What’s happening to our planet?

A number of examinations led by scientists around the globe have recorded increments in temperature at Earth’s surface, just as in the environment and seas. Many different parts of the global climate are changing too. High temperature limits and precipitation events are increasing, glaciers and snow covers are contracting, and the ocean ice is melting. Seas are warming, rising, and getting progressively acidic, and flooding has increased along the U.S. coastline. Growing seasons are longer, and large fires happen much more frequently. Numerous species are moving to new areas, and changes in the seasonal timing of significant biological events are happening in light of climate change.

These trends are all consistent with a warming world and are expected to continue.

Many lines of evidence demonstrate that human activities, especially emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases from fossil fuel combustion, deforestation, and land-use change, are primarily responsible for the climate changes observed in the industrial era, especially over the last six decades. The atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide, the largest contributor to human-caused warming, has increased by about 40% over the industrial era. This change has intensified the natural greenhouse effect, driving an increase in global surface temperatures and other widespread changes in Earth’s climate that are unprecedented in the history of modern civilization.

Greenhouse gas emissions from human activities will continue to affect Earth’s climate for decades and even centuries. Humans are adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere at a rate far greater than it is removed by natural processes, creating a long-lived reservoir of the gas in the atmosphere and oceans that is driving the climate to a warmer and warmer state.

Beyond the next few decades, how much the climate changes will depend primarily on the amount of greenhouse gases emitted into the atmosphere; how much of those greenhouse gases are absorbed by the ocean, the biosphere, and other sinks; and how sensitive Earth’s climate is to those emissions.