Global warming is the increasing of the average temperature of the Earth’s air and ocean surfaces. It is caused in part by an increase of greenhouse gases such as Carbon Dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere. It can cause changes in the weather patterns that can affect agriculture, the spread of diseases and species survival.

According to the Malaysian Meteorological Department, an average temperature increase of 0.5°C to 1.3°C is recorded in Malaysia, when comparing the long term means obtained for 1961- 1990 and 1998-2007. The projected temperature increase in the next 30 years is between 1.0°C to 3.5°C.

Based upon the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report (AR4), global temperatures have risen by about 0.74 °C since the beginning of the 20th century. By the end of the century, global temperatures would have risen by between 1.4°C and 6.4°C and each increase of the temperature will have severe consequences as explained below: 

+1°C
Western USA will suffer severe droughts and large parts will be turned into desert. 

+2°C
Greenland’s ice sheets will melt away, causing global sea levels to rise by seven meters. 

+3°C
 3°C is the “tipping point” where global warming runs out of control, leaving mankind powerless to intervene as planetary temperatures soar. In the Amazons, the tropical rainforest would burn down in a firestorm of epic proportions.

+4°C
Southern Europe will become unliveable due to extreme heat. The West Antarctic ice sheets will melt away and add another five meters to the global sea level and it will be the complete extinction of polar bears and all other ice-dependent species. 

+5°C
Water temperatures of 20°C within 200km of the North Pole, no ice will be left at the poles and mass extinction will happen in the seas due to methane hydrates (methane released from the seabed and prehistoric ice). Most hospitable land masses will be flooded, rainforests will be extinct, and along with dangerous levels of CO2 and methane in the atmosphere, mankind would probably not survive.

+6°C
Fireballs will rain from the sky and mankind will not survive.