Portal:Climate change

The Climate Change Portal

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Present-day climate change includes both global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its wider effects on Earth’s climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to Earth's climate. The current rise in global temperatures is driven by human activities, especially fossil fuel burning since the Industrial Revolution. Fossil fuel use, deforestation, and some agricultural and industrial practices release greenhouse gases. These gases absorb some of the heat that the Earth radiates after it warms from sunlight, warming the lower atmosphere. Carbon dioxide, the primary gas driving global warming, has increased in concentration by about 50% since the pre-industrial era to levels not seen for millions of years.

Climate change has an increasingly large impact on the environment. Deserts are expanding, while heat waves and wildfires are becoming more common. Amplified warming in the Arctic has contributed to thawing permafrost, retreat of glaciers and sea ice decline. Higher temperatures are also causing more intense storms, droughts, and other weather extremes. Rapid environmental change in mountains, coral reefs, and the Arctic is forcing many species to relocate or become extinct. Even if efforts to minimize future warming are successful, some effects will continue for centuries. These include ocean heating, ocean acidification and sea level rise.

Climate change threatens people with increased flooding, extreme heat, increased food and water scarcity, more disease, and economic loss. Human migration and conflict can also be a result. The World Health Organization calls climate change one of the biggest threats to global health in the 21st century. Societies and ecosystems will experience more severe risks without action to limit warming. Adapting to climate change through efforts like flood control measures or drought-resistant crops partially reduces climate change risks, although some limits to adaptation have already been reached. Poorer communities are responsible for a small share of global emissions, yet have the least ability to adapt and are most vulnerable to climate change.

Many climate change impacts have been observed in the first decades of the 21st century, with 2024 the warmest on record at +1.60 °C (2.88 °F) since regular tracking began in 1850. Additional warming will increase these impacts and can trigger tipping points, such as melting all of the Greenland ice sheet. Under the 2015 Paris Agreement, nations collectively agreed to keep warming "well under 2 °C". However, with pledges made under the Agreement, global warming would still reach about 2.8 °C (5.0 °F) by the end of the century. Limiting warming to 1.5 °C would require halving emissions by 2030 and achieving net-zero emissions by 2050.

Fossil fuel use can be phased out by conserving energy and switching to energy sources that do not produce significant carbon pollution. These energy sources include wind, solar, hydro, and nuclear power. Cleanly generated electricity can replace fossil fuels for powering transportation, heating buildings, and running industrial processes. Carbon can also be removed from the atmosphere, for instance by increasing forest cover and farming with methods that capture carbon in soil. (Full article...)

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Greenhouse gases trap some of the heat that results when sunlight heats the Earth's surface. Three important greenhouse gases are shown symbolically in this image: carbon dioxide, water vapor, and methane.

Greenhouse gases (GHGs) are the gases in the atmosphere that raise the surface temperature of planets such as the Earth. Unlike other gases, greenhouse gases absorb the radiations that a planet emits, resulting in the greenhouse effect. The Earth is warmed by sunlight, causing its surface to radiate heat, which is then mostly absorbed by greenhouse gases. Without greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, the average temperature of Earth's surface would be about −18 °C (0 °F), rather than the present average of 15 °C (59 °F).

The five most abundant greenhouse gases in Earth's atmosphere, listed in decreasing order of average global mole fraction, are: water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, ozone. Other greenhouse gases of concern include chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs and HCFCs), hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), perfluorocarbons, SF
₆, and NF
₃. Water vapor causes about half of the greenhouse effect, acting in response to other gases as a climate change feedback.

Human activities since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution (around 1750) have increased carbon dioxide by over 50%, and methane levels by 150%. Carbon dioxide emissions are causing about three-quarters of global warming, while methane emissions cause most of the rest. The vast majority of carbon dioxide emissions by humans come from the burning of fossil fuels, with remaining contributions from agriculture and industry. Methane emissions originate from agriculture, fossil fuel production, waste, and other sources. The carbon cycle takes thousands of years to fully absorb CO₂ from the atmosphere, while methane lasts in the atmosphere for an average of only 12 years. (Full article...)

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Larsen Ice Shelf

Credit: NASA

The collapse of Larsen B Ice Shelf, showing the diminishing extent of the shelf from 1998 to 2002

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WikiProjects


WikiProject Climate change	WikiProject Environment	WikiProject Globalization

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In the news

From the Wikinews Climate change category

Additional News

Monsoons in India become more erratic.^[2]
Climate modellers Syukuro Manabe and Klaus Hasselmann win Nobel Prize.^[3]

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Octopus CEO Greg Jackson

Greg Jackson CBE (born September 1971) is a British entrepreneur and businessman who is the founder and CEO of Octopus Energy, the largest electricity supplier in the United Kingdom, serving over seven million households and active in 27 countries. (Full article...)

