effects of climate change presentation

Climate Matters • November 25, 2020

New Presentation: Our Changing Climate

Key concepts:.

Climate Central unveils Our Changing Climate —an informative and customizable climate change presentation that meteorologists, journalists, and others can use for educational outreach and/or a personal Climate 101 tool.

The presentation follows a ”Simple, Serious, Solvable” framework, inspired by climate scientist Scott Denning. This allows the presenter to comfortably explain, and the viewers to easily understand, the causes (Simple), impacts (Serious), and solutions (Solvable) of climate change. 

Our Changing Climate is a revamped version of our 2016 climate presentation, and includes the following updates and features:

Up-to-date graphics and topics

Local data and graphics

Fully editable slides (add, remove, customize)

Presenter notes, background information, and references for each slide

Supplementary and bonus slides

Download Outline (PDF, 110KB)

Download Full Presentation (PPT, 148MB)

Updated: April 2021

Climate Central is presenting a new outreach and education resource for meteorologists, journalists, and others—a climate change presentation, Our Changing Climate . This 55-slide presentation is a guide through the basics of climate change, outlining its causes, impacts, and solutions. This climate change overview is unique because it includes an array of local graphics from our ever-expanding media library. By providing these local angles, the presenter can demonstrate that climate change is not only happening at a global-scale, but in our backyards.

This presentation was designed to support your climate change storytelling, but can also double as a great Climate 101 tool for journalists or educators who want to understand climate change better. Every slide contains main points along with background information, so people that are interested can learn at their own pace or utilize graphics for their own content. 

In addition to those features, it follows the “Simple, Serious, Solvable” framework inspired by Scott Denning, a climate scientist and professor of atmospheric science at Colorado State University (and a good friend of the program). These three S’s help create the presentation storyline and outline the causes (Simple), impacts (Serious), and solutions (Solvable) of climate change. 

Simple. It is simple—burning fossil fuels is heating up the Earth. This section outlines the well-understood science that goes back to the 1800s, presenting local and global evidence that our climate is warming due to human activities.

Serious. More extreme weather, rising sea levels, and increased health and economic risks—the consequences of climate change. In this section, well, we get serious. Climate change impacts are already being felt around the world, and they will continue to intensify until we cut greenhouse gas emissions. 

Solvable. With such a daunting crisis like climate change, it is easy to get wrapped up in the negative impacts. This section explains how we can curb climate change and lists the main pathways and solutions to achieving this goal. 

With the rollout of our new climate change presentation, we at Climate Central would value any feedback on this presentation. Feel free to reach out to us about how the presentation worked for you, how your audience reacted, or any ideas or topics you would like to see included. 

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS & SPECIAL THANKS

Climate Central would like to acknowledge Paul Gross at WDIV-TV in Detroit and the AMS Station Science Committee for the original version of the climate presentation, Climate Change Outreach Presentation , that was created in 2016. We would also like to give special thanks to Scott Denning, professor of atmospheric science at Colorado State University and a member of our NSF advisory board, for allowing us to use this “Simple, Serious, Solvable” framework in this presentation resource.

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Climate Change: Impacts, Solutions and Perceptions

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What scientific evidence exists that Earth's climate is changing? What's the difference between climate change and climate variability? How does a changing climate affect people and the natural environment? What can we do to lessen and adapt to the impacts of these changes? This collection of videos presents experts' lectures and discussions on these topics in a series of public forums hosted in 2011 by NOAA and the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at George Mason University.

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Climate 101: Cause and Effect

What causes climate change? And what are the effects of climate change? Learn the human impact and consequences of climate change for the environment, and our lives.

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What Is Climate Change?

Climate change is a long-term change in the average weather patterns that have come to define Earth’s local, regional and global climates. These changes have a broad range of observed effects that are synonymous with the term.

