research report about climate change brainly

Researching Climate Change

Climate change research involves numerous disciplines of Earth system science as well as technology, engineering, and programming. Some major areas of climate change research include water, energy, ecosystems, air quality, solar physics, glaciology, human health, wildfires, and land use.

To have a complete picture of how the climate changes and how these changes affect the Earth, scientists make direct measurements of climate using weather instruments. They also look at proxy data that gives us clues about climate conditions from prehistoric times. And they use models of the Earth system to predict how the climate will change in the future.

Measurements of modern climate change

Because climate describes the weather conditions averaged over a long period of time (typically 30 years), much of the same information gathered about weather is used to research climate. Temperature is measured every day at thousands of locations around the world. This data is used to calculate average global temperatures . Changes in temperature patterns are a strong indicator of how much the climate is changing. Because we have thousands of temperature measurements, we know that record high temperatures are increasing across the globe, which is a sign that the climate is warming. Climatologists also look at changes in precipitation, the length and frequency of drought, as well as the number of days that rivers are at flood stage to understand how the climate is changing. Winds and other direct measures of climate contribute to climate change research as well.

This map shows the location of weather stations across the Earth. Continuous data from thousands of stations is important for climate change research.

Using proxy data to understand climate change in the past

Throughout Earth's 4.6 billion years, the climate has changed drastically, including periods that were much colder and much warmer than the climate today. But how do we know about the climate from prehistoric times ? Researchers decipher clues within the Earth to help reconstruct past environments based on our understanding of environments today. Proxy data can take the form of fossils, sediment layers, tree rings , coral, and ice cores. These proxies contain evidence of past environments. For example, marine fossils and ocean seafloor sediment preserved in rock layers from around 80 million years ago (the Cretaceous Period) indicate that North America was mostly covered in water. The high sea levels were due to a much warmer climate when all of the polar ice sheets had melted. We also find fossil vegetation and pollen records indicating that forests covered the polar regions during this same time period. The existence of multiple types of proxy data from different locations, often from overlapping time periods, strengthens our understanding of past climates.

Ice core drilling in the Arctic provides proxy evidence of paleoclimate conditions.

National Snow and Ice Data Center

Using models to project future climate change

Scientists use models of the Earth to figure out how climate will likely change in the future. These models, which are simulations of Earth, include equations that describe everything from how the winds blow to how sea ice reflects sunlight and how forests take up carbon dioxide. In-depth knowledge of how each part of the Earth functions is needed to write the equations that represent each part within the model. Understanding climate change in both the present and the past helps to create computational models that can predict how the climate system might change in the future.

While scientists work hard to ensure that climate models are as accurate as possible, the models are unable to predict exactly how the climate will change in the future because some things are unknown, namely how much humans will change (or not change) behaviors that contribute to climate warming. Scientists run the models with different scenarios to account for a range of possibilities. For example, running the models to show how the climate will respond if we reduce fossil fuel emissions by different amounts can help us prepare for the many impacts that a changing climate has on the Earth.

Climate models keep track of how parameters change from place to place using a grid pattern on the Earth’s surface. The environmental conditions within each hexagon-shaped area are programmed into the model. More detailed models have smaller hexagons.

Studying the impacts of climate change

From monitoring changes in tropical coral reefs to changes in glacial ice, keeping track of how climate change is affecting the planet is important for adapting to the future. Scientists who monitor the environment report stronger and more frequent storms, changing weather patterns, a longer growing season in some locations, and changes in the distribution of plants and migratory animals. Monitoring how climate change is affecting our world can help identify new threats to human health as the ranges of insect-borne diseases change and as drought-prone regions expand.

Many different areas of research, from meteorology to oceanography, epidemiology to agriculture, and even fields such as sociology and economics, have a role to play in terms of researching both how the climate is changing and the impacts of climate change.

The average length of the growing season in the lower 48 states has increased by almost two weeks since the late 1800s, a result of the changing climate. Researchers study how this change in the growing season impacts humans and the Earth. Credit: EPA

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• How Climate Works
• History of Climate Science Research
• Investigating Past Climates
• Climate Modeling
• Fast Computers and Complex Climate Models
• Visualizing Weather and Climate
• IPCC: The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
• From Dog Walking To Weather And Climate
• Satellite Signals from Space: Smart Science for Understanding Weather and Climate

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The Science of Climate Change Explained: Facts, Evidence and Proof

Definitive answers to the big questions.

Credit... Photo Illustration by Andrea D'Aquino

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By Julia Rosen

Ms. Rosen is a journalist with a Ph.D. in geology. Her research involved studying ice cores from Greenland and Antarctica to understand past climate changes.

• Published April 19, 2021 Updated Nov. 6, 2021

The science of climate change is more solid and widely agreed upon than you might think. But the scope of the topic, as well as rampant disinformation, can make it hard to separate fact from fiction. Here, we’ve done our best to present you with not only the most accurate scientific information, but also an explanation of how we know it.

How do we know climate change is really happening?

How much agreement is there among scientists about climate change, do we really only have 150 years of climate data how is that enough to tell us about centuries of change, how do we know climate change is caused by humans, since greenhouse gases occur naturally, how do we know they’re causing earth’s temperature to rise, why should we be worried that the planet has warmed 2°f since the 1800s, is climate change a part of the planet’s natural warming and cooling cycles, how do we know global warming is not because of the sun or volcanoes, how can winters and certain places be getting colder if the planet is warming, wildfires and bad weather have always happened. how do we know there’s a connection to climate change, how bad are the effects of climate change going to be, what will it cost to do something about climate change, versus doing nothing.

Climate change is often cast as a prediction made by complicated computer models. But the scientific basis for climate change is much broader, and models are actually only one part of it (and, for what it’s worth, they’re surprisingly accurate ).

For more than a century , scientists have understood the basic physics behind why greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide cause warming. These gases make up just a small fraction of the atmosphere but exert outsized control on Earth’s climate by trapping some of the planet’s heat before it escapes into space. This greenhouse effect is important: It’s why a planet so far from the sun has liquid water and life!

However, during the Industrial Revolution, people started burning coal and other fossil fuels to power factories, smelters and steam engines, which added more greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. Ever since, human activities have been heating the planet.

We know this is true thanks to an overwhelming body of evidence that begins with temperature measurements taken at weather stations and on ships starting in the mid-1800s. Later, scientists began tracking surface temperatures with satellites and looking for clues about climate change in geologic records. Together, these data all tell the same story: Earth is getting hotter.

Average global temperatures have increased by 2.2 degrees Fahrenheit, or 1.2 degrees Celsius, since 1880, with the greatest changes happening in the late 20th century. Land areas have warmed more than the sea surface and the Arctic has warmed the most — by more than 4 degrees Fahrenheit just since the 1960s. Temperature extremes have also shifted. In the United States, daily record highs now outnumber record lows two-to-one.

Where it was cooler or warmer in 2020 compared with the middle of the 20th century

This warming is unprecedented in recent geologic history. A famous illustration, first published in 1998 and often called the hockey-stick graph, shows how temperatures remained fairly flat for centuries (the shaft of the stick) before turning sharply upward (the blade). It’s based on data from tree rings, ice cores and other natural indicators. And the basic picture , which has withstood decades of scrutiny from climate scientists and contrarians alike, shows that Earth is hotter today than it’s been in at least 1,000 years, and probably much longer.

In fact, surface temperatures actually mask the true scale of climate change, because the ocean has absorbed 90 percent of the heat trapped by greenhouse gases . Measurements collected over the last six decades by oceanographic expeditions and networks of floating instruments show that every layer of the ocean is warming up. According to one study , the ocean has absorbed as much heat between 1997 and 2015 as it did in the previous 130 years.

We also know that climate change is happening because we see the effects everywhere. Ice sheets and glaciers are shrinking while sea levels are rising. Arctic sea ice is disappearing. In the spring, snow melts sooner and plants flower earlier. Animals are moving to higher elevations and latitudes to find cooler conditions. And droughts, floods and wildfires have all gotten more extreme. Models predicted many of these changes, but observations show they are now coming to pass.

Back to top .

There’s no denying that scientists love a good, old-fashioned argument. But when it comes to climate change, there is virtually no debate: Numerous studies have found that more than 90 percent of scientists who study Earth’s climate agree that the planet is warming and that humans are the primary cause. Most major scientific bodies, from NASA to the World Meteorological Organization , endorse this view. That’s an astounding level of consensus given the contrarian, competitive nature of the scientific enterprise, where questions like what killed the dinosaurs remain bitterly contested .

Scientific agreement about climate change started to emerge in the late 1980s, when the influence of human-caused warming began to rise above natural climate variability. By 1991, two-thirds of earth and atmospheric scientists surveyed for an early consensus study said that they accepted the idea of anthropogenic global warming. And by 1995, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a famously conservative body that periodically takes stock of the state of scientific knowledge, concluded that “the balance of evidence suggests that there is a discernible human influence on global climate.” Currently, more than 97 percent of publishing climate scientists agree on the existence and cause of climate change (as does nearly 60 percent of the general population of the United States).

So where did we get the idea that there’s still debate about climate change? A lot of it came from coordinated messaging campaigns by companies and politicians that opposed climate action. Many pushed the narrative that scientists still hadn’t made up their minds about climate change, even though that was misleading. Frank Luntz, a Republican consultant, explained the rationale in an infamous 2002 memo to conservative lawmakers: “Should the public come to believe that the scientific issues are settled, their views about global warming will change accordingly,” he wrote. Questioning consensus remains a common talking point today, and the 97 percent figure has become something of a lightning rod .

To bolster the falsehood of lingering scientific doubt, some people have pointed to things like the Global Warming Petition Project, which urged the United States government to reject the Kyoto Protocol of 1997, an early international climate agreement. The petition proclaimed that climate change wasn’t happening, and even if it were, it wouldn’t be bad for humanity. Since 1998, more than 30,000 people with science degrees have signed it. However, nearly 90 percent of them studied something other than Earth, atmospheric or environmental science, and the signatories included just 39 climatologists. Most were engineers, doctors, and others whose training had little to do with the physics of the climate system.

A few well-known researchers remain opposed to the scientific consensus. Some, like Willie Soon, a researcher affiliated with the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, have ties to the fossil fuel industry . Others do not, but their assertions have not held up under the weight of evidence. At least one prominent skeptic, the physicist Richard Muller, changed his mind after reassessing historical temperature data as part of the Berkeley Earth project. His team’s findings essentially confirmed the results he had set out to investigate, and he came away firmly convinced that human activities were warming the planet. “Call me a converted skeptic,” he wrote in an Op-Ed for the Times in 2012.

Mr. Luntz, the Republican pollster, has also reversed his position on climate change and now advises politicians on how to motivate climate action.

A final note on uncertainty: Denialists often use it as evidence that climate science isn’t settled. However, in science, uncertainty doesn’t imply a lack of knowledge. Rather, it’s a measure of how well something is known. In the case of climate change, scientists have found a range of possible future changes in temperature, precipitation and other important variables — which will depend largely on how quickly we reduce emissions. But uncertainty does not undermine their confidence that climate change is real and that people are causing it.

Earth’s climate is inherently variable. Some years are hot and others are cold, some decades bring more hurricanes than others, some ancient droughts spanned the better part of centuries. Glacial cycles operate over many millenniums. So how can scientists look at data collected over a relatively short period of time and conclude that humans are warming the planet? The answer is that the instrumental temperature data that we have tells us a lot, but it’s not all we have to go on.

Historical records stretch back to the 1880s (and often before), when people began to regularly measure temperatures at weather stations and on ships as they traversed the world’s oceans. These data show a clear warming trend during the 20th century.

Global average temperature compared with the middle of the 20th century

+0.75°C

–0.25°

Some have questioned whether these records could be skewed, for instance, by the fact that a disproportionate number of weather stations are near cities, which tend to be hotter than surrounding areas as a result of the so-called urban heat island effect. However, researchers regularly correct for these potential biases when reconstructing global temperatures. In addition, warming is corroborated by independent data like satellite observations, which cover the whole planet, and other ways of measuring temperature changes.

Much has also been made of the small dips and pauses that punctuate the rising temperature trend of the last 150 years. But these are just the result of natural climate variability or other human activities that temporarily counteract greenhouse warming. For instance, in the mid-1900s, internal climate dynamics and light-blocking pollution from coal-fired power plants halted global warming for a few decades. (Eventually, rising greenhouse gases and pollution-control laws caused the planet to start heating up again.) Likewise, the so-called warming hiatus of the 2000s was partly a result of natural climate variability that allowed more heat to enter the ocean rather than warm the atmosphere. The years since have been the hottest on record .

Still, could the entire 20th century just be one big natural climate wiggle? To address that question, we can look at other kinds of data that give a longer perspective. Researchers have used geologic records like tree rings, ice cores, corals and sediments that preserve information about prehistoric climates to extend the climate record. The resulting picture of global temperature change is basically flat for centuries, then turns sharply upward over the last 150 years. It has been a target of climate denialists for decades. However, study after study has confirmed the results , which show that the planet hasn’t been this hot in at least 1,000 years, and probably longer.

Scientists have studied past climate changes to understand the factors that can cause the planet to warm or cool. The big ones are changes in solar energy, ocean circulation, volcanic activity and the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. And they have each played a role at times.

For example, 300 years ago, a combination of reduced solar output and increased volcanic activity cooled parts of the planet enough that Londoners regularly ice skated on the Thames . About 12,000 years ago, major changes in Atlantic circulation plunged the Northern Hemisphere into a frigid state. And 56 million years ago, a giant burst of greenhouse gases, from volcanic activity or vast deposits of methane (or both), abruptly warmed the planet by at least 9 degrees Fahrenheit, scrambling the climate, choking the oceans and triggering mass extinctions.

In trying to determine the cause of current climate changes, scientists have looked at all of these factors . The first three have varied a bit over the last few centuries and they have quite likely had modest effects on climate , particularly before 1950. But they cannot account for the planet’s rapidly rising temperature, especially in the second half of the 20th century, when solar output actually declined and volcanic eruptions exerted a cooling effect.

That warming is best explained by rising greenhouse gas concentrations . Greenhouse gases have a powerful effect on climate (see the next question for why). And since the Industrial Revolution, humans have been adding more of them to the atmosphere, primarily by extracting and burning fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas, which releases carbon dioxide.

Bubbles of ancient air trapped in ice show that, before about 1750, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was roughly 280 parts per million. It began to rise slowly and crossed the 300 p.p.m. threshold around 1900. CO2 levels then accelerated as cars and electricity became big parts of modern life, recently topping 420 p.p.m . The concentration of methane, the second most important greenhouse gas, has more than doubled. We’re now emitting carbon much faster than it was released 56 million years ago .

30 billion metric tons

Carbon dioxide emitted worldwide 1850-2017

Rest of world

Other developed

European Union

Developed economies

Other countries

United States

E.U. and U.K.

These rapid increases in greenhouse gases have caused the climate to warm abruptly. In fact, climate models suggest that greenhouse warming can explain virtually all of the temperature change since 1950. According to the most recent report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which assesses published scientific literature, natural drivers and internal climate variability can only explain a small fraction of late-20th century warming.

Another study put it this way: The odds of current warming occurring without anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions are less than 1 in 100,000 .

But greenhouse gases aren’t the only climate-altering compounds people put into the air. Burning fossil fuels also produces particulate pollution that reflects sunlight and cools the planet. Scientists estimate that this pollution has masked up to half of the greenhouse warming we would have otherwise experienced.

Greenhouse gases like water vapor and carbon dioxide serve an important role in the climate. Without them, Earth would be far too cold to maintain liquid water and humans would not exist!

Here’s how it works: the planet’s temperature is basically a function of the energy the Earth absorbs from the sun (which heats it up) and the energy Earth emits to space as infrared radiation (which cools it down). Because of their molecular structure, greenhouse gases temporarily absorb some of that outgoing infrared radiation and then re-emit it in all directions, sending some of that energy back toward the surface and heating the planet . Scientists have understood this process since the 1850s .

Greenhouse gas concentrations have varied naturally in the past. Over millions of years, atmospheric CO2 levels have changed depending on how much of the gas volcanoes belched into the air and how much got removed through geologic processes. On time scales of hundreds to thousands of years, concentrations have changed as carbon has cycled between the ocean, soil and air.

Today, however, we are the ones causing CO2 levels to increase at an unprecedented pace by taking ancient carbon from geologic deposits of fossil fuels and putting it into the atmosphere when we burn them. Since 1750, carbon dioxide concentrations have increased by almost 50 percent. Methane and nitrous oxide, other important anthropogenic greenhouse gases that are released mainly by agricultural activities, have also spiked over the last 250 years.

We know based on the physics described above that this should cause the climate to warm. We also see certain telltale “fingerprints” of greenhouse warming. For example, nights are warming even faster than days because greenhouse gases don’t go away when the sun sets. And upper layers of the atmosphere have actually cooled, because more energy is being trapped by greenhouse gases in the lower atmosphere.

We also know that we are the cause of rising greenhouse gas concentrations — and not just because we can measure the CO2 coming out of tailpipes and smokestacks. We can see it in the chemical signature of the carbon in CO2.

Carbon comes in three different masses: 12, 13 and 14. Things made of organic matter (including fossil fuels) tend to have relatively less carbon-13. Volcanoes tend to produce CO2 with relatively more carbon-13. And over the last century, the carbon in atmospheric CO2 has gotten lighter, pointing to an organic source.

We can tell it’s old organic matter by looking for carbon-14, which is radioactive and decays over time. Fossil fuels are too ancient to have any carbon-14 left in them, so if they were behind rising CO2 levels, you would expect the amount of carbon-14 in the atmosphere to drop, which is exactly what the data show .

It’s important to note that water vapor is the most abundant greenhouse gas in the atmosphere. However, it does not cause warming; instead it responds to it . That’s because warmer air holds more moisture, which creates a snowball effect in which human-caused warming allows the atmosphere to hold more water vapor and further amplifies climate change. This so-called feedback cycle has doubled the warming caused by anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions.

A common source of confusion when it comes to climate change is the difference between weather and climate. Weather is the constantly changing set of meteorological conditions that we experience when we step outside, whereas climate is the long-term average of those conditions, usually calculated over a 30-year period. Or, as some say: Weather is your mood and climate is your personality.

So while 2 degrees Fahrenheit doesn’t represent a big change in the weather, it’s a huge change in climate. As we’ve already seen, it’s enough to melt ice and raise sea levels, to shift rainfall patterns around the world and to reorganize ecosystems, sending animals scurrying toward cooler habitats and killing trees by the millions.

It’s also important to remember that two degrees represents the global average, and many parts of the world have already warmed by more than that. For example, land areas have warmed about twice as much as the sea surface. And the Arctic has warmed by about 5 degrees. That’s because the loss of snow and ice at high latitudes allows the ground to absorb more energy, causing additional heating on top of greenhouse warming.

Relatively small long-term changes in climate averages also shift extremes in significant ways. For instance, heat waves have always happened, but they have shattered records in recent years. In June of 2020, a town in Siberia registered temperatures of 100 degrees . And in Australia, meteorologists have added a new color to their weather maps to show areas where temperatures exceed 125 degrees. Rising sea levels have also increased the risk of flooding because of storm surges and high tides. These are the foreshocks of climate change.

And we are in for more changes in the future — up to 9 degrees Fahrenheit of average global warming by the end of the century, in the worst-case scenario . For reference, the difference in global average temperatures between now and the peak of the last ice age, when ice sheets covered large parts of North America and Europe, is about 11 degrees Fahrenheit.

Under the Paris Climate Agreement, which President Biden recently rejoined, countries have agreed to try to limit total warming to between 1.5 and 2 degrees Celsius, or 2.7 and 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, since preindustrial times. And even this narrow range has huge implications . According to scientific studies, the difference between 2.7 and 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit will very likely mean the difference between coral reefs hanging on or going extinct, and between summer sea ice persisting in the Arctic or disappearing completely. It will also determine how many millions of people suffer from water scarcity and crop failures, and how many are driven from their homes by rising seas. In other words, one degree Fahrenheit makes a world of difference.

Earth’s climate has always changed. Hundreds of millions of years ago, the entire planet froze . Fifty million years ago, alligators lived in what we now call the Arctic . And for the last 2.6 million years, the planet has cycled between ice ages when the planet was up to 11 degrees cooler and ice sheets covered much of North America and Europe, and milder interglacial periods like the one we’re in now.

Climate denialists often point to these natural climate changes as a way to cast doubt on the idea that humans are causing climate to change today. However, that argument rests on a logical fallacy. It’s like “seeing a murdered body and concluding that people have died of natural causes in the past, so the murder victim must also have died of natural causes,” a team of social scientists wrote in The Debunking Handbook , which explains the misinformation strategies behind many climate myths.

Indeed, we know that different mechanisms caused the climate to change in the past. Glacial cycles, for example, were triggered by periodic variations in Earth’s orbit , which take place over tens of thousands of years and change how solar energy gets distributed around the globe and across the seasons.

These orbital variations don’t affect the planet’s temperature much on their own. But they set off a cascade of other changes in the climate system; for instance, growing or melting vast Northern Hemisphere ice sheets and altering ocean circulation. These changes, in turn, affect climate by altering the amount of snow and ice, which reflect sunlight, and by changing greenhouse gas concentrations. This is actually part of how we know that greenhouse gases have the ability to significantly affect Earth’s temperature.

For at least the last 800,000 years , atmospheric CO2 concentrations oscillated between about 180 parts per million during ice ages and about 280 p.p.m. during warmer periods, as carbon moved between oceans, forests, soils and the atmosphere. These changes occurred in lock step with global temperatures, and are a major reason the entire planet warmed and cooled during glacial cycles, not just the frozen poles.

