# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
How Climate Change Impacts the Economy

The Fourth National Climate Assessment, published in 2018, warned that if we do not curb greenhouse gas emissions and start to adapt, climate change could seriously disrupt the U.S. economy. Warmer temperatures, sea level rise and extreme weather will damage property and critical infrastructure, impact human health and productivity, and negatively affect sectors such as agriculture, forestry, fisheries and tourism. The demand for energy will increase as power generation becomes less reliable, and water supplies will be stressed. Damage to other countries around the globe will also affect U.S. business through disruption in trade and supply chains.

A recent report examined how climate change could affect 22 different sectors of the economy under two different scenarios: if global temperatures rose 2.8˚ C from pre-industrial levels by 2100, and if they increased by 4.5˚ C. The study projected that if the higher-temperature scenario prevails, climate change impacts on these 22 sectors could cost the U.S. $520 billion each year. If we can keep to 2.8˚ C, it would cost $224 billion less. In any case, the U.S. stands to suffer large economic losses due to climate change, second only to India, according to another study.

We are already seeing the economic impacts of the changing climate. According to Morgan Stanley, climate disasters have cost North America $415 billion in the last three years, much of that due to wildfires and hurricanes.

In 2017, Texas's estimated losses from Hurricane Harvey were $125 billion; Hurricane Sandy caused about $71 billion of damages in 2012. And while it's not yet possible to directly link climate change to hurricanes, warmer temperatures and higher sea levels are known to enhance their intensity and destructiveness.

"Science advances also give us more detailed spatial information to say which assets and operations are in harm's way with climate change-for example say, just how many buildings will be inundated due to sea level rise," said climatologist Radley Horton, associate research professor at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. But the indirect economic impacts may be felt long before an actual disaster.

"For example, it's not just whether a building is underwater or not," he said. "What's important are the harder-to-define things like when does societal risk perception shift? It may be that buildings lose their value before the water actually arrives, once people realize that eventually the water's going to arrive. We need deeper thinking about the interconnection between physical and social systems."

Here are some of the many ways that climate change will likely affect our economy, both directly and indirectly.
Agriculture
The sector most vulnerable to climate risk is agriculture.

Environmental economist Geoffrey Heal, a professor in the Columbia Business School, explained that although agriculture makes up a fairly small part of the total U.S. economy, "locally these effects could be big. There are about a dozen states in the Midwest that are very dependent on agriculture and they could take quite a big hit."

They already have. Extreme rainfall events have increased 37 percent in the Midwest since the 1950s, and this year, the region has experienced above normal amounts of rain and snowmelt that have caused historic flooding.

Many fields have washed away and livestock have drowned; Nebraska alone lost $440 million worth of cattle, and as of March, Iowa had suffered $1.6 billion in losses.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) expects the coming months to bring even more flooding, which could impact our food supply. To date, farmers have only planted 67 percent of their corn crop compared to last June, when they had planted 96 percent. This lost yield could cause prices for animal feed and ethanol to rise, and potentially disrupt marketplaces at home and abroad. As a result of climate change impacts, the Midwest is projected to lose up to 25 percent of its current corn and soybean yield by 2050.

In addition to flooding, increased heat and drought will likely reduce crop yields. According to a 2011 National Academy of Sciences report, for every degree Celsius the global thermostat rises, there will be a 5 to 15 percent decrease in overall crop production. Many commodity crops such as corn, soybean, wheat, rice, cotton, and oats do not grow well above certain temperature thresholds. In addition, crops will be affected by less availability of water and groundwater, increased pests and weeds, and fire risk. And as farmers struggle to stay afloat by finding ways to adapt to changing conditions, prices will likely increase and be passed along to consumers.
Infrastructure
Much of our society's critical infrastructure is at risk from flooding. "Sea level rise could potentially cause a loss of value of assets in the trillions of dollars-probably anywhere from two to five trillion dollars-by the end of the century," said Heal. "That's loss from damage to housing, damage to airports on the coasts, damage to docks, the railway line that runs up and down the East Coast all of which is within a few feet of sea level, damage to I-95 which runs also along the coast. And that's just the East Coast. If you take a global perspective, this is repeated around the world." Much of this infrastructure will likely need to be repaired or replaced.

Military bases are also vulnerable. According to a 2016 report published by the Center for Climate and Security policy institute, sea level rise could flood parts of military bases along the East and Gulf coasts for up to three months a year as soon as 2050. Inland military installations near rivers are also vulnerable, because they can overflow with heavy precipitation, which is expected to become more common as the atmosphere warms. Extreme weather will necessitate more maintenance and repair for runways and roads, infrastructure and equipment.

In addition, our communication systems will be affected. A 2018 study found that over 4,000 miles of fiber optic cable as well as data centers, traffic exchanges and termination points - the lifeblood of the global information network - are at risk from sea level rise. According to NOAA's sea level rise projections, this infrastructure could be underwater by 2033 because most of it is buried along highways and coastlines. When it was built 25 years ago, climate change was not a concern, so while the cables are water resistant, they are not waterproof. New York, Miami and Seattle and large service providers including CenturyLink, Intelliquent and AT&T are most at risk. Threats to the internet infrastructure could have huge implications for businesses in the U.S.
Human health and productivity
If temperatures rise 4.5˚ C by 2090, 9,300 more people will die in American cities due to the rising heat. The annual losses associated with extreme temperature-related deaths alone are projected to be $140 billion.

Increasing warmth and precipitation will also add to the risk of waterborne and foodborne diseases and allergies, and spur the proliferation of insects that spread diseases like Zika, West Nile, dengue and Lyme disease into new territories. Extreme weather and climate-related natural disasters can also exacerbate mental health issues. The most vulnerable populations, such as the elderly, children, low-income communities and communities of color, will be most affected by these health impacts.

Temperature extremes are also projected to cause the loss of two billion labor hours each year by 2090, resulting in $160 billion of lost wages. Because of heat exposure, productivity in the Southeast and Southern Great Plains regions is expected to decline by 3 percent, and some counties of Texas and Florida could lose more than 6 percent of labor hours each year by 2100. According to a 2014 Rhodium Group study, the largest climate change-related economic losses in the U.S. will be from lost labor productivity.
Tourism
Two billion dollars could be lost in winter recreation due to less snow and ice. For example, rapid warming in the Adirondack Mountains could decimate the winter activity sector, which makes up 30 percent of the local economy.

In addition, as water temperatures increase, water quality could suffer due to more frequent and more intense algae blooms, which can be toxic, thus curtailing recreational water activities and freshwater fishing. More frequent and severe wildfires will worsen air quality and discourage tourism. Sea level rise could submerge small islands and coastal areas, while deforestation and its destructive impacts on biodiversity could make some tourist destinations less attractive.
Businesses and the financial market
Climate change and its impacts across the globe will threaten the bottom line of businesses in a variety of ways. The frequency and intensity of extreme weather, both in the U.S. and in other countries, can damage factories, supply chain operations and other infrastructure, and disrupt transport. Drought will make water more expensive, which will likely affect the cost of raw materials and production. Climate volatility may force companies to deal with uncertainty in the price of resources for production, energy transport and insurance. And some products could become obsolete or lose their market, such as equipment related to coal mining or skiing in an area that no longer has snow.

Whether in the U.S. or abroad, new regulations such as carbon pricing and subsidies that favor a competitor may affect a business's bottom line. A company's reputation could also suffer if it's seen as doing something that hurts the environment. And investors and stakeholders are increasingly worried about the potential for "stranded assets"-those that become prematurely obsolete or fall out of favor, and must be recorded as a loss, such as fossil fuels that many believe should stay in the ground or real estate in a newly designated flood plain.

In 2018, the Carbon Disclosure Project asked more than 7,000 companies to assess their financial risks from climate change. The CDP found that, unless they took preemptive measures, 215 of the world's 500 biggest companies could lose an estimated one trillion dollars due to climate change, beginning within five years. For example, Alphabet (Google's parent company) will likely have to deal with rising cooling costs for its data centers. Hitachi Ltd.'s suppliers in Southeast Asia could be disrupted by increased rainfall and flooding. Some companies have already been impacted by climate change-related losses. Western Digital Technologies, maker of hard disks, suffered enormous losses in 2011 after flooding in Thailand disrupted its production.

PG&E became liable for fire damages and had to file for bankruptcy after its power lines sparked California's deadliest wildfire last fall. And GE cost its investors $193 billion between 2015 and 2018 because it overestimated demand for natural gas and underestimated the transition to renewable energy.

"The movement away from fossil fuels will have a big impact which could affect banks and investment firms that have relationships with the fossil fuel industry," said Heal. "For example, the stock market value of the U.S. coal industry in 2011 was something like $37 billion. Today it's about $2 billion. So anybody that lent a lot of money to the coal industry 10 years back would be in trouble. One of the things worrying those in the financial field is that this could happen to the oil and gas industry. So people who have invested in them or lent money to them are potentially at risk."
Climate change and opportunity
The good news is that climate change also presents business opportunities. The Carbon Disclosure Project reported that 225 of the world's 500 biggest companies believe climate change could generate over $2.1 trillion in new business prospects.

