Global warming is the result of an increase in the earth’s average surface temperature due to over-emittance of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and methane. According to NASA, “the global average surface temperature rose 0.6–0.9 degrees Celsius (1.1–1.6°F) between 1906 and 2005, and the rate of temperature increase has nearly doubled in the last 50 years.”
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Since the industrial revolution in 1700, the level of carbon dioxide on earth has increased by 34 per cent. Human activities like burning of fossil fuels, deforestation, industrialisation, and pollution are seen as a few of the factors responsible for the rise in global warming.
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More than one million species have become extinct due to disappearing habitats, ecosystems and acidic oceans — all due to global warming. Even if the temperature change is at the small end of the predictions, the alterations are expected to be serious: More intense storms, more pronounced droughts, coastal erosion, and increased distribution of infectious diseases.
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The colder zones are warming even faster than temperate or equatorial zones. In the past 60 years, Alaska has warmed by about 3 degrees Fahrenheit. That’s twice as fast as the rest of the US.