Today, however, CO2 levels have soared to 420 p.p.m. — the highest they’ve been in at least three million years . The concentration of CO2 is also increasing about 100 times faster than it did at the end of the last ice age. This suggests something else is going on, and we know what it is: Since the Industrial Revolution, humans have been burning fossil fuels and releasing greenhouse gases that are heating the planet now (see Question 5 for more details on how we know this, and Questions 4 and 8 for how we know that other natural forces aren’t to blame).

Over the next century or two, societies and ecosystems will experience the consequences of this climate change. But our emissions will have even more lasting geologic impacts: According to some studies, greenhouse gas levels may have already warmed the planet enough to delay the onset of the next glacial cycle for at least an additional 50,000 years.

The sun is the ultimate source of energy in Earth’s climate system, so it’s a natural candidate for causing climate change. And solar activity has certainly changed over time. We know from satellite measurements and other astronomical observations that the sun’s output changes on 11-year cycles. Geologic records and sunspot numbers, which astronomers have tracked for centuries, also show long-term variations in the sun’s activity, including some exceptionally quiet periods in the late 1600s and early 1800s.

We know that, from 1900 until the 1950s, solar irradiance increased. And studies suggest that this had a modest effect on early 20th century climate, explaining up to 10 percent of the warming that’s occurred since the late 1800s. However, in the second half of the century, when the most warming occurred, solar activity actually declined . This disparity is one of the main reasons we know that the sun is not the driving force behind climate change.

Another reason we know that solar activity hasn’t caused recent warming is that, if it had, all the layers of the atmosphere should be heating up. Instead, data show that the upper atmosphere has actually cooled in recent decades — a hallmark of greenhouse warming .

So how about volcanoes? Eruptions cool the planet by injecting ash and aerosol particles into the atmosphere that reflect sunlight. We’ve observed this effect in the years following large eruptions. There are also some notable historical examples, like when Iceland’s Laki volcano erupted in 1783, causing widespread crop failures in Europe and beyond, and the “ year without a summer ,” which followed the 1815 eruption of Mount Tambora in Indonesia.

Since volcanoes mainly act as climate coolers, they can’t really explain recent warming. However, scientists say that they may also have contributed slightly to rising temperatures in the early 20th century. That’s because there were several large eruptions in the late 1800s that cooled the planet, followed by a few decades with no major volcanic events when warming caught up. During the second half of the 20th century, though, several big eruptions occurred as the planet was heating up fast. If anything, they temporarily masked some amount of human-caused warming.

The second way volcanoes can impact climate is by emitting carbon dioxide. This is important on time scales of millions of years — it’s what keeps the planet habitable (see Question 5 for more on the greenhouse effect). But by comparison to modern anthropogenic emissions, even big eruptions like Krakatoa and Mount St. Helens are just a drop in the bucket. After all, they last only a few hours or days, while we burn fossil fuels 24-7. Studies suggest that, today, volcanoes account for 1 to 2 percent of total CO2 emissions.

When a big snowstorm hits the United States, climate denialists can try to cite it as proof that climate change isn’t happening. In 2015, Senator James Inhofe, an Oklahoma Republican, famously lobbed a snowball in the Senate as he denounced climate science. But these events don’t actually disprove climate change.

While there have been some memorable storms in recent years, winters are actually warming across the world. In the United States, average temperatures in December, January and February have increased by about 2.5 degrees this century.

On the flip side, record cold days are becoming less common than record warm days. In the United States, record highs now outnumber record lows two-to-one . And ever-smaller areas of the country experience extremely cold winter temperatures . (The same trends are happening globally.)

So what’s with the blizzards? Weather always varies, so it’s no surprise that we still have severe winter storms even as average temperatures rise. However, some studies suggest that climate change may be to blame. One possibility is that rapid Arctic warming has affected atmospheric circulation, including the fast-flowing, high-altitude air that usually swirls over the North Pole (a.k.a. the Polar Vortex ). Some studies suggest that these changes are bringing more frigid temperatures to lower latitudes and causing weather systems to stall , allowing storms to produce more snowfall. This may explain what we’ve experienced in the U.S. over the past few decades, as well as a wintertime cooling trend in Siberia , although exactly how the Arctic affects global weather remains a topic of ongoing scientific debate .

Climate change may also explain the apparent paradox behind some of the other places on Earth that haven’t warmed much. For instance, a splotch of water in the North Atlantic has cooled in recent years, and scientists say they suspect that may be because ocean circulation is slowing as a result of freshwater streaming off a melting Greenland . If this circulation grinds almost to a halt, as it’s done in the geologic past, it would alter weather patterns around the world.

Not all cold weather stems from some counterintuitive consequence of climate change. But it’s a good reminder that Earth’s climate system is complex and chaotic, so the effects of human-caused changes will play out differently in different places. That’s why “global warming” is a bit of an oversimplification. Instead, some scientists have suggested that the phenomenon of human-caused climate change would more aptly be called “ global weirding .”

Extreme weather and natural disasters are part of life on Earth — just ask the dinosaurs. But there is good evidence that climate change has increased the frequency and severity of certain phenomena like heat waves, droughts and floods. Recent research has also allowed scientists to identify the influence of climate change on specific events.

Let’s start with heat waves . Studies show that stretches of abnormally high temperatures now happen about five times more often than they would without climate change, and they last longer, too. Climate models project that, by the 2040s, heat waves will be about 12 times more frequent. And that’s concerning since extreme heat often causes increased hospitalizations and deaths, particularly among older people and those with underlying health conditions. In the summer of 2003, for example, a heat wave caused an estimated 70,000 excess deaths across Europe. (Human-caused warming amplified the death toll .)

Climate change has also exacerbated droughts , primarily by increasing evaporation. Droughts occur naturally because of random climate variability and factors like whether El Niño or La Niña conditions prevail in the tropical Pacific. But some researchers have found evidence that greenhouse warming has been affecting droughts since even before the Dust Bowl . And it continues to do so today. According to one analysis , the drought that afflicted the American Southwest from 2000 to 2018 was almost 50 percent more severe because of climate change. It was the worst drought the region had experienced in more than 1,000 years.

Rising temperatures have also increased the intensity of heavy precipitation events and the flooding that often follows. For example, studies have found that, because warmer air holds more moisture, Hurricane Harvey, which struck Houston in 2017, dropped between 15 and 40 percent more rainfall than it would have without climate change.

It’s still unclear whether climate change is changing the overall frequency of hurricanes, but it is making them stronger . And warming appears to favor certain kinds of weather patterns, like the “ Midwest Water Hose ” events that caused devastating flooding across the Midwest in 2019 .

It’s important to remember that in most natural disasters, there are multiple factors at play. For instance, the 2019 Midwest floods occurred after a recent cold snap had frozen the ground solid, preventing the soil from absorbing rainwater and increasing runoff into the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers. These waterways have also been reshaped by levees and other forms of river engineering, some of which failed in the floods.

Wildfires are another phenomenon with multiple causes. In many places, fire risk has increased because humans have aggressively fought natural fires and prevented Indigenous peoples from carrying out traditional burning practices. This has allowed fuel to accumulate that makes current fires worse .

However, climate change still plays a major role by heating and drying forests, turning them into tinderboxes. Studies show that warming is the driving factor behind the recent increases in wildfires; one analysis found that climate change is responsible for doubling the area burned across the American West between 1984 and 2015. And researchers say that warming will only make fires bigger and more dangerous in the future.

It depends on how aggressively we act to address climate change. If we continue with business as usual, by the end of the century, it will be too hot to go outside during heat waves in the Middle East and South Asia . Droughts will grip Central America, the Mediterranean and southern Africa. And many island nations and low-lying areas, from Texas to Bangladesh, will be overtaken by rising seas. Conversely, climate change could bring welcome warming and extended growing seasons to the upper Midwest , Canada, the Nordic countries and Russia . Farther north, however, the loss of snow, ice and permafrost will upend the traditions of Indigenous peoples and threaten infrastructure.

It’s complicated, but the underlying message is simple: unchecked climate change will likely exacerbate existing inequalities . At a national level, poorer countries will be hit hardest, even though they have historically emitted only a fraction of the greenhouse gases that cause warming. That’s because many less developed countries tend to be in tropical regions where additional warming will make the climate increasingly intolerable for humans and crops. These nations also often have greater vulnerabilities, like large coastal populations and people living in improvised housing that is easily damaged in storms. And they have fewer resources to adapt, which will require expensive measures like redesigning cities, engineering coastlines and changing how people grow food.

Already, between 1961 and 2000, climate change appears to have harmed the economies of the poorest countries while boosting the fortunes of the wealthiest nations that have done the most to cause the problem, making the global wealth gap 25 percent bigger than it would otherwise have been. Similarly, the Global Climate Risk Index found that lower income countries — like Myanmar, Haiti and Nepal — rank high on the list of nations most affected by extreme weather between 1999 and 2018. Climate change has also contributed to increased human migration, which is expected to increase significantly .

Even within wealthy countries, the poor and marginalized will suffer the most. People with more resources have greater buffers, like air-conditioners to keep their houses cool during dangerous heat waves, and the means to pay the resulting energy bills. They also have an easier time evacuating their homes before disasters, and recovering afterward. Lower income people have fewer of these advantages, and they are also more likely to live in hotter neighborhoods and work outdoors, where they face the brunt of climate change.

These inequalities will play out on an individual, community, and regional level. A 2017 analysis of the U.S. found that, under business as usual, the poorest one-third of counties, which are concentrated in the South, will experience damages totaling as much as 20 percent of gross domestic product, while others, mostly in the northern part of the country, will see modest economic gains. Solomon Hsiang, an economist at University of California, Berkeley, and the lead author of the study, has said that climate change “may result in the largest transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich in the country’s history.”

Even the climate “winners” will not be immune from all climate impacts, though. Desirable locations will face an influx of migrants. And as the coronavirus pandemic has demonstrated, disasters in one place quickly ripple across our globalized economy. For instance, scientists expect climate change to increase the odds of multiple crop failures occurring at the same time in different places, throwing the world into a food crisis .

On top of that, warmer weather is aiding the spread of infectious diseases and the vectors that transmit them, like ticks and mosquitoes . Research has also identified troubling correlations between rising temperatures and increased interpersonal violence , and climate change is widely recognized as a “threat multiplier” that increases the odds of larger conflicts within and between countries. In other words, climate change will bring many changes that no amount of money can stop. What could help is taking action to limit warming.

One of the most common arguments against taking aggressive action to combat climate change is that doing so will kill jobs and cripple the economy. But this implies that there’s an alternative in which we pay nothing for climate change. And unfortunately, there isn’t. In reality, not tackling climate change will cost a lot , and cause enormous human suffering and ecological damage, while transitioning to a greener economy would benefit many people and ecosystems around the world.

Let’s start with how much it will cost to address climate change. To keep warming well below 2 degrees Celsius, the goal of the Paris Climate Agreement, society will have to reach net zero greenhouse gas emissions by the middle of this century. That will require significant investments in things like renewable energy, electric cars and charging infrastructure, not to mention efforts to adapt to hotter temperatures, rising sea-levels and other unavoidable effects of current climate changes. And we’ll have to make changes fast.

Estimates of the cost vary widely. One recent study found that keeping warming to 2 degrees Celsius would require a total investment of between $4 trillion and $60 trillion, with a median estimate of $16 trillion, while keeping warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius could cost between $10 trillion and $100 trillion, with a median estimate of $30 trillion. (For reference, the entire world economy was about $88 trillion in 2019.) Other studies have found that reaching net zero will require annual investments ranging from less than 1.5 percent of global gross domestic product to as much as 4 percent . That’s a lot, but within the range of historical energy investments in countries like the U.S.

Now, let’s consider the costs of unchecked climate change, which will fall hardest on the most vulnerable. These include damage to property and infrastructure from sea-level rise and extreme weather, death and sickness linked to natural disasters, pollution and infectious disease, reduced agricultural yields and lost labor productivity because of rising temperatures, decreased water availability and increased energy costs, and species extinction and habitat destruction. Dr. Hsiang, the U.C. Berkeley economist, describes it as “death by a thousand cuts.”

As a result, climate damages are hard to quantify. Moody’s Analytics estimates that even 2 degrees Celsius of warming will cost the world $69 trillion by 2100, and economists expect the toll to keep rising with the temperature. In a recent survey , economists estimated the cost would equal 5 percent of global G.D.P. at 3 degrees Celsius of warming (our trajectory under current policies) and 10 percent for 5 degrees Celsius. Other research indicates that, if current warming trends continue, global G.D.P. per capita will decrease between 7 percent and 23 percent by the end of the century — an economic blow equivalent to multiple coronavirus pandemics every year. And some fear these are vast underestimates .

Already, studies suggest that climate change has slashed incomes in the poorest countries by as much as 30 percent and reduced global agricultural productivity by 21 percent since 1961. Extreme weather events have also racked up a large bill. In 2020, in the United States alone, climate-related disasters like hurricanes, droughts, and wildfires caused nearly $100 billion in damages to businesses, property and infrastructure, compared to an average of $18 billion per year in the 1980s.

Given the steep price of inaction, many economists say that addressing climate change is a better deal . It’s like that old saying: an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. In this case, limiting warming will greatly reduce future damage and inequality caused by climate change. It will also produce so-called co-benefits, like saving one million lives every year by reducing air pollution, and millions more from eating healthier, climate-friendly diets. Some studies even find that meeting the Paris Agreement goals could create jobs and increase global G.D.P . And, of course, reining in climate change will spare many species and ecosystems upon which humans depend — and which many people believe to have their own innate value.

The challenge is that we need to reduce emissions now to avoid damages later, which requires big investments over the next few decades. And the longer we delay, the more we will pay to meet the Paris goals. One recent analysis found that reaching net-zero by 2050 would cost the U.S. almost twice as much if we waited until 2030 instead of acting now. But even if we miss the Paris target, the economics still make a strong case for climate action, because every additional degree of warming will cost us more — in dollars, and in lives.

Veronica Penney contributed reporting.

Illustration photographs by Esther Horvath, Max Whittaker, David Maurice Smith and Talia Herman for The New York Times; Esther Horvath/Alfred-Wegener-Institut

An earlier version of this article misidentified the authors of The Debunking Handbook. It was written by social scientists who study climate communication, not a team of climate scientists.

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Chapter 1: Our Globally Changing Climate

Key findings, key finding 1.

The global climate continues to change rapidly compared to the pace of the natural variations in climate that have occurred throughout Earth’s history. Trends in globally averaged temperature, sea level rise, upper-ocean heat content, land-based ice melt, arctic sea ice, depth of seasonal permafrost thaw, and other climate variables provide consistent evidence of a warming planet. These observed trends are robust and have been confirmed by multiple independent research groups around the world. ( Very high confidence )

Key Finding 2

The frequency and intensity of extreme heat and heavy precipitation events are increasing in most continental regions of the world ( very high confidence ). These trends are consistent with expected physical responses to a warming climate. Climate model studies are also consistent with these trends, although models tend to underestimate the observed trends, especially for the increase in extreme precipitation events ( very high confidence for temperature, high confidence for extreme precipitation). The frequency and intensity of extreme high temperature events are virtually certain to increase in the future as global temperature increases ( high confidence ). Extreme precipitation events will very likely continue to increase in frequency and intensity throughout most of the world ( high confidence ). Observed and projected trends for some other types of extreme events, such as floods, droughts, and severe storms, have more variable regional characteristics.

Key Finding 3

Many lines of evidence demonstrate that it is extremely likely that human influence has been the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century. Formal detection and attribution studies for the period 1951 to 2010 find that the observed global mean surface temperature warming lies in the middle of the range of likely human contributions to warming over that same period. We find no convincing evidence that natural variability can account for the amount of global warming observed over the industrial era. For the period extending over the last century, there are no convincing alternative explanations supported by the extent of the observational evidence. Solar output changes and internal variability can only contribute marginally to the observed changes in climate over the last century, and we find no convincing evidence for natural cycles in the observational record that could explain the observed changes in climate. ( Very high confidence )

Key Finding 4

Global climate is projected to continue to change over this century and beyond. The magnitude of climate change beyond the next few decades will depend primarily on the amount of greenhouse (heat-trapping) gases emitted globally and on the remaining uncertainty in the sensitivity of Earth’s climate to those emissions ( very high confidence ). With significant reductions in the emissions of greenhouse gases, the global annually averaged temperature rise could be limited to 3.6°F (2°C) or less. Without major reductions in these emissions, the increase in annual average global temperatures relative to preindustrial times could reach 9°F (5°C) or more by the end of this century ( high confidence ).

Key Finding 5

Natural variability, including El Niño events and other recurring patterns of ocean–atmosphere interactions, impact temperature and precipitation, especially regionally, over months to years. The global influence of natural variability, however, is limited to a small fraction of observed climate trends over decades. ( Very high confidence )

Key Finding 6

Longer-term climate records over past centuries and millennia indicate that average temperatures in recent decades over much of the world have been much higher, and have risen faster during this time period, than at any time in the past 1,700 years or more, the time period for which the global distribution of surface temperatures can be reconstructed. ( High confidence )

Confidence Level

Documenting Uncertainty: This assessment relies on two metrics to communicate the degree of certainty in Key Findings. See Guide to this Report for more on assessments of likelihood and confidence.

1.1: Introduction

<b>Wuebbles</b>, D.J., D.R. Easterling, K. Hayhoe, T. Knutson, R.E. Kopp, J.P. Kossin, K.E. Kunkel, A.N. LeGrande, C. Mears, W.V. Sweet, P.C. Taylor, R.S. Vose, and M.F. Wehner, 2017: Our globally changing climate. In: <i>Climate Science Special Report: Fourth National Climate Assessment, Volume I</i> [Wuebbles, D.J., D.W. Fahey, K.A. Hibbard, D.J. Dokken, B.C. Stewart, and T.K. Maycock (eds.)]. U.S. Global Change Research Program, Washington, DC, USA, pp. 35-72, doi: <a href="http://doi.org/10.7930/J08S4N35">10.7930/J08S4N35</a>.

Since the Third U.S. National Climate Assessment (NCA3) was published in May 2014, new observations along multiple lines of evidence have strengthened the conclusion that Earth’s climate is changing at a pace and in a pattern not explainable by natural influences. While this report focuses especially on observed and projected future changes for the United States, it is important to understand those changes in the global context (this chapter).

The world has warmed over the last 150 years, especially over the last six decades, and that warming has triggered many other changes to Earth’s climate. Evidence for a changing climate abounds, from the top of the atmosphere to the depths of the oceans. Thousands of studies conducted by tens of thousands of scientists around the world have documented changes in surface, atmospheric, and oceanic temperatures; melting glaciers; disappearing snow cover; shrinking sea ice; rising sea level; and an increase in atmospheric water vapor. Rainfall patterns and storms are changing, and the occurrence of droughts is shifting.

Many lines of evidence demonstrate that human activities, especially emissions of greenhouse gases, are primarily responsible for the observed climate changes in the industrial era, especially over the last six decades (see attribution analysis in Ch. 3: Detection and Attribution ). Formal detection and attribution studies for the period 1951 to 2010 find that the observed global mean surface temperature warming lies in the middle of the range of likely human contributions to warming over that same period. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded that it is extremely likely that human influence has been the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century. 1 Over the last century, there are no alternative explanations supported by the evidence that are either credible or that can contribute more than marginally to the observed patterns. There is no convincing evidence that natural variability can account for the amount of and the pattern of global warming observed over the industrial era. 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 Solar flux variations over the last six decades have been too small to explain the observed changes in climate. 6 , 7 , 8 There are no apparent natural cycles in the observational record that can explain the recent changes in climate (e.g., PAGES 2k Consortium 2013; 9 Marcott et al. 2013; 10 Otto-Bliesner et al. 2016 11 ). In addition, natural cycles within Earth’s climate system can only redistribute heat; they cannot be responsible for the observed increase in the overall heat content of the climate system. 12 Any explanations for the observed changes in climate must be grounded in understood physical mechanisms, appropriate in scale, and consistent in timing and direction with the long-term observed trends. Known human activities quite reasonably explain what has happened without the need for other factors. Internal variability and forcing factors other than human activities cannot explain what is happening, and there are no suggested factors, even speculative ones, that can explain the timing or magnitude and that would somehow cancel out the role of human factors. 3 , 13 The science underlying this evidence, along with the observed and projected changes in climate, is discussed in later chapters, starting with the basis for a human influence on climate in Chapter 2: Physical Drivers of Climate Change .

Throughout this report, we also analyze projections of future changes in climate. As discussed in Chapter 4 , beyond the next few decades, the magnitude of climate change depends primarily on cumulative emissions of greenhouse gases and aerosols and the sensitivity of the climate system to those emissions. Predicting how climate will change in future decades is a different scientific issue from predicting weather a few weeks from now. Local weather is short term, with limited predictability, and is determined by the complicated movement and interaction of high pressure and low pressure systems in the atmosphere; thus, it is difficult to forecast day-to-day changes beyond about two weeks into the future. Climate, on the other hand, is the statistics of weather—meaning not just average values but also the prevalence and intensity of extremes—as observed over a period of decades. Climate emerges from the interaction, over time, of rapidly changing local weather and more slowly changing regional and global influences, such as the distribution of heat in the oceans, the amount of energy reaching Earth from the sun, and the composition of the atmosphere. See Chapter 4: Projections and later chapters for more on climate projections.

Throughout this report, we include many findings that further strengthen or add to the understanding of climate change relative to those found in NCA3 and other assessments of the science. Several of these are highlighted in an “Advances Since NCA3” box at the end of this chapter.