There will be more opportunity in clean energy, resilient and green buildings, and energy efficiency. Hybrid and electric vehicle production and the electric public transit sector are expected to grow. Construction of green infrastructure and more resilient coastal infrastructure could create many new jobs. Carbon capture and sequestration and uses of captured CO2 present opportunities, especially in light of the new 45Q federal tax credits. In addition, there are forward-thinking new businesses-witness the dramatic rise of Beyond Meat, the company selling plant-based burgers at Carl's Jr. and A&W.

As the Arctic sea ice melts, new shipping lines will open up for trade, substantially cutting transport time. The warming Arctic could also offer more prospects for oil and gas drilling. Weather satellites and radar technology will be in demand to monitor extreme weather. Air conditioning and cooling products will be needed around the world. Biotech companies are developing new crops that are resistant to climate change impacts. Pharmaceutical companies expect increased demand for drugs to combat diseases such as malaria and dengue and other infectious diseases. And the market for military equipment and private security services may expand because the scarcity of resources could trigger civil unrest and conflict.
What individuals, businesses and governments can do to protect themselves
How much climate change will hurt the economy depends on what measures we take to adapt to and prepare for it.
Individuals
Individuals need to consider the implications of climate change when choosing where to spend and invest their money. And be aware that while a particular risk may not seem to be factored into prices yet, things could turn on a dime when the realization of risk sinks in, resulting in a massive redistribution of wealth. So it's best not to buy or move to an area near wild lands, which have a higher risk of wildfires. Don't move into a flood zone or buy real estate in an area that's vulnerable to sea level rise. And in any case, purchase flood and fire insurance, and diversify your investments.

Individuals should also think about different opportunities in terms of new places that people are moving to. And, if possible, people who work outdoors in construction, agriculture or tourism should consider alternative jobs within the sector or new industries to work in.
Businesses and financial entities
Businesses need to scrutinize their operations carefully. "There's a groundswell towards the view that any companies that fail to study their exposure to extreme weather and fail to disclose the types of vulnerabilities, including indirect ones, are going to have a hard time in the future," said Horton. "Are companies looking at what's coming down the road and making strategies to deal with it? I think investors are going to demand that and the companies that don't do that are going to have trouble getting underwriting, getting infrastructure funded by the Moody's of the world, and getting insurance." He added that he's seen a change in the last three or four years in what his students are demanding and believes that young people in the future will not work for companies that are not thinking about climate change.

Banks and funds need to analyze where their investments are and see if they are vulnerable to climate change. Have they invested in someone who has coastal property, or given a loan to a fossil fuel company or in agriculture operations that might be affected by climate change? Sixty-three percent of financial risk managers surveyed now believe climate change is a major concern. As a result, "The total value of funds that have integrated environmental, social and governance factors into their investment process has more than quadrupled since 2014, rising to $485 billion as of April," reported the Wall Street Journal.
Governments
Governments should proactively think about the risks their communities face before disaster strikes.

They should be investing in resiliency measures such as hardening infrastructure, improving water resources, building redundancy into important systems, moving people out of harm's way and improving health care services. "You want to do it before the disaster but you also need to be cognizant that the only time people will listen seems to be right after a disaster," said Horton. "Those are also the times when money's available to rebuild."

Government leaders are currently debating whether the country can afford the Green New Deal (an ambitious plan to address climate change) or something like it. The question should be, 'can we afford not to afford it?' Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz, a professor at Columbia University, wrote in an op ed, "We will pay for climate breakdown one way or another, so it makes sense to spend the money now to reduce emissions rather than wait until later to pay a lot more for the consequences... It's a cliché, but it's true: An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Fourth National Climate Assessment, published in 2018, warned that if we do not curb greenhouse gas emissions and start to adapt, climate change could seriously disrupt the U.S. economy. Warmer temperatures, sea level rise and extreme weather will damage property and critical infrastructure, impact human health and productivity, and negatively affect sectors such as agriculture, forestry, fisheries and tourism.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
SYDNEY (Reuters) -Rising carbon dioxide levels in the world's oceans due to climate change, combined with rising sea temperatures, could accelerate coral bleaching, destroying some reefs before 2050, says a new Australian study.

The study says earlier research may have significantly understated the likely damage to the world's reefs caused by man-made change to the Earth's atmosphere.

"Previous predictions of coral bleaching have been far too conservative, because they didn't factor in the effect of acidification on the bleaching process and how the two interact," said Professor Ove Hoegh-Guldberg from the ARC Center of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies and Queensland University.

The Australian scientists erected 30 large aquaria in the waters off Heron Island on the Great Barrier Reef to study the combined effects of ocean warming, acidification due to rising CO2, and sunlight on a large range of reef organisms.

Using CO2 and temperatures predicted for the middle and end of the century, the scientists found ocean acidification from CO2, which reduces coral calcification, had the potential to worsen the impact of bleaching and the death of reef-building organisms.

The study found that coralline algae, which glue the reef together and help coral larvae settle successfully, were highly sensitive to increased CO2.

"These may die on reefs such as those in the southern Great Barrier Reef before year 2050," study leader Ken Anthony said in a statement released on Tuesday.

Some coral species were able to cope with higher levels of ocean acidification by enhancing their rates of photosynthesis, but if CO2 levels became too high "the coral-algal system crashes and the corals die," said the study.

"The implications of this finding are massive as it means that our current bleaching models, which are based on temperature only, severely underestimate the amount of coral bleaching we will see in the future," said Anthony.

"These results highlight the urgency of reducing CO2 emissions globally. Without political will and commitment to abatement, entire reef systems such as the Great Barrier Reef will be severely threatened in coming decades."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Rising CO2 accelerates coral bleaching: study

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
SYDNEY (Reuters) -Rising carbon dioxide levels in the world's oceans due to climate change, combined with rising sea temperatures, could accelerate coral bleaching, destroying some reefs before 2050, says a new Australian study. The study says earlier research may have significantly understated the likely damage to the world's reefs caused by man-made change to the Earth's atmosphere.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Atmosphere, the gas and aerosol envelope that extends from the ocean, land, and ice-covered surface of a planet outward into space. The density of the atmosphere decreases outward, because the gravitational attraction of the planet, which pulls the gases and aerosols (microscopic suspended particles of dust, soot, smoke, or chemicals) inward, is greatest close to the surface. Atmospheres of some planetary bodies, such as Mercury, are almost nonexistent, as the primordial atmosphere has escaped the relatively low gravitational attraction of the planet and has been released into space. Other planets, such as Venus, Earth, Mars, and the giant outer planets of the solar system, have retained an atmosphere. In addition, Earth's atmosphere has been able to contain water in each of its three phases (solid, liquid, and gas), which has been essential for the development of life on the planet.

The evolution of Earth's current atmosphere is not completely understood. It is thought that the current atmosphere resulted from a gradual release of gases both from the planet's interior and from the metabolic activities of life-forms-as opposed to the primordial atmosphere, which developed by outgassing (venting) during the original formation of the planet. Current volcanic gaseous emissions include water vapour (H ₂O), carbon dioxide (CO ₂), sulfur dioxide (SO ₂), hydrogen sulfide (H ₂S), carbon monoxide (CO), chlorine (Cl), fluorine (F), and diatomic nitrogen (N ₂; consisting of two atoms in a single molecule), as well as traces of other substances. Approximately 85 percent of volcanic emissions are in the form of water vapour. In contrast, carbon dioxide is about 10 percent of the effluent.

During the early evolution of the atmosphere on Earth, water must have been able to exist as a liquid, since the oceans have been present for at least three billion years. Given that solar output four billion years ago was only about 60 percent of what it is today, enhanced levels of carbon dioxide and perhaps ammonia (NH ₃) must have been present in order to retard the loss of infrared radiation into space. The initial life-forms that evolved in this environment must have been anaerobic (i.e., surviving in the absence of oxygen). In addition, they must have been able to resist the biologically destructive ultraviolet radiation in sunlight, which was not absorbed by a layer of ozone as it is now.

Once organisms developed the capability for photosynthesis, oxygen was produced in large quantities. The buildup of oxygen in the atmosphere also permitted the development of the ozone layer as O ₂ molecules were dissociated into monatomic oxygen (O; consisting of single oxygen atoms) and recombined with other O ₂ molecules to form triatomic ozone molecules (O ₃). The capability for photosynthesis arose in primitive forms of plants between two and three billion years ago. Previous to the evolution of photosynthetic organisms, oxygen was produced in limited quantities as a by-product of the decomposition of water vapour by ultraviolet radiation.

Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to exclusive content. Subscribe Now

Discover how much nitrogen, oxygen, water vapour, carbon dioxide, and other elements constitute Earth's air

Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. See all videos for this article

The current molecular composition of Earth's atmosphere is diatomic nitrogen (N ₂), 78.08 percent; diatomic oxygen (O ₂), 20.95 percent; argon (A), 0.93 percent; water (H ₂0), about 0 to 4 percent; and carbon dioxide (CO ₂), 0.04 percent. Inert gases such as neon (Ne), helium (He), and krypton (Kr) and other constituents such as nitrogen oxides, compounds of sulfur, and compounds of ozone are found in lesser amounts.

This article provides an overview of the physical forces that drive Earth's atmospheric processes, the structure of the Earth's atmosphere, and the instrumentation used to measure the Earth's atmosphere. For a full description of the processes that created the current atmosphere on Earth, see evolution of the atmosphere. For information on the long-term conditions of the atmosphere as they are experienced at the surface of Earth, see climate. For a description of the highest regions of the atmosphere, where conditions are set largely by the presence of charged particles, see ionosphere and magnetosphere.

Surface budgets

Earth's atmosphere is bounded at the bottom by water and land-that is, by the surface of Earth. Heating of this surface is accomplished by three physical processes- radiation, conduction, and convection-and the temperature at the interface of the atmosphere and surface is a result of this heating.

The relative contributions of each process depend on the wind, temperature, and moisture structure in the atmosphere immediately above the surface, the intensity of solar insolation, and the physical characteristics of the surface. The temperature occurring at this interface is of critical importance in determining how suitable a location is for different forms of life.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
atmosphere | Definition, Layers, & Facts

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Atmosphere, the gas and aerosol envelope that extends from the ocean, land, and ice-covered surface of a planet outward into space. The density of the atmosphere decreases outward, because the planet's gravitational attraction, which pulls the gases and aerosols inward, is greatest close to the surface.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
A warming global climate could cause sudden, potentially catastrophic losses of biodiversity in regions across the globe throughout the 21st century, finds a new UCL-led study.

The findings, published today in Nature, predict when and where there could be severe ecological disruption in the coming decades, and suggests that the first waves could already be happening.

The study's lead author, Dr Alex Pigot (UCL Centre for Biodiversity & Environment Research): "We found that climate change risks to biodiversity don't increase gradually. Instead, as the climate warms, within a certain area most species will be able to cope for a while, before crossing a temperature threshold, when a large proportion of the species will suddenly face conditions they've never experienced before."

"It's not a slippery slope, but a series of cliff edges, hitting different areas at different times."

Dr Pigot and colleagues from the USA and South Africa were seeking to predict threats to biodiversity over the course of the 21st century, rather than a single-year snapshot. They used climate model data from 1850 to 2005, and cross-referenced it with the geographic ranges of 30,652 species of birds, mammals, reptiles, amphibians, fish, and other animals and plants. The data was available for areas across the globe, divided up into 100 by 100 km square grid cells.

They used climate model projections for each year up to 2100 to predict when species in each grid cell will begin experiencing temperatures that are consistently higher than the organism has previously experienced across its geographic range, for a period of at least five years.

The study's first author, Dr Christopher Trisos (African Climate and Development Initiative, University of Cape Town, and National Socio-Environment Synthesis Center -- SESYNC, Maryland, USA), said: "The historic temperature models, combined with species ranges, showed us the range of conditions that each organism can survive under, as far as we know."

"Once temperatures in a given area rise to levels that the species have never experienced, we would expect there to be extinctions, but not necessarily -- we simply have no evidence of the ability of these species to persist after this point," he said.

The researchers found that in most ecological communities across the globe, a large proportion of the organisms will find themselves outside of their niche (comfort zone) within the same decade. Across all of the communities, on average 73% of the species facing unprecedented temperatures before 2100 will cross that threshold simultaneously.

The researchers predict that if global temperatures rise by 4°C by 2100, under a "high emissions" scenario which the researchers say is plausible, at least 15% of communities across the globe, and potentially many more, will undergo an abrupt exposure event where more than one in five of their constituent species crosses the threshold beyond their niche limit within the same decade. Such an event could cause irreversible damage to the functioning of the ecosystem.

If warming is kept to 2°C or less, potentially fewer than 2% of communities will face such exposure events, although the researchers caution that within that 2% includes some of the most biodiverse communities on the planet, such as coral reefs.

The researchers predict that such unprecedented temperature regimes will begin before 2030 in tropical oceans, and recent events such as mass bleaching of corals on the Great Barrier Reef suggest this is happening already. Higher latitudes and tropical forests are predicted to be at risk by 2050.

Dr Pigot said: "Our findings highlight the urgent need for climate change mitigation, by immediately and drastically reducing emissions, which could help save thousands of species from extinction. Keeping global warming below 2°C effectively 'flattens the curve' of how this risk to biodiversity will accumulate over the century, providing more time for species and ecosystems to adapt to the changing climate -- whether that's by finding new habitats, changing their behaviour, or with the help of human-led conservation efforts."

Co-author Dr Cory Merow (University of Connecticut) said: "We hope that our findings could serve as an early warning system, predicting which areas will be most at risk and when, that could help target conservation efforts and improve future model projections. It may be valuable to develop a ten-year monitoring programme -- similar to what climate scientists do, but for biodiversity -- which could be updated regularly based on what actually occurs."

The study was funded by the Royal Society, the National Science Foundation (USA) and the African Academy of Sciences.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
nature; extinction; endangered animals; new species; climate; environmental awareness; global warming; ecology

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Climate change could cause sudden biodiversity losses worldwide

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
A warming global climate could cause sudden, potentially catastrophic losses of biodiversity in regions across the globe throughout the 21st century, finds a new UCL-led study. The findings, published today in Nature, predict when and where there could be severe ecological disruption in the coming decades, and suggests that the first waves could already be happening.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Watch these recommended TED-Ed Lessons:

Cloudy climate change: How clouds affect Earth's temperature
As the Earth's surface temperature gradually rises, it has become vital for us to predict the rate of this increase with as much precision as possible. In order to do that, scientists need to understand more about aerosols and clouds. Jasper Kirkby details an experiment at CERN that aims to do just that.

How heavy is air?
Too often we think of air as empty space - but compared to a vacuum, air is actually pretty heavy. So, just how heavy is it? And if it's so heavy, why doesn't it crush us? Dan Quinn describes the fundamentals of air pressure and explains how it affects our bodies, the weather and the universe at large.

Is our climate headed for a mathematical tipping point?
Scientists have warned that as CO2 levels in the atmosphere rise an increase in Earth's temperature by even two degrees could lead to catastrophic effects across the world. But how can such a tiny, measurable change in one factor lead to huge, unpredictable changes elsewhere? Victor J. Donnay uses billiards to illustrate tipping points, chaotic motion and their implications on climate change.

The disarming case to act right now on climate change
In this passionate call to action, 16-year-old climate activist Greta Thunberg explains why, in August 2018, she walked out of school and organized a strike to raise awareness of global warming, protesting outside the Swedish parliament and grabbing the world's attention.

Why humans are so bad at thinking about climate change
The biggest problem for the climate change fight isn't technology - it's human psychology. Vox takes a look at efforts energy-saving companies are taking to take advantage of human psychology.

Climate change: Earth's giant game of Tetris
There's a game of Tetris happening on a global scale: The playing space is planet Earth, and all those pesky, stacking blocks represent carbon dioxide -- a greenhouse gas that is piling up ever more rapidly as we burn the fossil fuels that run our cars, factories and power plants. Joss Fong outlines how this overload of CO2 leads to climate change and reminds us that, unlike Tetris, we won't get an opportunity to start over and try again.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
What's the difference between weather and climate?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
We have weather and we have climate... but are they the same thing? The short answer is no, but they are both incredibly important to how the geosphere is shaped. Crash Course dives into the differences between weather and climate.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Could Our Energy Come from Giant Seaweed Farms in the Ocean?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
A U.S. agency is funding projects to help create a bioenergy industry based on macroalgae

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
xkcd.com is best viewed with Netscape Navigator 4.0 or below on a Pentium 3±1 emulated in Javascript on an Apple IIGS at a screen resolution of 1024x1. Please enable your ad blockers, disable high-heat drying, and remove your device from Airplane Mode and set it to Boat Mode.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
When will the next ice age happen? - Lorraine Lisiecki

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Throughout Earth's history, climate has varied greatly. For hundreds of millions of years, the planet had no polar ice caps. Without this ice, the sea level was 70 meters higher. At the other extreme, about 700 million years ago, Earth became almost entirely covered in ice, during an event known as "Snowball Earth."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The past decade was the hottest on record, government researchers announced on Wednesday, the latest sign of global warming's grip on the planet. And 2019 was the second-warmest year ever, they said, just shy of the record set in 2016.

Analyses by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration showed that global average surface temperatures last year were nearly 1 degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) higher than the average from the middle of last century, caused in large part by emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases from the burning of fossil fuels. That much warming means the world is far from meeting goals set to combat climate change.

