The Earth's climate has been relatively stable since the end of the last Ice Age (about 10,000 years ago) but it is now changing.

Our climate has always changed.  The Earth has routinely gone through regular natural cycles of warming and cooling.  We understand these changes and can see evidence for them, but the changes that we are seeing at the moment are different.  They are happening too quickly to be entirely natural, based on our detailed knowledge of the past. 

The 20th Century is likely to have been the warmest century in the last 1,000 years: there was about 0.6°C of warming, with land warming more than the sea. The 1990's was the warmest decade in the last 100 years.

There is also evidence that rainfall patterns are changing, sea levels are rising, glaciers are retreating, arctic sea-ice is thinning and the incidence of extreme weather is increasing in some parts of the world.

This section will explain the current thinking behind man-made climate change and what this means for Medway. 

Introduction to man-made climate change.