1.2: Indicators of a Globally Changing Climate

Highly diverse types of direct measurements made on land, sea, and in the atmosphere over many decades have allowed scientists to conclude with high confidence that global mean temperature is increasing. Observational datasets for many other climate variables support the conclusion with high confidence that the global climate is changing (also see EPA 2016 14 ). 15 , 16 Figure 1.1 depicts several of the observational indicators that demonstrate trends consistent with a warming planet over the last century. Temperatures in the lower atmosphere and ocean have increased, as have near-surface humidity and sea level. Not only has ocean heat content increased dramatically (Figure 1.1), but more than 90% of the energy gained in the combined ocean–atmosphere system over recent decades has gone into the ocean. 17 , 18 Five different observational datasets show the heat content of the oceans is increasing.

Basic physics tells us that a warmer atmosphere can hold more water vapor; this is exactly what is measured from satellite data. At the same time, a warmer world means higher evaporation rates and major changes to the hydrological cycle (e.g., Kundzewicz 2008; 19 IPCC 2013 1 ), including increases in the prevalence of torrential downpours. In addition, arctic sea ice, mountain glaciers, and Northern Hemisphere spring snow cover have all decreased. The relatively small increase in Antarctic sea ice in the 15-year period from 2000 through early 2016 appears to be best explained as being due to localized natural variability (see e.g., Meehl et al. 2016a; 16 Ramsayer 2014 20 ); while possibly also related to natural variability, the 2017 Antarctic sea ice minimum reached in early March was the lowest measured since reliable records began in 1979. The vast majority of the glaciers in the world are losing mass at significant rates. The two largest ice sheets on our planet—on the land masses of Greenland and Antarctica—are shrinking.

Many other indicators of the changing climate have been determined from other observations—for example, changes in the growing season and the allergy season (see e.g., EPA 2016; 14 USGCRP 2017 21 ). In general, the indicators demonstrate continuing changes in climate since the publication of NCA3. As with temperature, independent researchers have analyzed each of these indicators and come to the same conclusion: all of these changes paint a consistent and compelling picture of a warming planet.

This image shows observations globally from nine different variables that are key indicators of a warming climate. The indicators (listed below) all show long-term trends that are consistent with global warming. In parentheses are the number of datasets shown in each graph, the length of time covered by the combined datasets and their anomaly reference period (where applicable), and the direction of the trend: land surface air temperature (4 datasets, 1850–2016 relative to 1976–2005, increase); sea surface temperature (3 datasets, 1850–2016 relative to 1976–2005, increase); sea level (4 datasets, 1880–2014 relative to 1996–2005, increase); tropospheric temperature (5 datasets, 1958–2016 relative to 1981–2005, increase); ocean heat content, upper 700m (5 datasets, 1950–2016 relative to 1996–2005, increase); specific humidity (4 datasets, 1973–2016 relative to 1980–2003, increase); Northern Hemisphere snow cover, March–April and annual (1 dataset, 1967–2016 relative to 1976–2005, decrease); arctic sea ice extent, September and annual (1 dataset, 1979–2016, decrease); glacier cumulative mass balance (1 dataset, 1980–2016, decrease). More information on the datasets can be found in the accompanying metadata. (Figure source: NOAA NCEI and CICS-NC, updated from Melillo et al. 2014; 144 Blunden and Arndt 2016 15 ).

1.3: Trends in Global Temperatures

Global annual average temperature (as calculated from instrumental records over both land and oceans; used interchangeably with global average temperature in the discussion below) has increased by more than 1.2°F (0.7°C) for the period 1986–2016 relative to 1901–1960 (Figure 1.2); see Vose et al. 22 for discussion on how global annual average temperature is derived by scientists. The linear regression change over the entire period from 1901–2016 is 1.8°F (1.0°C). Global average temperature is not expected to increase smoothly over time in response to the human warming influences, because the warming trend is superimposed on natural variability associated with, for example, the El Niño/La Niña ocean-heat oscillations and the cooling effects of particles emitted by volcanic eruptions. Even so, 16 of the 17 warmest years in the instrumental record (since the late 1800s) occurred in the period from 2001 to 2016 (1998 was the exception). Global average temperature for 2016 has now surpassed 2015 by a small amount as the warmest year on record. The year 2015 far surpassed 2014 by 0.29°F (0.16°C), four times greater than the difference between 2014 and the next warmest year, 2010. 23 Three of the four warmest years on record have occurred since the analyses through 2012 were reported in NCA3.

A strong El Niño contributed to 2015’s record warmth. 15 Though an even more powerful El Niño occurred in 1998, the global temperature in that year was significantly lower (by 0.49°F [0.27°C]) than that in 2015. This suggests that human-induced warming now has a stronger influence on the occurrence of record temperatures than El Niño events. In addition, the El Niño/La Niña cycle may itself be affected by the human influence on Earth’s climate system. 3 , 24 It is the complex interaction of natural sources of variability with the continuously growing human warming influence that is now shaping Earth’s weather and, as a result, its climate.

Globally, the persistence of the warming over the past 60 years far exceeds what can be accounted for by natural variability alone. 1 That does not mean, of course, that natural sources of variability have become insignificant. They can be expected to continue to contribute a degree of “bumpiness” in the year-to-year global average temperature trajectory, as well as exert influences on the average rate of warming that can last a decade or more (see Box 1.1). 25 , 26 , 27

Top: Global annual average temperatures (as measured over both land and oceans) for 1880–2016 relative to the reference period of 1901–1960; red bars indicate temperatures above the average over 1901–1960, and blue bars indicate temperatures below the average. Global annual average temperature has increased by more than 1.2°F (0.7°C) for the period 1986–2016 relative to 1901–1960. While there is a clear long-term global warming trend, some years do not show a temperature increase relative to the previous year, and some years show greater changes than others. These year-to-year fluctuations in temperature are mainly due to natural sources of variability, such as the effects of El Niños, La Niñas, and volcanic eruptions. Based on the NCEI (NOAAGlobalTemp) dataset (updated from Vose et al. 22 ) Bottom: Global average temperature averaged over decadal periods (1886–1895, 1896–1905, …, 1996–2005, except for the 11 years in the last period, 2006–2016). Horizontal label indicates midpoint year of decadal period. Every decade since 1966–1975 has been warmer than the previous decade. (Figure source: [top] adapted from NCEI 2016, 23 [bottom] NOAA NCEI and CICS-NC).

Warming during the first half of the 1900s occurred mostly in the Northern Hemisphere. 28 Recent decades have seen greater warming in response to accelerating increases in greenhouse gas concentrations, particularly at high northern latitudes, and over land as compared to the ocean (see Figure 1.3). In general, winter is warming faster than summer (especially in northern latitudes). Also, nights are warming faster than days. 29 , 30 There is also some evidence of faster warming at higher elevations. 31

Most ocean areas around Earth are warming (see Ch. 13: Ocean Changes ). Even in the absence of significant ice melt, the ocean is expected to warm more slowly given its larger heat capacity, leading to land–ocean differences in warming (as seen in Figure 1.3). As a result, the climate for land areas often responds more rapidly than the ocean areas, even though the forcing driving a change in climate occurs equally over land and the oceans. 1 A few regions, such as the North Atlantic Ocean, have experienced cooling over the last century, though these areas have warmed over recent decades. Regional climate variability is important to determining potential effects of climate change on the ocean circulation (e.g., Hurrell and Deser 2009; 32 Hoegh-Guldberg et al. 2014 33 ) as are the effects of the increasing freshwater in the North Atlantic from melting of sea and land ice. 34

Surface temperature change (in °F) for the period 1986–2015 relative to 1901–1960 from the NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information’s (NCEI) surface temperature product. For visual clarity, statistical significance is not depicted on this map. Changes are generally significant (at the 90% level) over most land and ocean areas. Changes are not significant in parts of the North Atlantic Ocean, the South Pacific Ocean, and the southeastern United States. There is insufficient data in the Arctic Ocean and Antarctica for computing long-term changes (those sections are shown in gray because no trend can be derived). The relatively coarse resolution (5.0° × 5.0°) of these maps does not capture the finer details associated with mountains, coastlines, and other small-scale effects (see Ch. 6: Temperature Changes for a focus on the United States). (Figure source: updated from Vose et al. 2012 22 ).

Multimodel simulated time series from 1900 to 2100 for the change in global annual mean surface temperature relative to 1901–1960 for a range of the Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs; see Ch. 4: Projections for more information ). These scenarios account for the uncertainty in future emissions from human activities (as analyzed with the 20+ models from around the world used in the most recent international assessment 1 ). The mean (solid lines) and associated uncertainties (shading, showing ±2 standard deviations [5%–95%] across the distribution of individual models based on the average over 2081–2100) are given for all of the RCP scenarios as colored vertical bars. The numbers of models used to calculate the multimodel means are indicated. (Figure source: adapted from Walsh et al. 2014 201 ).

Figure 1.4 shows the projected changes in globally averaged temperature for a range of future pathways that vary from assuming strong continued dependence on fossil fuels in energy and transportation systems over the 21st century (the high scenario is Representative Concentration Pathway 8.5, or RCP8.5) to assuming major emissions reduction (the even lower scenario, RCP2.6). Chapter 4: Projections describes the future scenarios and the models of Earth’s climate system being used to quantify the impact of human choices and natural variability on future climate. These analyses also suggest that global surface temperature increases for the end of the 21st century are very likely to exceed 1.5°C (2.7°F) relative to the 1850–1900 average for all projections, with the exception of the lowest part of the uncertainty range for RCP2.6. 1 , 35 , 36 , 37

1.4: Trends in Global Precipitation

Annual averaged precipitation across global land areas exhibits a slight rise (that is not statistically significant because of a lack of data coverage early in the record) over the past century (see Figure 1.7) along with ongoing increases in atmospheric moisture levels. Interannual and interdecadal variability is clearly found in all precipitation evaluations, owing to factors such as the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) and ENSO—note that precipitation reconstructions are updated operationally by NOAA NCEI on a monthly basis. 57 , 58

Surface annually averaged precipitation change (in inches) for the period 1986–2015 relative to 1901–1960. The data is from long-term stations, so precipitation changes over the ocean and Antarctica cannot be evaluated. The trends are not considered to be statistically significant because of a lack of data coverage early in the record. The relatively coarse resolution (0.5° × 0.5°) of these maps does not capture the finer details associated with mountains, coastlines, and other small-scale effects. (Figure source: NOAA NCEI and CICS-NC).

The hydrological cycle and the amount of global mean precipitation is primarily controlled by the atmosphere’s energy budget and its interactions with clouds. 59 The amount of global mean precipitation also changes as a result of a mix of fast and slow atmospheric responses to the changing climate. 60 In the long term, increases in tropospheric radiative effects from increasing amounts of atmospheric CO 2 (i.e., increasing CO 2 leads to greater energy absorbed by the atmosphere and re-emitted to the surface, with the additional transport to the atmosphere coming by convection) must be balanced by increased latent heating, resulting in precipitation increases of approximately 0.55% to 0.72% per °F (1% to 3% per °C). 1 , 61 Global atmospheric water vapor should increase by about 6%–7% per °C of warming based on the Clausius–Clapeyron relationship (see Ch. 2: Physical Drivers of Climate Change ); satellite observations of changes in precipitable water over oceans have been detected at about this rate and attributed to human-caused changes in the atmosphere. 62 Similar observed changes in land-based measurements have also been attributed to the changes in climate from greenhouse gases. 63

Earlier studies suggested a climate change pattern of wet areas getting wetter and dry areas getting drier (e.g., Greve et al. 2014 64 ). While Hadley Cell expansion should lead to more drying in the subtropics, the poleward shift of storm tracks should lead to enhanced wet regions. While this high/low rainfall behavior appears to be valid over ocean areas, changes over land are more complicated. The wet versus dry pattern in observed precipitation has only been attributed for the zonal mean 65 , 66 and not regionally due to the large amount of spatial variation in precipitation changes as well as significant natural variability. The detected signal in zonal mean precipitation is largest in the Northern Hemisphere, with decreases in the subtropics and increases at high latitudes. As a result, the observed increase (about 5% since the 1950s 67 , 68 ) in annual averaged arctic precipitation have been detected and attributed to human activities. 69

1.5: Trends in Global Extreme Weather Events

A change in the frequency, duration, and/or magnitude of extreme weather events is one of the most important consequences of a warming climate. In statistical terms, a small shift in the mean of a weather variable, with or without this shift occurring in concert with a change in the shape of its probability distribution, can cause a large change in the probability of a value relative to an extreme threshold (see Figure 1.8 in IPCC 2013 1 ). 70 Examples include extreme high temperature events and heavy precipitation events. Some of the other extreme events, such as intense tropical cyclones, midlatitude cyclones, lightning, and hail and tornadoes associated with thunderstorms can occur as more isolated events and generally have more limited temporal and spatial observational datasets, making it more difficult to study their long-term trends. Detecting trends in the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events is challenging. 71 The most intense events are rare by definition, and observations may be incomplete and suffer from reporting biases. Further discussion on trends and projections of extreme events for the United States can be found in Chapters 6 – 9 and 11 .

An emerging area in the science of detection and attribution has been the attribution of extreme weather and climate events. Extreme event attribution generally addresses the question of whether climate change has altered the odds of occurrence of an extreme event like one just experienced. Attribution of extreme weather events under a changing climate is now an important and highly visible aspect of climate science. As discussed in a recent National Academy of Sciences (NAS) report, 72 the science of event attribution is rapidly advancing, including the understanding of the mechanisms that produce extreme events and the development of methods that are used for event attribution. Several other reports and papers have reviewed the topic of extreme event attribution. 73 , 74 , 75 This report briefly reviews extreme event attribution methodologies in practice ( Ch. 3: Detection and Attribution ) and provides a number of examples within the chapters on various climate phenomena (especially relating to the United States in Chapters 6 – 9 ).

Extreme Heat and Cold

The frequency of multiday heat waves and extreme high temperatures at both daytime and nighttime hours is increasing over many of the global land areas. 1 There are increasing areas of land throughout our planet experiencing an excess number of daily highs above given thresholds (for example, the 90th percentile), with an approximate doubling of the world’s land area since 1998 with 30 extreme heat days per year. 76 At the same time, frequencies of cold waves and extremely low temperatures are decreasing over the United States and much of the earth. In the United States, the number of record daily high temperatures has been about double the number of record daily low temperatures in the 2000s, 77 and much of the United States has experienced decreases of 5%–20% per decade in cold wave frequency. 1 , 75

The enhanced radiative forcing caused by greenhouse gases has a direct influence on heat extremes by shifting distributions of daily temperature. 78 Recent work indicates changes in atmospheric circulation may also play a significant role (see Ch. 5: Circulation and Variability ). For example, a recent study found that increasing anticyclonic circulations partially explain observed trends in heat events over North America and Eurasia, among other effects. 79 Observed changes in circulation may also be the result of human influences on climate, though this is still an area of active research.

Extreme Precipitation

A robust consequence of a warming climate is an increase in atmospheric water vapor, which exacerbates precipitation events under similar meteorological conditions, meaning that when rainfall occurs, the amount of rain falling in that event tends to be greater. As a result, what in the past have been considered to be extreme precipitation events are becoming more frequent. 1 , 80 , 81 , 82 On a global scale, the observational annual-maximum daily precipitation has increased by 8.5% over the last 110 years; global climate models also derive an increase in extreme precipitation globally but tend to underestimate the rate of the observed increase. 80 , 82 , 83 Extreme precipitation events are increasing in frequency globally over both wet and dry regions. 82 Although more spatially heterogeneous than heat extremes, numerous studies have found increases in precipitation extremes on many regions using a variety of methods and threshold definitions, 84 and those increases can be attributed to human-caused changes to the atmosphere. 85 , 86 Finally, extreme precipitation associated with tropical cyclones (TCs) is expected to increase in the future, 87 but current trends are not clear. 84

The impact of extreme precipitation trends on flooding globally is complex because additional factors like soil moisture and changes in land cover are important. 88 Globally, due to limited data, there is low confidence for any significant current trends in river-flooding associated with climate change, 89 but the magnitude and intensity of river flooding is projected to increase in the future. 90 More on flooding trends in the United States is in Chapter 8: Droughts, Floods, and Wildfires .

Tornadoes and Thunderstorms

Increasing air temperature and moisture increase the risk of extreme convection, and there is evidence for a global increase in severe thunderstorm conditions. 91 Strong convection, along with wind shear, represents favorable conditions for tornadoes. Thus, there is reason to expect increased tornado frequency and intensity in a warming climate. 92 Inferring current changes in tornado activity is hampered by changes in reporting standards, and trends remain highly uncertain (see Ch. 9: Extreme Storms ). 84

Winter Storms

Winter storm tracks have shifted slightly northward (by about 0.4 degrees latitude) in recent decades over the Northern Hemisphere. 93 More generally, extratropical cyclone activity is projected to change in complex ways under future climate scenarios, with increases in some regions and seasons and decreases in others. There are large model-to-model differences among CMIP5 climate models, with some models underestimating the current cyclone track density. 94 , 95

Enhanced arctic warming (arctic amplification), due in part to sea ice loss, reduces lower tropospheric meridional temperature gradients, diminishing baroclinicity (a measure of how misaligned the gradient of pressure is from the gradient of air density)—an important energy source for extratropical cyclones. At the same time, upper-level meridional temperature gradients will increase due to a warming tropical upper troposphere and a cooling high-latitude lower stratosphere. While these two effects counteract each other with respect to a projected change in midlatitude storm tracks, the simulations indicate that the magnitude of arctic amplification may modulate some aspects (e.g., jet stream position, wave extent, and blocking frequency) of the circulation in the North Atlantic region in some seasons. 96

Tropical Cyclones

Detection and attribution of trends in past tropical cyclone (TC) activity is hampered by uncertainties in the data collected prior to the satellite era and by uncertainty in the relative contributions of natural variability and anthropogenic influences. Theoretical arguments and numerical modeling simulations support an expectation that radiative forcing by greenhouse gases and anthropogenic aerosols can affect TC activity in a variety of ways, but robust formal detection and attribution for past observed changes has not yet been realized. Since the IPCC AR5, 1 there is new evidence that the locations where tropical cyclones reach their peak intensity have migrated poleward in both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres, in concert with the independently measured expansion of the tropics. 97 In the western North Pacific, this migration has substantially changed the tropical cyclone hazard exposure patterns in the region and appears to have occurred outside of the historically measured modes of regional natural variability. 98

Whether global trends in high-intensity tropical cyclones are already observable is a topic of active debate. Some research suggests positive trends, 99 , 100 but significant uncertainties remain (see Ch. 9: Extreme Storms ). 100 Other studies have suggested that aerosol pollution has masked the increase in TC intensity expected otherwise from enhanced greenhouse warming. 101 , 102

Tropical cyclone intensities are expected to increase with warming, both on average and at the high end of the scale, as the range of achievable intensities expands, so that the most intense storms will exceed the intensity of any in the historical record. 102 Some studies have projected an overall increase in tropical cyclone activity. 103 However, studies with high-resolution models are giving a different result. For example, a high-resolution dynamical downscaling study of global TC activity under the lower scenario (RCP4.5) projects an increased occurrence of the highest-intensity tropical cyclones (Saffir–Simpson Categories 4 and 5), along with a reduced overall tropical cyclone frequency, though there are considerable basin-to-basin differences. 87 Chapter 9: Extreme Storms covers more on extreme storms affecting the United States.

1.6: Global Changes in Land Processes

Changes in regional land cover have had important effects on climate, while climate change also has important effects on land cover (also see Ch. 10: Land Cover ). 1 In some cases, there are changes in land cover that are both consequences of and influences on global climate change (e.g., declines in land ice and snow cover, thawing permafrost, and insect damage to forests).

Northern Hemisphere snow cover extent has decreased, especially in spring, primarily due to earlier spring snowmelt (by about 0.2 million square miles [0.5 million square km] 104 , 105 ), and this decrease since the 1970s is at least partially driven by anthropogenic influences. 106 Snow cover reductions, especially in the Arctic region in summer, have led to reduced seasonal albedo. 107

While global-scale trends in drought are uncertain due to insufficient observations, regional trends indicate increased frequency and intensity of drought and aridification on land cover in the Mediterranean 108 , 109 and West Africa 110 , 111 and decreased frequency and intensity of droughts in central North America 112 and northwestern Australia. 110 , 111 , 113

Anthropogenic land-use changes, such as deforestation and growing cropland extent, have increased the global land surface albedo, resulting in a small cooling effect. Effects of other land-use changes, including modifications of surface roughness, latent heat flux, river runoff, and irrigation, are difficult to quantify, but may offset the direct land-use albedo changes. 114 , 115

Globally, land-use change since 1750 has been typified by deforestation, driven by the growth in intensive farming and urban development. Global land-use change is estimated to have released 190 ± 65 GtC (gigatonnes of carbon) through 2015. 116 , 117 Over the same period, cumulative fossil fuel and industrial emissions are estimated to have been 410 ± 20 GtC, yielding total anthropogenic emissions of 600 ± 70 GtC, of which cumulative land-use change emissions were about 32%. 116 , 117 Tropical deforestation is the dominant driver of land-use change emissions, estimated at 0.1–1.7 GtC per year, primarily from biomass burning. Global deforestation emissions of about 3 GtC per year are compensated by around 2 GtC per year of forest regrowth in some regions, mainly from abandoned agricultural land. 118 , 119

Natural terrestrial ecosystems are gaining carbon through uptake of CO 2 by enhanced photosynthesis due to higher CO 2 levels, increased nitrogen deposition, and longer growing seasons in mid- and high latitudes. Anthropogenic atmospheric CO 2 absorbed by land ecosystems is stored as organic matter in live biomass (leaves, stems, and roots), dead biomass (litter and woody debris), and soil carbon.

