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How has global warming affected the world so far?

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How has global warming affected the world so far?

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Higher temperatures: Every continent has warmed substantially since the 1950s.
Food supply:
It is also bad for crops. In areas like California, crop yields are estimated to decline 40 percent by 2050.
Warmer winters: In general, winter are warming up faster than summer.

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This explainer was updated by Umair Irfan in December 2018 and draws heavily from a written by Brad Plumer in 2015. Brian Resnick contributed the section on the Paris climate accord in 2017.
There's a vast and growing gap between the urgency to fight climate change and the policies needed to combat it.

In 2018, the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change found that it is possible to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius this century, but the world may have as little as 12 years left to act. The US government's National Climate Assessment, with input from NASA, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Pentagon, also reported that the consequences of climate change are already here, ranging from nuisance flooding to the spread of mosquito-borne viruses into what were once colder climates. Left unchecked, warming will cost the US economy hundreds of billions of dollars.

However, these facts have failed to register with the Trump administration, which is actively pushing policies that will increase the emissions of heat-trapping gases.

Ever since he took office, President Donald Trump has rejected or undermined President Barack Obama's signature climate achievements: the Paris climate agreement; the Clean Power Plan, the main domestic policy for limiting greenhouse gas emissions; and fuel economy standards, which target transportation, the largest US source of greenhouse gases.

Trump has also appointed climate change skeptics to key positions. Quietly, officials at these and other science agencies have been removing the words "climate change" from government websites and press releases.

The big questions now are how these ongoing changes in the climate will reverberate throughout the rest of the world, and what we should do about them. The answers bridge decades of research across geology, economics, and social science, which have been confounded by uncertainty and obscured by jargon. That's why it can be a bit daunting to join the discussion for the first time, or to revisit the conversation after a hiatus.

To help, we've provided answers to some fundamental questions about climate change you may have been afraid to ask.

1) What is global warming?

In short: The world is getting hotter, and humans are responsible.

Yes, the planet's temperature has changed before, but it's the rise in average temperature of the Earth's climate system since the late 19th century, the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, that's important here. Temperatures over land and ocean have gone up 0.8° to 1° Celsius (1.4° to 1.8° Fahrenheit), on average, in that span:

Many people use the term "climate change" to describe this rise in temperatures and the associated effects on the Earth's climate.(The shift from the term "global warming" to "climate change" was also part of a deliberate messaging effort by a Republican pollster to undermine support for environmental regulations.)

Global warming also refers to what scientists think will happen in the future if humans keep adding greenhouse gases to the atmosphere.

Many experts consider 2°C of warming to be unacceptably high, increasing the risk of deadly heat waves, droughts, flooding, and extinctions. Rising temperatures will drive up global sea levels as the world's glaciers and ice sheets melt. Further global warming could affect everything from our ability to grow food to the spread of disease.

That's why the IPCC put out another report in 2018 comparing 2°C of warming to a scenario with 1.5°C of warming. The researchers found that this half-degree difference is actually pretty important, since every bit of warming matters. Between the two outlooks, less warming means fewer people will have to move from coastal areas, natural weather events will be less severe, and economies will take a smaller hit.

However, limiting warming would likely require a complete overhaul of our energy system. Fossil fuels currently provide just over 80 percent of the world's energy. To zero out emissions this century, we'd have to replace most of that with low-carbon sources like wind, solar, nuclear, geothermal, or carbon capture.

Beyond that, we may have to electrify everything that uses energy and start pulling greenhouse gases straight from the air. And to get on track for 1.5°C of warming, the world would have to halve greenhouse gas emissions from current levels by 2030.

That's a staggering task, and there are huge technological and political hurdles standing in the way. As such, the world's nations have been slow to act on global warming - many of the existing targets for curbing greenhouse gas emissions are too weak, yet many countries are falling short of even these modest goals.

2) How do we know global warming is real?

But that's not the only clue. Scientists have also noted that glaciers and ice sheets around the world are melting. Satellite observations since the 1970s have shown warming in the lower atmosphere. There's more heat in the ocean, causing water to expand and sea levels to rise. Plants are flowering earlier in many parts of the world. There's more humidity in the atmosphere. Here's a summary from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration:

These are all signs that the Earth really is getting warmer - and that it's not just a glitch in the thermometers. That explains why climate scientists say things like, "Warming in the climate system is unequivocal." They're really confident about this one.

3) How do we know humans are causing global warming?

Climate scientists say they are more than 95 percent certainthat human influence has been the dominant cause of global warming since 1950. They're about as sure of this as they are that cigarette smoke causes cancer.

Why are they so confident? In part because they have a good grasp of how greenhouse gases can warm the planet, in part because the theory fits the available evidence, and in part because alternate theories have been ruled out. Let's break it down in six steps:

1) Scientists have long known that greenhouse gases in the atmosphere - such as carbon dioxide, methane, or water vapor - absorb certain frequencies of infrared radiation and scatter them back toward the Earth. These gases essentially prevent heat from escaping too quickly back into space, trapping that radiation at the surface and keeping the planet warm.

2) Climate scientists also know that concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere have grown significantly since the Industrial Revolution. Carbon dioxide has risen 45 percent. Methane has risen more than 200 percent. Through some relatively straightforward chemistry and physics, scientists can trace these increases to human activities like burning oil, gas, and coal.

3) So it stands to reason that more greenhouse gases would lead to more heat. And indeed, satellite measurements have shown that less infrared radiation is escaping out into space over time and instead returning to the Earth's surface. That's strong evidence that the greenhouse effect is increasing.

4) There are other human fingerprints that suggest increased greenhouse gases are warming the planet. For instance, back in the 1960s, simple climate models predicted that global warming caused by more carbon dioxide would lead to cooling in the upper atmosphere (because the heat is getting trapped at the surface). Later satellite measurements confirmed exactly that. Here are a few other similar predictions that have also been confirmed.

5) Meanwhile, climate scientists have ruled out other explanations for the rise in average temperatures over the past century. To take one example: Solar activity can shift from year to year, affecting the Earth's climate. But satellite data shows that total solar irradiance has declined slightly in the past 35 years, even as the Earth has warmed.

6) More recent calculations have shown that it's impossible to explain the temperature rise we've seen in the past century without taking the increase in carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into account. Natural causes, like the sun or volcanoes, have an influence, but they're not sufficient by themselves.

Ultimately, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded that most of the warming since 1951 has been due to human activities. The Earth's climate can certainly fluctuate from year to year due to natural forces (including oscillations in the Pacific Ocean, such as El Niño). But greenhouse gases are driving the larger upward trend in temperatures.

And as the Climate Science Special Report, released by 13 US federal agencies in November 2017, put it, "For the warming over the last century, there is no convincing alternative explanation supported by the extent of the observational evidence."

More: This chart breaks down all the different factors affecting the Earth's average temperature. And there's much more detail in the IPCC's report, particularly this section and this one.

4) How has global warming affected the world so far?

Here's a list of ongoing changes that climate scientists have concluded are likely linked to global warming, as detailed by the IPCC here and here.

Higher temperatures: Every continent has warmed substantially since the 1950s. There are more hot days and fewer cold days, on average, and the hot days are hotter.

Heavier storms and floods: The world's atmosphere can hold more moisture as it warms. As a result, the overall number of heavier storms has increased since the mid-20th century, particularly in North America and Europe (though there's plenty of regional variation). Scientists reported in December that at least 18 percent of Hurricane Harvey's record-setting rainfall over Houston in August was due to climate change.

Heat waves: Heat waves have become longer and more frequent around the world over the past 50 years, particularly in Europe, Asia, and Australia.

Shrinking sea ice: The extent of sea ice in the Arctic, always at its maximum in winter, has shrunk since 1979, by 3.3 percent per decade. Summer sea ice has dwindled even more rapidly, by 13.2 percent per decade. Antarctica has seen recent years with record growth in sea ice, but it's a very different environment than the Arctic, and the losses in the north far exceed any gains at the South Pole, so total global sea ice is on the decline:

Shrinking glaciers and ice sheets: Glaciers around the world have, on average, been losing ice since the 1970s. In some areas, that is reducing the amount of available freshwater. The ice sheet on Greenland, which would raise global sea levels by 25 feet if it all melted, is declining, with some sections experiencing a sudden surge in the melt rate. The Antarctic ice sheet is also getting smaller, but at a much slower rate.

Sea level rise: Global sea levels rose 9.8 inches (25 centimeters) in the 19th and 20th centuries, after 2,000 years of relatively little change, and the pace is speeding up. Sea level rise is caused by both the thermal expansion of the oceans - as water warms up, it expands - and the melting of glaciers and ice sheets (but not sea ice).

Food supply: A hotter climate can be both good for crops (it lengthens the growing season, and more carbon dioxide can increase photosynthesis) and bad for crops (excess heat can damage plants). The IPCC found that global warming was currently benefiting crops in some high-latitude areas but that negative effects are becoming increasingly common worldwide. In areas like California, crop yields are estimated to decline 40 percent by 2050.

