Climate change: Facts about our warming planet

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How much Earth has warmed since 1850 : about2 degrees Fahrenheit(1.1 degrees Celsius )

What do mood variety : Gases trapping heat in the atmosphere

a firefighter walks through a burnt town

Climate change will make catastrophic wildfires more common.

The effects of a warming planet : Increased heating system waves , implosion therapy , wildfires , hurricane and more

Climate alteration is any long - full term fracture in average weather pattern . mood variety has pass off many prison term inEarth’shistory , and for many different reasons . The changes in global temperature and weather patterns figure today , however , are triggered by thing humans do , like repulse cars or burning coal . And today ’s clime alteration is happening much faster than innate climate variant that occur in the past .

Scientists have many ways to track the climate over metre . These method acting have made it clean that today ’s mood change is unite to the emission ofgreenhouse gases , such as carbon dioxide ( CO2 ) and methane .

a graph showing how the Earth has warmed since the industrial revolution

Earth’s average temperature has been increasing since the industrial revolution.

On average , greenhouse gases increase global temperatures . This is why climate change is sometimes calledglobal warming . However , most research worker today opt the term " climate modification " because weather condition and climate vary around the globe , so even if the humankind is hot overall , some regions may actually get colder . For example , warming planetary average temperatures might alter the flowing of the jet stream , the major tune stream that affects the weather in North America . This could chair to periods of extreme common cold in some areas .

5 fast facts about climate change

Everything you need to know about climate change

Is climate change real?

Scientists agree that climate change is substantial and triggered by human activity . We can measure theeffects of global warmingbecause the climate of the past is recorded in chicken feed , sediment , cave formations , coral reefs and even tree diagram rings . researcher can wait at chemic signals — such as the CO2trapped inside glaciers — to regulate what atmospherical conditions were like in the yesteryear . They can study microscopic fossilized pollen to learn what botany used to thrive in any given area . Scientists can also measure tree diagram doughnut to get a season - by - time of year phonograph record of temperature and moisture . sediment in the oceancan even provide a window into what the clime was like millions of years ago .

Humans started keeping their own detailed records of the mood during the industrial revolution , a period of speedy technological progression beginning in the belated 18th one C . cadence of thing like earth temperature commence to better in the late 1800s , and ship captains started celebrate a wealth of sea - base atmospheric condition data in their logs . The development of satellite technology in the seventies provided an explosion of data , include how much methamphetamine hydrochloride there is at the pole , the temperature at the ocean ’s surface , and swarm reporting .

All in all , these records show that Earth ’s global average temperature has increased by about 1.8 F ( 1 C ) since the industrial gyration . mood alteration has quicken up in the past few decades , with the planet warm about 0.36 F ( 0.2 C ) every 10 years .

an image of smokestacks at sunset

The burning of fossil fuels emits greenhouse gases, which trap heat in the atmosphere.

What causes climate change?

mood modification is triggered by glasshouse gun trapping heating system in Earth ’s standard pressure . Greenhouse gases let in CO2 , methane and nitric oxide . They are predict glasshouse gases because they trammel heat from the sunlight ’s rays near Earth ’s surface , much like the glass walls of a nursery keep heat inside . little modification in the amounts of greenhouse gases in the aura can add up to major change on a globose plate .

The burning of fossil fuels — such as coal , crude oil and innate flatulency — is the biggest source of glasshouse gasolene discharge . farm animal , like cows and sheep , are also a source of glasshouse gases . Plants help scrub greenhouse gases from the air , so when citizenry cut down tree across a orotund area , greenhouse gas emanation rise .

What are the effects of climate change?

Climate change is create a lovesome universe with rising sea levels and more dangerous weather . It is also mess up ecosystem around the world .

Some of the most dramatic change can be check in the Arctic , where sea ice is melting . Even the oldest sea ice-skating rink , which usually sticks around twelvemonth after yr , isgetting thinner . world-wide ocean water ice levelshit a low in 2025 , and scientist now think we could see the first summertime with no ice in the Arcticsometime between 2040 and 2060 .

Melting crank has already caused seas to rise . The global average ocean level has risen by8 to 9 inches(21 to 24 centimeters ) since 1880 . For coastal area of the U.S. , this sea level rise has leave in three to nine prison term more implosion therapy when tide are high .

a coral reef that has turned completely white

When oceans absorb CO2 from the atmosphere, they become more acidic, which causes coral reefs like the one above to die.

Climate variety is affect the oceans , too . sea water absorbs CO2from the atmosphere , which creates a chemic chemical reaction that causesocean acidification . sea surface waters have become30 % more acidicsince the beginning of the industrial gyration . When water is too acidic , corals ca n’t build their carbonate skeletons , and shelled animals — such as sugar and some type of plankton — can die .

Climate change is even involve when fountain weather appear . outflow is arriving earlierin the United States . clime models now indicate that early springscould be the norm by 2050 . But late freezes will belike still occur , create conditions in which plants could sprout leaves early in the season and then be damaged by cold temperature .

Droughts and wildfires will also in all likelihood become more common . extreme point wildfireshave more than doubled worldwide , and fire seasons are getting longer and more vivid . mood manikin predict thatdroughtswill become more frequent and last longer .

A helicopter drops water over a raging wildfire.

(Image credit: PATRICK T. FALLON via Getty Images)

Can we stop climate change?

humanity have already spark off major changes to Earth ’s climate , but it’sstill possible to avoid some of the bad gist of climate change . To do that , we would need to slash greenhouse gas emissions .

If all human nursery gas emissions stopped immediately , Earth would likelycontinue to warm up , because CO2remains in the ambiance for one C of years . Some scientist have proposed a system called carbon capture and storage — a method that removes CO2from the atmosphere — to fix this return . Carbon capture and storage may bepossible , but it ’s so expensive that it ’s presently unbelievable to happen .

Even if we could hit the carbon that ’s already in the air , prevent succeeding thaw involve human to quit throw up nursery gases now . Slowing mood change is a collective effort that will want quislingism among countries , states and cities , as well as major adjustments to the mode the world operates . The most ambitious effort to stop global warming so far is theParis Agreement . This external accord between 195 countries aims to keep warming below 3.6 F ( 2 nose candy ) . So far , however , most countries are not meeting the finish they define for themselves . The U.S.withdrewfrom the Paris Agreement in 2025 , when Donald Trump began his second term as president .

Tourists look at a large glacier and the lake it’s melting into.