"These trends are the footprints of human activity stomping on the atmosphere," said Gavin A. Schmidt, director of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies, which conducted the NASA analysis. "We know that this has been driven by human activities."

The average for 2019 was only a small fraction of a degree lower than in 2016, a year with a strong El Niño, when changes in the ocean and air in the equatorial Pacific Ocean led to shifting weather patterns worldwide and pumped a lot of heat from the Pacific into the atmosphere.

Since the 1960s, each decade has been warmer than the previous one, by significant amounts. While the 2010s continued this trend, the second half of the decade was especially warm. The five hottest years ever have occurred during that time span.

"We've entered a new neighborhood in the last five years," said Deke Arndt, chief of the monitoring branch of the National Centers for Environmental information, which conducted the NOAA research.

NASA and NOAA do independent analyses but use most of the same temperature data, which is gathered at sea from ships and buoys, and on land from tens of thousands of observing stations coordinated by government meteorological agencies. This exhaustive data set is then combed for errors and less obvious factors, like the moving of a weather station from one year to the next, that might bias the analysis.

The studies take into account the contribution of natural influences, or forcings, on climate, like volcanic eruptions that can temporarily cool the atmosphere or regular changes in Earth's orbital cycle.

"We end up with a massive discrepancy," Dr. Schmidt said. "That tells us the natural forcings are not capable of explaining the trends we've seen since the 19th century."

The two studies differ only slightly; their overall findings are the same. And their results closely match those from analyses by agencies overseas and private groups, including one released last week by a European climate agency that was based more on computer modeling than on observational data from 2019.

Only a few parts of the world, most notably central Canada and the Northern Plains in the United States, had cooler-than-average conditions. Some regions showed extreme warming, with devastating impacts in some cases. Here's a look at a few:

Australia is known for its summer heat, but 2019 was exceptionally warm, with temperatures 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) higher than the mid-20th century average, according to the Australian government's Bureau of Meteorology. Combined with low rainfall totals - in December the country had the least rainfall on record - the heat has contributed to a severe drought that has gripped most of the country since 2017.

The heat has also helped fuel wildfires that began in September and have continued burning across much of Eastern Australia. Prolonged heat sucks more moisture from vegetation, making it more susceptible to burning. "A warmer atmosphere is a thirstier atmosphere," Mr. Arndt said.

Last year was Alaska's warmest on record, NOAA reported in an analysis this month. All-time temperature records were set across the state, including in Anchorage, the largest city. On a weekend in early July, there were back-to-back days of record-high average temperatures statewide.

But 2019 only continued a long-term warming trend, one that has led to increased melting of the state's thousands of glaciers, thawing of permanently frozen ground, or permafrost, and a lack of sea-ice coverage in some of the Arctic waters surrounding the state.

The Bering Sea, off Alaska's northwest coast, was ice-free for much of last year. Satellite images taken in late March showed largely open water at a time when the sea is normally completely covered in ice. The lack of ice is thought to have contributed to the increased warming across the state - a climate feedback loop in which warming creates conditions that lead to more warming.

Southern Africa

As in Australia, extreme heat in southern Africa has contributed to the region's worst drought in decades.

Zambia and Zimbabwe are most affected, with millions of people suffering food shortages as production of maize and other grains declines by 30 percent or more.

The countries' electricity supply is also at risk, as water levels along the Zambezi, one of Africa's major rivers, are exceptionally low. Under normal conditions Zambia and Zimbabwe get about halt of their electricity from a dam on the Zambezi; the reservoir behind the dam is currently at less than 20 percent of capacity.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
2019 Was the Second-Hottest Year Ever, Closing Out the Warmest Decade

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The past decade was the hottest on record, government researchers announced on Wednesday, the latest sign of global warming's grip on the planet. And 2019 was the second-warmest year ever, they said, just shy of the record set in 2016.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
A "megadrought" gripping the western United States is the worst one in 500 years, scientists say. And it's the first to be influenced by human-caused climate change.

A study published this week in the journal Science investigates the occurrence of megadroughts in western North America over the last 1,200 years. While a megadrought has no strict scientific definition, most studies classify them as severe droughts typically lasting a couple of decades at least-longer than any drought event that occurred during the 20th century.

Led by Park Williams of Columbia University, the researchers relied heavily on historical data derived from analyses of tree rings. Tree rings can provide a variety of information on past climate conditions.

According to the tree ring data, which extend back to A.D. 800, there have been a handful of extreme megadroughts over the last 1,200 years.

The most recent one is happening right now. It's gripping a wide swath of the southwestern United States and northern Mexico, and it's been ongoing since around 2000.

"We now have enough observations of current drought and tree-ring records of past drought to say that we're on the same trajectory as the worst prehistoric droughts," said Williams in a statement.

The severity of the current megadrought is second only to the last event, which occurred in the late 1500s, the research say. It also seems to be happening for different reasons.

Past megadroughts were triggered by natural fluctuations in the Earth's climate. Temporary shifts in the temperature of the Pacific Ocean, for instance, can have a strong influence on climate in the southwestern United States.

These kinds of natural variations are also playing a part in the current drought. But they're not the only factors. Human-caused climate change is a strong driver, as well, the study concludes.

The researchers used a suite of climate models to investigate the influence of anthropogenic warming on the present-day situation. The models suggest that the warmer and drier conditions brought by climate change account for nearly half the severity of the current drought.

Since the preindustrial era, temperatures in the western United States have risen by just over a degree Celsius, or around 2 degrees Fahrenheit.

Past and future of droughts

The study is an "ominous reminder" that previous droughts in western North America have been just as severe and even longer than the current event-with only natural climate cycles to blame, the authors write.

And this isn't the only study to make that point.

Prior research looking thousands of years into the past, published in Scientific Reports, has suggested that some previous dry periods in the western United States have lasted for hundreds of years at a time.

Previous dry spells are also believed to have wreaked havoc on human societies, experts note.

"The southwestern megadroughts of the medieval era caused fierce wildfires, ecosystem changes, and subsistence crises among ancient societies," wrote David Stahle, a paleoclimate expert at the University of Arkansas, in a commentary on the new research published this week in Science.

All of this begs the question of what to expect as human-caused climate change becomes an even bigger factor in the future.

Other studies have highlighted the threat of megadroughts in a warmer world. One 2015 paper warned that drought risk in the latter half of this century could rival the extended dry periods that occurred during the Middle Ages.

As this week's study would suggest, that point seems to have already arrived.

But projections do suggest that the risk of these kinds of events may increase as time goes on-especially during times when natural swings in the climate compound with the effects of human-caused climate change.

How strongly the risk will change, and how severe these future droughts may be, will likely depend on the level of future greenhouse gas emissions. But in the meantime, the research documents that the point at which climate change becomes a contributor has already arrived.

As Stahle notes, the new study "add[s] anthropogenic forcing to the list of factors capable of transforming a garden-variety dry spell into a full-blown multiyear megadrought."
Reprinted from Climatewire with permission from E&E News. E&E provides daily coverage of essential energy and environmental news at www.eenews.net.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Climate Change Has Helped Fuel a Megadrought in the Southwest

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
A "megadrought" gripping the western United States is the worst one in 500 years, scientists say. And it's the first to be influenced by human-caused climate change. A study published this week in the journal Science investigates the occurrence of megadroughts in western North America over the last 1,200 years.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
James Balog: Time-lapse proof of extreme ice loss

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Photographer James Balog shares new image sequences from the Extreme Ice Survey, a network of time-lapse cameras recording glaciers receding at an alarming rate, some of the most vivid evidence yet of climate change.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
A new NOAA-funded study has documented for the first time that ocean acidification along the US Pacific Northwest coast is impacting the shells and sensory organs of some young Dungeness crab, a prized crustacean that supports the most valuable fishery on the West Coast.

Analysis of samples collected during a 2016 NOAA research cruise identified examples of damage to the carapace, or upper shell, of numerous larval Dungeness crabs, as well as the loss of hair-like sensory structures crabs use to orient themselves to their surroundings.

Prior to this study, scientists thought that Dungeness crab were not vulnerable to current levels of ocean acidification, although a laboratory study conducted on Dungeness crab larvae by NOAA's Northwest Fisheries Science Center in 2016 found that their development and survival suffered under pH levels expected in the future.

"This is the first study that demonstrates that larval crabs are already affected by ocean acidification in the natural environment, and builds on previous understanding of ocean acidification impacts on pteropods," said lead author Nina Bednarsek, senior scientist with the Southern California Coastal Water Research Project. "If the crabs are affected already, we really need to make sure we start to pay much more attention to various components of the food chain before it is too late."