Shifting species: Many land and marine species have had to shift their geographic ranges in response to warmer temperatures. So far, several extinctions have been linked to global warming, such as certain frog species in Central America.

Warmer winters: In general, winters are warming faster than summers. Average low temperatures are rising all over the world. In some cases, these temperatures are climbing above the freezing point of water. We're already seeing massive declines in snow accumulation in the United States, which can paradoxically increase flood, drought, and wildfire risk - as water that would ordinarily dispatch slowly over the course of a season instead flows through a region all at once.

Debated impacts

Here are a few other ways the Earth's climate has been changing - but scientists are still debating whether and how they're linked to global warming:

Droughts have become more frequent and more intense in some parts of the world - such as the American Southwest, Mediterranean Europe, and West Africa - though it's hard to identify a clear global trend. In other parts of the world, such as the Midwestern United States and Northwestern Australia, droughts appear to have become less frequent. A recent study shows that, globally, the time between droughts is shrinking and more areas are affected by drought and taking longer to recover from them.

5) What impacts will global warming have in the future?

It depends on how much the planet actually heats up. The changes associated with 4° Celsius (or 7.2° Fahrenheit) of warming are expected to be more dramatic than the changes associated with 2°C of warming.

Here's a basic rundown of big impacts we can expect if global warming continues, via the IPCC (here and here).

Hotter temperatures: If emissions keep rising unchecked, then global average surface temperatures will be at least 2°C higher (3.6°F) than preindustrial levels by 2100 - and possibly 3°C or 4°C or more.

Higher sea level rise: The expert consensus is that global sea levels will rise somewhere between 0.2 and 2 meters by the end of the century if global warming continues unchecked (that's between 0.6 and 6.6 feet). That's a wide range, reflecting some of the uncertainties scientists have in how ice will melt. In specific regions like the Eastern United States, sea level rise could be even higher, and around the world, the rate of rise is accelerating.

Heat waves: A hotter planet will mean more frequent and severe heat waves.

Droughts and floods: Across the globe, wet seasons are expected to become wetter, and dry seasons drier. As the IPCC puts it, the world will see "more intense downpours, leading to more floods, yet longer dry periods between rain events, leading to more drought."

Hurricanes: It's not yet clear what impact global warming will have on tropical cyclones. The IPCC said it was likely that tropical cyclones would get stronger as the oceans heat up, with faster winds and heavier rainfall. But the overall number of hurricanes in many regions was likely to "either decrease or remain essentially unchanged."

Heavier storm surges: Higher sea levels will increase the risk of storm surges and flooding when storms do hit.

Agriculture: In many parts of the world, the mix of increased heat and drought is expected to make food production more difficult. The IPCC concluded that global warming of 1°C or more could start hurting crop yields for wheat, corn, and rice by the 2030s, especially in the tropics. (This wouldn't be uniform, however; some crops may benefit from mild warming, such as winter wheat in the United States.)

Extinctions: As the world warms, many plant and animal species will need to shift habitats at a rapid rate to maintain their current conditions. Some species will be able to keep up; others likely won't. The Great Barrier Reef, for instance, may not be able to recover from major recent bleaching events linked to climate change. The National Research Council has estimated that a mass extinction event "could conceivably occur before the year 2100."

Long-term changes: Most of the projected changes above will occur in the 21st century. But temperatures will keep rising after that if greenhouse gas levels aren't stabilized. That increases the risk of more drastic longer-term shifts. One example: If West Antarctica's ice sheet started crumbling, that could push sea levels up significantly. The National Research Council in 2013 deemed many of these rapid climate surprises unlikely this century but a real possibility further into the future.

6) What happens if the world heats up more drastically - say, 4°C?

The risks of climate change would rise considerably if temperatures rose 4° Celsius (7.2° Fahrenheit) above preindustrial levels - something that's possible if greenhouse gas emissions keep rising at their current rate.

The IPCC says 4°C of global warming could lead to "substantial species extinctions," "large risks to global and regional food security," and the risk of irreversibly destabilizing Greenland's massive ice sheet.

One huge concern is food production: A growing number of studiessuggest it would become significantly more difficult for the world to grow food with 3°C or 4°C of global warming. Countries like Bangladesh, Egypt, Vietnam, and parts of Africa could see large tracts of farmland turn unusable due to rising seas. Scientists are also concerned about crops getting less nutritious due to rising CO2.

Humans could struggle to adapt to these conditions. Many people might think the impacts of 4°C of warming will simply be twice as bad as those of 2°C. But as a 2013 World Bank report argued, that's not necessarily true. Impacts may interact with each other in unpredictable ways. Current agriculture models, for instance, don't have a good sense of what will happen to crops if increased heat waves, droughts, new pests and diseases, and other changes all start to combine.

"Given that uncertainty remains about the full nature and scale of impacts," the World Bank report said, "there is also no certainty that adaptation to a 4°C world is possible." Its conclusion was blunt: "The projected 4°C warming simply must not be allowed to occur."

That depends on your faith in humanity.

Climate models depend on not only complicated physics but the intricacies of human behavior over the entire planet.

Generally, the more greenhouse gases humanity pumps into the atmosphere, the warmer it will get. But scientists aren't certain how sensitive the global climate system is to increases in greenhouse gases. And just how much we might emit over the coming decades remains an open question, depending on advances in technology and international efforts to cut emissions.

The IPCC groups these scenarios into four categories of atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations known as Representative Concentration Pathways. They serve as standard benchmarks for evaluating climate models, but they also have some assumptions baked in.

RCP 2.6, also called RCP 3PD, is the scenario with very low greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere. It bets on declining oil use, a population of 9 billion by 2100, increasing energy efficiency, and emissions holding steady until 2020, at which point they'll decline and even go negative by 2100. This is, to put it mildly, very optimistic.

The next tier up is RCP 4.5, which still banks on ambitious reductions in emissions but anticipates an inflection point in the emissions rate around 2040. RCP 6 expects emissions to increase 75 percent above today's levels before peaking and declining around 2060 as the world continues to rely heavily on fossil fuels.

The highest tier, RCP 8.5, is the pessimistic business-as-usual scenario, anticipating no policy changes nor any technological advances. It expects a global population of 12 billion and triple the rate of carbon dioxide emissions compared to today by 2100.

Here's how greenhouse gas emissions under each scenario stack up next to each other:

And here's what that means for global average temperatures, assuming that a doubling of carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere leads to 3°C of warming:

As you can see, RCP 3PD is the only trajectory that keeps the planet below 2°C of warming. Recall what it would take to keep emissions in line with this pathway and you'll understand the enormity of the challenge of meeting this goal.

8) How do we stop global warming?

The world's nations would need to cut their greenhouse gas emissions by a lot. And even that wouldn't stop all global warming.

For example, let's say we wanted to limit global warming to below 2°C. To do that, the IPCC has calculated that annual greenhouse gas emissions would need to drop at least 40 to 70 percent by midcentury.

Emissions would then have to keep falling until humans were hardly emitting any extra greenhouse gases by the end of the century. We'd also have to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

Cutting emissions that sharply is a daunting task. Right now, the world gets 87 percent of its primary energy from fossil fuels: oil, gas, and coal. By contrast, just 13 percent of the world's primary energy is "low carbon": a little bit of wind and solar power, some nuclear power plants, a bunch of hydroelectric dams. That's one reason global emissions keep rising each year.

To stay below 2°C, that would all need to change radically. By 2050, the IPCC notes, the world would need to triple or even quadruple the share of clean energy it uses - and keep scaling it up thereafter. Second, we'd have to get dramatically more efficient at using energy in our homes, buildings, and cars. And stop cutting down forests. And reduce emissions from agriculture and from industrial processes like cement manufacturing.

The IPCC also notes that this task becomes even more difficult the longer we put it off, because carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases will keep piling up in the atmosphere in the meantime, and the cuts necessary to stay below the 2°C limit become more severe.

9) What are we actually doing to fight climate change?

A global problem requires global action, but with climate change, there is a yawning gap between ambition and action.

The main international effort is the 2015 Paris climate accord, of which the United States is the only country in the world that wants out. The deal was hammered out over weeks of tense negotiations and weighs in at 31 pages. What it does is actually pretty simple.

The backbone is the global target of keeping global average temperatures from rising 2°C (compared to temperatures before the Industrial Revolution) by the end of the century. Beyond 2 degrees, we risk dramatically higher seas, changes in weather patterns, food and water crises, and an overall more hostile world.
Paris is voluntary
Critics have argued that the 2-degree mark is arbitrary, or even too low, to make a difference. But it's a starting point, a goal that, before Paris, the world was on track to wildly miss.

To accomplish this 2-degree goal, the accord states that countries should strive to reach peak emissions "as soon as possible." (Currently, we're on track to hit peak emissions around 2030 or later, which will likely be too late.)

But the agreement doesn't detail exactly how these countries should do that. Instead, it provides a framework for getting momentum going on greenhouse gas reduction, with some oversight and accountability. For the US, the pledge involves 26 to 28 percent reductions by 2025. (Under Trump's current policies, that goal is impossible.)

There's also no defined punishment for breaking it. The idea is to create a culture of accountability (and maybe some peer pressure) to get countries to step up their climate game.

