Imagine South Florida without our beaches. Imagine no Everglades, no coral reef. Imagine much of our tourism economy washing away with a rising tide. These may be extreme scenarios, but that's what could happen if our planet's temperature continues to rise.

We've all heard the reports about global warming. But what exactly is it and what real impact, if any, will it have on our lives here in South Florida? We answer these questions and more as we turn up the heat on global climate change.

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The '90's were the hottest decade ever recorded. And scientists are afraid that it may just get worse.

The earth has always gone through extreme temperature changes resulting in the hot climate of the dinosaurs and the ice ages of the mastodons. But, believe it or not, these radical shifts in our planet's climate would have been more severe without something called the "greenhouse effect."

The greenhouse effect is the way our planet regulates its temperature. A mix of gases in our atmosphere help trap some of the sun's energy like the glass roof of a greenhouse. The primary gas in our atmosphere that keeps our planet from being an uninhabitable snowball is Carbon Dioxide. This important gas actually only makes up a mere 3 hundredths of one percent of our atmosphere, but its role in moderating our planet's temperature is crucial to sustaining life.

All of that sounds great, but remember that too much of a good thing isn't good any more. Such is the case with Carbon Dioxide.