Summary and Final Tasks

Summary

Science does not claim perfect knowledge, but a huge body of successful climate science gives us high scientific confidence that:

• Our fossil-fuel burning, aided by deforestation and cement-making, are raising the CO₂ concentration of the atmosphere.
• This has a warming influence.
• This warming influence causes feedbacks in the Earth system, some of which reduce the warming, others that amplify the warming, but over human lifetimes, the amplifiers are more important, causing the warming to be larger than that caused by the effects of the CO₂ alone.
• This successful science projects that if we continue burning fossil fuels rapidly, future warming and other changes will be large compared to those experienced so far.

Reminder - Complete all of the Module 4 tasks!

You have reached the end of Module 4! Double-check the Module Roadmap table to make sure you have completed all of the activities listed there before you begin Module 5.