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Natural, perhaps chaotic, climatic variations have not been ruled out as the cause of the current global rise in temperature, and scientists are still assessing the influence of anthropogenic (human-made) pollutants. In 1988, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the United Nations (UN) set up the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a body of more than two thousand scientists, to investigate the causes of and issue predictions regarding climate change. In June 1996, the IPCC confirmed that global warming was taking place and that human activities were probably to blame.
Assessing the impact of humankind on the global climate is complicated by the natural variability on both geological and human time scales. The present episode of global warming has thus far still left England approximately 1°C/1.8°F cooler than during the peak of the so-called Medieval Warm Period from 1000 to 1400. The latter was part of a purely natural climatic fluctuation on a global scale. The interval between this period and the recent rise in temperatures was unusually cold throughout the world, relative to historical temperatures. Scientists predict that a doubling of carbon dioxide concentrations, expected before the end of the 21st century, will increase the average global temperature by 1.45.8°C/2.510.4°F.
In addition to a rise in average global temperature, global warming has caused seasonal variations to be more pronounced in recent decades. Examples are the most severe winter on record in the eastern USA 197677, and the record heat waves in the Netherlands and Denmark the following year. Mountain glaciers have shrunk, late summer Arctic sea-ice has thinned by 40%, and sea levels have risen by 1020 cm/48 in. Scientists have predicted a greater number of extreme weather events, and sea levels are expected to rise by 988 cm/435 in by 2100. 1998 was the warmest year globally of the last millennium, according to US researchers who used tree rings and ice cores to determine temperatures over the past 1,000 years.
Blue is taken from the Swedish arms. Red and white recall the Danish flag, known as the Dannebrog. Effective date: 15 December 1899.
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