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General images

The following are images from various climate-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1Physical drivers of global warming that has happened so far. Future global warming potential for long lived drivers like carbon dioxide emissions is not represented. Whiskers on each bar show the possible error range. (from Carbon dioxide in Earth's atmosphere)
Image 2Erratics, boulders deposited by glaciers far from any existing glaciers, led geologists to the conclusion that climate had changed in the past. (from History of climate change science)
Image 3Charles Keeling, receiving the National Medal of Science from George W. Bush, in 2001 (from History of climate change science)
Image 4Longwave-infrared absorption coefficients of water vapor and carbon dioxide. For wavelengths near 15-microns, CO₂ is a much stronger absorber than water vapor. (from Carbon dioxide in Earth's atmosphere)
Image 5Annual CO₂ flows from anthropogenic sources (left) into Earth's atmosphere, land, and ocean sinks (right) since year 1960. Units in equivalent gigatonnes carbon per year. (from Carbon dioxide in Earth's atmosphere)
Image 6James Hansen during his 1988 testimony to Congress, which alerted the public to the dangers of global warming (from History of climate change science)
Image 7CO₂ concentrations over the last 800,000 years as measured from ice cores (blue/green) and directly (black) (from Causes of climate change)
Image 8Main sources of global methane emissions (2008–2017) according to the Global Carbon Project (from Causes of climate change)
Image 9Drivers of climate change from 1850–1900 to 2010–2019. Future global warming potential for long lived drivers like carbon dioxide emissions is not represented. (from Causes of climate change)
Image 10Schematic drawing of Earth's excess heat inventory and energy imbalance for two recent time periods. (from Earth's energy budget)
Image 11CO₂ concentrations over the last 500 Million years (from Carbon dioxide in Earth's atmosphere)
Image 12The Fourth National Climate Assessment ("NCA4", USGCRP, 2017) includes charts illustrating that neither solar nor volcanic activity can explain the observed warming. (from Causes of climate change)
Image 13Earth's energy balance and imbalance, showing where the excess energy goes: Outgoing radiation is decreasing owing to increasing greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, leading to Earth's energy imbalance of about 460 TW. The percentage going into each domain of the climate system is also indicated. (from Earth's energy budget)
Image 14Sea ice reflects 50% to 70% of incoming sunlight, while the ocean, being darker, reflects only 6%. As an area of sea ice melts and exposes more ocean, more heat is absorbed by the ocean, raising temperatures that melt still more ice. This is a positive feedback process. (from Causes of climate change)
Image 15The US, China and Russia have cumulatively contributed the greatest amounts of CO₂ since 1850. (from Carbon dioxide in Earth's atmosphere)
Image 16The growth in Earth's energy imbalance from satellite and in situ measurements (2005–2019). A rate of +1.0 W/m² summed over the planet's surface equates to a continuous heat uptake of about 500 terawatts (~0.3% of the incident solar radiation). (from Earth's energy budget)
Image 17Scientific consensus on causation: Academic studies of scientific agreement on human-caused global warming among climate experts (2010–2015) reflect that the level of consensus correlates with expertise in climate science. A 2019 study found scientific consensus to be at 100%, and a 2021 study concluded that consensus exceeded 99%. Another 2021 study found that 98.7% of climate experts indicated that the Earth is getting warmer mostly because of human activity. (from History of climate change science)
Image 18The impact of the greenhouse effect on climate was presented to the public early in the 20th century, as succinctly described in this 1912 Popular Mechanics article. (from History of climate change science)
Image 19The rate of global tree cover loss has approximately doubled since 2001, to an annual loss approaching an area the size of Italy. (from Causes of climate change)
Image 20Cumulative land-use change contributions to CO₂ emissions, by region. (from Causes of climate change)
Image 21The Global Carbon Project shows how additions to CO₂ since 1880 have been caused by different sources ramping up one after another. (from Causes of climate change)
Image 22Eunice Newton Foote recognized carbon dioxide's heat-capturing effect in 1856, appreciating its implications for the planet. (from History of climate change science)
Image 23Since the 1980s, global average surface temperatures during a given decade have almost always been higher than the average temperature in the preceding decade. (from History of climate change science)
Image 24Between 1850 and 2019 the Global Carbon Project estimates that about 2/3rds of excess carbon dioxide emissions have been caused by burning fossil fuels, and a little less than half of that has stayed in the atmosphere. (from Carbon dioxide in Earth's atmosphere)
Image 25Energy flows between space, the atmosphere, and Earth's surface. Rising greenhouse gas levels are contributing to an energy imbalance. (from Causes of climate change)
Image 26Air-sea exchange of CO₂ (from Carbon dioxide in Earth's atmosphere)
Image 27The rising accumulation of energy in the oceanic, land, ice, and atmospheric components of Earth's climate system since 1960. (from Earth's energy budget)
Image 28Greenhouse gases allow sunlight to pass through the atmosphere, heating the planet, but then absorb and redirect the infrared radiation (heat) the planet emits (from Carbon dioxide in Earth's atmosphere)
Image 29Over 400,000 years of ice core data: Graph of CO₂ (green), reconstructed temperature (blue) and dust (red) from the Vostok ice core (from Carbon dioxide in Earth's atmosphere)
Image 30A Sankey diagram illustrating a balanced example of Earth's energy budget. Line thickness is linearly proportional to relative amount of energy. (from Earth's energy budget)