Changes observed in Earth’s climate since the mid-20th century are driven by human activities, particularly fossil fuel burning, which increases heat-trapping greenhouse gas levels in Earth’s atmosphere, raising Earth’s average surface temperature. Natural processes, which have been overwhelmed by human activities, can also contribute to climate change, including internal variability (e.g., cyclical ocean patterns like El Niño, La Niña and the Pacific Decadal Oscillation) and external forcings (e.g., volcanic activity, changes in the Sun’s energy output , variations in Earth’s orbit ).

Scientists use observations from the ground, air, and space, along with computer models , to monitor and study past, present, and future climate change. Climate data records provide evidence of climate change key indicators, such as global land and ocean temperature increases; rising sea levels; ice loss at Earth’s poles and in mountain glaciers; frequency and severity changes in extreme weather such as hurricanes, heatwaves, wildfires, droughts, floods, and precipitation; and cloud and vegetation cover changes.

“Climate change” and “global warming” are often used interchangeably but have distinct meanings. Similarly, the terms "weather" and "climate" are sometimes confused, though they refer to events with broadly different spatial- and timescales.

What Is Global Warming?

Global warming is the long-term heating of Earth’s surface observed since the pre-industrial period (between 1850 and 1900) due to human activities, primarily fossil fuel burning, which increases heat-trapping greenhouse gas levels in Earth’s atmosphere. This term is not interchangeable with the term "climate change."

Since the pre-industrial period, human activities are estimated to have increased Earth’s global average temperature by about 1 degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit), a number that is currently increasing by more than 0.2 degrees Celsius (0.36 degrees Fahrenheit) per decade. The current warming trend is unequivocally the result of human activity since the 1950s and is proceeding at an unprecedented rate over millennia.

Weather vs. Climate

“if you don’t like the weather in new england, just wait a few minutes.” - mark twain.

Weather refers to atmospheric conditions that occur locally over short periods of time—from minutes to hours or days. Familiar examples include rain, snow, clouds, winds, floods, or thunderstorms.

Climate, on the other hand, refers to the long-term (usually at least 30 years) regional or even global average of temperature, humidity, and rainfall patterns over seasons, years, or decades.

Find Out More: A Guide to NASA’s Global Climate Change Website

This website provides a high-level overview of some of the known causes, effects and indications of global climate change:

Evidence. Brief descriptions of some of the key scientific observations that our planet is undergoing abrupt climate change.

Causes. A concise discussion of the primary climate change causes on our planet.

Effects. A look at some of the likely future effects of climate change, including U.S. regional effects.

Vital Signs. Graphs and animated time series showing real-time climate change data, including atmospheric carbon dioxide, global temperature, sea ice extent, and ice sheet volume.

Earth Minute. This fun video series explains various Earth science topics, including some climate change topics.

Other NASA Resources

Goddard Scientific Visualization Studio. An extensive collection of animated climate change and Earth science visualizations.

Sea Level Change Portal. NASA's portal for an in-depth look at the science behind sea level change.

NASA’s Earth Observatory. Satellite imagery, feature articles and scientific information about our home planet, with a focus on Earth’s climate and environmental change.

Header image is of Apusiaajik Glacier, and was taken near Kulusuk, Greenland, on Aug. 26, 2018, during NASA's Oceans Melting Greenland (OMG) field operations. Learn more here . Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

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Human activity affects global surface temperatures by changing Earth ’s radiative balance—the “give and take” between what comes in during the day and what Earth emits at night. Increases in greenhouse gases —i.e., trace gases such as carbon dioxide and methane that absorb heat energy emitted from Earth’s surface and reradiate it back—generated by industry and transportation cause the atmosphere to retain more heat, which increases temperatures and alters precipitation patterns.

Global warming, the phenomenon of increasing average air temperatures near Earth’s surface over the past one to two centuries, happens mostly in the troposphere , the lowest level of the atmosphere, which extends from Earth’s surface up to a height of 6–11 miles. This layer contains most of Earth’s clouds and is where living things and their habitats and weather primarily occur.