In this study, examination under a high-magnification, scanning electron microscope revealed that the corrosive conditions of coastal waters had affected portions of the fragile, still-developing external shell and legs of the tiny, almost translucent post-larval Dungeness crabs, leaving tell-tale features, such as abnormal ridging structures and scarred surfaces. This could, in turn, impair larval survival by altering swimming behaviors and competence, including the ability to regulate buoyancy, maintain vertical position, and avoid predators.

One of the more important findings of this study was that crabs showing signs of carapace dissolution were smaller than other larvae. This was disconcerting, scientists said, because the damage during the crab's larval stages could cause potential developmental delays that could increase energy demands and interfere with maturation.

In a surprising discovery, the team found that the low pH water in some coastal areas damaged the canals where hair-like bristles called mechanoreceptors stick out from the shell. These receptors transmit important chemical and mechanical sensations to the crab, and may help crabs navigate their environment. Examination showed that carapace dissolution destabilizes the attachment of the mechanoreceptor anchor, resulting in them falling out in some individuals.

This is a new aspect of crustacean sensitivity to ocean acidification that has not been previously reported. The team hypothesize that the absence or damage of mechanoreceptors within their neuritic canals may in part explain potential aberrant behavioral patterns, such as slower movement, less tactile recognition, and prolonged searching time, as well as impaired swimming, that have been observed in various crustacean species exposed to low pH conditions in laboratory settings.

"We found dissolution impacts to the crab larvae that were not expected to occur until much later in this century," said Richard Feely, Senior Scientist with NOAA's Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory and one of the co-authors of the study.

Combining observations and modelling work, the research team, which included scientists from JISAO, NOAA's cooperative institute at the University of Washington, from the University of Connecticut, and from Quebec, Britain and Slovenia, demonstrated that the impacts of dissolution were the most severe in the coastal habitats, where crabs grow and mature.

Read the full story on NOAA Research: https://research.noaa.gov/article/ArtMID/587/ArticleID/2581/Dungeness-crab-showing-impact-of-coastal-acidification

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Dungeness crab larvae already showing effects of coastal acidification

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
A new NOAA-funded study has documented for the first time that ocean acidification along the US Pacific Northwest coast is impacting the shells and sensory organs of some young Dungeness crab, a prized crustacean that supports the most valuable fishery on the West Coast.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Data Snapshots are derivatives of existing data products. To meet the needs of a broad audience, we present the same data as current products in a simplified visual style. This set of snapshots is based on the U.S.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Parts of the Houston region have been hammered by more than 50in of rainfall since Hurricane Harvey made landfall, setting new records for the US. But why has the city become America's flood capital?

In April 2016 "historic" flooding hit Houston, with 17.6in (44.7cm) of rain dumped on the city in a single day.

The flood came only 11 months after another massive storm struck the city, dropping over a foot of rain.

Together, these two events caused 16 deaths and more than $1bn (£777m) in damages.

Both pale in comparison to Hurricane Harvey, the impact of which has secured Houston's unenviable reputation as the US city most severely affected by floods.

Understanding why the risk to life and property is rising is crucial not only to the future of America's fourth-largest city, but to others around the world which share many of its problems.

Urban sprawl

Houston's unbridled, rapid growth is a primary factor.

The population of its metropolitan area is close to 6.8 million people and, with predictions of some of the country's fastest growth for the coming years, it is expected to top 10 million by 2040.

Growth itself is not a problem, as it can create economic, social and environmental benefits for cities.

But poorly planned growth which fails to carefully manage land use - for housing, businesses and the infrastructure like roads, parks and sewers that cities need - can create problems and even lead to disasters.

Houston has long favoured light touch controls, which has led to haphazard development.

The city now covers an enormous area of more than 1,500 sq km.

It is the archetype of urban sprawl, where land is made readily accessible for real estate development on the city's ever expanding periphery.

Why was Houston not evacuated?

Hurricane Harvey: The climate link

'Everything is gone'

Loss of habitat

This unplanned growth has led to many problems.

One is that vast acres of wetlands and prairie land - which soak up large amounts of rainfall - have been paved over.

Between 1992 and 2010, for example, White Oak Bayou in north-west Houston lost about 70% of its original wetlands.

During heavy rain the city's growing expanses of concrete generate runoff that clogs and sometimes overwhelms its complex network of waterways. This includes creeks and bayous, as well as flood controls like levees and detention basins.

Successful wetland and prairie land protection would not itself have a major effect in reducing flooding caused by unprecedented rainfall like that delivered by Harvey.

Yet, protecting and restoring the natural areas provides an important contribution to making Houston less vulnerable to more moderate storms.

They also bring environmental benefits - providing fish and wildlife habitats, and cleaning polluted runoff that can sometimes enter from the city.
The artificially blue-coloured areas show water detected before and after the storm.
A city for cars

Another problem is that investment in flood control infrastructure - things like channels, dams and reservoirs - has failed to keep pace with the expansion of the city.

Houston is a car-oriented city, with multi-billion dollar projects supporting one of the most advanced systems of roads and highways in the world.

The goal is to keep traffic moving.

The mismatch between spending on flood prevention and roads can bring new challenges, as fresh tarmac is laid for motorists.

One example is the partially completed State Highway 99.

Once completed this 290km (180-mile) loop will be the longest in the nation - encircling the Houston area.

Further urban sprawl on the edges of the city will inevitably follow and without careful planning, large new tracts of impervious concrete will be laid.

The runoff generated can cause problems for residents when heavy rains arrive.

For example, since the 1980s, rainfall has increased 26% in the Brays Bayou watershed, but runoff has increased by 204%.

Another study suggests that an additional 3,500 households in the Sims Bayou watershed in the south of the city were exposed to flooding as a result of increased runoff.

What can be done?

The tragedy wrought by Hurricane Harvey offers an opportunity to plan for the rebuilding of a more resilient city.

The expansion of the city has led to short-term financial rewards for developers and builders, while local government has benefitted from an expanded tax base.

But they have not shared the risk presented by flooding - the costs of which are mostly passed on to residents and the national government.

To survive on the Texas Gulf Coast in the coming century, the city and its surrounding region will have to make careful planning decisions to guide growth.

Better co-ordination between federal, state and local government bodies is sorely needed.

The city will also have to consider how it defends itself against storms. Making huge investments in flood control infrastructure will be necessary if they are to keep pace with the rapid expansion of the population.

What is it like to be in Houston?

In maps: Houston and Texas flooding

Is there too much focus on Harvey?

Around the world

While Harvey offers a dramatic example, devastating storms are becoming more frequent and severe around the world.

Rapid and poorly planned urbanisation, rising sea levels, and subsidence put the world's coastal cities at increased risk of flooding.

One World Bank study forecasts that global flood damage for large coastal cities could cost $1 trillion a year by 2050 unless action is taken.

There are cities that offer a hint of what can be achieved - both in the US and elsewhere.

Faced with more coastal storms and rising sea levels on the Atlantic Coast, Norfolk, Virginia, has adopted long-term strategies for guiding future land use and development.

For example, areas at low risk of flooding where there has so far been limited development will be transformed into high density and mixed income neighbourhoods.

In contrast, high risk areas with established neighbourhoods are to gradually retreat from shorelines, with housing buyouts, while key sewer and water utilities, and roads will be maintained rather than expanded.

Rotterdam, in the Netherlands, provides another model. Ninety percent of the densely populated city lies below sea level.

Its pioneering solutions to flooding entail living with the water, rather than trying to contain it.

It has installed underground garages, green roofs that absorb water and water plazas that serve as a kind of aquatic town square, while simultaneously acting as huge storage reservoirs when extreme rainfall occurs.

From the Norfolk and Rotterdam perspectives, flooding and climate change are not obstacles to economic development, but opportunities.

About this piece

This analysis piece was commissioned by the BBC from an expert working for an outside organisation.

Philip Berke is Professor of Land Use and Environmental Planning at Texas A&M University.

Edited by Duncan Walker

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Parts of the Houston region have been hammered by more than 50in of rainfall since Hurricane Harvey made landfall, setting new records for the US. But why has the city become America's flood capital? In April 2016 "historic" flooding hit Houston, with 17.6in (44.7cm) of rain dumped on the city in a single day.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Overview

The U.S. has sustained 308 weather and climate disasters since 1980 where overall damages/costs reached or exceeded $1 billion (including CPI adjustment to 2021). The total cost of these 308 events exceeds $2.085 trillion.

2021 in Progress...

Methodology and Data Sources

The National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) is the Nation's Scorekeeper in terms of addressing severe weather and climate events in their historical perspective. As part of its responsibility of monitoring and assessing the climate, NCEI tracks and evaluates climate events in the U.S. and globally that have great economic and societal impacts. NCEI is frequently called upon to provide summaries of global and U.S. temperature and precipitation trends, extremes, and comparisons in their historical perspective. Found here are the weather and climate events that have had the greatest economic impact from 1980 to 2021.