Image 31Concentration of atmospheric CO₂ over the last 40,000 years, from the Last Glacial Maximum to the present day. The current rate of increase is much higher than at any point during the last deglaciation. (from Carbon dioxide in Earth's atmosphere)
Image 32Milutin Milanković (from History of climate change science)
Image 33The Keeling Curve shows the long-term increase of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO₂) concentrations since 1958. (from Causes of climate change)
Image 34Atmospheric CO₂ concentration measured at Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii from 1958 to 2023 (also called the Keeling Curve). The rise in CO₂ over that time period is clearly visible. The concentration is expressed as μmole per mole, or ppm. (from Carbon dioxide in Earth's atmosphere)
Image 35Global average temperatures show that the Medieval Warm Period was not a planet-wide phenomenon, and that the Little Ice Age was not a distinct planet-wide time period but rather the end of a long temperature decline that preceded recent global warming. (from Temperature record of the last 2,000 years)
Image 36Solar irradiance (yellow) plotted with temperature (red) since 1880. (from History of climate change science)
Image 37Carbon dioxide observations from 2008 to 2017 showing the seasonal variations and the difference between northern and southern hemispheres (from Carbon dioxide in Earth's atmosphere)
Image 38Exterior of a Stevenson screen used for temperature measurements on land stations. (from History of climate change science)
Image 39James Croll (from History of climate change science)
Image 40CO₂ sources and sinks since 1880. While there is little debate that excess carbon dioxide in the industrial era has mostly come from burning fossil fuels, the future strength of land and ocean carbon sinks is an area of study. (from Causes of climate change)
Image 41Air pollution has substantially increased the presence of aerosols in the atmosphere when compared to the preindustrial background levels. Different types of particles have different effects, but overall, cooling from aerosols formed by sulfur dioxide emissions has the overwhelming impact. However, the complexity of aerosol interactions in atmospheric layers makes the exact strength of cooling very difficult to estimate. (from Causes of climate change)
Image 42Warming influence of atmospheric greenhouse gases has nearly doubled since 1979, with carbon dioxide and methane being the dominant drivers. (from Causes of climate change)
Image 43Earth's energy budget (in W/m²) determines the climate. It is the balance of incoming and outgoing radiation and can be measured by satellites. The Earth's energy imbalance is the "net absorbed" energy amount and grew from +0.6 W/m² (2009 est.) to above +1.0 W/m² in 2019. (from Earth's energy budget)
Image 44Modeled simulation of the effect of various factors (including GHGs, Solar irradiance) singly and in combination, showing in particular that solar activity produces a small and nearly uniform warming, unlike what is observed. (from History of climate change science)
Image 45A diagram which shows where the extra heat retained on Earth due to the energy imbalance is going.
Image 46Terms like "climate emergency" and climate crisis" have often been used by activists, and are increasingly found in academic papers. (from History of climate change science)
Image 47John Tyndall's ratio spectrophotometer (drawing from 1861) measured how much infrared radiation was absorbed and emitted by various gases filling its central tube. Such measurements furthered understanding of the greenhouse effect that underlies global warming and climate change. (from History of climate change science)
Image 48Correspondence between temperature and atmospheric CO₂ during the last 800,000 years (from Carbon dioxide in Earth's atmosphere)
Image 49Meat from cattle and sheep have the highest emissions intensity of any agricultural commodity. (from Causes of climate change)
Image 50Increase in the Earth's non-cloud greenhouse effect (2000–2022) based on satellite data. (from Earth's energy budget)
Image 51Joseph Fourier (from History of climate change science)
Image 52This diagram of the carbon cycle shows the movement of carbon between land, atmosphere, and oceans in billions of metric tons of carbon per year. Yellow numbers are natural fluxes, red are human contributions, white are stored carbon. (from Carbon dioxide in Earth's atmosphere)
Image 53Observed temperature from NASA vs the 1850–1900 average used by the IPCC as a pre-industrial baseline. The primary driver for increased global temperatures in the industrial era is human activity, with natural forces adding variability. (from Causes of climate change)
Image 54Earth heating estimates from a combination of space altimetry and space gravimetry. (from Earth's energy budget)
Image 55Mean temperature anomalies during the period 1965 to 1975 with respect to the average temperatures from 1937 to 1946. This dataset was not available at the time. (from History of climate change science)
Image 56CO₂ reduces the flux of thermal radiation emitted to space (causing the large dip near 667 cm⁻¹), thereby contributing to the greenhouse effect. (from Carbon dioxide in Earth's atmosphere)

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Credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center

Plant Productivity in a Warming World: The past decade is the warmest on record since instrumental measurements began in the 1880s. Previous research suggested that in the '80s and '90s, warmer global temperatures and higher levels of precipitation—factors associated with climate change—were generally good for plant productivity. An updated analysis published this week in Science indicates that as temperatures have continued to rise, the benefits to plants are now overwhelmed by longer and more frequent droughts. High-resolution data from the Moderate-Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer, or MODIS, indicate a net decrease in net primary production (NPP) from 2000-2009, as compared to the previous two decades. This narrated video gives an overview of NPP and the carbon cycle.

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