A warming world - why and what will the consequences be?
by
Erland Källén(Department of Meteorology, Stockholm University)
→
Europe/Stockholm
Oskar Klein Auditorium
Oskar Klein Auditorium
Description
The world is getting warmer, globally averaged surface temperatures have
increased substantially over the past 100 years and much of this can be
associated with an increased greenhouse effect. The increased greenhouse
effect is caused by accelerating concentrations of greenhouse gases in
the atmosphere, in particular carbon dioxide resulting from man made
burning of fossil fuels. In the future we can expect further increases
of carbon dioxide concentrations, compared to pre-industrial times the
concentration is likely to increase by 100% or more within the coming
century. The implications for global climate are quite dramatic. Using
basic laws of physics we can construct climate models that can be used
to estimate future climate change. The estimates are associated with a
large uncertainty, but nevertheless we may conclude that a continued
global warming is very likely to occur. The magnitude depends on how
successful we will be in decreasing future emissions of carbon dioxide.