In 2012, NCEI -- then known as National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) -- reviewed its methodology on how it develops Billion-dollar Disasters. NCEI held a workshop with economic experts (May, 2012) and worked with a consulting partner to examine possible inaccuracy and biases in the data sources and methodology used in developing the loss assessments (mid-2013). This ensures more consistency with the numbers NCEI provides on a yearly basis and give more confidence in the year-to-year comparison of information. Another outcome is a published peer-reviewed article "U.S. Billion-dollar Weather and Climate Disasters: Data Sources, Trends, Accuracy and Biases" (Smith and Katz, 2013). This research found the net effect of all biases appears to be an underestimation of average loss. In particular, it is shown that the factor approach can result in an underestimation of average loss of approximately 10-15%. This bias was corrected during a reanalysis of the loss data to reflect new loss totals.

It is also known that the uncertainty of loss estimates differ by disaster event type reflecting the quality and completeness of the data sources used in our loss estimation. In 2019, six of the fourteen billion-dollar events (i.e., three inland floods events, California/Alaskan wildfires, tropical cyclones Dorian and Imelda) have higher potential uncertainty values around the loss estimates due to less coverage of insured assets and data latency. The remaining eight events (i.e., the severe storm events producing tornado, hail and high wind damage) have lower potential uncertainty surrounding their estimate due to more complete insurance coverage and data availability. Our newest research defines the cost uncertainty using confidence intervals as discussed in the peer-reviewed article "Quantifying Uncertainty and Variable Sensitivity within the U.S. Billion-dollar Weather and Climate Disaster Cost Estimates" (Smith and Matthews, 2015). This research is a next step to enhance the value and usability of estimated disaster costs given data limitations and inherent complexities.

In performing these disaster cost assessments these statistics were taken from a wide variety of sources and represent, to the best of our ability, the estimated total costs of these events -- that is, the costs in terms of dollars that would not have been incurred had the event not taken place. Insured and uninsured losses are included in damage estimates. Sources include the National Weather Service, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, U.S. Department of Agriculture, National Interagency Fire Center, U.S. Army Corps, individual state emergency management agencies, state and regional climate centers, media reports, and insurance industry estimates. Please see Calculating the Cost of Weather and Climate Disasters for more information. For more in-depth analysis, the following report offers the latest summary on the 2020 U.S. billion-dollar weather and climate disasters in historical context.

Citing this information:

NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) U.S. Billion-Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters (2021). https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/billions/, DOI: 10.25921/stkw-7w73

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Billion-Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The U.S. has sustained 308 weather and climate disasters since 1980 where overall damages/costs reached or exceeded $1 billion (including CPI adjustment to 2021). The total cost of these 308 events exceeds $2.085 trillion. The National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) is the Nation's Scorekeeper in terms of addressing severe weather and climate events in their historical perspective.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
national oceanic and atmospheric administration

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
When corals are stressed by changes in conditions such as temperature, light, or nutrients, they expel the symbiotic algae living in their tissues, causing them to turn completely white.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.provider_name
Climate Change: Vital Signs of the Planet

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The Greenhouse Effect

Increasing Greenhouses Gases Are Warming the Planet

Scientists attribute the global warming trend observed since the mid-20 th century to the human expansion of the "greenhouse effect" ¹ - warming that results when the atmosphere traps heat radiating from Earth toward space.

Life on Earth depends on energy coming from the Sun. About half the light energy reaching Earth's atmosphere passes through the air and clouds to the surface, where it is absorbed and radiated in the form of infrared heat. About 90% of this heat is then absorbed by greenhouse gases and re-radiated, slowing heat loss to space.

Gases that Contribute

The Role of Humans

Human Activity Is the Cause of Increased Greenhouse Gas Concentrations

Over the last century, burning of fossil fuels like coal and oil has increased the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO ₂). This increase happens because the coal or oil burning process combines carbon with oxygen in the air to make CO ₂. To a lesser extent, clearing of land for agriculture, industry, and other human activities has increased concentrations of greenhouse gases.

How do we know what greenhouse gas and temperature levels were in the distant past?

Ice cores are scientists' best source for historical climate data. Other tools for learning about Earth's ancient atmosphere include growth rings in trees, which keep a rough record of each growing season's temperature, moisture and cloudiness going back about 2,000 years. Corals also form growth rings that provide information about temperature and nutrients in the tropical ocean. Other proxies, such as benthic cores, extend our knowledge of past climate back about a billion years.

detailed answer

The industrial activities that our modern civilization depends upon have raised atmospheric carbon dioxide levels by nearly 50% since 1750 ². This increase is due to human activities, because scientists can see a distinctive isotopic fingerprint in the atmosphere.

In its Sixth Assessment Report, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, composed of scientific experts from countries all over the world, concluded thatit is unequivocal that the increase of CO ₂, methane, and nitrous oxide in the atmosphere over the industrial era is the result of human activities and that human influence is the principal driver of many changes observed across the atmosphere, ocean, cryosphere and biosphere.

"Since systematic scientific assessments began in the 1970s, the influence of human activity on the warming of the climate system has evolved from theory to established fact."

- Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

The panel's AR6 Working Group I (WGI) Summary for Policymakers report is online at https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/.

Is the Sun to Blame?

Evidence Shows That Current Global Warming Cannot Be Explained by Solar Irradiance

Scientists use a metric called Total Solar Irradiance (TSI) to measure the changes in energy the Earth receives from the Sun. TSI incorporates the 11-year solar cycle and solar flares/storms from the Sun's surface.

Studies show that solar variability has played a role in past climate changes. For example, a decrease in solar activity coupled with increased volcanic activity helped trigger the Little Ice Age.

The above graph compares global surface temperature changes (red line) and the Sun's energy that Earth receives (yellow line) in watts (units of energy) per square meter since 1880. The lighter/thinner lines show the yearly levels while the heavier/thicker lines show the 11-year average trends. Eleven-year averages are used to reduce the year-to-year natural noise in the data, making the underlying trends more obvious.

The amount of solar energy that Earth receives has followed the Sun's natural 11-year cycle of small ups and downs with no net increase since 1880. Over the same period, global temperature has risen markedly. It is therefore extremely unlikely that the Sun has caused the observed global temperature warming trend over the past half-century. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

But several lines of evidence show that current global warming cannot be explained by changes in energy from the Sun:

Since 1750, the average amount of energy from the Sun either remained constant or decreased slightly³.

If a more active Sun caused the warming, scientists would expect warmer temperatures in all layers of the atmosphere. Instead, they have observed a cooling in the upper atmosphere and a warming at the surface and lower parts of the atmosphere. That's because greenhouse gases are slowing heat loss from the lower atmosphere.

Climate models that include solar irradiance changes can't reproduce the observed temperature trend over the past century or more without including a rise in greenhouse gases.
References
References

1. IPCC 6 th Assessment Report, WG1, Summary for Policy Makers, Sections A, " The Current State of the Climate "

IPCC 6 th Assessment Report, WG1, Technical Summary, Sections TS.1.2, TS.2.1 and TS.3.1

2. P. Friedlingstein, et al., 2022: "Global Carbon Budget 2022", Earth System Science Data ( 11 Nov 2022): 4811-4900. https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-14-4811-2022

3. IPCC 6 th Assessment Report, WG1, Chapter 2, Section 2.2.1, " Solar and Orbital Forcing"

IPCC 6 th Assessment Report, WG1, Chapter 7, Sections 7.3.4.4, 7.3.5.2, Figure 7.6, " Solar"

M. Lockwood and W.T. Ball, Placing limits on long-term variations in quiet-Sun irradiance and their contribution to total solar irradiance and solar radiative forcing of climate," Proceedings of the Royal Society A, 476, issue 2228 (24 June 2020): https://doi 10.1098/rspa.2020.0077

Header image credit: Pixabay/stevepb

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Vital Signs of the Planet: Global Climate Change and Global Warming. What is the "greenhouse effect"? What is causing it? Are humans to blame? What does solar irradiance have to do with it? Answers here.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.provider_name
Climate Change: Vital Signs of the Planet

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
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

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
intergovernmental panel on climate change

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Vital Signs of the Planet: Global Climate Change and Global Warming. Long-term effects of global climate change in the United States.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.provider_name
Climate Change: Vital Signs of the Planet

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The rate of change since the mid-20th century is unprecedented over millennia.

Earth's climate has changed throughout history. Just in the last 800,000 years, there have been eight cycles of ice ages and warmer periods, with the end of the last ice age about 11,700 years ago marking the beginning of the modern climate era - and of human civilization. Most of these climate changes are attributed to very small variations in Earth's orbit that change the amount of solar energy our planet receives.

This graph, based on the comparison of atmospheric samples contained in ice cores and more recent direct measurements, provides evidence that atmospheric CO2 has increased since the Industrial Revolution. (Credit: Luthi, D., et al.. 2008; Etheridge, D.M., et al. 2010; Vostok ice core data/J.R. Petit et al.; NOAA Mauna Loa CO2 record.) Find out more about ice cores (external site).