In 2020, delegates are supposed to reconvene and provide updates about their emission pledges and report on how they're becoming more aggressive on accomplishing the 2-degree goal.
Paris asks richer countries to help out poorer countries
However, many countries are already falling behind on their climate change commitments, and some, like Germany, are giving up on their near-term targets.

There's a fundamental inequality when it comes to global emissions. Rich countries have plundered and burned huge amounts of fossil fuels and gotten rich from them. Poor countries seeking to grow their economies are now being admonished for using the same fuels. Many low-lying poor countries also will be among the first to bear the worst impacts of climate change.
The agreement matters because we absolutely need momentum on this issue
The main vehicle for rectifying this is the Green Climate Fund, via which richer countries, like the US, are supposed to send $100 billion a year in aid and financing by 2020 to the poorer countries. The United States' share was $3 billion, but with President Trump's decision to withdraw from the Paris accord, this goal is unlikely to be met.

The Paris agreement is largely symbolic, and it will live oneven though Trump is aiming to pull the US out. But, as Jim Tankersley wrote for Vox, "the accord will be weakened, and, much more importantly, so will the fragile international coalition" around climate change.
But the Paris accord isn't the only international climate policy game in town
We're already seeing the Paris agreement lose steam. At a follow-up climate meeting this year in Katowice, Poland, negotiators forged an agreement on measuring and verifying their progress in cutting greenhouse gases, but left many critical questions of how to achieve these reductions unanswered.

There are regional international climate efforts like the European Union's Emissions Trading System. However, the most effective global policy at keeping warming in check to date doesn't have to do with climate change, at least on the surface.
Avoiding catastrophic climate change isn't impossible yet. Just incredibly hard. Reckoning with climate change will demand ugly tradeoffs from environmentalists - and everyone else Show this cartoon to anyone who doubts we need huge action on climate change It's time to start talking about "negative" carbon dioxide emissions
The 1987 Montreal Protocol, which was convened by countries to halt the destruction of the ozone layer, had a major side effect of averting warming. In fact, it's been the single most effective effort humanity has undertaken to fight climate change. Since many of the substances that eat away at the ozone layer are potent heat-trappers, limiting emissions of gases like chlorofluorocarbons has an outsize effect.
Scientists made a detailed "roadmap" for meeting the Paris climate goals. It's eye-opening.
And the Trump administration doesn't appear as hostile to Montreal as it does to Paris. The White House may send the 2016 Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol to the Senate for ratification, giving the new regulations the force of law. If implemented, the amendment would avert 0.5°C of warming by 2100.

Regardless of what path we choose, the key thing to remember is that we are going to pay for climate change one way or another. We have the opportunity now to address warming on our own terms, with investments in clean energy, moving people away from disaster-prone areas, and regulating greenhouse gas emissions. Otherwise, we'll pay through diminished crop harvests, inundated coastlines, destroyed homes, lost lives, and an increasingly unlivable planet. Ignoring or stalling on climate change chooses the latter option by default. Our choices do matter, but we're running out of time to make them.

A history of the 2°C global warming target

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9 questions about climate change you were too embarrassed to ask

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Basic answers to basic questions about global warming and the future climate.

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Change a light
Replacing one regular light bulb with a compact fluorescent light bulb will save 150 pounds of carbon dioxide a year.
Use less hot water
It takes a lot of energy to heat water. Use less hot water by taking shorter and cooler showers and washing your clothes in cold water.
Plant a tree
A single tree will absorb one ton of carbon dioxide over its lifetime.

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10 Ways to Stop Global Warming

Want to help stop global warming? Here are 10 simple things you can do and how much carbon dioxide you'll save doing them.

Change a light
Replacing one regular light bulb with a compact fluorescent light bulb will save 150 pounds of carbon dioxide a year.

Drive less
Walk, bike, carpool or take mass transit more often. You'll save one pound of carbon dioxide for every mile you don't drive!

Recycle more
You can save 2,400 pounds of carbon dioxide per year by recycling just half of your household waste.

Check your tires
Keeping your tires inflated properly can improve your gas mileage by more than 3 percent. Every gallon of gasoline saved keeps 20 pounds of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere.

Use less hot water
It takes a lot of energy to heat water. Use less hot water by taking shorter and cooler showers and washing your clothes in cold or warm instead of hot water (more than 500 pounds of carbon dioxide saved per year).

Avoid products with a lot of packaging
You can save 1,200 pounds of carbon dioxide if you reduce your garbage by 10 percent.

Adjust your thermostat
Moving your thermostat down just 2 degrees in winter and up 2 degrees in summer could save about 2,000 pounds of carbon dioxide a year.

Plant a tree
A single tree will absorb one ton of carbon dioxide over its lifetime.

Turn off electronic devices
Simply turning off your television, DVD player, stereo, and computer, when you're not using them, will save you thousands of pounds of carbon dioxide a year.

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10 Ways to Stop Global Warming: Facilities - Northwestern University

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Change a light Replacing one regular light bulb with a compact fluorescent light bulb will save 150 pounds of carbon dioxide a year. Drive less Walk, bike, carpool or take mass transit more often. You'll save one pound of carbon dioxide for every mile you don't drive!

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How has global warming affected the world so far?

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How has global warming affected the world so far?

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Can we slow or even reverse global warming?

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Can we slow or even reverse global warming?

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The absorption of too much CO₂ causes death and disease among  fish, algae, coral and other organisms in the sea too!

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The absorption of too much CO₂ causes death and disease among  fish, algae, coral and other organisms in the sea too!

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The water in the atmosphere is decreasing. It leads to drought!

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The water in the atmosphere is decreasing. It leads to drought!

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The dry, hot weather has increased the intensity and destructiveness of forest fires.

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The dry, hot weather has increased the intensity and destructiveness of forest fires.

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Can we reverse the effects of global warming?

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Can we reverse the effects of global warming?

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Obviously, humans have already caused major climate changes to happen. But we can still avoid or limit some of the effects of climate change.
According to NASA, it involves a 2-tier approach:
1) Reduce the flow of greenhouse gases.
2)Learn to live with and adapt to the climate change

It surely can not reverse the situation but can prevent worse cases from happening.

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Climate Change: Vital Signs of the Planet

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Credit: Pixabay

Humans have caused major climate changes to happen already, and we have set in motion more changes still. However, if we stopped emitting greenhouse gases today, the rise in global temperatures would begin to flatten within a few years. Temperatures would then plateau but remain well-elevated for many, many centuries. There is a time lag between what we do and when we feel it, but that lag is less than a decade.

While the effects of human activities on Earth's climate to date are irreversible on the timescale of humans alive today, every little bit of avoided future temperature increases results in less warming that would otherwise persist for essentially forever. The benefits of reduced greenhouse gas emissions occur on the same timescale as the political decisions that lead to those reductions.

Without major action to reduce emissions, global temperature is on track to rise by 2.5 °C to 4.5 °C (4.5 °F to 8 ° F) by 2100, according to the latest estimates.

Thwaites Glacier. Credit: NASA.

But it may not be too late to avoid or limit some of the worst effects of climate change. Responding to climate change will involve a two-tier approach:

"Mitigation" - reducing the flow of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere

"Adaptation" - learning to live with, and adapt to, the climate change that has already been set in motion. The key question is, what will our emissions of carbon dioxide and other pollutants be in the years to come?

Read more about NASA's efforts to address climate change at https://climate.nasa.gov/solutions/resources/.
READ MORE

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national aeronautics and space administration

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Is it too late to prevent climate change? - Climate Change: Vital Signs of the Planet

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Vital Signs of the Planet: Global Climate Change and Global Warming. Current news and data streams about global warming and climate change from NASA.

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How much time do we have to take action?

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How much time do we have to take action?

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According to Bill Collin, we have 25 years to reverse course. With the help of various forms of clean energy, it is believed that climate emissions could be reduced quickly!

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You can think of global warming kind of like popping a bag of popcorn in the microwave.

Anthropogenic, or human-caused, warming has been stoked by increasing amounts of heat-trapping pollution since the start of the industrial age more than 200 years ago. But that first hundred years or so was kind of like the first minute for that popcorn - no real sign of much happening.

But then you get to that second minute, and the kernels really start doing their thing. And you can think of all those individual pops as extreme weather events - superstorms, extreme downpours, high-tide flooding, droughts, melting glaciers, ferocious wildfires. They're like the signals that the climate is changing.

And in popcorn terms, "we are in that second minute," says Inez Fung, an atmospheric scientist at UC Berkeley - in the throes of a problem we can now see unfolding all around us.

"Thirty years ago we predicted it in the models, and now I'm experiencing it," Fung says. "You see the fires in the western US and British Columbia. And then at the same time, we've got fires, it rained three feet in Hilo, Hawaii, from [a] hurricane - that is a new record at the same time that we have droughts and fires, over 300 people died in India from floods. We are not prepared. "

Across the US the average temperature has risen almost two degrees Fahrenheit since the start of the 20th century. And that's only the beginning, says Bill Collin, who directs climate and ecological science at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab.