Continued global warming is expected to impact everything from energy use to water availability to crop productivity throughout the world. Poor countries and communities with limited abilities to adapt to these changes are expected to suffer disproportionately. Global warming is already being associated with increases in the incidence of severe and extreme weather, heavy flooding , and wildfires —phenomena that threaten homes, dams, transportation networks, and other facets of human infrastructure. Learn more about how the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report, released in 2021, describes the social impacts of global warming.

Polar bears live in the Arctic , where they use the region’s ice floes as they hunt seals and other marine mammals . Temperature increases related to global warming have been the most pronounced at the poles, where they often make the difference between frozen and melted ice. Polar bears rely on small gaps in the ice to hunt their prey. As these gaps widen because of continued melting, prey capture has become more challenging for these animals.

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global warming , the phenomenon of increasing average air temperatures near the surface of Earth over the past one to two centuries. Climate scientists have since the mid-20th century gathered detailed observations of various weather phenomena (such as temperatures, precipitation , and storms) and of related influences on climate (such as ocean currents and the atmosphere’s chemical composition). These data indicate that Earth’s climate has changed over almost every conceivable timescale since the beginning of geologic time and that human activities since at least the beginning of the Industrial Revolution have a growing influence over the pace and extent of present-day climate change .

Giving voice to a growing conviction of most of the scientific community , the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was formed in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP). The IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report (AR6), published in 2021, noted that the best estimate of the increase in global average surface temperature between 1850 and 2019 was 1.07 °C (1.9 °F). An IPCC special report produced in 2018 noted that human beings and their activities have been responsible for a worldwide average temperature increase between 0.8 and 1.2 °C (1.4 and 2.2 °F) since preindustrial times, and most of the warming over the second half of the 20th century could be attributed to human activities.

AR6 produced a series of global climate predictions based on modeling five greenhouse gas emission scenarios that accounted for future emissions, mitigation (severity reduction) measures, and uncertainties in the model projections. Some of the main uncertainties include the precise role of feedback processes and the impacts of industrial pollutants known as aerosols , which may offset some warming. The lowest-emissions scenario, which assumed steep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions beginning in 2015, predicted that the global mean surface temperature would increase between 1.0 and 1.8 °C (1.8 and 3.2 °F) by 2100 relative to the 1850–1900 average. This range stood in stark contrast to the highest-emissions scenario, which predicted that the mean surface temperature would rise between 3.3 and 5.7 °C (5.9 and 10.2 °F) by 2100 based on the assumption that greenhouse gas emissions would continue to increase throughout the 21st century. The intermediate-emissions scenario, which assumed that emissions would stabilize by 2050 before declining gradually, projected an increase of between 2.1 and 3.5 °C (3.8 and 6.3 °F) by 2100.

Many climate scientists agree that significant societal, economic, and ecological damage would result if the global average temperature rose by more than 2 °C (3.6 °F) in such a short time. Such damage would include increased extinction of many plant and animal species, shifts in patterns of agriculture , and rising sea levels. By 2015 all but a few national governments had begun the process of instituting carbon reduction plans as part of the Paris Agreement , a treaty designed to help countries keep global warming to 1.5 °C (2.7 °F) above preindustrial levels in order to avoid the worst of the predicted effects. Whereas authors of the 2018 special report noted that should carbon emissions continue at their present rate, the increase in average near-surface air temperature would reach 1.5 °C sometime between 2030 and 2052, authors of the AR6 report suggested that this threshold would be reached by 2041 at the latest.

The AR6 report also noted that the global average sea level had risen by some 20 cm (7.9 inches) between 1901 and 2018 and that sea level rose faster in the second half of the 20th century than in the first half. It also predicted, again depending on a wide range of scenarios, that the global average sea level would rise by different amounts by 2100 relative to the 1995–2014 average. Under the report’s lowest-emission scenario, sea level would rise by 28–55 cm (11–21.7 inches), whereas, under the intermediate emissions scenario, sea level would rise by 44–76 cm (17.3–29.9 inches). The highest-emissions scenario suggested that sea level would rise by 63–101 cm (24.8–39.8 inches) by 2100.

