Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
by 1983 as the name for a condition of overall rising temperatures and attendant consequences as a result of human activity. Originally theoretical, popularized as a reality from 1989.
Wiktionary
n. A sustained increase in the average temperature of the earth, sufficient to cause climate change.
WordNet
n. an increase in the average temperature of the earth's atmosphere (especially a sustained increase that causes climatic changes)
Wikipedia
Global warming and climate change are terms for the observed century-scale rise in the average temperature of the Earth's climate system and its related effects. Multiple lines of scientific evidence show that the climate system is warming. Although the increase of near-surface atmospheric temperature is the measure of global warming often reported in the popular press, most of the additional energy stored in the climate system since 1970 has gone into the oceans. The rest has melted ice and warmed the continents and atmosphere. Many of the observed changes since the 1950s are unprecedented over tens to thousands of years.
Scientific understanding of global warming is increasing. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reported in 2014 that scientists were more than 95% certain that global warming is mostly being caused by human (anthropogenic) activities, mainly increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide (CO). Human-made carbon dioxide continues to increase above levels not seen in hundreds of thousands of years. Currently, about half of the carbon dioxide released from the burning of fossil fuels remains in the atmosphere. The rest is absorbed by vegetation and the oceans. Climate model projections summarized in the report indicated that during the 21st century the global surface temperature is likely to rise a further for their lowest emissions scenario and for the highest emissions scenario. These findings have been recognized by the national science academies of the major industrialized nations and are not disputed by any scientific body of national or international standing.
Future climate change and associated impacts will differ from region to region around the globe. Anticipated effects include warming global temperature, rising sea levels, changing precipitation, and expansion of deserts in the subtropics. Warming is expected to be greater over land than over the oceans and greatest in the Arctic, with the continuing retreat of glaciers, permafrost and sea ice. Other likely changes include more frequent extreme weather events including heat waves, droughts, heavy rainfall with floods and heavy snowfall;On snowfall:
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ocean acidification; and species extinctions due to shifting temperature regimes. Effects significant to humans include the threat to food security from decreasing crop yields and the abandonment of populated areas due to rising sea levels. Because the climate system has a large " inertia" and CO will stay in the atmosphere for a long time, many of these effects will not only exist for decades or centuries, but will persist for tens of thousands of years.
Possible societal responses to global warming include mitigation by emissions reduction, adaptation to its effects, building systems resilient to its effects, and possible future climate engineering. Most countries are parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), whose ultimate objective is to prevent dangerous anthropogenic climate change. The UNFCCC have adopted a range of policies designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to assist in adaptation to global warming. Parties to the UNFCCC had agreed that deep cuts in emissions are required and as first target the future global warming should be limited to below relative to the pre-industrial level, while the Paris Agreement of 2015 stated that the parties will also "pursue efforts to" limit the temperature increase to .
Public reactions to global warming and concern about its effects are also increasing. A global 2015 Pew Research Center report showed a median of 54% consider it "a very serious problem". There are significant regional differences, with Americans and Chinese (whose economies are responsible for the greatest annual CO2 emissions) among the least concerned.
Global Warming is an album by jazz saxophonist Sonny Rollins, released on the Milestone label in 1998, featuring performances by Rollins with Stephen Scott, Bob Cranshaw, Idris Muhammad, Clifton Anderson, Victor See Yuen and Perry Wilson.
Global Warming is the seventh studio album recorded by American rapper Pitbull. It was released on November 16, 2012. A teaser to accompany the release of Global Warming was first released onto Pitbull's official Facebook and YouTube channel on September 17, 2012.
Global warming is one of the common names for the current change in Earth's climate.
Global warming may also refer to:
- Global Warming (Pitbull album), a 2011 music album by Pitbull
- Global Warming (Sonny Rollins album), a 1998 music album by Sonny Rollins
- Global warming game, several games based on the concept
Usage examples of "global warming".
In the last few years the GEC had been issuing K rations, as they were called, giving communities the right to add some fraction of a degree Kelvin to the global warming.
The same thing is true now of issues like species extinction and global warming.
Fusion reactors seem to be coming along too slowly to play a major role in solving, or even significantly mitigating, global warming.
And, on a more rational level, as news programs from Earth now showed, all dikes there were currently stressed by a very slight rise in sea level, caused by global warming initiated two centuries before.
Okay, a century or two of global warming would lead to a greenhouse cliff.
It is natural to suppose that global warming would act as a useful counterweight to the Earth’.
As far as they were concerned it wrecked everything, the way global warming wrecked things on Earth, only two magnitudes worse, as usual.
All I could think about was what Global Warming had said, and what Bright and Frookie had told me.
Indeed, some people think that the greatest threat to humanity is not global warming, but an incipient ice age.