How and when did global warming start?

Answer 1

The natural carbon cycle and the water cycle have produced a greenhouse effect that has kept the planet comfortably warm since life began.

Since the start of the Industrial Revolution about 200 years ago man has been burning fossil fuels for industry, transport and the generation of electricity. This burning has released carbon dioxide that had been stored deep underground for millions of years. This extra carbon has disrupted the natural carbon cycle and seriously added to the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. It is this enhanced, or accelerated greenhouse effect that is causing what we now refer to as global warming, or climate change.

A: The earth has always been warm. This is the result of the greenhouse effect, supported by the natural carbon cycle of the earth, which moves carbon dioxide in and out of the atmosphere. This has kept the earth comfortably warm for as long as life has existed.

Today when we talk about global warming we are referring to the recent warming which has slowly been happening since man began burning fossil fuels and cutting down forests, about 200 years ago. Burning fossil fuels releases extra carbon dioxide making an accelerated greenhouse effect, and deforestation removes trees that have acted as carbon sinks, storing carbon for hundreds of years. A: The Answers.com category defines global warming, or global climate change, as a scientific proposal that the Earth's average atmospheric temperature is currently warming up due to increasing levels of greenhouse gases and/or other factors. This distinguishes it from the natural warming effect of greenhouse gases at their long-term normal level.

Climate scientists say that carbon dioxide and methane levels have been rising since the beginning of the Industrial age, in the middle of the eighteenth century. The present rise in average global temperatures would date from the same time, but instrumental measurements did not commence until 1850, so scientists can only use proxies to estimate temperature changes before that time. Scientists at first doubted that global warming was really occurring or, if it was, that it was occurring at a sufficient rate to be a concern for centuries to come. It was not until the late 1970s that they realised that global warming was real and that it presented a danger in the very short term.

Answer 2

Unfortunately, all of us share some degree of responsibility for global climate change. Since the Industrial Revolution began, humans have burned gargantuan amounts of coal, oil, gasoline and other carbon-based fuels -- even whale blubber -- to heat our homes, operate our vehicles, and power our factories. All of these activities create gases like carbon dioxide that absorb heat from sunlight and trap that heat in the atmosphere, much like a greenhouse traps heat -- thus the term "greenhouse gases." Billions of people burning carbon-based fuels for over 200 years have had an impact on Earth's thin atmosphere far in excess of any other source of atmospheric heating (volcanoes, solar activity, etc.).

Answer 3

Although human beings did not begin significant contributions to greenhouse gases until the 18th century, earth did not begin responding to the increase until the 1980s. The 1980s marked the real beginning of the temperature upswing. CO2 levels were still only 300 ppm as recently as 1950.

Today CO2 is 400 ppm, and by 2050 they will exceed 500 ppm. Global temperature should continue to rise decades after we stop increasing CO2--provided we ever do.

Answer 4

The greenhouse effect has been keeping the earth warm for millions of years. But the global warming that the world is worrying about now started about 260 years ago, at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution (around 1750), when man started digging up coal and oil and burning it for industry, transport and to generate electricity.

This fossil fuel burning releases age-old carbon that had been hidden underground for 300 million years. The extra CO2 is too much for the carbon cycle to deal with so it remains in the atmosphere, getting warmer and warmer as the months go on.

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Another Answer:

Looking at our longest data source for global temperature (the Vostok Glacial core samples) we know the current warming cycle started 10,200 years ago. There has been a total warming this cycle of about 11 degrees. About 1 degree of this has occurred the past 150 years.

Answer 5

It began when we started to seriously burn fossil fuels (coal, oil and natural gas) in the Industrial Revolution. Levels of carbon dioxide began slowly to build up in the atmosphere. Scientists began noticing it around the middle of the 20th Century. By about 1980 scientists were worried and since about the the warming has become much more rapid. It is now (2014) a very serious problem, particularly because countries and politicians are not taking enough steps to stop it.

Answer 6

The present global warming began in the Industrial Revolution, 200 years ago, when we discovered and started to burn fossil fuels (coal, oil and natural gas). Levels of carbon dioxide began steadily increasing then, rising from 280 ppm to the present (2013) levels of 400 ppm.

Answer 7

Well it has started already!
People start global warming when we use pollution that is why people are now walking and riding their bikes to stop global warming.

Answer 8

Global warming began around 1850 when we began to seriously dig up and burn fossil fuels for industry, transport and the generation of electricity.