"We released enough carbon dioxide to continue warming the climate for several centuries to come," Collins says.

And he says that means a certain amount of future warming is already "baked in, if you will."

In other words, going back to that popcorn metaphor, even if you hit the stop button on the oven, some of those kernels will keep popping.

"If we were to stop emissions entirely of all greenhouse gases right this minute," Collins says, "we'd see roughly another half a degree centigrade by the end of the 21st century."

That's almost a full degree Fahrenheit already in the pipeline. So even if we shut down all emissions - which is not happening - we might still get to the threshold of two degrees Celsius, or 3.5 degrees Fahrenheit, warming from pre-industrial levels, at which point many scientists say the worst effects of climate change would kick in.

"We're seeing years now that basically blow the roof off of records back to the late 19th century," notes Collins - and then a remarkable thought occurs to him:

"None of the students in my classes have grown up in a normal climate. None of them."

On the flipside, if you're over, say 30, and can actually recall "normal," well, that's over.

"I have to say that all the projections that were made 30 years ago are still valid," says Fung. "The only thing we had not anticipated ... is that the CO2 increases much faster than we ever thought that it would."

Despite the pledges made in Paris by nearly every nation in the world (the US under the Trump administration is alone among signatories in backing out of the climate accord), emissions are still rising. And even those historic commitments - if they're all kept - won't be enough to turn things around.

"No, we're already beyond that," says Fung. "The commitments, I think, are a very good start, but they're just not adequate."

All this grim talk might lead one to ask what point there is in trying to reverse the climate train.

But recently refined climate models suggest that aggressively cutting emissions could at least blunt the impact of continued warming. It could, for example, reduce periods of extreme heat in California's capital Sacramento from two weeks a year to as little as two days. The snowpack in the state's Sierra Nevada mountains might shrink by "just" 20 percent, rather than 75 percent.

That's the optimistic scenario.

The Global Climate Action Summit being held his week in San Francisco will pull together mayors, state and provincial governors, scientists and corporate leaders from around the world and the US to try to keep momentum going with what are known as "subnational" actions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions - things done at the local, state and regional level.

They'll be joined by major players such as California governor Jerry Brown, who organized the conference and has helped position the state as a global leader in the fight to step climate change; former Vice President Al Gore; and former Secretary of State John Kerry, who signed the Paris accord on behalf of the US with his tiny granddaughter perched on his lap.

One of the themes attendees will discuss is "key building blocks required to peak global emissions by 2020," a goal that seems wildly optimistic given current emissions trajectories, and with barely more than two years to go.

"First thing we have to do as a global community is reverse course rather sharply," says Collins. "We think it is technically feasible."

Technically feasible, perhaps, but not easy. California, for instance, has the most aggressive efforts to cut greenhouse gases in the US and overall, it's working - total emissions are down 13 percent since 2004. Still, climate emissions from cars and trucks are on the rise.

"Our cars are literally our time machines," Collins says. And they're taking us backward.

"They're taking the atmosphere to a chemical state that it has not been in for millions of years," he says. "Currently, we have as much carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere as we did five million years ago."

And that was a very different world, long before humans ever showed up.

In the space of a little over 230 years since the start of industrialization, Collins says "our steam engines, our factories, our cars ... they've taken us back five million years."

And Collins says we have about 25 years - roughly one generation - to reverse course.

Collins and Fung both have their glimmers of optimism that technology and the boom in solar, wind and other forms of clean energy could quickly reduce climate emissions. Fung also points to the young college students passing by us on the Berkeley campus as her best hope.

"I am optimistic about the young people," she says. "I'm optimistic that they are ... very proactive about the future."

But she and Collins agree that what's running out is time.

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Scientists say 25 years left to fight climate change

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You can think of global warming kind of like popping a bag of popcorn in the microwave. Anthropogenic, or human-caused, warming has been stoked by increasing amounts of heat-trapping pollution since the start of the industrial age more than 200 years ago.

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-Temperatures will continue to rise
- Heat waves, droughts and storms will become more intense.
-Frost-free season will lenghten
-Arctic will be an ocean.
-Sea levels will rise by 1-2 meters by 2100
( according to the data from https://climate.nasa.gov/effects/)

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On This Page:

Earth's temperature is a balancing act

Earth's temperature depends on the balance between energy entering and leaving the planet's system. When incoming energy from the sun is absorbed by the Earth system, Earth warms. When the sun's energy is reflected back into space, Earth avoids warming. When absorbed energy is released back into space, Earth cools. Many factors, both natural and human, can cause changes in Earth's energy balance, including:

These factors have caused Earth's climate to change many times.

Scientists have pieced together a record of Earth's climate, dating back hundreds of thousands of years (and, in some cases, millions or hundreds of millions of years), by analyzing a number of indirect measures of climate such as ice cores, tree rings, glacier lengths, pollen remains, and ocean sediments, and by studying changes in Earth's orbit around the sun.

This record shows that the climate system varies naturally over a wide range of time scales. In general, climate changes prior to the Industrial Revolution in the 1700s can be explained by natural causes, such as changes in solar energy, volcanic eruptions, and natural changes in greenhouse gas (GHG) concentrations.

Recent climate changes, however, cannot be explained by natural causes alone. Research indicates that natural causes do not explain most observed warming, especially warming since the mid-20 th century. Rather, it is extremely likely that human activities have been the dominant cause of that warming.

The greenhouse effect causes the atmosphere to retain heat

When sunlight reaches Earth's surface, it can either be reflected back into space or absorbed by Earth. Once absorbed, the planet releases some of the energy back into the atmosphere as heat (also called infrared radiation). Greenhouse gases like water vapor (H 2O), carbon dioxide (CO 2), and methane (CH 4) absorb energy, slowing or preventing the loss of heat to space. In this way, GHGs act like a blanket, making Earth warmer than it would otherwise be. This process is commonly known as the "greenhouse effect."

The role of the greenhouse effect in the past

Over the last several hundred thousand years, CO 2 levels varied in tandem with the glacial cycles. During warm "interglacial" periods, CO 2 levels were higher. During cool "glacial" periods, CO 2 levels were lower. The heating or cooling of Earth's surface and oceans can cause changes in the natural sources and sinks of these gases, and thus change greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere. These changing concentrations are thought to have acted as a positive feedback, amplifying the temperature changes caused by long-term shifts in Earth's orbit.

The recent role of the greenhouse effect

Since the Industrial Revolution began around 1750, human activities have contributed substantially to climate change by adding CO 2 and other heat-trapping gases to the atmosphere. These greenhouse gas emissions have increased the greenhouse effect and caused Earth's surface temperature to rise. The primary human activity affecting the amount and rate of climate change is greenhouse gas emissions from the burning of fossil fuels.

The main greenhouse gases

The most important GHGs directly emitted by humans include carbon dioxide (CO 2), methane (CH 4), nitrous oxide (N 2 O), and several others. The sources and recent trends of these gases are detailed below.

Carbon dioxide

Carbon dioxide is the primary greenhouse gas that is contributing to recent climate change. CO 2 is absorbed and emitted naturally as part of the carbon cycle, through plant and animal respiration, volcanic eruptions, and ocean-atmosphere exchange. Human activities, such as the burning of fossil fuels and changes in land use, release large amounts of CO 2, causing concentrations in the atmosphere to rise.

Atmospheric CO 2 concentrations have increased by more than 40% since pre-industrial times, from approximately 280 parts per million by volume (ppmv) in the 18th century to over 400 ppmv in 2015. The monthly average concentration at Mauna Loa now exceeds 400 ppmv for the first time in human history. The current CO 2 level is higher than it has been in at least 800,000 years.

Some volcanic eruptions released large quantities of CO 2 in the distant past. However, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) reports that human activities now emit more than 135 times as much CO 2 as volcanoes each year.

Human activities currently release over 30 billion tons of CO 2 into the atmosphere every year. The resultant build-up of CO 2 in the atmosphere is like a tub filling with water, where more water flows from the faucet than the drain can take away.

For more information on the human and natural sources and sinks of CO 2 emissions, and actions that can reduce emissions, see the Carbon Dioxide page in the Greenhouse Gas Emissions website.

Methane is produced through both natural and human activities. For example, natural wetlands, agricultural activities, and fossil fuel extraction and transport all emit CH 4.

Methane is more abundant in Earth's atmosphere now than at any time in at least the past 800,000 years. Due to human activities, CH 4 concentrations increased sharply during most of the 20th century and are now more than two-and-a-half times pre-industrial levels. In recent decades, the rate of increase has slowed considerably.

For more information on CH 4 emissions and sources, and actions that can reduce emissions, see EPA's Methane page in the Greenhouse Gas Emissions website. For information on how methane is impacting the Arctic, see the EPA report Methane and Black Carbon Impacts on the Arctic.

Nitrous oxide

Nitrous oxide is produced through natural and human activities, mainly through agricultural activities and natural biological processes. Fuel burning and some other processes also create N 2O. Concentrations of N 2 O have risen approximately 20% since the start of the Industrial Revolution, with a relatively rapid increase toward the end of the 20th century.

