Understanding Climate Change: Scientific Opinion and Public Perspective

Abstract

Since the late nineteenth century, the earth’s average surface temperature has risen by about 1.18 °C, mainly due to increased carbon dioxide emission into the atmosphere and other anthropogenic activities. Most of the warming happened during the last four decades, with the most recent seven years being the warmest. As shown by global observations, climate change is ongoing, and extensive scientific analysis shows that the greenhouse gases released by human activity are its primary causes. Based on well-established data, most climate science and the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change agree that climate change occurs primarily due to human-induced causes and therefore affirm this stance. Although natural activities contribute significantly to climate variability, several evidence suggests that human influences have had an increasingly dominant impact on the observed global warming since the mid-twentieth century. It is a crucial problem that threatens to cause significant natural, social, and economic impacts worldwide. So, it becomes imperative to clearly understand the phenomenon to adopt appropriate mitigation measures with good accuracy and precision.