Historical Background and Current Debates
The theory behind global warming, or climate change, is over a century old. Stating in the mid-19th century, the European and American economies began to rely on fossil fuels—mainly coal. Visitors to the urban centers of Manchester, England and Chicago, Illinois commented on the haze, smog, and smoke that blanketed the cities. The coal emitted more than just smog and smoke; it emitted carbon dioxide as well.
Scientific investigations of the same period revealed the heat trapping properties of carbon dioxide and other atmospheric gases. Despite this knowledge, the increasing levels of carbon being emitted into the atmosphere did not trouble early scientists. Scientists until the 1940’s and 50’s remained convinced that the ocean would absorb the excess carbon dioxide and maintain the balance of the atmosphere.
In the 1950’s, research by Roger Revelle changed the way scientists viewed the increasing carbon dioxide levels. His research established that the carbon dioxide emitted into the atmosphere was not all being absorbed into the ocean. Later, monitoring stations set up in Mauna Loa and Antarctica proved that concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere had been increasing since 1957.
In the 1980’s, the issue of climate change and fossil fuel combustion became increasingly important on an international scale. In 1988, the United Nations formed the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a group of scientists dedicated to studying the issue. Their goal was to advance the scientific understanding of global climate change. Their reports—released in 1990, 1995, and 2002—indicated a growing certainty that climate change was a real threat. They also recognized the role that human activity played in climate change.
Since climate change involves complex interactions between many gases and natural processes, one of the greatest challenges that climate change researchers face is linking the causes and effects of climate change. This task requires the use of many different sets of data from around the world. In 1988, when the IPCC was formed, there were few groups capable of handling a research project of this scale. In the following years, the IPCC developed a computer models to simulate climate change patterns and predictions. The models have become more accurate over time. Their use is still highly debated. The IPCC remains one of the main scientific bodies investigation climate change because the required resources (both financially and technologically) overwhelm all but a few international and national research groups.
The international community drafted the Kyoto Protocol in 1997 to deal with climate change. The international agreement was the first effort to limit greenhouse gas emissions.