"There was no cold month in 628 months"

More than 80% of the world's population – born in the last 50 years – live in a land hit by a fever that simply refuses to calm down. This generation could be called the generation that has grown up in a new atmosphere; badly decried by humans. In April 2017, scientists from Climate Central, an international association of scientists and journalists reporting and investigating climate change, published an amazing chart illustrating a monthly increase in temperature since 1880. "There is no had a cold month at 628 months. "Climate The Center has collected a tremendous amount of data from NASA and NOAA to form a one-page chart that shows months with temperatures higher than the temperature of global average base recorded between 1881 provisionally with the industrial revolution) and 1910 in red color.

The blue color represented relatively cooler months. Finally, the card seemed completely stained red. In the last 50 years, each month has been warmer than the beginning of the industrial period. Brian Kahn of Climate Central said: "The cold blues have disappeared and have been replaced by an endless heat wave. Climate change is likely to continue to face warmer than normal months for the foreseeable future as temperatures continue to rise. "

Seven months earlier, researchers from the University of Reading in the United Kingdom had collected 167 annual global temperature maps side by side for the period 1850-2016. These maps show the overall historical anomalies of surface temperature relative to reference levels from 1961 to 1990. He came to the same conclusion: continuous increase in annual surface temperature. But there is another trend: surface temperatures have increased dramatically, especially since the 1990s.

For the Indians and, to a certain extent, the peoples of all the continents, it was not a surprise. Since that time, the world has recorded the hottest years in succession. Since 1992, heat waves have killed 22,562 people in India. In the last 23 years, no less than 393 deaths a year in India have been caused by heat waves. Between 1992 and 2004, the annual death toll was divided by 1,000 times – in 1995 and 1998. Since then, more than 1,000 people have died in seven heat waves. The worst summer in terms of the number of victims is 2015 where 2,422 people died. Until then, 1998 was the hottest year of the century.

The July 2016 temperature on the earth and oceans of the planet was about 1.57 ° F above the 20th century average of 60.4 ° F. At a time when every month seemed to be breaking records climatic, this record was the highest for July from the 1880-2016 period, exceeding the previous record set in 2015 of 0.11 ° F, the former record holder of the hottest month ever recorded. July 2016 marked the 40th consecutive month of July with nominal temperatures at least above the average of the 20th century. July 1976 was the last time that global land and ocean temperatures were below average. In July 2016, the overall monthly temperature gap was the lowest compared to the average since August 2015 and tied with August 2015, the 15th highest monthly temperature difference of any month (1,639).

Science had definitively diagnosed fever; he was also certain now that the earth was undergoing a warming for over a century. For over four decades, it has been asked whether the warming was "natural" or "man-made". The scientific basis of this doubt about attribution is the fact that the earth has gone through different phases of cooling and warming. The ice age was the most striking argument for convincing that the current warming was natural. However, there was not much scientific evidence against the verdict that global warming was due to human factors. And climate anomalies were the result of these factors.

The climate of the Earth is a complex and interactive system composed of the atmosphere, the earth's surface, snow and living beings; like you and me and the pretty trees and tigers. The atmospheric component of the climate system characterizes the climate most clearly; therefore, the climate is generally defined as "average time". As such, climate change and weather are inseparable. Observations can show that there have been changes in weather, and it is the statistics of time changes over time that can identify climate change. The climate system evolves over time under the influence of its own internal dynamics. It can also evolve due to changes in external factors that affect the climate – these factors are called "forcing". External "forcings" include natural phenomena, such as volcanic eruptions and solar variations, as well as man-made changes in the chemical composition of the atmosphere.

First, let's understand the very foundations of the Earth's climate system, because that is what motivated global climate change policy: who caused it and who should be held accountable for it? The radiative energy of the sun feeds the climate system. About 30% of the sunlight reaching the top of the atmosphere is returned to space. About two-thirds of this reflection is due to clouds and small particles of the atmosphere called "aerosols". The light areas of the earth's surface – mainly snow, ice and deserts – reflect the remaining sunlight.

The unreflected energy in space is absorbed by the surface and atmosphere of the Earth and amounts to about 240 watts per square meter (W / m²). To balance the energy received, the Earth itself must emit the same amount of energy in space. The Earth does this by emitting radiation coming out of long waves. Everything on Earth emits long wave radiation permanently. The hotter the object, the more heat it releases.

To emit 240 W / m², a surface should have a temperature of -19 ° C. It is much colder than the actual conditions on the surface of the Earth. The required temperature -19 ° C is about 5 km above the surface. So, how is the earth hotter?

This question led to the discovery of the greenhouse effect and the discovery of human causes of global warming. Ed Hawkins, who worked for the UK National Center for Atmospheric Sciences, wrote: "In the 1820s, the French mathematician Joseph Fourier tried to understand the various factors that affect the Earth's temperature. But he found a problem – according to his calculations, the Earth should have been a scoop of ice. The most obvious factor, the sun, did not seem to provide enough energy to raise the temperature of the Earth above the freezing point. Fourier's initial ideas that there must be extra energy from the Earth's core or the temperature of space were quickly rejected. Fourier then realized that the atmosphere, which at first seemed transparent, could play a crucial role.

The average global temperature at the earth's surface is about 14 ° C. This is due to the presence of gases that act as a partial blanket of long-wave radiation from the surface.

This blanket is known as the natural greenhouse effect.

The glass walls of a garden greenhouse reduce the flow of air and increase the temperature of the air in the interior. Similarly, but by a different physical process, the greenhouse effect of the Earth warms the surface of the planet. Without a natural greenhouse effect, the average temperature on the surface of the Earth would be below the freezing point of water. Thus, the Earth's natural greenhouse effect makes life as we know it possible. And global warming had other unnatural reasons. Let us dive into the story of how we came to this conclusion.

(This story was published in the book Climate Change Now under the title & # 39; Science & # 39; tumultuous postulates)