The scenarios referred to above depend mainly on future concentrations of certain trace gases, called greenhouse gases , that have been injected into the lower atmosphere in increasing amounts through the burning of fossil fuels for industry, transportation , and residential uses. Modern global warming is the result of an increase in magnitude of the so-called greenhouse effect , a warming of Earth’s surface and lower atmosphere caused by the presence of water vapour , carbon dioxide , methane , nitrous oxides , and other greenhouse gases. In 2014 the IPCC first reported that concentrations of carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxides in the atmosphere surpassed those found in ice cores dating back 800,000 years.

Of all these gases, carbon dioxide is the most important, both for its role in the greenhouse effect and for its role in the human economy. It has been estimated that, at the beginning of the industrial age in the mid-18th century, carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere were roughly 280 parts per million (ppm). By the end of 2022 they had risen to 419 ppm, and, if fossil fuels continue to be burned at current rates, they are projected to reach 550 ppm by the mid-21st century—essentially, a doubling of carbon dioxide concentrations in 300 years.

A vigorous debate is in progress over the extent and seriousness of rising surface temperatures, the effects of past and future warming on human life, and the need for action to reduce future warming and deal with its consequences. This article provides an overview of the scientific background related to the subject of global warming. It considers the causes of rising near-surface air temperatures, the influencing factors, the process of climate research and forecasting, and the possible ecological and social impacts of rising temperatures. For an overview of the public policy developments related to global warming occurring since the mid-20th century, see global warming policy . For a detailed description of Earth’s climate, its processes, and the responses of living things to its changing nature, see climate . For additional background on how Earth’s climate has changed throughout geologic time , see climatic variation and change . For a full description of Earth’s gaseous envelope, within which climate change and global warming occur, see atmosphere .

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Climate change widespread, rapid, and intensifying – ipcc.

GENEVA, Aug 9 – Scientists are observing changes in the Earth’s climate in every region and across the whole climate system, according to the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Report, released today. Many of the changes observed in the climate are unprecedented in thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of years, and some of the changes already set in motion—such as continued sea level rise—are irreversible over hundreds to thousands of years.

However, strong and sustained reductions in emissions of carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) and other greenhouse gases would limit climate change. While benefits for air quality would come quickly, it could take 20-30 years to see global temperatures stabilize, according to the IPCC Working Group I report, Climate Change 2021: the Physical Science Basis , approved on Friday by 195 member governments of the IPCC, through a virtual approval session that was held over two weeks starting on July 26.

The Working Group I report is the first instalment of the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report (AR6), which will be completed in 2022.

“This report reflects extraordinary efforts under exceptional circumstances,” said Hoesung Lee, Chair of the IPCC. “The innovations in this report, and advances in climate science that it reflects, provide an invaluable input into climate negotiations and decision-making.”

Faster warming

The report provides new estimates of the chances of crossing the global warming level of 1.5°C in the next decades, and finds that unless there are immediate, rapid and large-scale reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, limiting warming to close to 1.5°C or even 2°C will be beyond reach.

The report shows that emissions of greenhouse gases from human activities are responsible for approximately 1.1°C of warming since 1850-1900, and finds that averaged over the next 20 years, global temperature is expected to reach or exceed 1.5°C of warming. This assessment is based on improved observational datasets to assess historical warming, as well progress in scientific understanding of the response of the climate system to human-caused greenhouse gas emissions.

“This report is a reality check,” said IPCC Working Group I Co-Chair Valérie Masson-Delmotte. “We now have a much clearer picture of the past, present and future climate, which is essential for understanding where we are headed, what can be done, and how we can prepare.”

Every region facing increasing changes

Many characteristics of climate change directly depend on the level of global warming, but what people experience is often very different to the global average. For example, warming over land is larger than the global average, and it is more than twice as high in the Arctic.