Overall, N 2O concentrations have increased more rapidly during the past century than at any time in the past 22,000 years. For more information on N 2O emissions and sources, and actions that can reduce emissions, see EPA's Nitrous Oxide page in the Greenhouse Gas Emissions website.

Other greenhouse gases

Water vapor is the most abundant greenhouse gas and also the most important in terms of its contribution to the natural greenhouse effect, despite having a short atmospheric lifetime. Some human activities can influence local water vapor levels. However, on a global scale, the concentration of water vapor is controlled by temperature, which influences overall rates of evaporation and precipitation. Therefore, the global concentration of water vapor is not substantially affected by direct human emissions.

Tropospheric , which also has a short atmospheric lifetime, is a potent greenhouse gas. Chemical reactions create ozone from emissions of nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds from automobiles, power plants, and other industrial and commercial sources in the presence of sunlight. In addition to trapping heat, ground-level ozone is a pollutant that can cause respiratory health problems and damage crops and ecosystems.

Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs), hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), perfluorocarbons (PFCs), and sulfur hexafluoride (SF6), together called F-gases, are often used in coolants, foaming agents, fire extinguishers, solvents, pesticides, and aerosol propellants. Unlike water vapor and ozone, these F-gases have a long atmospheric lifetime, and some of these emissions will affect the climate for many decades or centuries.

For more information on greenhouse gas emissions, see the Greenhouse Gas Emissions website, including an expanded discussion of global warming potentials and how they are used to measure the relative strengths of greenhouse gases. To learn more about actions that can reduce these emissions, see What You Can Do.

Other climate forcers

Particles and aerosols in the atmosphere can also affect climate. Human activities such as burning fossil fuels and biomass contribute to emissions of these substances, although some aerosols also come from natural sources such as volcanoes and marine plankton.

Black carbon (BC) is a solid particle or aerosol, not a gas, but it also contributes to warming of the atmosphere. Unlike GHGs, BC can directly absorb incoming and reflected sunlight in addition to absorbing infrared radiation. BC can also be deposited on snow and ice, darkening the surface and thereby increasing the snow's absorption of sunlight and accelerating melt. For information on how BC is impacting the Arctic, see EPA assessment Methane and Black Carbon Impacts on the Arctic.

Sulfates, organic carbon, and other aerosols can cause cooling by reflecting sunlight.

Warming and cooling aerosols can interact with clouds, changing a number of cloud attributes such as their formation, dissipation, reflectivity, and precipitation rates. Clouds can contribute both to cooling, by reflecting sunlight, and warming, by trapping outgoing heat.

For more information on greenhouse gas emissions, see the Greenhouse Gas Emissions website. To learn more about actions that can reduce these emissions, see What EPA is Doing and What You Can Do.

Changes in the sun's energy affect how much energy reaches Earth's system

Climate is influenced by natural changes that affect how much solar energy reaches Earth. These changes include changes within the sun and changes in Earth's orbit.

Changes occurring in the sun itself can affect the intensity of the sunlight that reaches Earth's surface. The intensity of the sunlight can cause either warming (during periods of stronger solar intensity) or cooling (during periods of weaker solar intensity). The sun follows a natural 11-year cycle of small ups and downs in intensity, but the effect on Earth's climate is small.

Changes in the shape of Earth's orbit as well as the tilt and position of Earth's axis can also affect the amount of sunlight reaching Earth's surface.

The role of the sun's energy in the past

Changes in the sun's intensity have influenced Earth's climate in the past. For example, the so-called "Little Ice Age" between the 17th and 19th centuries may have been partially caused by a low solar activity phase from 1645 to 1715, which coincided with cooler temperatures. The "Little Ice Age" refers to a slight cooling of North America, Europe, and probably other areas around the globe.

Changes in Earth's orbit have had a big impact on climate over tens to hundreds of thousands of years. In fact, the amount of summer sunshine on the Northern Hemisphere, which is affected by changes in the planet's orbit, appears to drive the advance and retreat of ice sheets. These changes appear to be the primary cause of past cycles of ice ages, in which Earth has experienced long periods of cold temperatures (ice ages), as well as shorter interglacial periods (periods between ice ages) of relatively warmer temperatures.

Rates of Climate Change Have Varied Over Time

Click to learn about how rates of climate change have varied over time.

The recent role of the sun's energy

Changes in solar energy continue to affect climate. However, over the last 11-year solar cycle, solar output has been lower than it has been since the mid-20 th century, and therefore does not explain the recent warming of the earth. Similarly, changes in the shape of Earth's orbit as well as the tilt and position of Earth's axis affect temperature on very long timescales (tens to hundreds of thousands of years), and therefore cannot explain the recent warming.

Changes in reflectivity affect how much energy enters Earth's system

When sunlight reaches Earth, it can be reflected or absorbed. The amount that is reflected or absorbed depends on Earth's surface and atmosphere. Light-colored objects and surfaces, like snow and clouds, tend to reflect most sunlight, while darker objects and surfaces, like the ocean, forests, or soil, tend to absorb more sunlight.

The term albedo refers to the amount of solar radiation reflected from an object or surface, often expressed as a percentage. Earth as a whole has an albedo of about 30%, meaning that 70% of the sunlight that reaches the planet is absorbed. Absorbed sunlight warms Earth's land, water, and atmosphere.

Reflectivity is also affected by aerosols. Aerosols are small particles or liquid droplets in the atmosphere that can absorb or reflect sunlight. Unlike greenhouse gases, the climate effects of aerosols vary depending on what they are made of and where they are emitted. Those aerosols that reflect sunlight, such as particles from volcanic eruptions or sulfur emissions from burning coal, have a cooling effect. Those that absorb sunlight, such as black carbon (a part of soot), have a warming effect.

The role of reflectivity in the past

Natural changes in reflectivity, like the melting of sea ice, have contributed to climate change in the past, often acting as feedbacks to other processes.

Volcanoes have played a noticeable role in climate. Volcanic particles that reach the upper atmosphere can reflect enough sunlight back to space to cool the surface of the planet by a few tenths of a degree for several years. These particles are an example of cooling aerosols. Volcanic particles from a single eruption do not produce long-term change because they remain in the atmosphere for a much shorter time than GHGs.

The recent role of reflectivity

Human changes in land use and land cover have changed Earth's reflectivity. Processes such as deforestation, reforestation, desertification, and urbanization often contribute to changes in climate in the places they occur. These effects may be significant regionally, but are smaller when averaged over the entire globe.

In addition, human activities have generally increased the number of aerosol particles in the atmosphere. Overall, human-generated aerosols have a net cooling effect offsetting about one-third of the total warming effect associated with human greenhouse gas emissions. Reductions in overall aerosol emissions can therefore lead to more warming. However, targeted reductions in black carbon emissions can reduce warming.

References:
[1] USGCRP (2014). Climate Change Impacts in the United States: The Third National Climate Assessment. [Melillo, Jerry M., Terese (T.C.) Richmond, and Gary W. Yohe, Eds.] U.S. Global Change Research Program. [2] IPCC (2013). Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Stocker, T.F., D. Qin, G.-K. Plattner, M. Tignor, S.K. Allen, J. Boschung, A. Nauels, Y. Xia, V. Bex and P.M. Midgley (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA. [3] NRC (2010). Advancing the Science of Climate Changes . National Research Council. The National Academies Press, Washington, DC, USA.

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Earth's temperature depends on the balance between energy entering and leaving the planet's system. When incoming energy from the sun is absorbed by the Earth system, Earth warms. When the sun's energy is reflected back into space, Earth avoids warming. When absorbed energy is released back into space, Earth cools.

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'The Greenhouse Effect' causes the atmosphere to retain heat. Carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O) are the main gases in the Greenhouse Effect.

Burning coal, oil and gas produces carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide. produces carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide.

As trees have a huge role in absorbing carbon dioxide, cutting down forests increase the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

Methane is produced by animals, humans and human activities. When animals digest their food, they release large amounts of methane gas. Thus, increasing livestock farming means more methane gas in the atmosphere.

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What is causing the climate change to happen?

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What is causing the climate change to happen?

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Productivity in agriculture is decreasing.

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Productivity in agriculture is decreasing.

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How much time do we have to take action?

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How much time do we have to take action?

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What is the worse scenario for our world?

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What is the worse scenario for our world?

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The weather and its standarts are changing! Winters are warmer and summers are hotter.

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The weather and its standarts are changing! Winters are warmer and summers are hotter.

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Ecosystems are dying as a result of deforestation and habitat destruction.

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Ecosystems are dying as a result of deforestation and habitat destruction.

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Climate change is a complex issue, with many interconnected pieces. The New York Times has created a resource that provides quick and understandable explanations to 16 questions about climate change. It's a great resource for those just learning about the issues and those who want to know how to more easily talk about climate change.
Go to the New York Times: Short answers to hard questions about climate change
The amount of carbon dioxide (CO 2) in our atmosphere, measured in parts per million or "ppm", provides us with a tangible way to measure global warming trends. Atmospheric carbon dioxide measurements have been collected directly at Mauna Loa Observatory on the island of Hawai'i for 50 years.

