Global warming in the twenty-first century: an issue for Less Developed Countries

The decade of the 1980s brought an increased ability for the human species to monitor the health of its only known environment … Earth. This improved ability has been underpinned by three key developments: an increased understanding of the interactions between different biogeophysical components of the global systems; the introduction of routine monitoring from satellites of a wide range of geophysical parameters; and the increased global penetration of telecommunication technologies. The latter have enabled the rapid and effective dissemination around the world of environmental data collected with national and international research projects.