This post is by Lisa Moore, Ph.D., a scientist in the Climate and Air program at Environmental Defense.
A common refrain here on Climate411 is that we need to cut greenhouse gas emissions as soon as possible. One of the reasons we’ve cited numerous times is that, even if we could stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations at today’s levels, some global temperature increase is already locked into the system. This is sometimes called the “warming commitment” or the “warming in the pipeline”.
What’s behind this phenomenon? The short answer is: water, water everywhere.