Many studies have documented a lengthening growing season, primarily due to the changing climate, 120 , 121 , 122 , 123 and elevated CO 2 is expected to further lengthen the growing season in places where the length is water limited. 124 In addition, a recent study has shown an overall increase in greening of Earth in vegetated regions, 125 while another has demonstrated evidence that the greening of Northern Hemisphere extratropical vegetation is attributable to anthropogenic forcings, particularly rising atmospheric greenhouse gas levels. 126 However, observations 127 , 128 , 129 and models 130 , 131 , 132 indicate that nutrient limitations and land availability will constrain future land carbon sinks.

Modifications to the water, carbon, and biogeochemical cycles on land result in both positive and negative feedbacks to temperature increases. 114 , 133 , 134 Snow and ice albedo feedbacks are positive, leading to increased temperatures with loss of snow and ice extent. While land ecosystems are expected to have a net positive feedback due to reduced natural sinks of CO 2 in a warmer world, anthropogenically increased nitrogen deposition may reduce the magnitude of the net feedback. 131 , 135 , 136 Increased temperature and reduced precipitation increase wildfire risk and susceptibility of terrestrial ecosystems to pests and disease, with resulting feedbacks on carbon storage. Increased temperature and precipitation, particularly at high latitudes, drives up soil decomposition, which leads to increased CO 2 and CH 4 (methane) emissions. 137 , 138 , 139 , 140 , 141 , 142 , 143 While some of these feedbacks are well known, others are not so well quantified and yet others remain unknown; the potential for surprise is discussed further in Chapter 15: Potential Surprises .

1.7: Global Changes in Sea Ice, Glaciers, and Land Ice

Since NCA3, 144 there have been significant advances in the understanding of changes in the cryosphere. Observations continue to show declines in arctic sea ice extent and thickness, Northern Hemisphere snow cover, and the volume of mountain glaciers and continental ice sheets. 1 , 145 , 146 , 147 , 148 , 149 Evidence suggests in many cases that the net loss of mass from the global cryosphere is accelerating indicating significant climate feedbacks and societal consequences. 150 , 151 , 152 , 153 , 154 , 155

Arctic sea ice areal extent, thickness, and volume have declined since 1979. 1 , 146 , 147 , 148 , 156 The annual arctic sea ice extent minimum for 2016 relative to the long-term record was the second lowest (2012 was the lowest) ( http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/ ). The arctic sea ice minimum extents in 2014 and 2015 were also among the lowest on record. Annually averaged arctic sea ice extent has decreased by 3.5%–4.1% per decade since 1979 with much larger reductions in summer and fall. 1 , 146 , 148 , 157 For example, September sea ice extent decreased by 13.3% per decade between 1979 and 2016. At the same time, September multi-year sea ice has melted faster than perennial sea ice (13.5% ± 2.5% and 11.5% ± 2.1% per decade, respectively, relative to the 1979–2012 average) corresponding to 4–7.5 feet (1.3–2.3 meter) declines in winter sea ice thickness. 1 , 156 October 2016 serves as a recent example of the observed lengthening of the arctic sea ice melt season marking the slowest recorded arctic sea ice growth rate for that month. 146 , 158 , 159 The annual arctic sea ice maximum in March 2017 was the lowest maximum areal extent on record ( http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/ ).

While current generation climate models project a nearly ice-free Arctic Ocean in late summer by mid-century, they still simulate weaker reductions in volume and extent than observed, suggesting that projected changes are too conservative. 1 , 147 , 160 , 161 See Chapter 11: Arctic Changes for further discussion of the implications of changes in the Arctic.

In contrast to the Arctic, sea ice extent around Antarctica has increased since 1979 by 1.2% to 1.8% per decade. 1 Strong regional differences in the sea ice growth rates are found around Antarctica but most regions (about 75%) show increases over the last 30 years. 162 The gain in antarctic sea ice is much smaller than the decrease in arctic sea ice. Changes in wind patterns, ice–ocean feedbacks, and freshwater flux have contributed to antarctic sea ice growth. 162 , 163 , 164 , 165

Since the NCA3, 144 the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) constellation (e.g., Velicogna and Wahr 2013 166 ) has provided a record of gravimetric land ice measurements, advancing knowledge of recent mass loss from the global cryosphere. These measurements indicate that mass loss from the Antarctic Ice Sheet, Greenland Ice Sheet, and mountain glaciers around the world continues accelerating in some cases. 151 , 152 , 154 , 155 , 167 , 168 The annually averaged ice mass from 37 global reference glaciers has decreased every year since 1984, a decline expected to continue even if climate were to stabilize. 1 , 153 , 169 , 170

Ice sheet dynamics in West Antarctica are characterized by land ice that transitions to coastal and marine ice sheet systems. Recent observed rapid mass loss from West Antarctica’s floating ice shelves is attributed to increased glacial discharge rates due to diminishing ice shelves from the surrounding ocean becoming warmer. 171 , 172 Recent evidence suggests that the Amundsen Sea sector is expected to disintegrate entirely 151 , 168 , 172 raising sea level by at least 1.2 meters (about 4 feet) and potentially an additional foot or more on top of current sea level rise projections during this century (see Section 1.2.7 and Ch. 12: Sea Level Rise for further details). 173 The potential for unanticipated rapid ice sheet melt and/or disintegration is discussed further in Chapter 15: Potential Surprises .

Over the last decade, the Greenland Ice Sheet mass loss has accelerated, losing 244 ± 6 Gt per year on average between January 2003 and May 2013. 1 , 155 , 174 , 175 The portion of the Greenland Ice Sheet experiencing annual melt has increased since 1980 including significant events. 1 , 176 , 177 , 178 A recent example, an unprecedented 98.6% of the Greenland Ice Sheet surface experienced melt on a single day in July 2012. 179 , 180 Encompassing this event, GRACE data indicate that Greenland lost 562 Gt of mass between April 2012 and April 2013—more than double the average annual mass loss.

In addition, permafrost temperatures and active layer thicknesses have increased across much of the Arctic (also see Ch. 11: Arctic Changes ). 1 , 181 , 182 Rising permafrost temperatures causing permafrost to thaw and become more discontinuous raises concerns about potential emissions of carbon dioxide and methane. 1 The potentially large contribution of carbon and methane emissions from permafrost and the continental shelf in the Arctic to overall warming is discussed further in Chapter 15: Potential Surprises .

1.8: Global Changes in Sea Level

Statistical analyses of tide gauge data indicate that global mean sea level has risen about 8–9 inches (20–23 cm) since 1880, with a rise rate of approximately 0.5–0.6 inches/decade from 1901 to1990 (about 12–15 mm/decade; also see Ch. 12: Sea Level Rise ). 183 , 184 However, since the early 1990s, both tide gauges and satellite altimeters have recorded a faster rate of sea level rise of about 1.2 inches/decade (approximately 3 cm/decade), 183 , 184 , 185 resulting in about 3 inches (about 8 cm) of the global rise since the early 1990s. Nearly two-thirds of the sea level rise measured since 2005 has resulted from increases in ocean mass, primarily from land-based ice melt; the remaining one-third of the rise is in response to changes in density from increasing ocean temperatures. 186

Global sea level rise and its regional variability forced by climatic and ocean circulation patterns are contributing to significant increases in annual tidal-flood frequencies, which are measured by NOAA tide gauges and associated with minor infrastructure impacts to date; along some portions of the U.S. coast, frequency of the impacts from such events appears to be accelerating (also see Ch. 12: Sea-Level Rise ). 187 , 188

Future projections show that by 2100, global mean sea level is very likely to rise by 1.6–4.3 feet (0.5–1.3 m) under the higher scenario (RCP8.5), 1.1–3.1 feet (0.35–0.95 m) under a lower scenario (RCP4.5), and 0.8–2.6 feet (0.24–0.79 m) under and even lower scenario (RCP2.6) (see Ch. 4: Projections for a description of the scenarios). 189 Sea level will not rise uniformly around the coasts of the United States and its oversea territories. Local sea level rise is likely to be greater than the global average along the U.S. Atlantic and Gulf Coasts and less than the global average in most of the Pacific Northwest. Emerging science suggests these projections may be underestimates, particularly for higher scenarios; a global mean sea level rise exceeding 8 feet (2.4 m) by 2100 cannot be excluded (see Ch. 12: Sea Level Rise ), and even higher amounts are possible as a result of marine ice sheet instability (see Ch. 15: Potential Surprises ). We have updated the global sea level rise scenarios for 2100 of Parris et al. 190 accordingly, 191 and also extended to year 2200 in Chapter 12: Sea Level Rise . The scenarios are regionalized to better match the decision context needed for local risk framing purposes.

1.9: Recent Global Changes Relative to Paleoclimates

Proxy temperatures reconstructions for the seven regions of the PAGES 2k Network. Temperature anomalies are relative to the 1961–1990 reference period. If this graph were plotted relative to 1901–1960 instead of 1961–1990, the temperature changes would 0.47°F (0.26°C) higher. Gray lines around expected-value estimates indicate uncertainty ranges as defined by each regional group (see PAGE 2k Consortium 9 and related Supplementary Information). Note that the changes in temperature over the last century tend to occur at a much faster rate than found in the previous time periods. The teal values are from the HadCRUT4 surface observation record for land and ocean for the 1800s to 2000. 202

(Figure source: adapted from PAGES 2k Consortium 2013 9 ).

Paleoclimate records demonstrate long-term natural variability in the climate and overlap the records of the last two millennia, referred to here as the “Common Era.” Before the emissions of greenhouse gases from fossil fuels and other human-related activities became a major factor over the last few centuries, the strongest drivers of climate during the last few thousand years had been volcanoes and land-use change (which has both albedo and greenhouse gas emissions effects). 192 Based on a number of proxies for temperature (for example, from tree rings, fossil pollen, corals, ocean and lake sediments, and ice cores), temperature records are available for the last 2,000 years on hemispherical and continental scales (Figures 1.8 and 1.9). 9 , 193 High-resolution temperature records for North America extend back less than half of this period, with temperatures in the early parts of the Common Era inferred from analyses of pollen and other archives. For this era, there is a general cooling trend, with a relatively rapid increase in temperature over the last 150–200 years (Figure 1.9, ). For context, global annual averaged temperatures for 1986–2015 are likely much higher, and appear to have risen at a more rapid rate during the last 3 decades, than any similar period possibly over the past 2,000 years or longer (IPCC 1 makes a similar statement, but for the last 1,400 years because of data quality issues before that time).

Changes in the temperature of the Northern Hemisphere from surface observations (in red) and from proxies (in black; uncertainty range represented by shading) relative to 1961–1990 average temperature. If this graph were plotted relative to 1901–1960 instead of 1961–1990, the temperature changes would be 0.47°F (0.26°C) higher. These analyses suggest that current temperatures are higher than seen in the Northern Hemisphere, and likely globally, in at least the last 1,700 years, and that the last decade (2006–2015) was the warmest decade on record. (Figure source: adapted from Mann et al. 2008 193 ).

Global temperatures of the magnitude observed recently (and projected for the rest of this century) are related to very different forcings than past climates, but studies of past climates suggest that such global temperatures were likely last observed during the Eemian period—the last interglacial—125,000 years ago; at that time, global temperatures were, at their peak, about 1.8°F–3.6°F (1°C­–2°C) warmer than preindustrial temperatures. 194 Coincident with these higher temperatures, sea levels during that period were about 16–30 feet (6–9 meters) higher than modern levels 195 , 196 (for further discussion on sea levels in the past, see Ch. 12: Sea Level Rise ).

Modeling studies suggest that the Eemian period warming can be explained in part by the hemispheric changes in solar insolation from orbital forcing as a result of cyclic changes in the shape of Earth’s orbit around the sun (e.g., Kaspar et al. 2005 197 ), even though greenhouse gas concentrations were similar to preindustrial levels. Equilibrium climate with modern greenhouse gas concentrations (about 400 ppm CO 2 ) most recently occurred 3 million years ago during the Pliocene. During the warmest parts of this period, global temperatures were 5.4°F–7.2°F (3°C–4°C) higher than today, and sea levels were about 82 feet (25 meters) higher. 198

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Causes and Effects of Climate Change

Fossil fuels – coal, oil and gas – are by far the largest contributor to global climate change, accounting for over 75 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions and nearly 90 per cent of all carbon dioxide emissions. As greenhouse gas emissions blanket the Earth, they trap the sun’s heat. This leads to global warming and climate change. The world is now warming faster than at any point in recorded history. Warmer temperatures over time are changing weather patterns and disrupting the usual balance of nature. This poses many risks to human beings and all other forms of life on Earth. 

Sacred plant helps forge a climate-friendly future in Paraguay

El Niño and climate crisis raise drought fears in Madagascar

The El Niño climate pattern, a naturally occurring phenomenon, can significantly disrupt global weather systems, but the human-made climate emergency is exacerbating the destructive effects.

“Verified for Climate” champions: Communicating science and solutions

Gustavo Figueirôa, biologist and communications director at SOS Pantanal, and Habiba Abdulrahman, eco-fashion educator, introduce themselves as champions for “Verified for Climate,” a joint initiative of the United Nations and Purpose to stand up to climate disinformation and put an end to the narratives of denialism, doomism, and delay.

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The scientific method and climate change: How scientists know

By Holly Shaftel, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory

The scientific method is the gold standard for exploring our natural world. You might have learned about it in grade school, but here’s a quick reminder: It’s the process that scientists use to understand everything from animal behavior to the forces that shape our planet—including climate change.

“The way science works is that I go out and study something, and maybe I collect data or write equations, or I run a big computer program,” said Josh Willis, principal investigator of NASA’s Oceans Melting Greenland (OMG) mission and oceanographer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. “And I use it to learn something about how the world works.”

Using the scientific method, scientists have shown that humans are extremely likely the dominant cause of today’s climate change. The story goes back to the late 1800s, but in 1958, for example, Charles Keeling of the Mauna Loa Observatory in Waimea, Hawaii, started taking meticulous measurements of carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) in the atmosphere, showing the first significant evidence of rapidly rising CO 2 levels and producing the Keeling Curve climate scientists know today.

“The way science works is that I go out and study something, and maybe I collect data or write equations, or I run a big computer program, and I use it to learn something about how the world works.”- Josh Willis, NASA oceanographer and Oceans Melting Greenland principal investigator

Since then, thousands of peer-reviewed scientific papers have come to the same conclusion about climate change, telling us that human activities emit greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, raising Earth’s average temperature and bringing a range of consequences to our ecosystems.

“The weight of all of this information taken together points to the single consistent fact that humans and our activity are warming the planet,” Willis said.

The scientific method’s steps

The exact steps of the scientific method can vary by discipline, but since we have only one Earth (and no “test” Earth), climate scientists follow a few general guidelines to better understand carbon dioxide levels, sea level rise, global temperature and more.

• Form a hypothesis (a statement that an experiment can test)
• Make observations (conduct experiments and gather data)
• Analyze and interpret the data
• Draw conclusions
• Publish results that can be validated with further experiments (rinse and repeat)

As you can see, the scientific method is iterative (repetitive), meaning that climate scientists are constantly making new discoveries about the world based on the building blocks of scientific knowledge.

“The weight of all of this information taken together points to the single consistent fact that humans and our activity are warming the planet." - Josh Willis, NASA oceanographer and Oceans Melting Greenland principal investigator

The scientific method at work.

How does the scientific method work in the real world of climate science? Let’s take NASA’s Oceans Melting Greenland (OMG) campaign, a multi-year survey of Greenland’s ice melt that’s paving the way for improved sea level rise estimates, as an example.

• Form a hypothesis OMG hypothesizes that the oceans are playing a major role in Greenland ice loss.
• Make observations Over a five-year period, OMG will survey Greenland by air and ship to collect ocean temperature and salinity (saltiness) data and take ice thinning measurements to help climate scientists better understand how the ice and warming ocean interact with each other. OMG will also collect data on the sea floor’s shape and depth, which determines how much warm water can reach any given glacier.
• Analyze and interpret data As the OMG crew and scientists collect data around 27,000 miles (over 43,000 kilometers) of Greenland coastline over that five-year period, each year scientists will analyze the data to see how much the oceans warmed or cooled and how the ice changed in response.
• Draw conclusions In one OMG study , scientists discovered that many Greenland glaciers extend deeper (some around 1,000 feet, or about 300 meters) beneath the ocean’s surface than once thought, making them quite vulnerable to the warming ocean. They also discovered that Greenland’s west coast is generally more vulnerable than its east coast.
• Publish results Scientists like Willis write up the results, send in the paper for peer review (a process in which other experts in the field anonymously critique the submission), and then those peers determine whether the information is correct and valuable enough to be published in an academic journal, such as Nature or Earth and Planetary Science Letters . Then it becomes another contribution to the well-substantiated body of climate change knowledge, which evolves and grows stronger as scientists gather and confirm more evidence. Other scientists can take that information further by conducting their own studies to better understand sea level rise.

All in all, the scientific method is “a way of going from observations to answers,” NASA terrestrial ecosystem scientist Erika Podest, based at JPL, said. It adds clarity to our way of thinking and shows that scientific knowledge is always evolving.

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• ENVIRONMENT

Oceans and ice are absorbing the brunt of climate change

The latest report from the IPCC highlights the dramatic toll warming has taken on the world's water.

Meltwater gushes from an ice cap on the island of Nordaustlandet, in Norway's Svalbard archipelago. The Arctic is warming faster than the rest of the planet, and the ice in the region is melting fast.

Climate change is here, heating the oceans and crumbling the planet’s ice sheets, a new report from the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) lays out.

On Wednesday, the IPCC released a major report on the state of the planet's oceans and ice. The 900-page report, which compiles the findings from thousands of scientific studies, outlines the damage climate change has already done to the planet’s vast oceans and fragile ice sheets and forecasts the future for these crucial parts of the climate system.

Climate change’s impacts, the report says, are already readily visible from the top of the highest mountain to the very bottom of the ocean—and tangible for every human on the planet.

The problems aren’t theoretical, the report stresses: Science shows that they are here, now. And the oceans, polar ice caps, and high mountain glaciers have already absorbed so much extra heat from human-caused global warming that the very systems human existence depends on are already at stake.

For example, Planpincieux glacier on the Italian side of Mount Blanc is expected to collapse at any time , prompting road closures and evacuations of structures in the area. And in the oceans, many fisheries have shifted and shrunken , impacting million-dollar businesses and subsistence fishers alike. The 27 percent of Earth’s human population that lives near coasts are bearing the brunt of higher seas and stronger storms . Marine “heat waves” sweep across the ocean twice as often as they did only three decades ago. And millions that rely on water from high-mountain glaciers and snowpack, the "water towers" of the world, are adjusting to both newly strengthened floods and devastating droughts.

These challenges are only going to get worse unless countries make lightning-fast moves to eliminate greenhouse gas emissions, the report says. But strong, decisive action could still forestall or evade some of the worst impacts.

For Hungry Minds

"The oceans and cryosphere have been taking the heat of climate change for decades,” says Ko Barrett , the vice chair of the IPCC. “The report highlights the urgency of timely, ambitious, coordinated, and enduring actions. What’s at stake is the health of ecosystems, wildlife, and importantly, the world we leave our children."

Why we should listen to this report?

In 2015, world leaders gathered in Paris at a climate-focused meeting, where they agreed to try to limit planetary warming to an average of 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial temperatures—and to aim for a more ambitious goal of keeping warming under 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit).

At the time, 2 degrees Celsius was considered a “safe” target. Keeping the planet’s average temperature below that, world leaders said, would still result in great stresses on the economy, social systems, and natural environments, but would stave off the most devastating impacts.

Since then, two things have happened: First, science has made clear that the planet has already warmed about 1 degree Celsius, on average, while some regions, like the Arctic, have overshot that warming by at least four times . Second, thousands of scientists have diligently catalogued evidence that even 1.5 degrees of warming could push parts of the climate system in ways that would have devastating environmental, social, and economic impacts.

The IPCC gathers up evidence from scientists worldwide and summarizes the state of knowledge about the planet’s present and future, and sets about reassessing what the past few years of new science could tell us. Since 1990, it has prepared five comprehensive assessment reports, and it’s currently working on the sixth. It also prepares special reports on specific topics—including three important ones in just the past year.

The first, released last year, warned that even 1.5 degrees of warming would wreak havoc on the planet. The second, a few months ago, outlined both the already-observed impacts and likely future of lands and forests . This latest report, on the oceans and ice caps, rounds out the trio. (A related report, released earlier this year, summarized climate change’s impact on the planet’s biodiversity , warning of imminent collapses in many delicate ecosystems).

In 2008, Opal Reef, on Australia's Great Barrier Reef, teemed with life. Its corals were healthy and robust.

By 2018, after some of the hottest years the reef had ever experienced, the scene was much different.

Taken together, the reports offer a bleak vision of the future, particularly because it is rapidly becoming apparent that both the 1.5- and the 2-degree Celsius goals will be difficult, if not impossible , to hit . The 1.5 degrees report said countries would have to aim for a “net-zero” greenhouse gas situation by 2050 in order to meet that target. But we’re currently on a very different track—one that leads us to 3.5 degrees or more of warming by the end of the century. ( See how the planet’s carbon budget looks now ).

Last week, an estimated four million people worldwide marched in a global climate strike, demanding that world leaders take action to address climate change. But earlier this week, when world leaders gathered at the UN Climate Action Summit in New York, they collectively failed to announce any major new commitments to solving the carbon problem. Meaningful action is still sparse— only a few countries are close to hitting the targets for reducing their emissions.

What’s at stake? Just about everything.

This report summarizes decades of research from scientists worldwide and focuses on two crucial parts of the climate system: oceans and ice. Climate change has already reshaped both.

The ocean has borne the brunt of the impacts, absorbing over 90 percent of the extra heat trapped in the atmosphere by excess greenhouse gases since the 1970s and somewhere between 20 to 30 percent of the carbon dioxide. That means water has buffered land-dwellers against the worst effects of climate change; without it, the atmosphere would have heated up much more than the average of 1 degree it already has.

