tarctic continent of 1 degree Celsius in the last 50 years. This has led to the disintegration of some ice shelves that extend from the continent out into the Antarctic Ocean and the collapse of the Larson Ice Shelf that created a floating chunk of ice the size of Rhode Island. Another natural factor that affects climate is plate tectonics. The movement of continents is not recurring, but alters ocean currents and weather patterns causing warm and cool climates globally. Continents have been arranged so that a current has been able to circle the earth near the equator. This current is warm because it circulates the earth on and near the equator. Plate tectonics also alters global weather patterns not only by determining where warm ocean currents flow, but also by mountain building. Mountain building, caused by plate movements, can affect global wind patterns and precipitation trends. Tall mountain ranges can have effects reaching high into the atmosphere. Although nature has ways of removing carbon dioxide, it does not take into account the human factor. The long, complicated carbon cycle can only keep up with increasing human activity if the tree population increases proportionately. This, combined with an alarming rate of rainforest depletion and air pollution, leads to an unmanageable amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. Since its sources are both natural and human, carbon dioxide is the largest contributor to the greenhouse effect. This graph above shows the increase in temperature as population of our Earth increases.Some people continue to dismiss this notion, arguing that this is no real scientific evidence that the planet is heating up or that humans are causing it. The primary argument of those skeptical that global warming exists is, while surface based and balloon instruments show clear warming trends, satellite readings with better global coverage contradict them, showing instead a slight cooling from 1979 to 1995 at about...
