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Introduction
Rising Temperatures
Predicting Global Warming
Complicating Factors
Predicting 2080
Spring 2080
Summer 2080
Autumn 2080
Winter 2080
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Credits
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 Most scientists agree that even if we ceased production of greenhouse gases today, the average temperature in the UK would continue to rise for the next 100 years or so. Their confidence in predicting rising temperatures is based on three inescapable facts. First, the abundance of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere resulting from human activities has soared by 34% since the Industrial Revolution – and it's still on an upward trend. Second, once in the atmosphere, carbon dioxide is difficult to get rid of – it can linger for hundreds of years. Third, carbon dioxide is one of the greenhouses gases – when released in quantity into the atmosphere it results in global warming.
Scientific predictions about global warming led to an international agreement, the Kyoto Protocol. Signatories, including the UK, have agreed to set targets for the reduction of human emissions of greenhouse gases, although many climatologists now believe that the targets fall woefully short of the mark.
Britain, meanwhile, is playing a lead role in predicting how global warming will change the climate, using some of the world's most powerful computers and some of the best brains in the business. The tools of the trade are climate models and they are being used to limit the global warming guessing game.
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