What are the consequences of global warming

Five and a half degrees Fahrenheit. It may not sound like much—perhaps the difference between wearing a sweater and not wearing one on an early-spring day. But for the world in which we live—which climate experts project will be at least Human influences are the number one More frequent and severe weather Higher temperatures are According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, in 2021, there were 20 weather and climate disaster events in the United States—including severe storms, floods, drought, and wildfires—that individually caused at least The increasing number of droughts, intense storms, and floods we're seeing as our warming atmosphere holds—and then dumps—more moisture poses risks to public health and safety too. Prolonged dry spells mean more than just scorched lawns. Drought conditions jeopardize access to clean drinking water, fuel out-of-control wildfires, and result in dust storms, extreme heat events, and flash flooding in the States. Elsewhere around the world, lack of water is a leading cause of death and serious disease and is contributing to crop failure. At the opposite end of the spectrum, heavier rains cause streams, rivers, and lakes to overflow, which damages life and property, contaminates drinking water, creates hazardous-material spills, and promotes mold infestation and unhealthy air. A warmer, wetter world is also a boon for foodborne and waterborne illnesses and disease-carrying insects, such as mosquitoes, fleas, and ticks. Hi...

Human-caused global warming has continued to increase at an “unprecedented rate” since the last major assessment of the Earth’s climate system published just two years ago, 50 leading scientists warned on Thursday. Their analysis shows over the past decade a record level of greenhouse gases is being emitted each year; equivalent to 54 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide – with human-induced warming averaging 1.14 degrees. The remaining carbon budget – how much carbon dioxide can be emitted to have a better than 50 per cent chance of holding global warming to 1.5 degrees (a key Paris Agreement target) – has halved over three years. The scientists including leading climatologists in Ireland and the UK have launched a project to update key climate indicators every year, so people can be kept informed about critical aspects of global warming and act in a more timely manner. [ ] The analysis, published to coincide with climate negotiations in Germany this week, is described as a “timely wake-up call” indicating the pace and scale of climate action has been insufficient. Climate experts including the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) are meeting in Bonn to prepare the ground for the Cop28 climate conference in the UAE next December. It will include a stocktake of progress towards keeping global warming to 1.5 degrees by 2050. IPCC author and director of ICARUS climate research centre at Maynooth University Prof Peter Thorne, who contributed to the research, said i...

In a world of worsening climate extremes, a single red line has caught many people’s attention. The line, which Ocean temperatures are so anomalously high that Eliot Jacobson, a retired mathematics professor who created the graph using data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, had to “increase the upper bound on the y-axis,” he said. Another day, another record for the North Atlantic. Everything is happening so fast, it's hard to get a sense of the enormity of these anomalies, let alone their consequences. He and other researchers said there are several factors that may be contributing to the off-the-charts warming, which is occurring alongside other climate woes including Underlying everything is human-caused climate change, said Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at UCLA. But atop that are a handful of other potential factors, including the early arrival of El Niño; the recent eruption of the Hunga Tonga volcano; new regulations around sulfur aerosol emissions or even a dearth of Saharan dust. “The North Atlantic is record-shatteringly warm right now,” Swain said during a briefing Monday. “There has never been any day in observed history where the entire North Atlantic has been nearly as warm as it is right now, at any time of year.” There is an 84% chance the system will be of moderate strength, and a 56% chance it will become a strong event at its peak, forecasters said. Nearly all of the Atlantic basin is experiencing anomalous warmth, including th...

Portland residents wait inside the Oregon Convention Center, which was repurposed as an emergency cooling center during a heat wave in June 2021. Hundreds of people died in the Pacific Northwest due to the heat wave. Nathan Howard/Getty Images Billions of people on every continent are suffering because of climate change, according The report by nearly 300 top scientists from around the world paints a picture of a planet already transformed by greenhouse gas emissions and teetering on the brink of widespread, irreversible damage. "People are now suffering and dying from climate change," says Kristie Ebi, one of the lead authors of the report and an epidemiologist at the University of Washington. That's because heat waves, droughts, floods, wildfires, disease outbreaks and other dire effects of climate change are accelerating more rapidly than scientists expected in many parts of the world, including in North America. And as oceans, rainforests and polar regions heat up, nature is less and less able to help us with the task of adapting to a hotter Earth, the report finds. Still, the authors of the report make clear, humans are not powerless. Repairing damaged ecosystems and reducing greenhouse gas emissions dramatically and immediately would spare billions of people from illness, poverty, displacement and death. Some environmental changes are already irreversible Some of the most delicate ecosystems have already been irreversibly altered by climate change with serious implic...