Portal:Climate change

The Climate Change Portal

In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its 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 average temperature is more rapid than previous changes, and is primarily caused by humans burning fossil fuels. Fossil fuel use, deforestation, and some agricultural and industrial practices add to greenhouse gases, notably carbon dioxide and methane. Greenhouse gases absorb some of the heat that the Earth radiates after it warms from sunlight. Larger amounts of these gases trap more heat in Earth's lower atmosphere, causing global warming.

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 minimise 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 (WHO) calls climate change the greatest threat 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 felt in recent years, with 2023 the warmest on record at +1.48 °C (2.66 °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 2.7 °C (4.9 °F) by the end of the century. Limiting warming to 1.5 °C will 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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Climate change mitigation (or decarbonisation) is action to limit the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere that cause climate change. Greenhouse gas emissions are primarily caused by people burning fossil fuels such as coal, oil, and natural gas. Phasing out fossil fuel use can happen by conserving energy and replacing fossil fuels with clean energy sources such as wind, hydro, solar, and nuclear power. Secondary mitigation strategies include changes to land use and removing carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere. Governments have pledged to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but actions to date are insufficient to avoid dangerous levels of climate change.

Solar energy and wind power have the greatest potential for supplanting fossil fuels at the lowest cost compared to other options. The availability of sunshine and wind is variable and can require electrical grid ugrades, such as using long-distance electricity transmission to group a range of power sources. Energy storage can also be used to even out power output, and demand management can limit power use when power generation is low. Cleanly generated electricity can usually replace fossil fuels for powering transportation, heating buildings, and running industrial processes. Certain processes are more difficult to decarbonise, such as air travel and cement production. Carbon capture and storage (CCS) can be an option to reduce net emissions in these circumstances, although fossil fuel power plants with CCS technology have not yet proven economical.

Human land use changes such as agriculture and deforestation cause about 1/4th of climate change. These changes impact how much CO2 is absorbed by plant matter and how much organic matter decays or burns to release CO2. These changes are part of the fast carbon cycle, whereas fossil fuels release CO2 that was buried underground as part of the slow carbon cycle. Methane is a short lived greenhouse gas that is produced by decaying organic matter and livestock, as well as fossil fuel extraction. Land use changes can also impact precipitation patterns and the reflectivity of the surface of the Earth. It is possible to cut emissions from agriculture by reducing food waste, switching to a more plant-based diet (also referred to as low-carbon diet), and by improving farming processes. (Full article...)
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Selected picture –

Credit: NASA
Orbital photograph of human deforestation in progress in the Tierras Bajas project in eastern Bolivia

WikiProjects

WikiProject Climate change WikiProject Environment WikiProject Globalization

In the news

From the Wikinews Climate change category
Additional News

Selected biography –

Elizabeth Wathuti in 2022

Elizabeth Wanjiru Wathuti (born August 1, 1995) is a Kenyan environment and climate activist and founder of the Green Generation Initiative, which nurtures young people to love nature and be environmentally conscious at a young age and has now planted 30,000 tree seedlings in Kenya.

In 2019, she was awarded the Africa Green Person of the Year Award by the Eleven Eleven Twelve Foundation and named as one of the 100 Most Influential Young Africans by the Africa Youth Awards. (Full article...)
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General images