The current warming trend is different because it is clearly the result of human activities since the mid-1800s, and is proceeding at a rate not seen over many recent millennia. It is undeniable that human activities have produced the atmospheric gases that have trapped more of the Sun's energy in the Earth system. This extra energy has warmed the atmosphere, ocean, and land, and widespread and rapid changes in the atmosphere, ocean, cryosphere, and biosphere have occurred.

Do scientists agree on climate change?

Yes, the vast majority of actively publishing climate scientists - 97 percent - agree that humans are causing global warming and climate change.

detailed answer

Earth-orbiting satellites and new technologies have helped scientists see the big picture, collecting many different types of information about our planet and its climate all over the world. These data, collected over many years, reveal the signs and patterns of a changing climate.

Scientists demonstrated the heat-trapping nature of carbon dioxide and other gases in the mid-19th century. Many of the science instruments NASA uses to study our climate focus on how these gases affect the movement of infrared radiation through the atmosphere. From the measured impacts of increases in these gases, there is no question that increased greenhouse gas levels warm Earth in response.

"Scientific evidence for warming of the climate system is unequivocal."

- Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

Ice cores drawn from Greenland, Antarctica, and tropical mountain glaciers show that Earth's climate responds to changes in greenhouse gas levels. Ancient evidence can also be found in tree rings, ocean sediments, coral reefs, and layers of sedimentary rocks. This ancient, or paleoclimate, evidence reveals that current warming is occurring roughly 10 times faster than the average rate of warming after an ice age. Carbon dioxide from human activities is increasing about 250 times faster than it did from natural sources after the last Ice Age.

References

References
Header image shows clouds imitating mountains as the sun sets after midnight as seen from Denali's backcountry Unit 13 on June 14, 2019. Credit: NPS/Emily Mesner

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Climate Change Evidence: How Do We Know?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Vital Signs of the Planet: Global Climate Change and Global Warming. How do we know it's happening? Here's the evidence.

# data[].attributes.body
A real-time data visualization of Earth's vital signs.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.provider_name
Climate Change: Vital Signs of the Planet

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
national aeronautics and space administration

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Climate Change: Vital Signs of the Planet

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Vital Signs of the Planet: Global Climate Change and Global Warming. Current news and data streams about global warming and climate change from NASA.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Ocean acidification threatens to cause billions of dollars in damage to the U.S. economy, harming everything from crabs in Alaska to coral reefs in Florida and the Caribbean, NOAA researchers said in a new report.

Carbon dioxide emissions and ocean acidification are occurring at an "unprecedented" rate, deteriorating valuable fisheries and tourist destinations across the United States and its territories, NOAA said in a draft research plan for ocean acidification.

"Commercial, subsistence and recreational fishing [and] tourism and coral ecosystems" will likely be damaged by ocean acidification, the plan said. Multibillion-dollar fisheries such as West Coast Dungeness crab, Alaska king crab and New England sea scallops are vulnerable. So are Florida's coral reefs, an asset valued at $8.5 billion.

Implicating human activities such as burning fossil fuels, the plan said that ocean acidification "is driven by the growing amount of anthropogenic carbon dioxide absorbed and dissolved in the upper ocean." Ocean acidification makes it hard for some marine organisms such as lobsters, oysters and coral to build shells and skeletons.

The 172-page draft research plan draws on hundreds of studies and describes how NOAA will continue to analyze ocean acidification in the 2020s as part of a congressional mandate. The NOAA plan is unique in that it assesses the threat of ocean acidification nationwide, in contrast to other research that might focus on a specific part of the country.

Two U.S. regions appear particularly endangered: Alaska, with its lucrative seafood industry, and the Florida Keys, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, whose coral reefs attract tourists and protect against flood damage and coastal erosion.

"Alaska waters are especially vulnerable to OA," the research plan said, using the acronym for ocean acidification. Most vulnerable are Alaska communities that rely on subsistence crab harvests and communities with fishing economies.

Alaska's seafood industry employs more than 50,000 people, pays $2 billion a year in wages, and includes the nation's largest and most valuable crab fishery. It also is an essential part of the state's culture and identity, which ocean acidification jeopardizes.

"The harvest of marine resources plays a critical role in the identities and well-being of Alaska communities," NOAA's research plan said. "More so than any other Americans, Alaskans rely upon subsistence harvests of marine resources to meet their daily nutritional needs."

In the Florida Keys, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, ocean acidification is creating "a great urgency" because the region features sensitive coral reef ecosystems and commercially important fisheries, NOAA said.

Coral reefs in southeast Florida generate $4.4 billion in annual sales, $2 billion in income, and 70,400 full- and part-time jobs - "much of which will be threatened due to OA's effects on reef-building corals," NOAA said.

Though valued largely for their beauty, coral reefs also "can substantially reduce" coastal flooding and erosion by dissipating the energy of waves hitting the shore, NOAA said. An April report by the U.S. Geological Survey found that coastal reefs protect economic activity worth $319 million a year in Florida, $118 million a year in Puerto Rico and $25 million a year in the Virgin Islands.

NOAA has not officially released its 2020-2029 research plan for ocean acidification. A draft became public in December when it was posted by NOAA's Science Advisory Board, whose reviewers called it a "brilliant research plan."

"This research plan captures NOAA's extraordinary effort to improve the ability to understand, protect, manage, and restore ecosystems that support healthy fisheries, increase opportunities for aquaculture, and balance conservation with tourism and recreation," wrote reviewers Joellen Russell of the University of Arizona, Irina Marinov of the University of Pennsylvania and Nancy Williams of the University of South Florida.

A 2009 federal law requires NOAA to monitor and research the potential effects of ocean acidification and to suggest adaptation and conservation steps.

Congress has strongly supported NOAA's ocean acidification program. The fiscal 2020 budget approved in December provides $14 million - more than double the $6 million the program got in fiscal 2014.

NOAA's proposed research plan highlights the potential harm of ocean acidification along the Pacific coast and parts of the Atlantic coast. In New England and Mid-Atlantic states as far south as North Carolina, the vulnerability to ocean acidification is "high to medium-high."

On the West Coast, the largest economic harm likely will occur from Northern California to northern Washington due to "declines in Dungeness crab and groundfish."

But the plan finds uncertainty in other places.

The impacts of ocean acidification on fisheries and aquaculture in the southeast Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico "are poorly understood" because research on the issue is "scarce," NOAA said.

In the Great Lakes, which are experiencing acidification even though they are fresh water, the potential impacts "are largely unknown at this time," NOAA said.
Reprinted from Climatewire with permission from E&E News. E&E provides daily coverage of essential energy and environmental news at www.eenews.net.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Ocean Acidification Threatens the U.S. Economy

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Ocean acidification threatens to cause billions of dollars in damage to the U.S. economy, harming everything from crabs in Alaska to coral reefs in Florida and the Caribbean, NOAA researchers said in a new report.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Ocean acidification is an emerging global problem. Over the last decade, there has been much focus in the ocean science community on studying the potential impacts of ocean acidification.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Info Print

Cite

Feedback

Share

Alternative Title: ozonosphere

Ozone layer, also called ozonosphere, region of the upper atmosphere, between roughly 15 and 35 km (9 and 22 miles) above Earth's surface, containing relatively high concentrations of ozone molecules (O ₃). Approximately 90 percent of the atmosphere's ozone occurs in the stratosphere, the region extending from 10-18 km (6-11 miles) to approximately 50 km (about 30 miles) above Earth's surface. In the stratosphere the temperature of the atmosphere rises with increasing height, a phenomenon created by the absorption of solar radiation by the ozone layer. The ozone layer effectively blocks almost all solar radiation of wavelengths less than 290 nanometres from reaching Earth's surface, including certain types of ultraviolet (UV) and other forms of radiation that could injure or kill most living things.

layers of Earth's atmosphere Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

Location in Earth's atmosphere

In the midlatitudes the peak concentrations of ozone occur at altitudes from 20 to 25 km (about 12 to 16 miles). Peak concentrations are found at altitudes from 26 to 28 km (about 16 to 17 miles) in the tropics and from about 12 to 20 km (about 7 to 12 miles) toward the poles. The lower height of the peak-concentration region in the high latitudes largely results from poleward and downward atmospheric transport processes that occur in the middle and high latitudes and the reduced height of the tropopause (the transition region between the troposphere and stratosphere).

Most of the remaining ozone occurs in the troposphere, the layer of the atmosphere that extends from Earth's surface up to the stratosphere. Near-surface ozone often results from interactions between certain pollutants (such as nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds), strong sunlight, and hot weather. It is one of the primary ingredients in photochemical smog, a phenomenon that plagues many urban and suburban areas around the world, especially during the summer months.