Continue reading about climate carbon dioxide levels

Climate change is already creating problems for both human and natural systems.

Scientists have documented changes in:

While each and every extreme event can't be blamed on climate change, the frequency and severity of such events are both increasing over time. A useful analogy is the recent uptick in the use of steroids in professional baseball - can you attribute any single home run to the use of steroids? Not really. Climate change is basically the climate - on steroids.

Continue reading about climate change trends

Climate related impacts are already being felt, and are expected to worsen across all sectors of our communities. Many impacts specific to regions of the United States have been documented in the U.S. Global Change Research Program's 2014 National Climate Assessment.

Some examples of expected impacts include:

Continue reading about impacts from climate change

Available information on climate change is abundant online, but much of it is misleading or misrepresents the science. For more introductory information on climate change, we recommend the following reputable sources.

Continue reading about introductory resources

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Climate change is a complex issue, with many interconnected pieces. The New York Times has created a resource that provides quick and understandable explanations to 16 questions about climate change. It's a great resource for those just learning about the issues and those who want to know how to more easily talk about climate change.

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The issue can be overwhelming. The science is complicated. Predictions about the fate of the planet carry endless caveats and asterisks.

We get it.

So we've put together a list of quick answers to often-asked questions about climate change. This should give you a running start on understanding the problem.

1. How much is the planet warming up?

2 degrees is actually a significant amount.

As of early 2017, the Earth had warmed by roughly 2 degrees Fahrenheit, or more than 1 degree Celsius, since 1880, when records began at a global scale. That figure includes the surface of the ocean. The warming is greater over land, and greater still in the Arctic and parts of Antarctica.

The number may sound low. We experience much larger temperature swings in our day-to-day lives from weather systems and from the changing of seasons. But when you average across the entire planet and over months or years, the temperature differences get far smaller - the variation at the surface of the Earth from one year to the next is measured in fractions of a degree. So a rise of 2 degrees Fahrenheit since the 19th century is actually high.

The substantial warming that has already occurred explains why much of the world's land ice is starting to melt and the oceans are rising at an accelerating pace. The heat accumulating in the Earth because of human emissions is roughly equal to the heat that would be released by 400,000 Hiroshima atomic bombs exploding across the planet every day.

Scientists believe most and probably all of the warming since 1950 was caused by the human release of greenhouse gases. If emissions continue unchecked, they say the global warming could ultimately exceed 8 degrees Fahrenheit, which would transform the planet and undermine its capacity to support a large human population.

2. How much trouble are we in?

For future generations, big trouble.

The risks are much greater over the long run than over the next few decades, but the emissions that create those risks are happening now. This means the current generation of people is dooming future generations to a more difficult future.

How difficult?

Over the coming 25 or 30 years, scientists say, the climate is likely to resemble that of today, although gradually getting warmer, with more of the extreme heat waves that can kill vulnerable people. Rainfall will be heavier in many parts of the world, but the periods between rains will most likely grow hotter and drier. The number of hurricanes and typhoons may actually fall, but the ones that do occur will draw energy from a hotter ocean surface, and therefore may be more intense. Coastal flooding will grow more frequent and damaging, as is already happening.

Longer term, if emissions continue to rise unchecked, the risks are profound. Scientists fear climate effects so severe that they might destabilize governments, produce waves of refugees, precipitate the sixth mass extinction of plants and animals in the Earth's history, and melt the polar ice caps, causing the seas to rise high enough to flood most of the world's coastal cities.

All of this could take hundreds or even thousands of years to play out, but experts cannot rule out abrupt changes, such as a collapse of agriculture, that would throw civilization into chaos much sooner. Bolder efforts to limit emissions would reduce these risks, or at least slow the effects, but it is already too late to eliminate the risks entirely.

3. Is there anything I can do about climate change?

Fly less, drive less, waste less.

You can reduce your own carbon footprint in lots of simple ways, and most of them will save you money. You can plug leaks in your home insulation to save power, install a smart thermostat, switch to more efficient light bulbs, turn off the lights in any room where you are not using them, drive fewer miles by consolidating trips or taking public transit, waste less food and eat less meat.

Perhaps the biggest single thing individuals can do on their own is to take fewer airplane trips; just one or two fewer plane rides per year can save as much in emissions as all the other actions combined. If you want to be at the cutting edge, you can look at buying an electric or hybrid car, putting solar panels on your roof, or both.

If you want to offset your emissions, you can buy certificates, with the money going to projects that protect forests, capture greenhouse gases and so forth. Some airlines sell these to offset emissions from their flights. You can also buy offset certificates in a private marketplace, from companies such as TerraPass; some people even give these as holiday gifts. In states that allow you to choose your own electricity supplier, you can often elect to buy green electricity; you pay slightly more, and the money goes into a fund that helps finance projects like wind farms.

Leading companies are also starting to demand clean energy for their operations. You can pay attention to company policies, patronize the leaders, and let the others know you expect them to do better.

In the end, though, experts do not believe the needed transformation in the energy system can happen without strong state and national policies. So speaking up and exercising your rights as a citizen matters as much as anything else you can do.

4. What's the optimistic case?

Several things have to break our way.

In the best case that scientists can imagine, several things happen: Earth turns out to be less sensitive to greenhouse gases than currently believed; plants and animals manage to adapt to the changes that have already become inevitable; human society develops much greater political will to bring emissions under control; and major technological breakthroughs occur that help society to limit emissions and to adjust to climate change.

Some technological breakthroughs are already making cleaner energy more attractive. In the United States, for instance, coal has been losing out to natural gas as a power source, as new drilling technology has made gas more abundant and cheaper; for a given amount of power, gas cuts emissions in half. In addition, the cost of wind and solar power has declined so much that they are now the cheapest power source in a few places, even without subsidies.

Unfortunately, scientists and energy experts say the odds of all these things breaking our way are not very high. The Earth could just as easily turn out to be more sensitive to greenhouse gases as less. Global warming seems to be causing chaos in parts of the natural world already, and that seems likely to get worse, not better. So in the view of the experts, simply banking on rosy assumptions without any real plan would be dangerous. They believe the only way to limit the risks is to limit emissions.

5. Will reducing meat in my diet really help the climate?

Agriculture of all types produces greenhouse gases that warm the planet, but meat production is especially harmful - and beef is the most environmentally damaging form of meat. Some methods of cattle production demand a lot of land, contributing to destruction of forests; the trees are typically burned, releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Other methods require huge amounts of water and fertilizer to grow food for the cows.

The cows themselves produce emissions of methane, a potent greenhouse gas that causes short-term warming. Meat consumption is rising worldwide as the population grows, and as economic development makes people richer and better able to afford meat.

This trend is worrisome. Studies have found that if the whole world were to start eating beef at the rate Americans eat it, produced by the methods typically used in the United States, that alone might erase any chance of staying below an internationally agreed-upon limit on global warming. Pork production creates somewhat lower emissions than beef production, and chicken lower still. So reducing your meat consumption, or switching from beef and pork to chicken in your diet, are moves in the right direction. Of course, as with any kind of behavioral change meant to benefit the climate, this will only make a difference if lots of other people do it, too, reducing the overall demand for meat products.

6. What's the worst case?

That is actually hard to say, which is one reason scientists are urging that emissions be cut; they want to limit the possibility of the worst case coming to pass.

Perhaps the greatest fear is a collapse of food production, accompanied by escalating prices and mass starvation. It is unclear how likely this would be, since farmers are able to adjust their crops and farming techniques, to a degree, to adapt to climatic changes. But we have already seen heat waves contribute to broad crop failures. A decade ago, a big run-up in grain prices precipitated food riots around the world and led to the collapse of at least one government, in Haiti.

Another possibility would be a disintegration of the polar ice sheets, leading to fast-rising seas that would force people to abandon many of the world's great cities and would lead to the loss of trillions of dollars worth of property and other assets. In places like Florida and Virginia, towns are already starting to have trouble with coastal flooding.

Scientists also worry about other wild-card events. Will the Asian monsoons become less reliable, for instance? Billions of people depend on the monsoons to provide water for crops, so any disruptions could be catastrophic. Another possibility is a large-scale breakdown of the circulation patterns in the ocean, which could potentially lead to sudden, radical climate shifts across entire continents.

7. ​Will a technology breakthrough help us?

Even Bill Gates says don't count on it, unless we commit the cash.

As more companies, governments and researchers devote themselves to the problem, the chances of big technological advances are improving. But even many experts who are optimistic about technological solutions warn that current efforts are not enough. For instance, spending on basic energy research is only a quarter to a third of the level that several in-depth reports have recommended. And public spending on agricultural research has stagnated even though climate change poses growing risks to the food supply. People like Bill Gates have argued that crossing our fingers and hoping for technological miracles is not a strategy - we have to spend the money that would make these things more likely to happen.

8. How much will the seas rise?

The real question is not how high, but how fast.

The ocean is rising at a rate of about a foot per century. That causes severe effects on coastlines, forcing governments and property owners to spend tens of billions of dollars fighting erosion. But if that rate continued, it would probably be manageable, experts say.

