What caused the earth to get warmer?
"the National Academy of Sciences report, Climate Change Science: An Analysis of Some Key Questions, begins: "Greenhouse gases are accumulating in Earth's atmosphere as a result of human activities, causing surface air temperatures and subsurface ocean temperatures to rise" [p. 1 in (5)]. The report explicitly asks whether the IPCC assessment is a fair summary of professional scientific thinking, and answers yes: "The IPCC's conclusion that most of the observed warming of the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations accurately reflects the current thinking of the scientific community on this issue" [p. 3 in (5)]."
Will it continue?
Directly from the IPCC report:
http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/035.htm#temperature
"Global mean temperature continues to increase for hundreds of years at a rate of a few tenths of a degree per century after concentrations of CO2 have been stabilised, due to long time-scales in the ocean....If greenhouse gas concentrations were stabilised (even at present levels), sea level would nonetheless continue to rise for hundreds of years....The loss of a substantial fraction of the total glacier mass is likely. Areas that are currently marginally glaciated are most likely to become ice-free."