F.K. Anderson/Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

Ozone creation and destruction

The production of ozone in the stratosphere results primarily from the breaking of the chemical bonds within oxygen molecules (O ₂) by high-energy solar photons. This process, called photodissociation, results in the release of single oxygen atoms, which later join with intact oxygen molecules to form ozone. Rising atmospheric oxygen concentrations some two billion years ago allowed ozone to build up in Earth's atmosphere, a process that gradually led to the formation of the stratosphere. Scientists believe that the formation of the ozone layer played an important role in the development of life on Earth by screening out lethal levels of UVB radiation (ultraviolet radiation with wavelengths between 315 and 280 nanometres) and thus facilitating the migration of life-forms from the oceans to land.

ozone: hole© Photos.com/Thinkstock

The amount of ozone in the stratosphere varies naturally throughout the year as a result of chemical processes that create and destroy ozone molecules and as a result of winds and other transport processes that move ozone molecules around the planet. Over the course of several decades, however, human activities substantially altered the ozone layer. Ozone depletion, the global decrease in stratospheric ozone observed since the 1970s, is most pronounced in polar regions, and it is well correlated with the increase of chlorine and bromine in the stratosphere. Those chemicals, once freed by UV radiation from the chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and other halocarbons (carbon-halogen compounds) that contain them, destroy ozone by stripping away single oxygen atoms from ozone molecules. Depletion is so extensive that so-called ozone holes (regions of severely reduced ozone coverage) form over the poles during the onset of their respective spring seasons. The largest such hole-which has spanned more than 20.7 million square km (8 million square miles) on a consistent basis since 1992-appears annually over Antarctica between September and November.

As the amount of stratospheric ozone declines, more UV radiation reaches Earth's surface, and scientists worry that such increases could have significant effects on ecosystems and human health. The concern over exposure to biologically harmful levels of UV radiation has been the main driver of the creation of international treaties such as the Montreal Protocol on Substances That Deplete the Ozone Layer and its amendments, designed to protect Earth's ozone layer. Compliance with international treaties that phased out the production and delivery of many ozone-depleting chemicals, combined with upper stratospheric cooling due to increased carbon dioxide, is thought to have contributed to the shrinking of the ozone holes over the poles and to slightly higher stratospheric ozone levels overall. Continued reductions in chlorine loading are expected to result in smaller ozone holes above Antarctica after 2040. However, some scientists noted that gains in stratospheric ozone levels have only occurred in the upper stratosphere, with declines in ozone concentrations in the lower stratosphere outpacing increases in the upper stratosphere.

ozonesonde NOAA

Donald Wuebbles

key people

related topics

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
ozone layer | Description, Importance, & Facts

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Ozone layer, region of the upper atmosphere, between roughly 15 and 35 km (9 and 22 miles) above Earth's surface, containing relatively high concentrations of ozone molecules. Approximately 90 percent of the atmosphere's ozone occurs from 10-18 km (6-11 miles) to about 50 km (about 30 miles) above Earth's surface.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The sea level trends measured by tide gauges that are presented here are local relative sea level (RSL) trends as opposed to the global sea level trend. Tide gauge measurements are made with respect to a local fixed reference on land. RSL is a combination of the sea level rise and the local vertical land motion. The global sea level trend has been recorded by satellite altimeters since 1992 and the latest global trend can be obtained from NOAA's Laboratory for Satellite Altimetry, with maps of the regional variation in the trend. The University of Colorado's Sea Level Research Group compares global sea level rates calculated by different research organizations and discusses some of the issues involved.

The map above illustrates relative sea level trends , with arrows representing the direction and magnitude of change. Click on an arrow to access additional information about that station.

Relative Sea Level Trends
mm/yr (feet/century)

Above 9
(Above 3)

6 to 9
(2 to 3)

3 to 6
(1 to 2)

>0 to 3
(0 to 1)

-3 to 0
(-1 to 0)

-6 to -3
(-2 to -1)

-9 to -6
(-3 to -2)

Below -9
(Below -3)

The Center for Operational Oceanographic Products and Services has been measuring sea level for over 150 years, with tide stations of the National Water Level Observation Network operating on all U.S. coasts. Changes in RSL, either a rise or fall, have been computed at 142 long-term water level stations using a minimum span of 30 years of observations at each location. These measurements have been averaged by month which removes the effect of higher frequency phenomena in order to compute an accurate linear sea level trend. The trend analysis has also been extended to 240 global tide stations using data from the Permanent Service for Mean Sea Level (PSMSL). This work is funded in partnership with the NOAA OAR Climate Observation Division.

Frequently Asked Questions:

What is Sea Level?
Why does Sea Level change over time?
What does Sea Level have to do with Climate?
What are the differences between historical and new sea Level trends and confidence intervals?

Data and Resources

NOAA Technical Report NOS CO-OPS 86, "Patterns and Projections of High Tide Flooding Along the U.S. Coastline Using a Common Impact Threshold"

NOAA Technical Report NOS CO-OPS 86, Data: Patterns and Projections of High Tide Flooding (CSV)

NOAA Technical Report NOS CO-OPS 83, "Global and Regional SLR Scenarios for the U.S."

NOAA Technical Report NOS CO-OPS 83, Data: Global and Regional SLR Scenarios for the U.S. (CSV)

" Sea Level Rise " Sweet, et al. Climate Science Special Report: Fourth National Climate Assessment, Volume I

"Incorporating Sea Level Change Scenarios at the Local Level" &nbsp Marcy, D., et al., NOAA Coastal Services Center, 2012.

NOAA Technical Report NOS CO-OPS 53, "Sea Level Variations of the United States 1854-2006"

NOAA Technical Report NOS CO-OPS 36, "Sea Level Variations of the United States 1854-1999"

"Sea Level as an Indicator of Climate and Global Change" Dr. Bruce Parker. Marine Technology Society Journal, Vol. 25, No. 4, 1991.

Contact Information

For additional information, please contact CO-OPS.
Metadata : Sea Level Trends

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Sea Level Trends - NOAA Tides & Currents

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The sea level trends measured by tide gauges that are presented here are local relative sea level (RSL) trends as opposed to the global sea level trend. Tide gauge measurements are made with respect to a local fixed reference on land. RSL is a combination of the sea level rise and the local vertical land motion.

# data[].attributes.headline
Data Visualization - Ocean Acidification

# data[].attributes.subject
Data Visualization - Ocean Acidification

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Decades of ocean observations show that fundamental changes in seawater chemistry are occurring throughout the world's oceans, including the process called OCEAN ACIDIFICATION. If you are a student, educator, or simply interested in learning more about ocean acidification, below are a number of educational resources that describe the changing chemistry of the oceans and the potential impacts on marine ecosystems.

Ocean Acidification Visualizations

Below is an animation showing a computer recreation of surface ocean pH from 1895 to the present and a forecast of ocean pH between now and 2100 under business as usual emission scenarios. Purple dots show cold-water coral reefs. Red dots show warm-water coral reefs. The pH scale is shown on the right. Increasing acidity is a relative shift in pH to a lower value.

Ocean Acidification on Science On a Sphere: In collaboration with Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and NOAA's Environmental Visualization Laboratory, we developed animations for use on Science On a Sphere® that show computer model simulations of surface ocean pH and carbonate mineral saturation state for the years 1895 to 2094.

Ocean Acidification Impacts Coral Reefs: NOAA's Environmental Visualization Laboratory developed an animation showing model data of how the availability of calcium carbonate is predicted to decrease over the next century at a depth of 10 meters in the ocean-where most corals occur. Unfortunately this animation has been removed from this web site.

Ocean Acidification: The Other Carbon Dioxide Problem: NOAA's Environmental Visualization Laboratory produced a 4 minute video explaining what ocean acidification is and the potential impacts to marine ecosystems.

Ocean Acidification Lectures

ASLO Contemporary Issues Lectures on Ocean Acidification, including an "Overview of Ocean Acidification" by Dr. Richard Feely: Limnology and Oceanography e-Lectures are prepared by experts on particular topics and are intended to serve as a resource for member educators and researchers, to assist them in bringing the most recent and cutting edge science and non-traditional teaching techniques into undergraduate and graduate aquatic science courses. Full lectures are available to members and partial PDF versions are public.

Short Course on Ocean Acidification: The Ocean Carbon & Biogeochemistry (OCB) Project Office with co-sponsorship from the European Project on Ocean Acidification (EPOCA) coordinated and hosted a hands-on ocean acidification short course from November 2-13, 2009 at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, MA. See the OCB webpage for archived materials and video footage of lectures.

Ocean Acidification Impacts on Shellfish Workshop: This workshop was planned to bring together stakeholders from the U.S. west coast who are working to understand and address ocean acidification. Fifty participants were invited from the shellfish industry, regulatory agencies, and research institutions. They received presentations on a variety of topics and took part in discussions to address key questions related to the goals of the workshop. See the workshop website for archived presentations and the final report and recommendations.

Additional Links for Educators

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Decades of ocean observations show that fundamental changes in seawater chemistry are occurring throughout the world's oceans, including the process called OCEAN ACIDIFICATION .