“The rate of climate change has actually gone up since 1993, and that rate of warming of global oceans has actually doubled since then,” says Nathan Bindoff , a lead author on the report and an oceanographer at the University of Tasmania.

In tandem, marine heat waves—short bursts of hot marine weather—have also doubled, stressing out anything that they sweep over.

RELATED: See images from the ocean's soul

But the ocean’s buffering influence has come at a cost, with a fingerprint that is becoming ever clearer to scientists and anyone else paying attention to the natural world.

“The payback from oceans taking up all that heat is enormous,” says Matthew England , an oceanographer at the University of New South Wales. “We see it not just through warmer surface waters, but in melting ice caps, and also in things like the intensifying of tropical cyclones.

“A warmer ocean loads more moisture in the atmosphere and generates more intense rainfall. And marine life is obviously impacted. The list goes on: there’s all sorts of payback from the oceans’ absorption of the extra heat,” he says.

Hotter oceans fuel stronger hurricanes and rainier storms . But warming also has influences less obvious to humans. As the surface of the water warms, it gets lighter, making it harder to mix it with cold, nutrient-rich water below. So the top part of the ocean stagnates slightly, holding less oxygen and less of the critical nutrients that support marine life. And the carbon dioxide bleeding into the ocean is causing it to become more acidic , stressing out any organism that builds its shells out of acid-sensitive calcium carbonate, from tiny plankton to oysters to massive reef-building corals.

All together, the effects on marine life are far from subtle. Already, the report summarizes, about 30 percent of the world’s reefs have been stressed to near their breaking point , and 60 percent are heavily threatened. With 1.5 degrees of warming—the ambitious target, given that we’ve burned through a degree of that already—science tells us that 70 to 90 percent of reefs could collapse by 2100. At 2 degrees, that number jumps to more than 99 percent.

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That’s devastating for the reefs themselves, but also for the communities that live near and rely on them, the report says. Reefs operate as barriers to soften the blow of storms and waves on coastal communities; as nursery zones for many of the fish that feed humans worldwide; they sustain tourism and cultural practice for coastal communities; and more.

The warming of the top layer of the ocean also affects the fisheries humans rely on. Already, a range of marine species have been marching poleward in search of cooler climes. ( Read about how “global fish wars” caused by climate change could be coming) .

“Now, there’s tons of evidence, decades of change that we’ve observed, and now we can go in and say we are confident that climate change is influencing so many of these different species,” says Jennifer Sunday , a marine biologist at McGill University.

And if we continue tracking forward with the same high-carbon lifestyle the planet is currently on, science suggests that fish stocks could decrease by nearly 20 percent by the end of the century. Already, catches from open-ocean fisheries, like tuna, have stagnated, the report summarizes. That’s partly because of overfishing, but the pattern is exacerbated by climate change.

Ice isn’t immune

Ice everywhere—from the high mountains to the polar ice caps—is also changing, and fast.

Some impacts of melting ice are felt very directly by communities that live nearby. In the high mountains, like the Andes or the Himalaya, glaciers are retreating at unprecedented rates some 30 percent higher than a few decades ago, the report says.

Glacier melt currently provides fresh water to millions of high-mountain dwellers, as well as communities downstream. As glaciers retreat, the amount, timing, and quality of the meltwater change—and people have to respond.

In the high Himalaya, meltwater courses into lakes that sit at the edge of retreating glaciers. The lakes are often perched precariously above towns and villages, threatening to flood the settlements below .

And in Peru, the extra melt coming off the rapidly retreating glaciers of the Cordillera Blanca has an expanding high-elevation agricultural boom. But that glacier—like most of the high-mountain ice in the world—is likely to disappear or dwindle to a nub of its former self by the middle of the century, reshaping the economy of the region.

“These glaciers are critical for all kinds of water resources,” says Twila Moon , a glaciologist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Colorado. “Drinking water, agriculture, energy production, so much more. Even where they’re not perhaps problematic at this moment, they will be soon; we can very clearly see these problems coming down the line.”

Changes in Earth’s ice also affect people who live far from the high mountains or the poles. Since the early 1900s, average sea levels around the world have risen by about 16 centimeters (just over 6 inches). Now, the report says, melt from Greenland and Antarctica, the planet’s great storehouses of ice, is the primary driver of rising sea levels around the world. Melt from those ice sheets is now responsible for over half of the sea level rise happening today—about 1.8 millimeters each year.

That may not sound like a lot, but it adds up fast, and the number is projected to go way up. But the speed at which the ocean rises, and how much higher it will get, depends on how we collectively manage our carbon budgets now.

If all countries held themselves to their most ambitious goals, the polar ice sheets would add somewhere between 5 to 23 centimeters to the world’s oceans by 2100 (the mountain glaciers and the expansion of warmer ocean waters would add more). But if we continue on a path similar to today’s, by the end of the century the ice sheet could add much more melt to the oceans: between 11 to 55 centimeters.

Overall, that means sea level rise of just over 40 centimeters by 2100 if we’re careful, and over 80 centimeters—more than 2 feet—if we’re not.

And, the IPCC report points out, there is emerging evidence that those numbers could jump even higher if a major tipping point in Antarctica is crossed . Warm water, creeping closer and closer to a delicate part of the West Antarctic ice sheet, could initiate a runaway melting situation that would cause vast swaths of the ice sheet to collapse.

“It’s really this sort of doomsday scenario,” says Brooke Medley , a glaciologist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. “Once you trigger that retreat, it’s nearly impossible to stop.”

The report makes explicit mention of the possibility but doesn’t include those estimates in the 2100 projections.

No change occurs in a vacuum: It’s all connected

In West Antarctica, the ice responds to changes in the ocean, and vice versa. That’s a perfect illustration of the climate system, says Regine Hock , a glaciologist at the University of Alaska and a lead author on a chapter of the report: It's an interconnected set of phenomena. What happens in one part of the world is far from isolated.

“The changes we see are not only consistent across the systems, but they’re linked. From the highest mountains to the oceans, these systems are directly linked to each other,” says Hock.

And the choices humans make in one part of the world can affect every other. The future looks very different in a world where emissions drop quickly, the report shows.

“Our future depends on who we are and what we can do together,” says Heidi Steltzer , a lead author of the report and a mountain scientist at Fort Lewis College. “It’s a time when we must collaborate on solutions.”

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Perspectives

Five Reflections on the IPCC Climate Change Report

October 24, 2018

By Justin Adams, Executive Director, Tropical Forest Alliance

In response to last week’s release of the UN’s IPCC report on the climate, which warned that “unprecedented” changes were needed to slow or stop global warming beyond 1.5C pre-industrial period, it’s easy judging by the headlines and subsequent global response to perhaps give up or sink into despair. “Terrifying.” “Time to Wake Up.” “Final Call”. “Ten years to Act ” were just some of the headlines. Could this report, as shocking as it is, actually be the much-needed catalyst for action we’ve all been waiting for? Letting the dust settle a little on this powerful series of findings endorsed by all the world’s governments, these are my top five reflections. 

Could this report actually be the much-needed catalyst for action we’ve all been waiting for?

1. We now have a better understanding that every fraction of a degree counts

The report shows that every fraction of a degree of warming matters. Continued rising temperatures will exact a huge toll on people, natural ecosystems and the economy. The IPCC concludes the world will likely reach 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels as soon as 2030. It notes that 20-40 percent of the global population lives in regions that have already experienced warming of more than 1.5°C in at least one season.

The primary way to limit warming to less than 1.5°C is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions—and eventually reach net-zero emissions. According to the report, to limit warming to 1.5°C with “no or limited overshoot,” net global CO 2 emissions need to fall by about 45 percent from 2010 levels by 2030 and reach net zero by around 2050.  

The report puts it this way: “By 2100, global sea-level rise would be 10 cm lower with global warming of 1.5°C compared with 2°C. The likelihood of an Arctic Ocean free of sea ice in summer would be once per century with global warming of 1.5°C, compared with at least once per decade with 2°C. Coral reefs would decline by 70-90 percent with global warming of 1.5°C, whereas virtually all would be lost with 2°C.”

However, here is the kicker. Even with the pledged emission cuts under the Paris Agreement, the world is nowhere near achieving the volume of necessary cuts. To do so, we would need “rapid and far-reaching transitions” across the entire global economy, including changes in the way we source and use energy, how we use land and grow food, and what types and quantities of food and materials we consume. 

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2.   We have a better understanding of deep mitigation pathways—and nature is the ‘forgotten solution’ we need to reach 1.5°C

A series of reports that qualify and quantify the power of nature as a climate solution have also been released. The CLARA Alliance just released  its report , suggesting that shifting from industrial crop and livestock production toward more ecological methods would make a major contribution towards reducing emissions, while also feeding people fairly and empowering the world’s smallholder farmers, particularly women. It points out that the 1.5 degree goal can be met without relying on planetary-scale land-use change like BECCS (Bioenergy with Carbon Capture Storage) for carbon removal.

Further huge emissions savings can be made if sections of society that enjoy high levels of meat consumption shifted to consuming fewer animal products, and to a more plant-based flexitarian diet.  A “less and better” approach to food production would go a long way toward cutting emissions, the report says, while still feeding the world fairly. Taken together, ecosystem-based approaches and transformative changes in land and agriculture sectors could deliver 11 Gt CO2-eq per year in avoided emissions, and a further 10 Gt CO2-eq per year in carbon sequestered into the biosphere by 2050.

Furthermore, a study by  The Nature Conservancy (TNC) and a group of other organizations  published last year found that natural climate solutions like these could deliver a third of the required mitigation by 2030 to restrict global warming to 2 degrees. The key is that these natural solutions are affordable, actionable and scalable  today . They do not involve technologies still under development with unknown costs. A forthcoming assessment on land use in the USA is also expected to show enormous potential. 

3. It’s one system

Protecting and increasing tropical forest cover is vital, since these regions cool the air and are key to generating regional rainfall that supports food production. Yet commodities like beef, soy, timber and palm oil are currently responsible for over half of tropical forest loss. What we eat and use matters. Soil leads the way as a carbon sink and is among the cheapest methods with the greatest potential. The IPCC found that by 2050, soil carbon sequestration could remove between two and five gigatons of CO2 a year , at a cost ranging from less than $0 to $100 per ton. It also helps us grow our food.

4. Action and money are needed now

We need to talk about how to shift capital. As mentioned above, one reading of scenarios presented in the report to stay below 1.5 C of warming shows that we only have until around 2030 to achieve net-zero emissions globally. That's essentially tomorrow when we're talking about the pace of change required in a complex, dynamic systems like energy, food and financial markets.

Most organizations  working along and together  now recognize that to stop or slow global warming, we will have to increase current levels of ambition. Natural climate solutions, which have long been overlooked by the international community, will have to play a much bigger role. In effect that means governments and companies must set specific targets for natural climate solutions in their commitments under Paris.

It also means a ramp-up in finance: right now, the land sector only receives around 3% of public climate funding. That will have to be targeted to leverage the scale of the private sector if the transition on land is to be successful.

5. This is no longer just an ‘environmental story’

Time’s up. It's time to take action now or pay for it later – indeed, not much later if current climate trends are any indication. To get to 2 degrees Celsius or under, all these solutions require unprecedented efforts to cut fossil-fuel use in half in less than 15 years and eliminate their use almost entirely within 30 years. Long siloed, the conversation at least this month took on a new urgency. Climate change is no longer just a political story. The science is clear, the impacts too obvious, the potentially irreversible repercussions as well as deployable solutions imminent. Now it's a business story, a legal story and, increasingly, a story about the potential contribution of both technology and nature working alongside each other.

The good news is that the future hasn’t already been set in stone. Climate change is an inescapable present and future reality, but the point of the IPCC report is that there is still a chance to seize the best-case scenario rather than surrender to the worst. This December, Poland hosts the next UN governmental meeting, and the UN Secretary General has asked global leaders to meet with him at a special summit in New York in September next year, citing alarm by the paralysis of world leaders on what he called the "defining issue" of our time. Grave threat, or unmissable opportunity for movement and funding? There is still time to decide, although the window is narrowing rapidly. 

Originally Posted on  Nature4Climate October 17, 2018 View Original

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A review of the global climate change impacts, adaptation, and sustainable mitigation measures

Kashif abbass.

1 School of Economics and Management, Nanjing University of Science and Technology, Nanjing, 210094 People’s Republic of China

Muhammad Zeeshan Qasim

2 Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Chemical Pollution Control and Resources Reuse, School of Environmental and Biological Engineering, Nanjing University of Science and Technology, Xiaolingwei 200, Nanjing, 210094 People’s Republic of China

Huaming Song

Muntasir murshed.

3 School of Business and Economics, North South University, Dhaka, 1229 Bangladesh

4 Department of Journalism, Media and Communications, Daffodil International University, Dhaka, Bangladesh

Haider Mahmood

5 Department of Finance, College of Business Administration, Prince Sattam Bin Abdulaziz University, 173, Alkharj, 11942 Saudi Arabia

Ijaz Younis

Associated data.

Data sources and relevant links are provided in the paper to access data.

Climate change is a long-lasting change in the weather arrays across tropics to polls. It is a global threat that has embarked on to put stress on various sectors. This study is aimed to conceptually engineer how climate variability is deteriorating the sustainability of diverse sectors worldwide. Specifically, the agricultural sector’s vulnerability is a globally concerning scenario, as sufficient production and food supplies are threatened due to irreversible weather fluctuations. In turn, it is challenging the global feeding patterns, particularly in countries with agriculture as an integral part of their economy and total productivity. Climate change has also put the integrity and survival of many species at stake due to shifts in optimum temperature ranges, thereby accelerating biodiversity loss by progressively changing the ecosystem structures. Climate variations increase the likelihood of particular food and waterborne and vector-borne diseases, and a recent example is a coronavirus pandemic. Climate change also accelerates the enigma of antimicrobial resistance, another threat to human health due to the increasing incidence of resistant pathogenic infections. Besides, the global tourism industry is devastated as climate change impacts unfavorable tourism spots. The methodology investigates hypothetical scenarios of climate variability and attempts to describe the quality of evidence to facilitate readers’ careful, critical engagement. Secondary data is used to identify sustainability issues such as environmental, social, and economic viability. To better understand the problem, gathered the information in this report from various media outlets, research agencies, policy papers, newspapers, and other sources. This review is a sectorial assessment of climate change mitigation and adaptation approaches worldwide in the aforementioned sectors and the associated economic costs. According to the findings, government involvement is necessary for the country’s long-term development through strict accountability of resources and regulations implemented in the past to generate cutting-edge climate policy. Therefore, mitigating the impacts of climate change must be of the utmost importance, and hence, this global threat requires global commitment to address its dreadful implications to ensure global sustenance.

Introduction

Worldwide observed and anticipated climatic changes for the twenty-first century and global warming are significant global changes that have been encountered during the past 65 years. Climate change (CC) is an inter-governmental complex challenge globally with its influence over various components of the ecological, environmental, socio-political, and socio-economic disciplines (Adger et al.  2005 ; Leal Filho et al.  2021 ; Feliciano et al.  2022 ). Climate change involves heightened temperatures across numerous worlds (Battisti and Naylor  2009 ; Schuurmans  2021 ; Weisheimer and Palmer  2005 ; Yadav et al.  2015 ). With the onset of the industrial revolution, the problem of earth climate was amplified manifold (Leppänen et al.  2014 ). It is reported that the immediate attention and due steps might increase the probability of overcoming its devastating impacts. It is not plausible to interpret the exact consequences of climate change (CC) on a sectoral basis (Izaguirre et al.  2021 ; Jurgilevich et al.  2017 ), which is evident by the emerging level of recognition plus the inclusion of climatic uncertainties at both local and national level of policymaking (Ayers et al.  2014 ).

Climate change is characterized based on the comprehensive long-haul temperature and precipitation trends and other components such as pressure and humidity level in the surrounding environment. Besides, the irregular weather patterns, retreating of global ice sheets, and the corresponding elevated sea level rise are among the most renowned international and domestic effects of climate change (Lipczynska-Kochany  2018 ; Michel et al.  2021 ; Murshed and Dao 2020 ). Before the industrial revolution, natural sources, including volcanoes, forest fires, and seismic activities, were regarded as the distinct sources of greenhouse gases (GHGs) such as CO 2 , CH 4 , N 2 O, and H 2 O into the atmosphere (Murshed et al. 2020 ; Hussain et al.  2020 ; Sovacool et al.  2021 ; Usman and Balsalobre-Lorente 2022 ; Murshed 2022 ). United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) struck a major agreement to tackle climate change and accelerate and intensify the actions and investments required for a sustainable low-carbon future at Conference of the Parties (COP-21) in Paris on December 12, 2015. The Paris Agreement expands on the Convention by bringing all nations together for the first time in a single cause to undertake ambitious measures to prevent climate change and adapt to its impacts, with increased funding to assist developing countries in doing so. As so, it marks a turning point in the global climate fight. The core goal of the Paris Agreement is to improve the global response to the threat of climate change by keeping the global temperature rise this century well below 2 °C over pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5° C (Sharma et al. 2020 ; Sharif et al. 2020 ; Chien et al. 2021 .

Furthermore, the agreement aspires to strengthen nations’ ability to deal with the effects of climate change and align financing flows with low GHG emissions and climate-resilient paths (Shahbaz et al. 2019 ; Anwar et al. 2021 ; Usman et al. 2022a ). To achieve these lofty goals, adequate financial resources must be mobilized and provided, as well as a new technology framework and expanded capacity building, allowing developing countries and the most vulnerable countries to act under their respective national objectives. The agreement also establishes a more transparent action and support mechanism. All Parties are required by the Paris Agreement to do their best through “nationally determined contributions” (NDCs) and to strengthen these efforts in the coming years (Balsalobre-Lorente et al. 2020 ). It includes obligations that all Parties regularly report on their emissions and implementation activities. A global stock-take will be conducted every five years to review collective progress toward the agreement’s goal and inform the Parties’ future individual actions. The Paris Agreement became available for signature on April 22, 2016, Earth Day, at the United Nations Headquarters in New York. On November 4, 2016, it went into effect 30 days after the so-called double threshold was met (ratification by 55 nations accounting for at least 55% of world emissions). More countries have ratified and continue to ratify the agreement since then, bringing 125 Parties in early 2017. To fully operationalize the Paris Agreement, a work program was initiated in Paris to define mechanisms, processes, and recommendations on a wide range of concerns (Murshed et al. 2021 ). Since 2016, Parties have collaborated in subsidiary bodies (APA, SBSTA, and SBI) and numerous formed entities. The Conference of the Parties functioning as the meeting of the Parties to the Paris Agreement (CMA) convened for the first time in November 2016 in Marrakesh in conjunction with COP22 and made its first two resolutions. The work plan is scheduled to be finished by 2018. Some mitigation and adaptation strategies to reduce the emission in the prospective of Paris agreement are following firstly, a long-term goal of keeping the increase in global average temperature to well below 2 °C above pre-industrial levels, secondly, to aim to limit the rise to 1.5 °C, since this would significantly reduce risks and the impacts of climate change, thirdly, on the need for global emissions to peak as soon as possible, recognizing that this will take longer for developing countries, lastly, to undertake rapid reductions after that under the best available science, to achieve a balance between emissions and removals in the second half of the century. On the other side, some adaptation strategies are; strengthening societies’ ability to deal with the effects of climate change and to continue & expand international assistance for developing nations’ adaptation.

However, anthropogenic activities are currently regarded as most accountable for CC (Murshed et al. 2022 ). Apart from the industrial revolution, other anthropogenic activities include excessive agricultural operations, which further involve the high use of fuel-based mechanization, burning of agricultural residues, burning fossil fuels, deforestation, national and domestic transportation sectors, etc. (Huang et al.  2016 ). Consequently, these anthropogenic activities lead to climatic catastrophes, damaging local and global infrastructure, human health, and total productivity. Energy consumption has mounted GHGs levels concerning warming temperatures as most of the energy production in developing countries comes from fossil fuels (Balsalobre-Lorente et al. 2022 ; Usman et al. 2022b ; Abbass et al. 2021a ; Ishikawa-Ishiwata and Furuya  2022 ).

This review aims to highlight the effects of climate change in a socio-scientific aspect by analyzing the existing literature on various sectorial pieces of evidence globally that influence the environment. Although this review provides a thorough examination of climate change and its severe affected sectors that pose a grave danger for global agriculture, biodiversity, health, economy, forestry, and tourism, and to purpose some practical prophylactic measures and mitigation strategies to be adapted as sound substitutes to survive from climate change (CC) impacts. The societal implications of irregular weather patterns and other effects of climate changes are discussed in detail. Some numerous sustainable mitigation measures and adaptation practices and techniques at the global level are discussed in this review with an in-depth focus on its economic, social, and environmental aspects. Methods of data collection section are included in the supplementary information.

Review methodology

Related study and its objectives.

Today, we live an ordinary life in the beautiful digital, globalized world where climate change has a decisive role. What happens in one country has a massive influence on geographically far apart countries, which points to the current crisis known as COVID-19 (Sarkar et al.  2021 ). The most dangerous disease like COVID-19 has affected the world’s climate changes and economic conditions (Abbass et al. 2022 ; Pirasteh-Anosheh et al.  2021 ). The purpose of the present study is to review the status of research on the subject, which is based on “Global Climate Change Impacts, adaptation, and sustainable mitigation measures” by systematically reviewing past published and unpublished research work. Furthermore, the current study seeks to comment on research on the same topic and suggest future research on the same topic. Specifically, the present study aims: The first one is, organize publications to make them easy and quick to find. Secondly, to explore issues in this area, propose an outline of research for future work. The third aim of the study is to synthesize the previous literature on climate change, various sectors, and their mitigation measurement. Lastly , classify the articles according to the different methods and procedures that have been adopted.

