Climate scientists unveiled the results of some of their latest climate-change research recently. And, according to the results, it's going to be a warm decade.

In the previous 100 years, global temperatures have increased by an average of one degree. The new research says that in the coming 10 years, global temperatures will increase by an average of another half a degree. That's significant - it took 100 years for the Earth to warm by one degree...now it's going to take only 10 more years to warm up another half of a degree?

Of course, this information is coming from a computer model...and its predictions may be wrong. But if what we've seen over the past several years is any indication, there's a good chance this computer model is right on. The period from 1996 to 2006 had some of the warmest weather ever recorded. 1998 was the warmest year on record...and 2005 came close to beating that record year.

Looking at the big picture, it's true that the global temperature may only have gone up by one degree...and it may go up by another half a degree. Is it really that big of a deal? Believe it or not, it is...each degree of warming can have big impacts on our environment. And those impacts are being felt across the globe, and right here in the Northwest. Harsher, more destructive wildfire seasons...more intense winter flooding...and an eroding Oregon coastline...are just some of the things that can be expected if climate change and global warming continue unabated.

Photo Courtesy: Creative Commons

This blog is based off an article I read in USA Today. Feel free to read the article in its entirety by clicking here.

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