AFP, PARIS
Thursday, Oct 11, 2007, Page 6
Man-made global warming is driving up humidity levels, with the risk that rainfall patterns will shift or strengthen tropical storms will intensify and human health will suffer from heat stress, a study released yesterday said.
From 1976 to 2004, when the world's average surface temperature rose 0.49oC, global levels of atmospheric water vapor rose 2.2 percent, British scientists said in a paper published today in the British science journal Nature.
By 2100, humidity levels could increase by another 10 percent, said lead researcher Nathan Gillett of the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, eastern England.
Previously, scientists had noted an increase in humidity over the past few decades as higher temperatures sucked more water from the land and ocean surface.
But it was unclear whether these changes were the result of a natural or a human impact on the climate, as the data was regional rather than global and different methods were used to make the calculations.
The new paper is based on a new set of observations of humidity levels.
Gillett said water vapor was a "positive feedback" in the global warming equation.
Steam is a greenhouse gas, meaning that like carbon pollution that results from burning fossil fuels, it traps solar heat in the atmosphere, thus stoking the warming effect and worsening humidity.
The ramifications could be wide-ranging, he said. The distribution and intensity of rainfall could be affected, and tropical cyclones could be beefed up, as humidity is one of the fuels for these storms.
My opinion(bias):
Although global warming became a serious issue toward everyone’s life, but it seems like no one really takes this seriously. The international organization always advocates decreasing the carbon pollution, and to make some laws to prevent people who has no morality of nature. And that’s all we can do for our earth, or even worse to that repute, what we do to save our earth is also protect ourselves. Why the selfish people in world even don’t think about themselves? I think that is just because that they don’t believe future, only want to enjoy the recent joy for the unhappy and short life. And that really prove the definition, people are selfish. They don’t want to put much effort to their offspring. If the suffering won’t happen to my life, what do I really caring for? For instant, the companies, even the government institutions, they turn on the AC all day long, and the RT is also low. It's too ironic to see everyone put on their jackets and say they are cold, and all that kind of oddity make me wonder, who's that tricky person to gain the benefit? If not, why don’t they change the office style,I think that silence is gold is not suitable in every aspects in nowadays society.
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