“Climate change is already affecting every region on Earth, in multiple ways. The changes we experience will increase with additional warming,” said IPCC Working Group I Co-Chair Panmao Zhai.

The report projects that in the coming decades climate changes will increase in all regions. For 1.5°C of global warming, there will be increasing heat waves, longer warm seasons and shorter cold seasons. At 2°C of global warming, heat extremes would more often reach critical tolerance thresholds for agriculture and health, the report shows.

But it is not just about temperature. Climate change is bringing multiple different changes in different regions – which will all increase with further warming. These include changes to wetness and dryness, to winds, snow and ice, coastal areas and oceans. For example:

• Climate change is intensifying the water cycle. This brings more intense rainfall and associated flooding, as well as more intense drought in many regions.
• Climate change is affecting rainfall patterns. In high latitudes, precipitation is likely to increase, while it is projected to decrease over large parts of the subtropics. Changes to monsoon precipitation are expected, which will vary by region.
• Coastal areas will see continued sea level rise throughout the 21st century, contributing to more frequent and severe coastal flooding in low-lying areas and coastal erosion. Extreme sea level events that previously occurred once in 100 years could happen every year by the end of this century.
• Further warming will amplify permafrost thawing, and the loss of seasonal snow cover, melting of glaciers and ice sheets, and loss of summer Arctic sea ice.
• Changes to the ocean, including warming, more frequent marine heatwaves, ocean acidification, and reduced oxygen levels have been clearly linked to human influence. These changes affect both ocean ecosystems and the people that rely on them, and they will continue throughout at least the rest of this century.
• For cities, some aspects of climate change may be amplified, including heat (since urban areas are usually warmer than their surroundings), flooding from heavy precipitation events and sea level rise in coastal cities.

For the first time, the Sixth Assessment Report provides a more detailed regional assessment of climate change, including a focus on useful information that can inform risk assessment, adaptation, and other decision-making, and a new framework that helps translate physical changes in the climate – heat, cold, rain, drought, snow, wind, coastal flooding and more – into what they mean for society and ecosystems.

This regional information can be explored in detail in the newly developed Interactive Atlas interactive-atlas.ipcc.ch as well as regional fact sheets, the technical summary, and underlying report.

Human influence on the past and future climate

“It has been clear for decades that the Earth’s climate is changing, and the role of human influence on the climate system is undisputed,” said Masson-Delmotte. Yet the new report also reflects major advances in the science of attribution – understanding the role of climate change in intensifying specific weather and climate events such as extreme heat waves and heavy rainfall events.

The report also shows that human actions still have the potential to determine the future course of climate. The evidence is clear that carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) is the main driver of climate change, even as other greenhouse gases and air pollutants also affect the climate.

“Stabilizing the climate will require strong, rapid, and sustained reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, and reaching net zero CO 2 emissions. Limiting other greenhouse gases and air pollutants, especially methane, could have benefits both for health and the climate,” said Zhai.

For more information contact:

IPCC Press Office [email protected] , +41 22 730 8120

Katherine Leitzell [email protected]

Nada Caud (French) [email protected]

Notes for Editors

Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

The Working Group I report addresses the most updated physical understanding of the climate system and climate change, bringing together the latest advances in climate science, and combining multiple lines of evidence from paleoclimate, observations, process understanding, global and regional climate simulations. It shows how and why climate has changed to date, and the improved understanding of human influence on a wider range of climate characteristics, including extreme events. There will be a greater focus on regional information that can be used for climate risk assessments.

The Summary for Policymakers of the Working Group I contribution to the Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) as well as additional materials and information are available at https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/

Note : Originally scheduled for release in April 2021, the report was delayed for several months by the COVID-19 pandemic, as work in the scientific community including the IPCC shifted online. This is first time that the IPCC has conducted a virtual approval session for one of its reports.

