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Human activities — primarily, the burning of fossil fuels (which we look at in the section “Tapping the Roots of Global Warming,” later in this chapter) — have resulted in growing concentrations of carbon dioxide and other GHGs in the atmosphere. As we explain in Chapter 2, these increasing quantities of GHGs are retaining more and more of the sun’s heat. The heat trapped by the carbon dioxide blanket is raising temperatures all over the world — hence, global warming.

Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, Earth has seen a 1.4-degree Fahrenheit (1.1 degree Celsius) increase in global average temperature because of increased GHGs in the atmosphere. Temperatures in polar regions, such as the Arctic, are experiencing temperature rises that are three times the global average.