Global warming can be seen and felt around the world. Global warming is caused by the burning of fossil fuels that release carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere.
The consequences of global warming are already being seen.
The professor of geology and environmental science at the University of Pittsburgh told Live Science that they can see it in real time. The ice is melting in mountain glaciers. Lakes around the world are warming faster than the environment. Plants and animals are changing their migration patterns, such as trees budding their leaves earlier in the spring and then dropping them in the fall.
The effects of global warming are being looked at.
The increase in temperatures is one of the consequences of global warming. Over the past 100 years, the average global temperature has increased by about 1%.
2016 was the hottest year on record worldwide since record keeping began in 1895, according to data from NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Earth's surface temperature was 1.78 degrees F warmer than the average for the 20th century. The year was the warmest on record. And before next year? Yes, this year. All 10 of the warmest years on record have happened since 2005, which is tied with the 10th warmest year on record. The top 6 hottest years on record across the globe are rounded out by 2020.
2016 was the second-warmest year on record and the 20th year in a row that the average surface temperature exceeded the 122-year average. June 2021, for example, was the warmest month on record for the contiguous U.S.
The weather patterns are changing. Extreme weather is one of the consequences of global warming.
There are many different flavors of these extremes. Climate change can cause some winters to be colder than normal.
Changes in climate can cause the polar jet stream — the boundary between the cold North Pole air and the warm equatorial air — to migrate south, bringing with it cold, Arctic air. This is why some states can have a sudden cold snap or colder-than-normal winter, even during the long-term trend of global warming, Werne explained. "Climate is, by definition, the long-term average of weather, over many years. One cold (or warm) year or season has little to do with overall climate. It is when those cold (or warm) years become more and more regular that we start to recognize it as a change in climate rather than simply an anomalous year of weather," he said.
Global warming is also changing other extreme weather. According to the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory of NOAA (opens in new tab), hurricanes are likely to become more intense, on average, in a warming world. Most computer models suggest that hurricane frequency will stay about the same (or even decrease), but those storms that do form will have the capacity to drop more rain due to the fact that warmer air holds more moisture.
"And even if they become less frequent globally, hurricanes could still become more frequent in some particular areas," said atmospheric scientist Adam Sobel, author of "Storm Surge: Hurricane Sandy, Our Changing Climate, and Extreme Weather of the Past and Future (opens in new tab)" (HarperWave, 2014). "Additionally, scientists are confident that hurricanes will become more intense due to climate change." This is because hurricanes get their energy from the temperature difference between the warm tropical ocean and the cold upper atmosphere. Global warming increases that temperature difference. "Since the most damage by far comes from the most intense hurricanes — such as typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines in 2013 — this means that hurricanes could become overall more destructive," said Sobel, a Columbia University professor in the departments of Earth and Environmental Sciences, and Applied Physics and Applied Mathematics. (Hurricanes are called typhoons in the western North Pacific, and they're called cyclones in the South Pacific and Indian oceans.) What's more, hurricanes of the future will be hitting shorelines that are already prone to flooding due to the sea-level rise caused by climate change. This means that any given storm will likely cause more damage than it would have in a world without global warming.
Lightning is another weather feature that is being affected by global warming. According to a 2014 study, a 50% increase in the number of lightning strikes within the United States is expected by 2100 if global temperatures continue to rise. The researchers of the study found a 12% increase in lightning activity for every 1.8 degree F (1 degree C) of warming in the atmosphere.
NOAA established the U.S. Climate Extremes Index (opens in new tab) (CEI) in 1996 to track extreme weather events. The number of extreme weather events that are among the most unusual in the historical record, according to the CEI, has been rising over the last four decades.
Scientists project that extreme weather events, such as heat waves, droughts, blizzards and rainstorms will continue to occur more often and with greater intensity due to global warming, according to Climate Central (opens in new tab). Climate models forecast that global warming will cause climate patterns worldwide to experience significant changes. These changes will likely include major shifts in wind patterns, annual precipitation and seasonal temperatures variations. These impacts vary by location and geography. For example, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) (opens in new tab), the eastern United States has been trending wetter over time, while the West – and particularly the Southwest – have become increasingly dry.
Because high levels of greenhouse gases are likely to remain in the atmosphere for many years, these changes are expected to last for several decades or longer, according to the EPA.
One of the primary manifestations of climate change so far is melt. North America, Europe and Asia have all seen a trend toward less snow cover between 1960 and 2015, according to 2016 research published in the journal Current Climate Change Reports. (opens in new tab) According to the National Snow and Ice Data Center, there is now 10% less permafrost (opens in new tab), or permanently frozen ground, in the Northern Hemisphere than there was in the early 1900s. The thawing of permafrost can cause landslides and other sudden land collapses. It can also release long-buried microbes, as in a 2016 case when a cache of buried reindeer carcasses thawed and caused an outbreak of anthrax.