Review methodology for reviewers

This review-based article followed systematic literature review techniques that have proved the literature review as a rigorous framework (Benita  2021 ; Tranfield et al.  2003 ). Moreover, we illustrate in Fig.  1 the search method that we have started for this research. First, finalized the research theme to search literature (Cooper et al.  2018 ). Second, used numerous research databases to search related articles and download from the database (Web of Science, Google Scholar, Scopus Index Journals, Emerald, Elsevier Science Direct, Springer, and Sciverse). We focused on various articles, with research articles, feedback pieces, short notes, debates, and review articles published in scholarly journals. Reports used to search for multiple keywords such as “Climate Change,” “Mitigation and Adaptation,” “Department of Agriculture and Human Health,” “Department of Biodiversity and Forestry,” etc.; in summary, keyword list and full text have been made. Initially, the search for keywords yielded a large amount of literature.

Methodology search for finalized articles for investigations.

Source : constructed by authors

Since 2020, it has been impossible to review all the articles found; some restrictions have been set for the literature exhibition. The study searched 95 articles on a different database mentioned above based on the nature of the study. It excluded 40 irrelevant papers due to copied from a previous search after readings tiles, abstract and full pieces. The criteria for inclusion were: (i) articles focused on “Global Climate Change Impacts, adaptation, and sustainable mitigation measures,” and (ii) the search key terms related to study requirements. The complete procedure yielded 55 articles for our study. We repeat our search on the “Web of Science and Google Scholars” database to enhance the search results and check the referenced articles.

In this study, 55 articles are reviewed systematically and analyzed for research topics and other aspects, such as the methods, contexts, and theories used in these studies. Furthermore, this study analyzes closely related areas to provide unique research opportunities in the future. The study also discussed future direction opportunities and research questions by understanding the research findings climate changes and other affected sectors. The reviewed paper framework analysis process is outlined in Fig.  2 .

Framework of the analysis Process.

Natural disasters and climate change’s socio-economic consequences

Natural and environmental disasters can be highly variable from year to year; some years pass with very few deaths before a significant disaster event claims many lives (Symanski et al.  2021 ). Approximately 60,000 people globally died from natural disasters each year on average over the past decade (Ritchie and Roser  2014 ; Wiranata and Simbolon  2021 ). So, according to the report, around 0.1% of global deaths. Annual variability in the number and share of deaths from natural disasters in recent decades are shown in Fig.  3 . The number of fatalities can be meager—sometimes less than 10,000, and as few as 0.01% of all deaths. But shock events have a devastating impact: the 1983–1985 famine and drought in Ethiopia; the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami; Cyclone Nargis, which struck Myanmar in 2008; and the 2010 Port-au-Prince earthquake in Haiti and now recent example is COVID-19 pandemic (Erman et al.  2021 ). These events pushed global disaster deaths to over 200,000—more than 0.4% of deaths in these years. Low-frequency, high-impact events such as earthquakes and tsunamis are not preventable, but such high losses of human life are. Historical evidence shows that earlier disaster detection, more robust infrastructure, emergency preparedness, and response programmers have substantially reduced disaster deaths worldwide. Low-income is also the most vulnerable to disasters; improving living conditions, facilities, and response services in these areas would be critical in reducing natural disaster deaths in the coming decades.

Global deaths from natural disasters, 1978 to 2020.

Source EMDAT ( 2020 )

The interior regions of the continent are likely to be impacted by rising temperatures (Dimri et al.  2018 ; Goes et al.  2020 ; Mannig et al.  2018 ; Schuurmans  2021 ). Weather patterns change due to the shortage of natural resources (water), increase in glacier melting, and rising mercury are likely to cause extinction to many planted species (Gampe et al.  2016 ; Mihiretu et al.  2021 ; Shaffril et al.  2018 ).On the other hand, the coastal ecosystem is on the verge of devastation (Perera et al.  2018 ; Phillips  2018 ). The temperature rises, insect disease outbreaks, health-related problems, and seasonal and lifestyle changes are persistent, with a strong probability of these patterns continuing in the future (Abbass et al. 2021c ; Hussain et al.  2018 ). At the global level, a shortage of good infrastructure and insufficient adaptive capacity are hammering the most (IPCC  2013 ). In addition to the above concerns, a lack of environmental education and knowledge, outdated consumer behavior, a scarcity of incentives, a lack of legislation, and the government’s lack of commitment to climate change contribute to the general public’s concerns. By 2050, a 2 to 3% rise in mercury and a drastic shift in rainfall patterns may have serious consequences (Huang et al. 2022 ; Gorst et al.  2018 ). Natural and environmental calamities caused huge losses globally, such as decreased agriculture outputs, rehabilitation of the system, and rebuilding necessary technologies (Ali and Erenstein  2017 ; Ramankutty et al.  2018 ; Yu et al.  2021 ) (Table ​ (Table1). 1 ). Furthermore, in the last 3 or 4 years, the world has been plagued by smog-related eye and skin diseases, as well as a rise in road accidents due to poor visibility.

Main natural danger statistics for 1985–2020 at the global level

Source: EM-DAT ( 2020 )

Climate change and agriculture

Global agriculture is the ultimate sector responsible for 30–40% of all greenhouse emissions, which makes it a leading industry predominantly contributing to climate warming and significantly impacted by it (Grieg; Mishra et al.  2021 ; Ortiz et al.  2021 ; Thornton and Lipper  2014 ). Numerous agro-environmental and climatic factors that have a dominant influence on agriculture productivity (Pautasso et al.  2012 ) are significantly impacted in response to precipitation extremes including floods, forest fires, and droughts (Huang  2004 ). Besides, the immense dependency on exhaustible resources also fuels the fire and leads global agriculture to become prone to devastation. Godfray et al. ( 2010 ) mentioned that decline in agriculture challenges the farmer’s quality of life and thus a significant factor to poverty as the food and water supplies are critically impacted by CC (Ortiz et al.  2021 ; Rosenzweig et al.  2014 ). As an essential part of the economic systems, especially in developing countries, agricultural systems affect the overall economy and potentially the well-being of households (Schlenker and Roberts  2009 ). According to the report published by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases, i.e., CH 4, CO 2 , and N 2 O, are increased in the air to extraordinary levels over the last few centuries (Usman and Makhdum 2021 ; Stocker et al.  2013 ). Climate change is the composite outcome of two different factors. The first is the natural causes, and the second is the anthropogenic actions (Karami 2012 ). It is also forecasted that the world may experience a typical rise in temperature stretching from 1 to 3.7 °C at the end of this century (Pachauri et al. 2014 ). The world’s crop production is also highly vulnerable to these global temperature-changing trends as raised temperatures will pose severe negative impacts on crop growth (Reidsma et al. 2009 ). Some of the recent modeling about the fate of global agriculture is briefly described below.

Decline in cereal productivity

Crop productivity will also be affected dramatically in the next few decades due to variations in integral abiotic factors such as temperature, solar radiation, precipitation, and CO 2 . These all factors are included in various regulatory instruments like progress and growth, weather-tempted changes, pest invasions (Cammell and Knight 1992 ), accompanying disease snags (Fand et al. 2012 ), water supplies (Panda et al. 2003 ), high prices of agro-products in world’s agriculture industry, and preeminent quantity of fertilizer consumption. Lobell and field ( 2007 ) claimed that from 1962 to 2002, wheat crop output had condensed significantly due to rising temperatures. Therefore, during 1980–2011, the common wheat productivity trends endorsed extreme temperature events confirmed by Gourdji et al. ( 2013 ) around South Asia, South America, and Central Asia. Various other studies (Asseng, Cao, Zhang, and Ludwig 2009 ; Asseng et al. 2013 ; García et al. 2015 ; Ortiz et al. 2021 ) also proved that wheat output is negatively affected by the rising temperatures and also caused adverse effects on biomass productivity (Calderini et al. 1999 ; Sadras and Slafer 2012 ). Hereafter, the rice crop is also influenced by the high temperatures at night. These difficulties will worsen because the temperature will be rising further in the future owing to CC (Tebaldi et al. 2006 ). Another research conducted in China revealed that a 4.6% of rice production per 1 °C has happened connected with the advancement in night temperatures (Tao et al. 2006 ). Moreover, the average night temperature growth also affected rice indicia cultivar’s output pragmatically during 25 years in the Philippines (Peng et al. 2004 ). It is anticipated that the increase in world average temperature will also cause a substantial reduction in yield (Hatfield et al. 2011 ; Lobell and Gourdji 2012 ). In the southern hemisphere, Parry et al. ( 2007 ) noted a rise of 1–4 °C in average daily temperatures at the end of spring season unti the middle of summers, and this raised temperature reduced crop output by cutting down the time length for phenophases eventually reduce the yield (Hatfield and Prueger 2015 ; R. Ortiz 2008 ). Also, world climate models have recommended that humid and subtropical regions expect to be plentiful prey to the upcoming heat strokes (Battisti and Naylor 2009 ). Grain production is the amalgamation of two constituents: the average weight and the grain output/m 2 , however, in crop production. Crop output is mainly accredited to the grain quantity (Araus et al. 2008 ; Gambín and Borrás 2010 ). In the times of grain set, yield resources are mainly strewn between hitherto defined components, i.e., grain usual weight and grain output, which presents a trade-off between them (Gambín and Borrás 2010 ) beside disparities in per grain integration (B. L. Gambín et al. 2006 ). In addition to this, the maize crop is also susceptible to raised temperatures, principally in the flowering stage (Edreira and Otegui 2013 ). In reality, the lower grain number is associated with insufficient acclimatization due to intense photosynthesis and higher respiration and the high-temperature effect on the reproduction phenomena (Edreira and Otegui 2013 ). During the flowering phase, maize visible to heat (30–36 °C) seemed less anthesis-silking intermissions (Edreira et al. 2011 ). Another research by Dupuis and Dumas ( 1990 ) proved that a drop in spikelet when directly visible to high temperatures above 35 °C in vitro pollination. Abnormalities in kernel number claimed by Vega et al. ( 2001 ) is related to conceded plant development during a flowering phase that is linked with the active ear growth phase and categorized as a critical phase for approximation of kernel number during silking (Otegui and Bonhomme 1998 ).

The retort of rice output to high temperature presents disparities in flowering patterns, and seed set lessens and lessens grain weight (Qasim et al. 2020 ; Qasim, Hammad, Maqsood, Tariq, & Chawla). During the daytime, heat directly impacts flowers which lessens the thesis period and quickens the earlier peak flowering (Tao et al. 2006 ). Antagonistic effect of higher daytime temperature d on pollen sprouting proposed seed set decay, whereas, seed set was lengthily reduced than could be explicated by pollen growing at high temperatures 40◦C (Matsui et al. 2001 ).

The decline in wheat output is linked with higher temperatures, confirmed in numerous studies (Semenov 2009 ; Stone and Nicolas 1994 ). High temperatures fast-track the arrangements of plant expansion (Blum et al. 2001 ), diminution photosynthetic process (Salvucci and Crafts‐Brandner 2004 ), and also considerably affect the reproductive operations (Farooq et al. 2011 ).

The destructive impacts of CC induced weather extremes to deteriorate the integrity of crops (Chaudhary et al. 2011 ), e.g., Spartan cold and extreme fog cause falling and discoloration of betel leaves (Rosenzweig et al. 2001 ), giving them a somehow reddish appearance, squeezing of lemon leaves (Pautasso et al. 2012 ), as well as root rot of pineapple, have reported (Vedwan and Rhoades 2001 ). Henceforth, in tackling the disruptive effects of CC, several short-term and long-term management approaches are the crucial need of time (Fig.  4 ). Moreover, various studies (Chaudhary et al. 2011 ; Patz et al. 2005 ; Pautasso et al. 2012 ) have demonstrated adapting trends such as ameliorating crop diversity can yield better adaptability towards CC.

Schematic description of potential impacts of climate change on the agriculture sector and the appropriate mitigation and adaptation measures to overcome its impact.

Climate change impacts on biodiversity

Global biodiversity is among the severe victims of CC because it is the fastest emerging cause of species loss. Studies demonstrated that the massive scale species dynamics are considerably associated with diverse climatic events (Abraham and Chain 1988 ; Manes et al. 2021 ; A. M. D. Ortiz et al. 2021 ). Both the pace and magnitude of CC are altering the compatible habitat ranges for living entities of marine, freshwater, and terrestrial regions. Alterations in general climate regimes influence the integrity of ecosystems in numerous ways, such as variation in the relative abundance of species, range shifts, changes in activity timing, and microhabitat use (Bates et al. 2014 ). The geographic distribution of any species often depends upon its ability to tolerate environmental stresses, biological interactions, and dispersal constraints. Hence, instead of the CC, the local species must only accept, adapt, move, or face extinction (Berg et al. 2010 ). So, the best performer species have a better survival capacity for adjusting to new ecosystems or a decreased perseverance to survive where they are already situated (Bates et al. 2014 ). An important aspect here is the inadequate habitat connectivity and access to microclimates, also crucial in raising the exposure to climate warming and extreme heatwave episodes. For example, the carbon sequestration rates are undergoing fluctuations due to climate-driven expansion in the range of global mangroves (Cavanaugh et al. 2014 ).

Similarly, the loss of kelp-forest ecosystems in various regions and its occupancy by the seaweed turfs has set the track for elevated herbivory by the high influx of tropical fish populations. Not only this, the increased water temperatures have exacerbated the conditions far away from the physiological tolerance level of the kelp communities (Vergés et al. 2016 ; Wernberg et al. 2016 ). Another pertinent danger is the devastation of keystone species, which even has more pervasive effects on the entire communities in that habitat (Zarnetske et al. 2012 ). It is particularly important as CC does not specify specific populations or communities. Eventually, this CC-induced redistribution of species may deteriorate carbon storage and the net ecosystem productivity (Weed et al. 2013 ). Among the typical disruptions, the prominent ones include impacts on marine and terrestrial productivity, marine community assembly, and the extended invasion of toxic cyanobacteria bloom (Fossheim et al. 2015 ).

The CC-impacted species extinction is widely reported in the literature (Beesley et al. 2019 ; Urban 2015 ), and the predictions of demise until the twenty-first century are dreadful (Abbass et al. 2019 ; Pereira et al. 2013 ). In a few cases, northward shifting of species may not be formidable as it allows mountain-dwelling species to find optimum climates. However, the migrant species may be trapped in isolated and incompatible habitats due to losing topography and range (Dullinger et al. 2012 ). For example, a study indicated that the American pika has been extirpated or intensely diminished in some regions, primarily attributed to the CC-impacted extinction or at least local extirpation (Stewart et al. 2015 ). Besides, the anticipation of persistent responses to the impacts of CC often requires data records of several decades to rigorously analyze the critical pre and post CC patterns at species and ecosystem levels (Manes et al. 2021 ; Testa et al. 2018 ).

Nonetheless, the availability of such long-term data records is rare; hence, attempts are needed to focus on these profound aspects. Biodiversity is also vulnerable to the other associated impacts of CC, such as rising temperatures, droughts, and certain invasive pest species. For instance, a study revealed the changes in the composition of plankton communities attributed to rising temperatures. Henceforth, alterations in such aquatic producer communities, i.e., diatoms and calcareous plants, can ultimately lead to variation in the recycling of biological carbon. Moreover, such changes are characterized as a potential contributor to CO 2 differences between the Pleistocene glacial and interglacial periods (Kohfeld et al. 2005 ).

Climate change implications on human health

It is an understood corporality that human health is a significant victim of CC (Costello et al. 2009 ). According to the WHO, CC might be responsible for 250,000 additional deaths per year during 2030–2050 (Watts et al. 2015 ). These deaths are attributed to extreme weather-induced mortality and morbidity and the global expansion of vector-borne diseases (Lemery et al. 2021; Yang and Usman 2021 ; Meierrieks 2021 ; UNEP 2017 ). Here, some of the emerging health issues pertinent to this global problem are briefly described.

Climate change and antimicrobial resistance with corresponding economic costs

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is an up-surging complex global health challenge (Garner et al. 2019 ; Lemery et al. 2021 ). Health professionals across the globe are extremely worried due to this phenomenon that has critical potential to reverse almost all the progress that has been achieved so far in the health discipline (Gosling and Arnell 2016 ). A massive amount of antibiotics is produced by many pharmaceutical industries worldwide, and the pathogenic microorganisms are gradually developing resistance to them, which can be comprehended how strongly this aspect can shake the foundations of national and global economies (UNEP 2017 ). This statement is supported by the fact that AMR is not developing in a particular region or country. Instead, it is flourishing in every continent of the world (WHO 2018 ). This plague is heavily pushing humanity to the post-antibiotic era, in which currently antibiotic-susceptible pathogens will once again lead to certain endemics and pandemics after being resistant(WHO 2018 ). Undesirably, if this statement would become a factuality, there might emerge certain risks in undertaking sophisticated interventions such as chemotherapy, joint replacement cases, and organ transplantation (Su et al. 2018 ). Presently, the amplification of drug resistance cases has made common illnesses like pneumonia, post-surgical infections, HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, etc., too difficult and costly to be treated or cure well (WHO 2018 ). From a simple example, it can be assumed how easily antibiotic-resistant strains can be transmitted from one person to another and ultimately travel across the boundaries (Berendonk et al. 2015 ). Talking about the second- and third-generation classes of antibiotics, e.g., most renowned generations of cephalosporin antibiotics that are more expensive, broad-spectrum, more toxic, and usually require more extended periods whenever prescribed to patients (Lemery et al. 2021 ; Pärnänen et al. 2019 ). This scenario has also revealed that the abundance of resistant strains of pathogens was also higher in the Southern part (WHO 2018 ). As southern parts are generally warmer than their counterparts, it is evident from this example how CC-induced global warming can augment the spread of antibiotic-resistant strains within the biosphere, eventually putting additional economic burden in the face of developing new and costlier antibiotics. The ARG exchange to susceptible bacteria through one of the potential mechanisms, transformation, transduction, and conjugation; Selection pressure can be caused by certain antibiotics, metals or pesticides, etc., as shown in Fig.  5 .

A typical interaction between the susceptible and resistant strains.

Source: Elsayed et al. ( 2021 ); Karkman et al. ( 2018 )

Certain studies highlighted that conventional urban wastewater treatment plants are typical hotspots where most bacterial strains exchange genetic material through horizontal gene transfer (Fig.  5 ). Although at present, the extent of risks associated with the antibiotic resistance found in wastewater is complicated; environmental scientists and engineers have particular concerns about the potential impacts of these antibiotic resistance genes on human health (Ashbolt 2015 ). At most undesirable and worst case, these antibiotic-resistant genes containing bacteria can make their way to enter into the environment (Pruden et al. 2013 ), irrigation water used for crops and public water supplies and ultimately become a part of food chains and food webs (Ma et al. 2019 ; D. Wu et al. 2019 ). This problem has been reported manifold in several countries (Hendriksen et al. 2019 ), where wastewater as a means of irrigated water is quite common.

Climate change and vector borne-diseases

Temperature is a fundamental factor for the sustenance of living entities regardless of an ecosystem. So, a specific living being, especially a pathogen, requires a sophisticated temperature range to exist on earth. The second essential component of CC is precipitation, which also impacts numerous infectious agents’ transport and dissemination patterns. Global rising temperature is a significant cause of many species extinction. On the one hand, this changing environmental temperature may be causing species extinction, and on the other, this warming temperature might favor the thriving of some new organisms. Here, it was evident that some pathogens may also upraise once non-evident or reported (Patz et al. 2000 ). This concept can be exemplified through certain pathogenic strains of microorganisms that how the likelihood of various diseases increases in response to climate warming-induced environmental changes (Table ​ (Table2 2 ).

Examples of how various environmental changes affect various infectious diseases in humans

Source: Aron and Patz ( 2001 )

A recent example is an outburst of coronavirus (COVID-19) in the Republic of China, causing pneumonia and severe acute respiratory complications (Cui et al. 2021 ; Song et al. 2021 ). The large family of viruses is harbored in numerous animals, bats, and snakes in particular (livescience.com) with the subsequent transfer into human beings. Hence, it is worth noting that the thriving of numerous vectors involved in spreading various diseases is influenced by Climate change (Ogden 2018 ; Santos et al. 2021 ).

Psychological impacts of climate change

Climate change (CC) is responsible for the rapid dissemination and exaggeration of certain epidemics and pandemics. In addition to the vast apparent impacts of climate change on health, forestry, agriculture, etc., it may also have psychological implications on vulnerable societies. It can be exemplified through the recent outburst of (COVID-19) in various countries around the world (Pal 2021 ). Besides, the victims of this viral infection have made healthy beings scarier and terrified. In the wake of such epidemics, people with common colds or fever are also frightened and must pass specific regulatory protocols. Living in such situations continuously terrifies the public and makes the stress familiar, which eventually makes them psychologically weak (npr.org).

CC boosts the extent of anxiety, distress, and other issues in public, pushing them to develop various mental-related problems. Besides, frequent exposure to extreme climatic catastrophes such as geological disasters also imprints post-traumatic disorder, and their ubiquitous occurrence paves the way to developing chronic psychological dysfunction. Moreover, repetitive listening from media also causes an increase in the person’s stress level (Association 2020 ). Similarly, communities living in flood-prone areas constantly live in extreme fear of drowning and die by floods. In addition to human lives, the flood-induced destruction of physical infrastructure is a specific reason for putting pressure on these communities (Ogden 2018 ). For instance, Ogden ( 2018 ) comprehensively denoted that Katrina’s Hurricane augmented the mental health issues in the victim communities.

