Mean surface temperature anomalies during the period 1995 to 2004 with respect to the averagetemperatures from 1940 to 1980. Global warming is the observed increase in the average temperatureof the E arth's atmosphereandoceans in recent decades. The Earth's average near-surface atmospheric temperature rose 0.6 0.2 Celsius(1.1 0.4 Fahrenheit) in the 20th century[1].The currentscientific consensusis that "most of the observed warming over the last 50 years is likely tohave beenattributable to human activities"[2]. The extent of this consensus was the subject of a study published in December 2004 in the journal Science that considered the abstracts of 928 refereedscientific articles in theISI citation databaseidentified with the keywords "global climate change". Thisstudy