic information relevant for the understanding of the risk of human-induced climate change. It does not carry out new research nor does it monitor climate related data. It bases its assessment mainly on published and peer reviewed scientific technical literature." ^[1]

A sampling of important findings in reports released by the IPCC: (for more, go to www.ipcc.ch/)

1994: New findings from ancient ice-cores records show that the planet's temperature is demonstrably sensitive to changes in concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide. From the paleontological record, researchers find that prehistoric changes in climate correlate very closely with rapid changes in climate.

1995: In the Second Assessment Report, or SAR: "A pattern of climatic response to human activities is identifiable in the climatological record."

2001: Third Assessment Report:

Estimated that the global average surface temperature has increased in the 20th century by 0.6oC, about 0.15oC more than estimated by the Second Assessment Report.

"There is new and stronger evidence that most of the warming observed over the last fifty years is attributable to human activities."

"Emissions of greenhouse gases and aerosols due to human activities continue to alter the atmosphere in ways that are expected to affect the climate." ~ temperatures projected to increase 1.4-5.8 degrees Celsius over the period of 1990-2100

"Those with the least resources have the least capacity to adapt and are the most vulnerable [to the damaging effects of global climate change]."