Climate change impacts on the forestry sector

Forests are the global regulators of the world’s climate (FAO 2018 ) and have an indispensable role in regulating global carbon and nitrogen cycles (Rehman et al. 2021 ; Reichstein and Carvalhais 2019 ). Hence, disturbances in forest ecology affect the micro and macro-climates (Ellison et al. 2017 ). Climate warming, in return, has profound impacts on the growth and productivity of transboundary forests by influencing the temperature and precipitation patterns, etc. As CC induces specific changes in the typical structure and functions of ecosystems (Zhang et al. 2017 ) as well impacts forest health, climate change also has several devastating consequences such as forest fires, droughts, pest outbreaks (EPA 2018 ), and last but not the least is the livelihoods of forest-dependent communities. The rising frequency and intensity of another CC product, i.e., droughts, pose plenty of challenges to the well-being of global forests (Diffenbaugh et al. 2017 ), which is further projected to increase soon (Hartmann et al. 2018 ; Lehner et al. 2017 ; Rehman et al. 2021 ). Hence, CC induces storms, with more significant impacts also put extra pressure on the survival of the global forests (Martínez-Alvarado et al. 2018 ), significantly since their influences are augmented during higher winter precipitations with corresponding wetter soils causing weak root anchorage of trees (Brázdil et al. 2018 ). Surging temperature regimes causes alterations in usual precipitation patterns, which is a significant hurdle for the survival of temperate forests (Allen et al. 2010 ; Flannigan et al. 2013 ), letting them encounter severe stress and disturbances which adversely affects the local tree species (Hubbart et al. 2016 ; Millar and Stephenson 2015 ; Rehman et al. 2021 ).

Climate change impacts on forest-dependent communities

Forests are the fundamental livelihood resource for about 1.6 billion people worldwide; out of them, 350 million are distinguished with relatively higher reliance (Bank 2008 ). Agro-forestry-dependent communities comprise 1.2 billion, and 60 million indigenous people solely rely on forests and their products to sustain their lives (Sunderlin et al. 2005 ). For example, in the entire African continent, more than 2/3rd of inhabitants depend on forest resources and woodlands for their alimonies, e.g., food, fuelwood and grazing (Wasiq and Ahmad 2004 ). The livings of these people are more intensely affected by the climatic disruptions making their lives harder (Brown et al. 2014 ). On the one hand, forest communities are incredibly vulnerable to CC due to their livelihoods, cultural and spiritual ties as well as socio-ecological connections, and on the other, they are not familiar with the term “climate change.” (Rahman and Alam 2016 ). Among the destructive impacts of temperature and rainfall, disruption of the agroforestry crops with resultant downscale growth and yield (Macchi et al. 2008 ). Cruz ( 2015 ) ascribed that forest-dependent smallholder farmers in the Philippines face the enigma of delayed fruiting, more severe damages by insect and pest incidences due to unfavorable temperature regimes, and changed rainfall patterns.

Among these series of challenges to forest communities, their well-being is also distinctly vulnerable to CC. Though the detailed climate change impacts on human health have been comprehensively mentioned in the previous section, some studies have listed a few more devastating effects on the prosperity of forest-dependent communities. For instance, the Himalayan people have been experiencing frequent skin-borne diseases such as malaria and other skin diseases due to increasing mosquitoes, wild boar as well, and new wasps species, particularly in higher altitudes that were almost non-existent before last 5–10 years (Xu et al. 2008 ). Similarly, people living at high altitudes in Bangladesh have experienced frequent mosquito-borne calamities (Fardous; Sharma 2012 ). In addition, the pace of other waterborne diseases such as infectious diarrhea, cholera, pathogenic induced abdominal complications and dengue has also been boosted in other distinguished regions of Bangladesh (Cell 2009 ; Gunter et al. 2008 ).

Pest outbreak

Upscaling hotter climate may positively affect the mobile organisms with shorter generation times because they can scurry from harsh conditions than the immobile species (Fettig et al. 2013 ; Schoene and Bernier 2012 ) and are also relatively more capable of adapting to new environments (Jactel et al. 2019 ). It reveals that insects adapt quickly to global warming due to their mobility advantages. Due to past outbreaks, the trees (forests) are relatively more susceptible victims (Kurz et al. 2008 ). Before CC, the influence of factors mentioned earlier, i.e., droughts and storms, was existent and made the forests susceptible to insect pest interventions; however, the global forests remain steadfast, assiduous, and green (Jactel et al. 2019 ). The typical reasons could be the insect herbivores were regulated by several tree defenses and pressures of predation (Wilkinson and Sherratt 2016 ). As climate greatly influences these phenomena, the global forests cannot be so sedulous against such challenges (Jactel et al. 2019 ). Table ​ Table3 3 demonstrates some of the particular considerations with practical examples that are essential while mitigating the impacts of CC in the forestry sector.

Essential considerations while mitigating the climate change impacts on the forestry sector

Source : Fischer ( 2019 )

Climate change impacts on tourism

Tourism is a commercial activity that has roots in multi-dimensions and an efficient tool with adequate job generation potential, revenue creation, earning of spectacular foreign exchange, enhancement in cross-cultural promulgation and cooperation, a business tool for entrepreneurs and eventually for the country’s national development (Arshad et al. 2018 ; Scott 2021 ). Among a plethora of other disciplines, the tourism industry is also a distinct victim of climate warming (Gössling et al. 2012 ; Hall et al. 2015 ) as the climate is among the essential resources that enable tourism in particular regions as most preferred locations. Different places at different times of the year attract tourists both within and across the countries depending upon the feasibility and compatibility of particular weather patterns. Hence, the massive variations in these weather patterns resulting from CC will eventually lead to monumental challenges to the local economy in that specific area’s particular and national economy (Bujosa et al. 2015 ). For instance, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report demonstrated that the global tourism industry had faced a considerable decline in the duration of ski season, including the loss of some ski areas and the dramatic shifts in tourist destinations’ climate warming.

Furthermore, different studies (Neuvonen et al. 2015 ; Scott et al. 2004 ) indicated that various currently perfect tourist spots, e.g., coastal areas, splendid islands, and ski resorts, will suffer consequences of CC. It is also worth noting that the quality and potential of administrative management potential to cope with the influence of CC on the tourism industry is of crucial significance, which renders specific strengths of resiliency to numerous destinations to withstand against it (Füssel and Hildén 2014 ). Similarly, in the partial or complete absence of adequate socio-economic and socio-political capital, the high-demanding tourist sites scurry towards the verge of vulnerability. The susceptibility of tourism is based on different components such as the extent of exposure, sensitivity, life-supporting sectors, and capacity assessment factors (Füssel and Hildén 2014 ). It is obvious corporality that sectors such as health, food, ecosystems, human habitat, infrastructure, water availability, and the accessibility of a particular region are prone to CC. Henceforth, the sensitivity of these critical sectors to CC and, in return, the adaptive measures are a hallmark in determining the composite vulnerability of climate warming (Ionescu et al. 2009 ).

Moreover, the dependence on imported food items, poor hygienic conditions, and inadequate health professionals are dominant aspects affecting the local terrestrial and aquatic biodiversity. Meanwhile, the greater dependency on ecosystem services and its products also makes a destination more fragile to become a prey of CC (Rizvi et al. 2015 ). Some significant non-climatic factors are important indicators of a particular ecosystem’s typical health and functioning, e.g., resource richness and abundance portray the picture of ecosystem stability. Similarly, the species abundance is also a productive tool that ensures that the ecosystem has a higher buffering capacity, which is terrific in terms of resiliency (Roscher et al. 2013 ).

Climate change impacts on the economic sector

Climate plays a significant role in overall productivity and economic growth. Due to its increasingly global existence and its effect on economic growth, CC has become one of the major concerns of both local and international environmental policymakers (Ferreira et al. 2020 ; Gleditsch 2021 ; Abbass et al. 2021b ; Lamperti et al. 2021 ). The adverse effects of CC on the overall productivity factor of the agricultural sector are therefore significant for understanding the creation of local adaptation policies and the composition of productive climate policy contracts. Previous studies on CC in the world have already forecasted its effects on the agricultural sector. Researchers have found that global CC will impact the agricultural sector in different world regions. The study of the impacts of CC on various agrarian activities in other demographic areas and the development of relative strategies to respond to effects has become a focal point for researchers (Chandioet al. 2020 ; Gleditsch 2021 ; Mosavi et al. 2020 ).

With the rapid growth of global warming since the 1980s, the temperature has started increasing globally, which resulted in the incredible transformation of rain and evaporation in the countries. The agricultural development of many countries has been reliant, delicate, and susceptible to CC for a long time, and it is on the development of agriculture total factor productivity (ATFP) influence different crops and yields of farmers (Alhassan 2021 ; Wu  2020 ).

Food security and natural disasters are increasing rapidly in the world. Several major climatic/natural disasters have impacted local crop production in the countries concerned. The effects of these natural disasters have been poorly controlled by the development of the economies and populations and may affect human life as well. One example is China, which is among the world’s most affected countries, vulnerable to natural disasters due to its large population, harsh environmental conditions, rapid CC, low environmental stability, and disaster power. According to the January 2016 statistical survey, China experienced an economic loss of 298.3 billion Yuan, and about 137 million Chinese people were severely affected by various natural disasters (Xie et al. 2018 ).

Mitigation and adaptation strategies of climate changes

Adaptation and mitigation are the crucial factors to address the response to CC (Jahanzad et al. 2020 ). Researchers define mitigation on climate changes, and on the other hand, adaptation directly impacts climate changes like floods. To some extent, mitigation reduces or moderates greenhouse gas emission, and it becomes a critical issue both economically and environmentally (Botzen et al. 2021 ; Jahanzad et al. 2020 ; Kongsager 2018 ; Smit et al. 2000 ; Vale et al. 2021 ; Usman et al. 2021 ; Verheyen 2005 ).

Researchers have deep concern about the adaptation and mitigation methodologies in sectoral and geographical contexts. Agriculture, industry, forestry, transport, and land use are the main sectors to adapt and mitigate policies(Kärkkäinen et al. 2020 ; Waheed et al. 2021 ). Adaptation and mitigation require particular concern both at the national and international levels. The world has faced a significant problem of climate change in the last decades, and adaptation to these effects is compulsory for economic and social development. To adapt and mitigate against CC, one should develop policies and strategies at the international level (Hussain et al. 2020 ). Figure  6 depicts the list of current studies on sectoral impacts of CC with adaptation and mitigation measures globally.

Sectoral impacts of climate change with adaptation and mitigation measures.

Conclusion and future perspectives

Specific socio-agricultural, socio-economic, and physical systems are the cornerstone of psychological well-being, and the alteration in these systems by CC will have disastrous impacts. Climate variability, alongside other anthropogenic and natural stressors, influences human and environmental health sustainability. Food security is another concerning scenario that may lead to compromised food quality, higher food prices, and inadequate food distribution systems. Global forests are challenged by different climatic factors such as storms, droughts, flash floods, and intense precipitation. On the other hand, their anthropogenic wiping is aggrandizing their existence. Undoubtedly, the vulnerability scale of the world’s regions differs; however, appropriate mitigation and adaptation measures can aid the decision-making bodies in developing effective policies to tackle its impacts. Presently, modern life on earth has tailored to consistent climatic patterns, and accordingly, adapting to such considerable variations is of paramount importance. Because the faster changes in climate will make it harder to survive and adjust, this globally-raising enigma calls for immediate attention at every scale ranging from elementary community level to international level. Still, much effort, research, and dedication are required, which is the most critical time. Some policy implications can help us to mitigate the consequences of climate change, especially the most affected sectors like the agriculture sector;

Warming might lengthen the season in frost-prone growing regions (temperate and arctic zones), allowing for longer-maturing seasonal cultivars with better yields (Pfadenhauer 2020 ; Bonacci 2019 ). Extending the planting season may allow additional crops each year; when warming leads to frequent warmer months highs over critical thresholds, a split season with a brief summer fallow may be conceivable for short-period crops such as wheat barley, cereals, and many other vegetable crops. The capacity to prolong the planting season in tropical and subtropical places where the harvest season is constrained by precipitation or agriculture farming occurs after the year may be more limited and dependent on how precipitation patterns vary (Wu et al. 2017 ).

The genetic component is comprehensive for many yields, but it is restricted like kiwi fruit for a few. Ali et al. ( 2017 ) investigated how new crops will react to climatic changes (also stated in Mall et al. 2017 ). Hot temperature, drought, insect resistance; salt tolerance; and overall crop production and product quality increases would all be advantageous (Akkari 2016 ). Genetic mapping and engineering can introduce a greater spectrum of features. The adoption of genetically altered cultivars has been slowed, particularly in the early forecasts owing to the complexity in ensuring features are expediently expressed throughout the entire plant, customer concerns, economic profitability, and regulatory impediments (Wirehn 2018 ; Davidson et al. 2016 ).

To get the full benefit of the CO 2 would certainly require additional nitrogen and other fertilizers. Nitrogen not consumed by the plants may be excreted into groundwater, discharged into water surface, or emitted from the land, soil nitrous oxide when large doses of fertilizer are sprayed. Increased nitrogen levels in groundwater sources have been related to human chronic illnesses and impact marine ecosystems. Cultivation, grain drying, and other field activities have all been examined in depth in the studies (Barua et al. 2018 ).

• The technological and socio-economic adaptation

The policy consequence of the causative conclusion is that as a source of alternative energy, biofuel production is one of the routes that explain oil price volatility separate from international macroeconomic factors. Even though biofuel production has just begun in a few sample nations, there is still a tremendous worldwide need for feedstock to satisfy industrial expansion in China and the USA, which explains the food price relationship to the global oil price. Essentially, oil-exporting countries may create incentives in their economies to increase food production. It may accomplish by giving farmers financing, seedlings, fertilizers, and farming equipment. Because of the declining global oil price and, as a result, their earnings from oil export, oil-producing nations may be unable to subsidize food imports even in the near term. As a result, these countries can boost the agricultural value chain for export. It may be accomplished through R&D and adding value to their food products to increase income by correcting exchange rate misalignment and adverse trade terms. These nations may also diversify their economies away from oil, as dependence on oil exports alone is no longer economically viable given the extreme volatility of global oil prices. Finally, resource-rich and oil-exporting countries can convert to non-food renewable energy sources such as solar, hydro, coal, wind, wave, and tidal energy. By doing so, both world food and oil supplies would be maintained rather than harmed.

IRENA’s modeling work shows that, if a comprehensive policy framework is in place, efforts toward decarbonizing the energy future will benefit economic activity, jobs (outweighing losses in the fossil fuel industry), and welfare. Countries with weak domestic supply chains and a large reliance on fossil fuel income, in particular, must undertake structural reforms to capitalize on the opportunities inherent in the energy transition. Governments continue to give major policy assistance to extract fossil fuels, including tax incentives, financing, direct infrastructure expenditures, exemptions from environmental regulations, and other measures. The majority of major oil and gas producing countries intend to increase output. Some countries intend to cut coal output, while others plan to maintain or expand it. While some nations are beginning to explore and execute policies aimed at a just and equitable transition away from fossil fuel production, these efforts have yet to impact major producing countries’ plans and goals. Verifiable and comparable data on fossil fuel output and assistance from governments and industries are critical to closing the production gap. Governments could increase openness by declaring their production intentions in their climate obligations under the Paris Agreement.

It is firmly believed that achieving the Paris Agreement commitments is doubtlful without undergoing renewable energy transition across the globe (Murshed 2020 ; Zhao et al. 2022 ). Policy instruments play the most important role in determining the degree of investment in renewable energy technology. This study examines the efficacy of various policy strategies in the renewable energy industry of multiple nations. Although its impact is more visible in established renewable energy markets, a renewable portfolio standard is also a useful policy instrument. The cost of producing renewable energy is still greater than other traditional energy sources. Furthermore, government incentives in the R&D sector can foster innovation in this field, resulting in cost reductions in the renewable energy industry. These nations may export their technologies and share their policy experiences by forming networks among their renewable energy-focused organizations. All policy measures aim to reduce production costs while increasing the proportion of renewables to a country’s energy system. Meanwhile, long-term contracts with renewable energy providers, government commitment and control, and the establishment of long-term goals can assist developing nations in deploying renewable energy technology in their energy sector.

Author contribution

KA: Writing the original manuscript, data collection, data analysis, Study design, Formal analysis, Visualization, Revised draft, Writing-review, and editing. MZQ: Writing the original manuscript, data collection, data analysis, Writing-review, and editing. HS: Contribution to the contextualization of the theme, Conceptualization, Validation, Supervision, literature review, Revised drapt, and writing review and editing. MM: Writing review and editing, compiling the literature review, language editing. HM: Writing review and editing, compiling the literature review, language editing. IY: Contribution to the contextualization of the theme, literature review, and writing review and editing.

Availability of data and material

Declarations.

Not applicable.

The authors declare no competing interests.

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Contributor Information

Kashif Abbass, Email: nc.ude.tsujn@ssabbafihsak .

Muhammad Zeeshan Qasim, Email: moc.kooltuo@888misaqnahseez .

Huaming Song, Email: nc.ude.tsujn@gnimauh .

Muntasir Murshed, Email: [email protected] .

Haider Mahmood, Email: moc.liamtoh@doomhamrediah .

Ijaz Younis, Email: nc.ude.tsujn@sinuoyzaji .

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Neuroscience and climate change: How brain recordings can help us understand human responses to climate change

Affiliations.

• 1 University of Groningen, Faculty of Behavioural and Social Sciences, Department of Social Psychology, Groningen, the Netherlands; Climate Outreach, Oxford, United Kingdom. Electronic address: [email protected].
• 2 University of Groningen, Faculty of Behavioural and Social Sciences, Department of Experimental Psychology, Groningen, the Netherlands.
• PMID: 34358820
• DOI: 10.1016/j.copsyc.2021.06.023

There is little published neuroscience research on the psychology of climate change. This review outlines how carefully designed experiments that measure key neural processes, linked to specific cognitive processes, can provide powerful tools to answer research questions in climate change psychology. We review relevant literature from social neuroscience that can be applicable to environmental research-the neural correlates of fairness and cooperation, altruistic behaviour and personal values-and discuss important factors when translating environmental psychology constructs to neuroscientific measurement. We provide a practical overview of how to implement environmental neuroscience using electroencephalography, summarising important event-related potential components and how they can be used to answer questions in climate change psychology. Challenges for the field include accurate attribution of findings, both within and between studies, the need for interdisciplinary collaboration, peer review and reporting processes.

Keywords: Climate change; Cognitive neuroscience; EEG; ERP; Environmental psychology.

Copyright © 2021 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.

Publication types

• Climate Change*
• Electroencephalography
• Evoked Potentials
• Neurosciences*

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• Published: 10 May 2024

Talking about climate change and health

Nature Climate Change volume  14 ,  page 409 ( 2024 ) Cite this article

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• Climate change
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The climate crisis is also an urgent and ongoing health crisis with diverse human impacts leading to physical, mental and cultural losses. Translating knowledge into action involves broad collaboration, which relies heavily on careful communication of a personal and politicized issue.

Against a backdrop of reported historical peaks in monthly temperatures, the past months have seen increasing visibility of the issue of climate change health, as several institutions have pushed awareness, research and action to limit the effects that warming has on human health. These include the inaugural Declaration on Climate and Health at COP28, the publication of the report Quantifying the Impact of Climate Change on Human Health 1 by the World Economic Forum, and a pledge of £23 million by the Wellcome Trust to support transdisciplinary research to protect human health from climate change.

In this issue of Nature Climate Change and an associated online Focus , we highlight research and other content at the climate–health intersection.

Across these works, a clear and familiar theme that arises is the world’s current lack of preparation to deal with the ongoing crisis. This is exemplified in an Analysis by Braithwaite and colleagues of the ability of healthcare systems to cope with climate change. In line with the World Economic Forum’s finding that climate impacts will cost healthcare systems a further US$1.1 trillion globally by 2050 (ref. 1 ), Braithwaite and colleagues highlight the need for multi-pronged plans to future-proof these at-risk systems. They also demonstrate the heavy bias of current research on acute disaster events and in the Global North.

The second conspicuous theme is that responding to the climate–health crisis will involve diverse actors. In a Viewpoint article, six researchers highlight key issues in their fields, which include mental health, labour, disease spread, maternal and neonatal health, air quality and nutrition, while advocating the need for collaboration across disciplines, sectors and geography. Echoing this need for collaboration, a Feature article by Yessenia Funes on the public drive to seek climate action through the courts focuses on the varied yet complementary roles the public, research scientists, healthcare professionals and lawyers have to play.

Thirdly, and critically linked to the previous points, is that improved communication is key for translating research into action. Part of this involves learning the languages of different fields or sectors: in a Q&A article, Maria Neira, director of the Department of Environment, Climate Change and Health at the World Health Organization (WHO), describes how understanding that the climate terms ‘adaptation’ and ‘mitigation’ corresponded to the terms ‘primary intervention’ and ‘secondary intervention’ in public health helped to align communication between the two fields. Another part also involves ensuring that language is used carefully to support positive action. Psychologist Elizabeth Marks (writing in the Viewpoint article) discusses the importance of identifying eco-anxiety without pathologizing it, while Neira discusses the impact of communicating a negative message (that is, climate change is harming human health) with or without actionable plans, underscoring the difference between problem solving and panic. Funes also highlights the important role of health practitioners, whose personal relationships with patients makes them ‘trusted messengers’ to discuss climate change health information. In line with this, the WHO has just released a new toolkit to support healthcare professionals to effectively communicate about climate change and health 2 . A Comment from Noa Heiman in this issue also discusses the best ways for therapists to support their clients who experience climate distress.

Overall, talking about climate change health is not just a question of slipping from the technical jargon of climate models to that of healthcare or legal systems. It is also about communicating with an increasingly engaged public on a deeply personal and politicized issue. Finding the right wording is therefore extremely important. But the personal part of health is also what makes discussing climate change from a health point of view such a powerful tool to move forward.