The following are images from various climate-related articles on Wikipedia.
  • Longwave-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)
  • James Hansen during his 1988 testimony to Congress, which alerted the public to the dangers of global warming (from History of climate change science)
  • Charles Keeling, receiving the National Medal of Science from George W. Bush, in 2001 (from History of climate change science)
  • John Tyndall's ratio spectrophotometer (drawing from 1861) measured how much infrared radiation was absorbed and emitted by various gases filling its central tube. (from History of climate change science)
  • Earth heating estimates from a combination of space altimetry and space gravimetry. (from Earth's energy budget)
  • Joseph Fourier (from History of climate change science)
  • Energy flows between space, the atmosphere, and Earth's surface. Rising greenhouse gas levels are contributing to an energy imbalance. (from Causes of climate change)
  • A diagram which shows where the extra heat retained on Earth due to the energy imbalance is going. (from Causes of climate change)
  • CO2 concentrations over the last 800,000 years as measured from ice cores (blue/green) and directly (black) (from Causes of climate change)
  • James Croll (from History of climate change science)
  • Solar irradiance (yellow) plotted with temperature (red) since 1880. (from History of climate change science)
  • Modeled 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)
  • Greenhouse 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)
  • Over 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)
  • Between 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)
  • Exterior of a Stevenson screen used for temperature measurements on land stations. (from History of climate change science)
  • Scientific 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)
  • Mean 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)
  • Main sources of global methane emissions (2008-2017) according to the Global Carbon Project (from Causes of climate change)
  • CO2 concentrations over the last 500 Million years (from Carbon dioxide in Earth's atmosphere)
  • Drivers of climate change from 1850–1900 to 2010–2019. There was no significant contribution from internal variability or solar and volcanic drivers. (from Causes of climate change)
  • Global 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)
  • Carbon 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)
  • The 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)
  • The Keeling Curve shows the long-term increase of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations from 1958–2018. (from Causes of climate change)
  • Radiative forcing drivers of climate change in year 2011, relative to pre-industrial (1750). (from Carbon dioxide in Earth's atmosphere)
  • Cumulative land-use change contributions to CO2 emissions, by region. (from Causes of climate change)
  • Milutin Milanković (from History of climate change science)
  • Earth'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)
  • The 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)
  • Correspondence between temperature and atmospheric CO2 during the last 800,000 years (from Carbon dioxide in Earth's atmosphere)
  • Increase in the Earth's non-cloud greenhouse effect (2000-2022) based on satellite data. (from Earth's energy budget)
  • Erratics, 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)
  • Air-sea exchange of CO2 (from Carbon dioxide in Earth's atmosphere)
  • Meat from cattle and sheep have the highest emissions intensity of any agricultural commodity. (from Causes of climate change)
  • Terms 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)
  • The rising accumulation of energy in the oceanic, land, ice, and atmospheric components of Earth's climate system since 1960. (from Earth's energy budget)
  • Sea 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)
  • A 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)
  • This diagram of the fast 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)
  • Concentration 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)
  • The 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)
  • Earth'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)
  • Since 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)
  • The US, China and Russia have cumulatively contributed the greatest amounts of CO2 since 1850. (from Carbon dioxide in Earth's atmosphere)
  • Warming influence of atmospheric greenhouse gases has nearly doubled since 1979, with carbon dioxide and methane being the dominant drivers. (from Causes of climate change)
  • Atmospheric 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)
  • The 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)
  • CO2 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)
  • Schematic drawing of Earth's excess heat inventory and energy imbalance for two recent time periods. (from Earth's energy budget)
  • Photosynthesis changes sunlight into chemical energy, splits water to liberate O2, and fixes CO2 into sugar. (from Carbon dioxide in Earth's atmosphere)
  • Eunice Newton Foote recognized carbon dioxide's heat-capturing effect in 1856, appreciating its implications for the planet. (from History of climate change science)
  • Observed 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)
  • CO2 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)
  • Air 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)
  • Annual 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)
  • The 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)

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Selected panorama –

This video summarizes how climate change, associated with increased carbon dioxide levels, has affected plant growth.

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References

  1. "GISS Surface Temperature Analysis (v4)". NASA. Retrieved 12 January 2024.
  2. Bhargav, Vishal (2021-10-11). "Climate Change Is Making India's Monsoon More Erratic". www.indiaspend.com. Retrieved 2021-10-11.
  3. Tiwari, Dr Pushp Raj; Conversation, The. "Nobel prize: Why climate modellers deserved the physics award – they've been proved right again and again". phys.org. Retrieved 2021-10-11.
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