Earth Day has just passed, but maybe there is not much to celebrate about it.

Climate scientists have just found -- with the help of diving robots searching the world’s warming seas -- that the heat exchange between Earth and space is gravely out of balance, according to a study published Thursday in the Journal Science.

The study is the latest to report growing certainty about global-warming projections. Researchers have called the discovery a “smoking gun” that validates forecasts of global warming.

Oswaldo Garcia, chair of the geosciences department, said the study is just one more confirmation that global warning is happening.

“Science is constantly being updated and revised,” Garcia said. “When you have many years of evidences that something is happening, it’s happening.”

Garcia said the United States’ government is resisting on what should be done in order to reduce greenhouse gases such as Carbon dioxide (CO2) -- the most important one-- and gives a possible
suggestion to the issue.

“The United States is the only major country that has not sign on the Kyoto Protocol,” Garcia said. “We need to vote for people that are committed to do something about it [global warning]. Those people who believe global warming does not exist are the same ones who believe the Earth is flat.”

Gennadie Velichko, 28, international relations major, said the Bush Administration is “ hard core” on the environment.

“I think he [Bush] has his own agenda and won’t listen to others,” he said. “Many countries signed the Kyoto Protocol, but not the United States.”

In 1997, the Kyoto Protocol, ratified by more than 140 countries, was negotiated to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The United States signed the treaty, but refused to join it citing economic reasons and the lack of restrictions on emissions by emerging countries such as China and India. In 2001, President Bush withdrew the United States from the treaty that entered into force on February 16.

Some SF State students share their view on global warning.

“I think we should increase our environmental standards,” said Jennifer Lee, 20, an accounting major. “
When asked what citizens can do to help the environment, Lee said. “I cut down on driving a lot, try to carpool and try to avoid waste as much as possible.”

Accounting major Derrick Lee, 24, said the United States is one of the cleanest countries and already does a lot to help the environment.

Lee went on to say the United States was right not to join the Kyoto Protocol for economic purposes, but it had to join it in order to be socially responsible.

“Sometimes we should do the right thing and forget about the money,” Lee said. "The government should provide education and advertisement to get people aware of it [the importance of the environment].”

Lee also said people need to get together in their communities and help each other getting educated about the environment.

“People need to be committed and not get discourage because it might take 20, 25 years to see an improvement [on the environment].”

In 1990, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) presented its First Assessment Report, stating that human activities were strongly increasing the concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

In 1992, the United States, along with more than 100 countries, signed the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, which recognized the climate system as a shared resource and initiated efforts to control climate change.

Global warming can increase storms, spread disease to new areas, raise ocean levels, and shift climates zones hundreds of miles besides possibly making farmlands dries and deserts wetter.