US Tops List For Whopping 22% Of Total Global Warming

New Delhi, Jan 20, IRNA – The US topped the list being responsible for a whopping 22 percent of the total global warming for the past 100 years, said a report. Global warming has consistently been one of the hottest issues in the last decade. Now a new research has brought to light the most recent list of the worldˈs top contributors to global warming. The latest study shows that the top seven countries in the list contribute to 60 percent of global warming between the years 1906 and 2005. The top seven global warming offenders include the US, China, Russia, Brazil, India, Germany and the United Kingdom, said a Tech Times report. While the results are not very surprising, the new figures may shed light on the responsibilities these countries ought to have to the rest of the world. Both the United Kingdom and Germany landed at the bottom of the list with each country contributing 5 percent of the total increase in global temperatures since the early 1900s. India and Brazil followed next with each country accounting for 7 percent of the changes. Russia landed in third place with 8 percent and China in second place with 9 percent. Lastly, the US topped the list being responsible for a whopping 22 percent of the total global warming for the past 100 years or so. France, Indonesia and Canada rounds up the top 10 list of countries that have contributed the most to global warming historically. Concordia Universityˈs Damon Matthews spearheaded the study. The research team was able to calculate the national contributions of each country to the total rise in global temperatures by considering the different types of emissions from countries all over the world. Moreover, the team also factored in how these emissions affect global temperatures as well as how long these emissions stayed in the atmosphere. To improve the accuracy of the study, the team also used historical data to factor in the effects of a multitude of variables such as deforestation, fossil fuel burning and the occurrence of other greenhouse gasses such as nitrous oxide and methane. In light of the recent findings, many of the worldˈs developed countries, most of which were included in the list, need to be more aggressive in their attempts to bring down the effects of their activities on the worldˈs temperature. While fossil fuels were the only option available 100 years ago, new advances in technology are now opening up cleaner and better options for power generation as well as transportation. Global warming refers to an unequivocal and continuing rise in the average temperature of Earthˈs climate system. Since 1971, 90 per cent of the warming has occurred in the oceans. Despite the oceansˈ dominant role in energy storage, the term ˈglobal warmingˈ is also used to refer to increases in average temperature of the air and sea at earth’s surface. Since the early 20th century, the global air and sea surface temperature has increased about 0.8 °C (1.4 °F), with about two-thirds of the increase occurring since 1980. Human activities since the Industrial Revolution has increased the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, leading to increased radiative forcing from CO2, methane, tropospheric ozone, CFCs and nitrous oxide./end