The risk is that the rate will accelerate markedly. If emissions continue unchecked, then the temperature at the Earth's surface could soon resemble a past epoch called the Pliocene, when a great deal of ice melted and the ocean rose by something like 80 feet compared to today. A recent study found that burning all the fossil fuels in the ground would fully melt the polar ice sheets, raising the sea level by more than 160 feet over an unknown period. Many coastal experts believe that even if emissions stopped tomorrow, 15 or 20 feet of sea-level rise is already inevitable.

The crucial issue is probably not how much the oceans are going to rise, but how fast. And on that point, scientists are pretty much flying blind. Their best information comes from studying the Earth's history, and it suggests that the rate can on occasion hit a foot per decade, which can probably be thought of as the worst case. Even if the rise is much slower, many of the world's great cities will flood eventually. Studies suggest that big cuts in emissions could slow the rise, buying crucial time for society to adapt to an altered coastline.

9. Are the predictions reliable?

They're not perfect, but they're grounded in solid science.

The idea that Earth is sensitive to greenhouse gases is confirmed by many lines of scientific evidence. For instance, the basic physics suggesting that an increase of carbon dioxide traps more heat was discovered in the 19th century, and has been verified in thousands of laboratory experiments.

Climate science does contain uncertainties, of course. The biggest is the degree to which global warming sets off feedback loops, such as a melting of sea ice that will darken the surface and cause more heat to be absorbed, melting more ice, and so forth. It is not clear exactly how much the feedbacks will intensify the warming; some of them could even partly offset it. This uncertainty means that computer forecasts can give only a range of future climate possibilities, not absolute predictions.

But even if those computer forecasts did not exist, a huge amount of evidence suggests that scientists have the basic story right. The most important evidence comes from the study of past climate conditions, a field known as paleoclimate research. The amount of carbon dioxide in the air has fluctuated naturally in the past, and every time it rises, the Earth warms up, ice melts and the ocean rises. A hundred miles inland from today's East Coast of the United States, seashells can be dug from ancient beaches that are three million years old, a blink of an eye in geologic time.

These past conditions are not a perfect guide to the future, because humans are pumping carbon dioxide into the air far faster than nature has ever done. But they show it would be foolish to assume that modern society is somehow immune to large-scale, threatening changes.

10. Why do people question the science of climate change?

Most of the attacks on climate science are coming from libertarians and other political conservatives who do not like the policies that have been proposed to fight global warming. Instead of negotiating over those policies and trying to make them more subject to free-market principles, they have taken the approach of blocking them by trying to undermine the science.

This ideological position has been propped up by money from fossil-fuel interests, which have paid to create organizations, fund conferences and the like. The scientific arguments made by these groups usually involve cherry-picking data, such as focusing on short-term blips in the temperature record or in sea ice, while ignoring the long-term trends.

The most extreme version of climate denialism is to claim that scientists are engaged in a worldwide hoax to fool the public so that the government can gain greater control over people's lives. As the arguments have become more strained, many oil and coal companies have begun to distance themselves publicly from climate denialism, but some are still helping to finance the campaigns of politicians who espouse such views.

11. Is crazy weather tied to climate change?

Scientists have published strong evidence that the warming climate is making heat waves more frequent and intense. It is also causing heavier rainstorms, and coastal flooding is getting worse as the oceans rise because of human emissions. Global warming has intensified droughts in regions like the Middle East, and it may have strengthened a recent drought in California.

In many other cases, though, the linkage to global warming for particular trends is uncertain or disputed. That is partly from a lack of good historical weather data, but it is also scientifically unclear how certain types of events may be influenced by the changing climate.

Another factor: While the climate is changing, people's perceptions may be changing faster. The Internet has made us all more aware of weather disasters in distant places. On social media, people have a tendency to attribute virtually any disaster to climate change, but in many cases there is little or no scientific support for doing so.

12. Will anyone benefit from global warming?

Countries with huge, frozen hinterlands, including Canada and Russia, could see some economic benefits as global warming makes agriculture, mining and the like more possible in those places. It is perhaps no accident that the Russians have always been reluctant to make ambitious climate commitments, and President Vladimir V. Putin has publicly questioned the science of climate change.

However, both of those countries could suffer enormous damage to their natural resources; escalating fires in Russia are already killing millions of acres of forests per year. Moreover, some experts believe countries that view themselves as likely winners from global warming will come to see the matter differently once they are swamped by millions of refugees from less fortunate lands.

13. Is there any reason for hope?

If you share this with 50 friends, maybe.

Scientists have been warning since the 1980s that strong policies were needed to limit emissions. Those warnings were ignored, and greenhouse gases in the atmosphere were allowed to build up to potentially dangerous levels. So the hour is late.

But after 20 years of largely fruitless diplomacy, the governments of the world are finally starting to take the problem seriously. A deal reached in Paris in late 2015 commits nearly every country to some kind of action. President Trump decided in 2017 to pull the United States out of that deal, saying it would unfairly burden American businesses. But other countries are promising to go forward with it anyway, and some states and cities have defied Mr. Trump by adopting more ambitious climate goals.

Religious leaders like Pope Francis are speaking out. Low-emission technologies, such as electric cars, are improving. Leading corporations are making bold promises to switch to renewable power and stop forest destruction.

What is still largely missing in all this are the voices of ordinary citizens. Because politicians have a hard time thinking beyond the next election, they tend to tackle hard problems only when the public rises up and demands it.

14. How does agriculture affect climate change?

It's a big contributor, but there are signs of progress.

The environmental pressures from global agriculture are enormous. Global demand for beef and for animal feed, for instance, has led farmers to cut down large swaths of the Amazon forest.

Brazil adopted tough oversight and managed to cut deforestation in the Amazon by 80 percent in a decade. But the gains there are fragile, and severe problems continue in other parts of the world, such as aggressive forest clearing in Indonesia.

Scores of companies and organizations, including major manufacturers of consumer products, signed a declaration in New York in 2014 pledging to cut deforestation in half by 2020, and to cut it out completely by 2030. The companies that signed the pact are now struggling to figure out how to deliver on that promise.

Many forest experts consider meeting the pledge to be difficult, but possible. They say consumers must keep up the pressure on companies that use ingredients like palm oil in products ranging from soap to lipstick to ice cream. People can also help the cause by altering their diets to eat less meat, and particularly less beef.

15. Will the seas rise evenly across the planet?

Many people imagine the ocean to be like a bathtub, where the water level is consistent all the way around. In fact, the sea is rather lumpy - strong winds and other factors can cause water to pile up in some spots, and to be lower in others.

Also, the huge ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica exert a gravitational pull on the sea, drawing water toward them. As they melt, sea levels in their vicinity will fall as the water gets redistributed to distant areas.

How the rising ocean affects particular parts of the world will therefore depend on which ice sheet melts fastest, how winds and currents shift, and other related factors. On top of all that, some coastal areas are sinking as the sea rises, so they get a double whammy.

16. What are 'carbon emissions?'

Here's a quick explainer.

The greenhouse gases being released by human activity are often called "carbon emissions," just for shorthand. That is because the two most important of the gases, carbon dioxide and methane, contain carbon. Many other gases also trap heat near the Earth's surface, and many human activities cause the release of such gases to the atmosphere. Not all of these actually contain carbon, but they have all come to be referred to by the same shorthand.

By far the biggest factor causing global warming is the burning of fossil fuels for electricity and transportation. That process takes carbon that has been underground for millions of years and moves it into the atmosphere, as carbon dioxide, where it will influence the climate for many centuries into the future. Methane is even more potent at trapping heat than carbon dioxide, but it breaks down more quickly in the air. Methane comes from swamps, from the decay of food in landfills, from cattle and dairy farming, and from leaks in natural gas wells and pipelines.

While fossil-fuel emissions are the major issue, another major creator of emissions is the destruction of forests, particularly in the tropics. Billions of tons of carbon are stored in trees, and when forests are cleared, much of the vegetation is burned, sending that carbon into the air as carbon dioxide.

When you hear about carbon taxes, carbon trading and so on, these are just shorthand descriptions of methods designed to limit greenhouse emissions or to make them more expensive so that people will be encouraged to conserve fuel.

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united nations framework convention on climate change

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Short Answers to Hard Questions About Climate Change

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The issue can be overwhelming. The science is complicated. Predictions about the fate of the planet carry endless caveats and asterisks. We get it. So we've put together a list of quick answers to often-asked questions about climate change. This should give you a running start on understanding the problem.

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If emissions continue to rise unchecked, the risks are profound. Scientists fear climate effects so severe that they might destabilize governments, produce waves of refugees, precipitate the sixth mass extinction of plants and animals in the Earth’s history, and melt the polar ice caps, causing the seas to rise high enough to flood most of the world’s coastal cities.

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We know that climate change is happening - but there are plenty of things individuals can do to help mitigate it. Here's your handy guide to the most effective strategies.
What can you do that will have the biggest impact? Here's our guide.

The number one goal? Limiting the use of fossil fuels such as oil, carbon and natural gas and replacing them with renewable and cleaner sources of energy, all while increasing energy efficiency. "We need to cut CO2 emissions almost in half (45%) by the end of the next decade," says Kimberly Nicholas, associate professor of sustainability science at the Lund University Centre for Sustainability Studies (LUCSUS), in Sweden.

