I downloaded Land-Ocean Temperature Index data from NASA into excel and graphed it into a chart. From here, I chose a trend line to match the data. A second-degree polynomial trend fit the data the best and I added the R squared value to the chart. The closer this value is to 1, the more highly correlated the data. I got an R squared value of 0.89, which means the two values are very highly correlated. This just goes to show that an exponential increase in temperature over time is truly occurring today and has been happening since the industrial revolution.
Visually, it is easy to see that the temperature is increasing. The most important part about this fact is that it is not increasing linearly. The curved nature of the trend line suggests that the temperatures are increasing exponentially, as I previously noted. This means that each year that goes by, the temperature increases from year to year a little bit more than the last. Global warming is speeding up. This graphic shows the reasons behind the curve of the graph.
The melting of ice caps is speeding up because as the Earth warms, ice begins to melt. Dark water absorbs much more sunlight than white ice, which reflects most of the rays. So the water begins to heat up even faster, which in turn melts even more ice. It is a vicious cycle that is only increasing the rate of warming.
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