Is the temperature of our lower atmosphere (troposphere) increasing as a result of human activity? Many scientists would answer: yes, definitely, and many are worried that now that we have upset the balance of global temperatures, things are going to get much worse. But not all scientists would agree. Some argue that, whilst temperatures may have increased slightly over the last century, this is just a short-term fluctuation and not evidence of a long-term trend. Such scientists also point to the checks and balances that operate in the global climate system. They believe that, even if global temperature has increased, the system will respond in ways that bring it back down again (the Gaia hypothesis).

This Environmental Studies Factsheet will look at the processes that may make things worse and those that may bring temperatures back down again. This is a synoptic topic i.e. to understand what is going on will require an ability to pull information from several GCSE, AS and A2 topics together.

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.PDF (pdf) 473.907 KB

Publication Date

April 2003

ISSN / ISBN

ISSN: 1351-5136

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