One of the most dramatic effects of global warming is the reduction in Arctic sea ice. Sea ice hit record-low extents in both the fall and winter of 2015 and 2016, meaning that at the time when the ice is supposed to be at its peak, it was lagging. The melt means there is less thick sea ice that persists for multiple years. That means less heat is reflected back into the atmosphere by the shiny surface of the ice and more is absorbed by the comparatively darker ocean, creating a feedback loop that causes even more melt, according to NASA's Operation IceBridge (opens in new tab).
Glacial retreat, too, is an obvious effect of global warming. Only 25 glaciers bigger than 25 acres are now found in Montana's Glacier National Park, where about 150 glaciers were once found, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. A similar trend is seen in glacial areas worldwide. According to a 2016 study in the journal Nature Geoscience, there is a 99% likelihood that this rapid retreat is due to human-caused climate change. Some glaciers retreated up to 15 times as much as they would have without global warming, those researchers found.
Sea levels rise when ice is melted. Between 1993 and 2002 the pace of sea level rise increased from 0.08 inches per year to 0.17 inches per year.
Sea levels are expected to rise significantly as a result of melting polar ice and ice sheets in the north and south. According to the EPA, global sea levels have risen about 8 inches since 1870. If trends continue, many coastal areas will be flooded.
In New York City, sea levels will be 2.3 feet (.7 meters) higher, in Virginia they will be 1.9 feet (0.88 m) higher and in Texas they will be 1.5 feet (0.06 m) higher by the year 2200, according to the EPA. If greenhouse gas emissions aren't stopped, global sea levels could rise by as much as 3 feet by the end of the century. In 2007, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicted a sea-level rise of between 0.9 and 2.7 feet.
Sea level is only one of the things changing for the ocean. The oceans absorb some of the CO2 when it goes up. Carbonic acid comes from dissolved CO2 in water. It happens in cans of soda. The acidity of the can of Dr Pepper is 2.
According to the EPA, the ocean's acidity has increased since the Industrial Revolution began. In the ocean, many marine organisms make shells out of calcium carbonate, and their shells are often dissolved in acid solution. As we add more and more CO2 to the ocean, it becomes more and more acidic. This isn't good for their health.
Coral reefs are expected to become rare in areas where they are now common if ocean acidification trends continue. Parts of the Great Barrier Reef in Australia were hit with a phenomenon in which coral expels their symbioticalga. Coral can recover from bleaching but back-to-back episodes make recovery less likely.
Global warming is expected to have a significant and widespread effect on the environment. According to a report from the National Academy of Sciences, many species of plants and animals are moving northward due to warming temperatures.
They are moving from the equator towards the poles. As the global average temperature warms, they are following a range of comfortable temperatures. When the rate of climate change is faster than the rate that organisms can migrate, this becomes a problem. Many animals may not be able to compete in the new climate regime due to this.
The EPA says migratory birds and insects are arriving earlier in the summer than they did in the 20th century.
Warmer temperatures will expand the range of disease-causing pathogens that were once confined to tropical and subtropical areas and kill off plant and animal species that were protected from disease.
Animals that live in the polar regions are at risk of extinction. The narwhals, polar bears, and walruses are ice dependent and are at risk of extinction due to the decline in sea ice. In October of 2022, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service declared the emperor penguins to be at risk of extinction due to climate change.
According to a study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 1 in 3 species of plants and animals are at risk of extinction by the year 2070.
The projected changes to human society may be even more devastating than the effects of climate change will be on the natural world.
There will likely be a huge blow to the agricultural systems. Severe crop failures and livestock shortages can be caused by a combination of factors, including a loss of arable land, a lack of snow melt, and a greater number of pests.
Carbon dioxide is affecting plant growth at North Carolina State University. Plants may become less healthy as a result of CO2 increasing.
According to a number of analyses from sources as diverse as the U.S Department of Defense and the Center for American Progress, this loss of food security may lead to famines, food riots, political instability and civil unrest worldwide.
The effects of global warming on human health are expected to be serious. According to the American Medical Association, there has been an increase in mosquito-borne diseases, most likely due to global warming. Climate change could allow the mosquitoes that spread the disease to thrive in higher latitude areas. The spread of tick-borne illnesses can be caused by hotter summers.
Many governments and agencies keep up-to-date information on climate change research and statistics online. The most comprehensive and in-depth global reports are produced by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which released its Sixth Assessment Report (opens in new tab) on the science of climate change in 2021.
For a historical look at the effects of climate change on Earth (and how modern warming compares), read Peter Brannen's "The Ends of the Earth: Volcanic Apocalypses, Lethal Oceans, and Our Quest to Understand Earth’s Past Mass Extinctions (opens in new tab)" (Ecco, 2017).
There is a chapter on Climate Change and its Impacts in the book Climate Change resilience in the urban environment.
" Don't even think about it: Why our brains are wired to ignore climate change" is a psychological deep-dive on why all of this bad news is hard to take in.
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