The road towards that transition includes daily decisions within your reach - like driving and flying less, switching to a 'green' energy provider and changing what you eat and buy.

Of course, it's true that climate change won't be solved by your buying or driving habits alone - although many experts agree these are important, and can influence others to make changes too (more on that later). Other changes are needed that can only be made on a bigger, system-wide basis - like revamping our subsidy system for the energy and food industries, which continue to reward fossil fuels, or setting new rules and incentives for sectors like farming, deforestation and waste management.

This is important because we need "unprecedented changes in all aspects of society to deal with climate change, says the IPCC report. "Everyone is going to have to be involved," says Debra Robert, co-chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the group tasked with the report.

One 2017 study co-authored by Lund University's Nicholas ranked 148 individual actions on climate change according to their impact. Going car-free was the number-one most effective action an individual could take (except not having kids - but more on that on that later). Cars are more polluting compared to other means of transportation like walking, biking or using public transport.

That's a big one, too. In fact, after fossil fuels, the food industry - and in particular the meat and dairy sector - is one of the most important contributors to climate change. If cattle were their own nation, they would be the world's third largest emitter of greenhouse gases, after China and the US.

The meat industry contributes to global warming in three major ways. Firstly, cows' burping from processing food releases lots of methane, a greenhouse gas. Secondly, we feed them with other potential sources of food, like maize and soy, which makes for a very inefficient process. And finally, they also require lots of water, fertilisers that can release greenhouse gases, and plenty of land - some of which come from cleared forests, another source of carbon emissions.

By reducing your consumption of animal protein by half, you can cut your diet's carbon footprint by more than 40%

A normal transatlantic round-trip flight can release around 1.6 tonnes of CO2 &ndash; almost as much as the average yearly emissions of one person in India.

A normal transatlantic round-trip flight can release around 1.6 tonnes of CO2, according to Nicholas's study - almost as much as the average yearly emissions of one person in India. This also highlights the inequality of climate change: while everyone will be affected, only a minority of humans fly and even fewer people take planes often.

There are groups of scientists and members of the public who have decided to give up flying or who fly less. Virtual meetings, holidaying in local destinations or using trains instead of planes all are ways to cut down.

Most likely. That's because everything we buy has a carbon footprint, either in the way it is produced or in how it is transported.

One is whether you are responsible for children's climate emissions, and the other is where are these babies born.

If you are responsible for your kids' emissions, are your parents responsible for yours? And if you are not, how should we consider the fact that more people will likely have more carbon emissions? We also could ask whether having offspring is a human right beyond questioning. And we could ask if having children is necessarily a bad thing for solving climate change: our challenges may mean we will need more problem-solvers in future generations, not fewer.

Those are hard, philosophical questions - and we're not going to try to answer them here.

Actually, it's not just you. Social scientists have found that when one person makes a sustainability-oriented decision, other people do too.

Social scientists believe this occurs because we constantly evaluate what our peers are doing and we adjust our beliefs and actions accordingly. When people see their neighbours taking environmental action, like conserving energy, they infer that people like them also value sustainability and feel more compelled to act.
Diego Arguedas Ortiz is a science and climate change reporter for BBC Future. He is @arguedasortiz on Twitter.

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Ten simple ways to act on climate change

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We know that climate change is happening - but there are plenty of things individuals can do to help mitigate it. Here's your handy guide to the most effective strategies.

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- Drive less, use public transportation.
- Don't fly.
- Don't use air conditioning.
- Prefer renewable energy.
- Eat less meat.
- Reduce your carbon footprint.
- Be careful with what you buy.

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Climate Change: Vital Signs of the Planet

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Our Trajectory

Earth Will Continue to Warm and the Effects Will Be Profound

The potential future effects of global climate change include more frequent wildfires, longer periods of drought in some regions, and an increase in the wind intensity and rainfall from tropical cyclones. Credit: left - Mike McMillan/USFS, center - Tomas Castelazo / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 4.0, right - NASA.

Global climate change is not a future problem. Changes to Earth's climate driven by increased human emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases are already having widespread effects on the environment: glaciers and ice sheets are shrinking, river and lake ice is breaking up earlier, plant and animal geographic ranges are shifting, and plants and trees are blooming sooner.

Effects that scientists had long predicted would result from global climate change are now occurring, such as sea ice loss, accelerated sea level rise, and longer, more intense heat waves.

" The magnitude and rate of climate change and associated risks depend strongly on near-term mitigation and adaptation actions, and projected adverse impacts and related losses and damages escalate with every increment of global warming."

- Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

Some changes (such as droughts, wildfires, and extreme rainfall) are happening faster than scientists previously assessed. In fact, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) - the United Nations body established to assess the science related to climate change - modern humans have never before seen the observed changes in our global climate, and some of these changes are irreversible over the next hundreds to thousands of years.

Scientists have high confidence that global temperatures will continue to rise for many decades, mainly due to greenhouse gases produced by human activities.

A Degree of Difference

So, the Earth's average temperature has increased about 2 degrees Fahrenheit during the 20th century. What's the big deal?

Read more

The IPCC's Sixth Assessment report, published in 2021, found that human emissions of heat-trapping gases have already warmed the climate by nearly 2 degrees Fahrenheit (1.1 degrees Celsius) since 1850-1900. The global average temperature is expected to reach or exceed 1.5 degrees C (about 3 degrees F) within the next few decades. These changes will affect all regions of Earth.

What's the difference between climate change and global warming?

"Global warming" refers to the long-term warming of the planet. "Climate change" encompasses global warming, but refers to the broader range of changes that are happening to our planet, including rising sea levels; shrinking mountain glaciers; accelerating ice melt in Greenland, Antarctica and the Arctic; and shifts in flower/plant blooming times.

detailed answer

The severity of effects caused by climate change will depend on the path of future human activities. More greenhouse gas emissions will lead to more climate extremes and widespread damaging effects across our planet. However, those future effects depend on the total amount of carbon dioxide we emit. So, if we can reduce emissions, we may avoid some of the worst effects.

" The scientific evidence is unequivocal: climate change is a threat to human wellbeing and the health of the planet. Any further delay in concerted global action will miss the brief, rapidly closing window to secure a liveable future." 2

- Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

Future Effects in the U.S.

U.S. Regional Effects

U.S. Regional Effects

Climate change is bringing different types of challenges to each region of the country. Some of the current and future impacts are summarized below. These findings are from the Third and Fourth National Climate Assessment Reports, released by the U.S. Global Change Research Program.

Is it too late to prevent climate change?

Humans have caused major climate changes to happen already, and we have set in motion more changes still. However, if we stopped emitting greenhouse gases today, the rise in global temperatures would begin to flatten within a few years. Temperatures would then plateau but remain well-elevated for many, many centuries.

detailed answer

Northeast. Heat waves, heavy downpours, and sea level rise pose increasing challenges to many aspects of life in the Northeast. Infrastructure, agriculture, fisheries, and ecosystems will be increasingly compromised. Farmers can explore new crop options, but these adaptations are not cost- or risk-free. Moreover, adaptive capacity, which varies throughout the region, could be overwhelmed by a changing climate. Many states and cities are beginning to incorporate climate change into their planning.

Northwest. Changes in the timing of peak flows in rivers and streams are reducing water supplies and worsening competing demands for water. Sea level rise, erosion, flooding, risks to infrastructure, and increasing ocean acidity pose major threats. Increasing wildfire incidence and severity, heat waves, insect outbreaks, and tree diseases are causing widespread forest die-off.

Southeast. Sea level rise poses widespread and continuing threats to the region's economy and environment. Extreme heat will affect health, energy, agriculture, and more. Decreased water availability will have economic and environmental impacts.

Midwest. Extreme heat, heavy downpours, and flooding will affect infrastructure, health, agriculture, forestry, transportation, air and water quality, and more. Climate change will also worsen a range of risks to the Great Lakes.

Southwest. Climate change has caused increased heat, drought, and insect outbreaks. In turn, these changes have made wildfires more numerous and severe. The warming climate has also caused a decline in water supplies, reduced agricultural yields, and triggered heat-related health impacts in cities. In coastal areas, flooding and erosion are additional concerns.

References
References
Header image shows cracked mud stretches across sections of the Panamint Valley. Credit: NPS/Kurt Moses; A degree of concern thermometer image credit: Pixabay/geralt

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intergovernmental panel on climate change

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Vital Signs of the Planet: Global Climate Change and Global Warming. Long-term effects of global climate change in the United States.

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Is there anything we can do about climate change?

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Is there anything we can do about climate change?

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- Frost-free season (and growing season) will lengthen.
- More droughts and heat waves will occur.
- Hurricanes will become stronger and more intense.
- Arctic is likely to become ice-free.

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Burning fossil fuels and deforestation have increased atmospheric CO2 concentration.

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Burning fossil fuels and deforestation have increased atmospheric CO2 concentration.

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Ice sheets are melting and sea level is increasing. 

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Ice sheets are melting and sea level is increasing. 