An ongoing global crisis lacking preparedness that requires multiple actors to move forward can leave a lot of room for debate. But as Neira suggests, if instead of talking only about reducing emissions or limiting the amount of degrees warming, we discuss the number of lives that can be saved, there is less room for discussion, and more room to translate words into action.

Quantifying the Impact of Climate Change on Human Health (World Economic Forum, 2024).

WHO launches new toolkit empowering health professionals to tackle climate change. WHO (22 March 2024); https://go.nature.com/3w1i7yO

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Talking about climate change and health. Nat. Clim. Chang. 14 , 409 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-024-02020-3

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What types of data do scientists use to study climate?

The modern thermometer was invented in 1654, and global temperature records began in 1880. Climate researchers utilize a variety of direct and indirect measurements to investigate Earth's climate history comprehensively. Direct measurements include data from satellites in space, instruments on the International Space Station, aircraft, ships, buoys, and ground-based instruments.

When scientists focus on climate from before the past 100-150 years, they use records from physical, chemical, and biological materials preserved within the geologic record. T he Earth holds climate clues dating back over three billion years, contained in rock layers, polar ice sheets, lake beds, and more.

Organisms (such as diatoms, forams, and coral) can serve as useful climate proxies. Other proxies include ice cores, tree rings, and sediment cores. Chemical proxy records include isotope ratios, elemental analyses, biomarkers, and biogenic silica. Collectively, these proxies significantly extend our understanding of past climates, reaching far back into Earth's history.

The Effects of Deforestation: its Role on Climate Change and Impact on Ecosystems

Original Research 13 March 2023 The impact of meteorological changes on the quality of life regarding thermal comfort in the Amazon region Adrian Felipe dos Santos ,  4 more  and  Fernando Augusto Ribeiro Costa 1,267 views 1 citations

Original Research 20 October 2022 Towards sustainable adaptation: A tool for estimating adaptation costs to climate change for smallholder farmers Dumisani Shoko Kori  and  Edmore Kori 1,167 views 2 citations

Loading... Original Research 12 October 2022 RED, PEF, and EPD: Conflicting rules for determining the carbon footprint of biofuels give unclear signals to fuel producers and customers Miguel Brandão ,  6 more  and  Tomas Rydberg 6,075 views 4 citations

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The Macroeconomic Impact of Climate Change: Global vs. Local Temperature

This paper estimates that the macroeconomic damages from climate change are six times larger than previously thought. We exploit natural variability in global temperature and rely on time-series variation. A 1°C increase in global temperature leads to a 12% decline in world GDP. Global temperature shocks correlate much more strongly with extreme climatic events than the country-level temperature shocks commonly used in the panel literature, explaining why our estimate is substantially larger. We use our reduced-form evidence to estimate structural damage functions in a standard neoclassical growth model. Our results imply a Social Cost of Carbon of $1,056 per ton of carbon dioxide. A business-as-usual warming scenario leads to a present value welfare loss of 31%. Both are multiple orders of magnitude above previous estimates and imply that unilateral decarbonization policy is cost-effective for large countries such as the United States.

Adrien Bilal gratefully acknowledges support from the Chae Family Economics Research Fund at Harvard University. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research.

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The worldwide phase out of animal agriculture, combined with a global switch to a plant-based diet, would effectively halt the increase of atmospheric greenhouse gases for 30 years and give humanity more time to end its reliance on fossil fuels, according to a new study by scientists from Stanford University and the University of California, Berkeley.

A new model suggests that phasing out animal agriculture over the next 15 years would have the same effect as a 68 percent reduction of carbon dioxide emissions through the year 2100. (Image credit: Getty Images)

“We wanted to answer a very simple question: What would be the impact of a global phase-out of animal agriculture on atmospheric greenhouse gases and their global-heating impact?” said Patrick Brown , a professor emeritus in the department of biochemistry at Stanford University. Brown co-authored the paper with Michael Eisen, a professor of genetics and development at UC Berkeley.

Based on the model, published in the open-access journal PLoS Climate , phasing out animal agriculture over the next 15 years would have the same effect as a 68 percent reduction of carbon dioxide emissions through the year 2100. This would provide 52 percent of the net emission reductions necessary to limit global warming to 2 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels, which scientists say is the minimum threshold required to avert disastrous climate change.

The changes would stem, the authors say, from the spontaneous decay of the potent greenhouse gases methane and nitrous oxide, and the recovery of biomass in natural ecosystems on the more than 80 percent of humanity’s land footprint currently devoted to livestock.

“Reducing or eliminating animal agriculture should be at the top of the list of potential climate solutions,” Brown said. “I’m hoping that others, including entrepreneurs, scientists and global policymakers, will recognize that this is our best and most immediate chance to reverse the trajectory of climate change, and seize the opportunity.”

Brown is also the founder and CEO of Impossible Foods, a company developing alternatives to animals in food production. Eisen is an advisor to the company. Both Brown and Eisen stand to benefit financially from the reduction of animal agriculture.

Unlocking negative emissions

Brown and Eisen are not the first to point out that ongoing emissions from animal agriculture are contributing to global warming. But what has not been recognized before, they say, is the much more impactful “climate opportunity cost” – the potential to unlock negative emissions by eliminating livestock.

“As the methane and nitrous oxide emissions from livestock diminish, atmospheric levels of those potent greenhouse gases will actually drop dramatically within decades,” Brown said. “And the CO 2 that was released into the atmosphere when forests and wild prairies were replaced by feed crops and grazing lands can be converted back into biomass as livestock are phased out and the forests and prairies recover.”

Brown and Eisen used publicly available data on livestock production, livestock-linked emissions and biomass recovery potential on land currently used to support livestock to predict how the phaseout of all or parts of global animal agriculture production would alter net anthropogenic, or human-caused, emissions from 2019 levels. They then used a simple climate model to project how these changes would impact the evolution of atmospheric greenhouse gas levels and warming for the rest of the century.

They examined four dietary scenarios: an immediate replacement of all animal agriculture with a plant-only diet; a more gradual and, the authors say, more realistic, 15-year transition to a global plant-only diet; and versions of each where only beef was replaced with plant-only products.

For each hypothetical scenario, the scientists assumed that non-agricultural emissions would remain constant and that the land formerly used for livestock production would be converted to grasslands, prairies, forests and the like that will absorb atmospheric carbon dioxide.

“The combined effect is both astoundingly large, and – equally important – fast, with much of the benefit realized by 2050,” Brown said. “If animal agriculture were phased out over 15 years and all other greenhouse-gas emissions were to continue unabated, the phase-out would create a 30-year pause in net greenhouse gas emissions and offset almost 70 percent of the heating effect of those emissions through the end of the century.”

While the complete phase out of animal-based agriculture was projected to have the largest impact, 90 percent of the emission reductions could be achieved by only replacing ruminants such as cattle and sheep, according to the model.

While their paper does not explore the particulars of what a global phaseout of animal agriculture would entail, the authors acknowledge that “the economic and social impacts of a global transition to a plant-based diet would be acute in many regions and locales” and that “it is likely that substantial global investment will be required to ensure that people who currently making a living from animal agriculture do not suffer when it is reduced or replaced.”

But, they write, “in both cases, these investments must be compared to the economic and humanitarian disruptions of significant global warming.”

Changing attitudes

Many will scoff at the idea that billions of people can be convinced to switch to a plant-only diet within 15 years. To these skeptics, Eisen points out that other revolutions have happened in less time. “We went from having no cellphones to cellphones being ubiquitous in less time than that. Electricity, cars, solar panels – all became common in a relatively short period of time,” Eisen said.

Moreover, Brown added, societal attitudes toward food are far from fixed. “Five hundred years ago, nobody in Italy had ever seen a tomato. Sixty years ago, nobody in China had ever drunk a Coke. Mutton was once the most popular meat in America,” he said. “People around the world readily adopt new foods, especially if they are delicious, nutritious, convenient and affordable.”

The scientists have made all of the raw data they used, as well as their calculations and the computer code used to carry out the calculations, publicly available so that others can make up their own mind.

“The great thing about science is that, in the end, it all comes down to whether the conclusions are supported by the evidence,” Brown said. “And in this case, they are.”

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Sand in Newport Beach was replenished in 2023. (Photo/iStock)

Beach erosion will make Southern California coastal living five times more expensive by 2050, USC study predicts

The region’s sandy coastlines are vanishing at an alarming rate. It’s a warning sign for coastal communities worldwide, USC research suggests.

Rising sea levels and urban development are accelerating coastal erosion at an alarming rate in Southern California with significant ripple effects on the region’s economy, a USC study reveals.

The study, published in Communications Earth & Environment , predicts that Southern California’s coastal living costs will surge fivefold by 2050 as a direct result of beach erosion. This erosion will require more frequent and costly beach nourishment projects to maintain the state’s treasured shorelines, consequently driving up the cost of living along the coast.

“Our study presents compelling evidence of the rapid deterioration of Southern California’s coastal landscapes,” said Essam Heggy , a geoscientist in the Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering/Electrophysics at the USC Viterbi School of Engineering and the study’s corresponding author.

“The challenges facing Southern California mirror a growing threat shared by coastal communities worldwide. The environmental and economic implications of coastal erosion reach far beyond California’s shores and demand interdisciplinary, global solutions,” he said.

Coastal erosion: Cost of living sure to surge as sandy beaches disappear

To predict future changes along California’s sandy coastlines, the researchers focused on the Gulf of Santa Catalina, which stretches over 150 miles from the Palos Verdes Peninsula in Los Angeles County to the northern tip of Baja California in Mexico.

They used a combination of historical and recent satellite images as well as advanced algorithms to analyze coastline movement and predict future erosion based on different trends and environmental factors.

The study predicts a tripling of erosion rates by 2050, increasing from an average of 1.45 meters per year to 3.18 meters by 2100. Consequently, the annual sand requirement for beach nourishment could triple by 2050, with costs rising fivefold due to the global increase in sand prices. This will exacerbate economic and logistical pressures on coastal communities.

Beach nourishment is adding sand to an eroded beach to rebuild it and create a wider barrier against waves and storms.

“Our investigation suggests that coastal problems start inland due to the rapid growth of cities along the coast, which compromise inland sediment replenishment of sandy beaches,” said Heggy, whose research focuses on understanding water evolution in Earth’s arid environments.

“As our beaches shrink, the cost of maintaining them will rise. Finding innovative solutions is key to securing a sustainable future for our shores and local economies,” he said.

Coastal erosion in California: A case study for a global problem

Coastal cities in Southern California and those in North Africa bordering the Mediterranean Sea face a common challenge: a semi-arid climate year-round coupled with the growing threats of rising sea levels and eroding shorelines.

A significant portion of Earth’s landmass, roughly 41%, falls under arid or semi-arid classifications, and these areas support over a third of the global population.

To understand this global challenge, the researchers focused on two specific locations: Corona del Mar in Orange County, Calif. — an example of the typical Southern California coastline — and Hammamet North Beach in Tunisia. Both are densely populated and share similar climates, prone to increasing droughts, flash floods and unpredictable rainfall patterns. These characteristics mirror the challenges faced by countless coastal communities worldwide.

The findings showed that the average rate of shoreline retreat in these areas varies. In Southern California, beaches are receding between 0.75 and 1.24 meters per year. In Hammamet North Beach, the retreat rate ranges from 0.21 to about 4.49 meters annually.

“While beach nourishment can temporarily combat erosion, however, it presents significant challenges for developing countries,” said Oula Amrouni, a sedimentologist at the National Institute of Marine Sciences and Technologies at the University of Carthage, Tunis, Tunisia, and one of the study’s co-authors. “The high cost of acquiring the right sand, with the specific grain size, quality and composition, and the technical complexity of extracting and laying it are major hurdles. Additionally, worsening erosion in previously stable areas compels more frequent nourishment projects, straining already limited budgets and leading to unplanned expenditures for many communities.”

About the study: Co-authors of the study include Oula Amrouni and Abderraouf Hzami of the National Institute of Marine Sciences and Technologies at the University of Carthage, Tunis, Tunisia.

This research is supported by the Arid Climates and Water Research Center at USC under contract from the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (AWD#00630), the USC Zumberge Research and Innovation Fund, and the USC Sea Grant.

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Climate Change: Evidence and Causes: Update 2020 (2020)

Chapter: conclusion, c onclusion.

This document explains that there are well-understood physical mechanisms by which changes in the amounts of greenhouse gases cause climate changes. It discusses the evidence that the concentrations of these gases in the atmosphere have increased and are still increasing rapidly, that climate change is occurring, and that most of the recent change is almost certainly due to emissions of greenhouse gases caused by human activities. Further climate change is inevitable; if emissions of greenhouse gases continue unabated, future changes will substantially exceed those that have occurred so far. There remains a range of estimates of the magnitude and regional expression of future change, but increases in the extremes of climate that can adversely affect natural ecosystems and human activities and infrastructure are expected.

Citizens and governments can choose among several options (or a mixture of those options) in response to this information: they can change their pattern of energy production and usage in order to limit emissions of greenhouse gases and hence the magnitude of climate changes; they can wait for changes to occur and accept the losses, damage, and suffering that arise; they can adapt to actual and expected changes as much as possible; or they can seek as yet unproven “geoengineering” solutions to counteract some of the climate changes that would otherwise occur. Each of these options has risks, attractions and costs, and what is actually done may be a mixture of these different options. Different nations and communities will vary in their vulnerability and their capacity to adapt. There is an important debate to be had about choices among these options, to decide what is best for each group or nation, and most importantly for the global population as a whole. The options have to be discussed at a global scale because in many cases those communities that are most vulnerable control few of the emissions, either past or future. Our description of the science of climate change, with both its facts and its uncertainties, is offered as a basis to inform that policy debate.

A CKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The following individuals served as the primary writing team for the 2014 and 2020 editions of this document:

• Eric Wolff FRS, (UK lead), University of Cambridge
• Inez Fung (NAS, US lead), University of California, Berkeley
• Brian Hoskins FRS, Grantham Institute for Climate Change
• John F.B. Mitchell FRS, UK Met Office
• Tim Palmer FRS, University of Oxford
• Benjamin Santer (NAS), Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
• John Shepherd FRS, University of Southampton
• Keith Shine FRS, University of Reading.
• Susan Solomon (NAS), Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• Kevin Trenberth, National Center for Atmospheric Research
• John Walsh, University of Alaska, Fairbanks
• Don Wuebbles, University of Illinois

Staff support for the 2020 revision was provided by Richard Walker, Amanda Purcell, Nancy Huddleston, and Michael Hudson. We offer special thanks to Rebecca Lindsey and NOAA Climate.gov for providing data and figure updates.

The following individuals served as reviewers of the 2014 document in accordance with procedures approved by the Royal Society and the National Academy of Sciences:

• Richard Alley (NAS), Department of Geosciences, Pennsylvania State University
• Alec Broers FRS, Former President of the Royal Academy of Engineering
• Harry Elderfield FRS, Department of Earth Sciences, University of Cambridge
• Joanna Haigh FRS, Professor of Atmospheric Physics, Imperial College London
• Isaac Held (NAS), NOAA Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory
• John Kutzbach (NAS), Center for Climatic Research, University of Wisconsin
• Jerry Meehl, Senior Scientist, National Center for Atmospheric Research
• John Pendry FRS, Imperial College London
• John Pyle FRS, Department of Chemistry, University of Cambridge
• Gavin Schmidt, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
• Emily Shuckburgh, British Antarctic Survey
• Gabrielle Walker, Journalist
• Andrew Watson FRS, University of East Anglia

The Support for the 2014 Edition was provided by NAS Endowment Funds. We offer sincere thanks to the Ralph J. and Carol M. Cicerone Endowment for NAS Missions for supporting the production of this 2020 Edition.

F OR FURTHER READING

For more detailed discussion of the topics addressed in this document (including references to the underlying original research), see:

• Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), 2019: Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate [ https://www.ipcc.ch/srocc ]
• National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM), 2019: Negative Emissions Technologies and Reliable Sequestration: A Research Agenda [ https://www.nap.edu/catalog/25259 ]
• Royal Society, 2018: Greenhouse gas removal [ https://raeng.org.uk/greenhousegasremoval ]
• U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP), 2018: Fourth National Climate Assessment Volume II: Impacts, Risks, and Adaptation in the United States [ https://nca2018.globalchange.gov ]
• IPCC, 2018: Global Warming of 1.5°C [ https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15 ]
• USGCRP, 2017: Fourth National Climate Assessment Volume I: Climate Science Special Reports [ https://science2017.globalchange.gov ]
• NASEM, 2016: Attribution of Extreme Weather Events in the Context of Climate Change [ https://www.nap.edu/catalog/21852 ]
• IPCC, 2013: Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) Working Group 1. Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis [ https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/wg1 ]
• NRC, 2013: Abrupt Impacts of Climate Change: Anticipating Surprises [ https://www.nap.edu/catalog/18373 ]
• NRC, 2011: Climate Stabilization Targets: Emissions, Concentrations, and Impacts Over Decades to Millennia [ https://www.nap.edu/catalog/12877 ]
• Royal Society 2010: Climate Change: A Summary of the Science [ https://royalsociety.org/topics-policy/publications/2010/climate-change-summary-science ]
• NRC, 2010: America’s Climate Choices: Advancing the Science of Climate Change [ https://www.nap.edu/catalog/12782 ]

Much of the original data underlying the scientific findings discussed here are available at:

• https://data.ucar.edu/
• https://climatedataguide.ucar.edu
• https://iridl.ldeo.columbia.edu
• https://ess-dive.lbl.gov/
• https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/
• https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/
• http://scrippsco2.ucsd.edu
• http://hahana.soest.hawaii.edu/hot/

Climate change is one of the defining issues of our time. It is now more certain than ever, based on many lines of evidence, that humans are changing Earth's climate. The Royal Society and the US National Academy of Sciences, with their similar missions to promote the use of science to benefit society and to inform critical policy debates, produced the original Climate Change: Evidence and Causes in 2014. It was written and reviewed by a UK-US team of leading climate scientists. This new edition, prepared by the same author team, has been updated with the most recent climate data and scientific analyses, all of which reinforce our understanding of human-caused climate change.

Scientific information is a vital component for society to make informed decisions about how to reduce the magnitude of climate change and how to adapt to its impacts. This booklet serves as a key reference document for decision makers, policy makers, educators, and others seeking authoritative answers about the current state of climate-change science.

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Bangladesh + 5 more

Impact of Climate Change on the Migration and Displacement Dynamics of Rohingya Refugees (May 2024)

Attachments.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

In the disaster-prone Asia-Pacific region, particularly in South Asia, the frequency and intensity of environmental hazards, exacerbated by climate change, pose significant risks. Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh, with floods being the primary driver, recorded the highest number of disaster displacements in 2022. Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh, hosting about a million Rohingya refugees, faces escalating climate-related threats, impacting camp life, safety during irregular movement, and prospects for return to Myanmar. While initial displacement from Myanmar was driven by persecution and conflicts, the dire conditions in refugee camps are increasingly influenced by climate factors, potentially contributing to onward movements to neighbouring countries like India, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand.

The emerging impact of climate change on the displacement and migration dynamics of Rohingya is increasingly relevant. Climate change introduces additional layers of challenges to the already dire situation of the Rohingya, particularly in Bangladesh and neighbouring countries, where they seek refuge. Rohingya camps in Cox’s Bazar are vulnerable to extreme weather events, with urgent climate mitigation and disaster preparedness measures needed to mitigate risks such as cyclones and landslides. Displaced populations like the Rohingya are particularly susceptible to secondary displacement due to settling in hazard-prone areas, exacerbating the risk of climate-related movement on a larger scale. The combination of food insecurity, violence, lack of livelihoods, and dwindling hope for durable solutions has led to a surge in irregular maritime movement of Rohingya across the region in recent months.

Though conflict remains the primary driver of Rohingya displacement, climate and environmental factors along with the deteriorating conditions in the camps significantly exacerbates migration risks, particularly during perilous sea journeys. In 2023, a staggering 13% of Rohingya perished or went missing during such journeys.1 Within refugee camps, climate-induced hazards such as floods and cyclones pose additional threats, leading to internal displacement and necessitating proactive evacuation strategies. Moreover, involuntary immobility stemming from restricted mobility rights and lack of livelihood opportunities in Bangladesh compounds vulnerabilities, especially during climate-related disasters. The controversial relocation of Rohingya to Bhasan Char, touted as a safer alternative, faces scepticism due to inadequate infrastructure and emergency preparedness, raising concerns about their safety during disasters. Suspected coerced relocations and the possibility of climate-induced forced return further highlight the complexities of mobility decisions amid environmental risks. The secondary impact of environmental factors on migration decisions is evident in their function as a "threat multiplier," exacerbating pre-existing vulnerabilities concerning livelihoods and living conditions within the camps, thereby influencing migration decision.

Drawing from extensive data, including 4Mi survey data among 4,064 Rohingya in India, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand; household surveys with 200 individuals in Cox’s Bazar; and interviews with 36 key stakeholders ranging from governments and international organisations to grassroots initiatives and research entities, this report sheds light on the intersection between climate change and (im)mobility for the Rohingya, aiming to provide evidence for better protection of Rohingya refugees in the context of climate change and conflict.

Section 1 of the report presents an overview of the research methodology and contextual background. Next, Section 2 examines the impacts of climate and environmental factors on the displacement and migration of Rohingya refugees, as well as the role they play in exacerbating the existing vulnerabilities. Section 3 and Section 4 focus on the global and regional mechanisms concerning climate change and refugee protection. The report concludes with approaches towards building climate-resilient and sustainable responses for refugee protection. The summary table below encapsulates key recommendations tailored for different stakeholders.

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