AR6 Working Group I in numbers

234 authors from 66 countries

• 31 – coordinating authors
• 167 – lead authors
• 36 – review editors
• 517 – contributing authors

Over 14,000 cited references

A total of 78,007 expert and government review comments

(First Order Draft 23,462; Second Order Draft 51,387; Final Government Distribution: 3,158)

More information about the Sixth Assessment Report can be found here .

About the IPCC

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is the UN body for assessing the science related to climate change. It was established by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) in 1988 to provide political leaders with periodic scientific assessments concerning climate change, its implications and risks, as well as to put forward adaptation and mitigation strategies. In the same year the UN General Assembly endorsed the action by the WMO and UNEP in jointly establishing the IPCC. It has 195 member states.

Thousands of people from all over the world contribute to the work of the IPCC. For the assessment reports, IPCC scientists volunteer their time to assess the thousands of scientific papers published each year to provide a comprehensive summary of what is known about the drivers of climate change, its impacts and future risks, and how adaptation and mitigation can reduce those risks.

The IPCC has three working groups: Working Group I , dealing with the physical science basis of climate change; Working Group II , dealing with impacts, adaptation and vulnerability; and Working Group III , dealing with the mitigation of climate change. It also has a Task Force on National Greenhouse Gas Inventories that develops methodologies for measuring emissions and removals. As part of the IPCC, a Task Group on Data Support for Climate Change Assessments (TG-Data) provides guidance to the Data Distribution Centre (DDC) on curation, traceability, stability, availability and transparency of data and scenarios related to the reports of the IPCC.

IPCC assessments provide governments, at all levels, with scientific information that they can use to develop climate policies. IPCC assessments are a key input into the international negotiations to tackle climate change. IPCC reports are drafted and reviewed in several stages, thus guaranteeing objectivity and transparency. An IPCC assessment report consists of the contributions of the three working groups and a Synthesis Report. The Synthesis Report integrates the findings of the three working group reports and of any special reports prepared in that assessment cycle.

About the Sixth Assessment Cycle

At its 41st Session in February 2015, the IPCC decided to produce a Sixth Assessment Report (AR6). At its 42nd Session in October 2015 it elected a new Bureau that would oversee the work on this report and the Special Reports to be produced in the assessment cycle.

Global Warming of 1.5°C , an IPCC special report on the impacts of global warming of 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and related global greenhouse gas emission pathways, in the context of strengthening the global response to the threat of climate change, sustainable development, and efforts to eradicate poverty was launched in October 2018.

Climate Change and Land , an IPCC special report on climate change, desertification, land degradation, sustainable land management, food security, and greenhouse gas fluxes in terrestrial ecosystems was launched in August 2019, and the Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate was released in September 2019.

In May 2019 the IPCC released the 2019 Refinement to the 2006 IPCC Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories , an update to the methodology used by governments to estimate their greenhouse gas emissions and removals.

The other two Working Group contributions to the AR6 will be finalized in 2022 and the AR6 Synthesis Report will be completed in the second half of 2022.

For more information go to www.ipcc.ch

The website includes outreach materials including videos about the IPCC and video recordings from outreach events conducted as webinars or live-streamed events.

Most videos published by the IPCC can be found on our YouTube and Vimeo channels.

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Simpler Presentations of Climate Change

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Science Leads the Future

Are We Entering The Golden Age Of Climate Modeling?

Alumni push universities forward on climate, indoor air pollution in the time of coronavirus, how an unlikely friendship upended permafrost myths, the alarming rise of predatory conferences, science leads the future, and the future is now.

Has this happened to you? You are presenting the latest research about climate change to a general audience, maybe at the town library, to a local journalist, or even in an introductory science class. After presenting the solid science about greenhouse gases, how they work, and how we are changing them, you conclude with “and this is what the models predict about our climate future…”

At that point, your audience may feel they are being asked to make a leap of faith. Having no idea how the models work or what they contain and leave out, this final and crucial step becomes to them a “trust me” moment. Trust me moments can be easy to deny.

This problem has not been made easier by a recent expansion in the number of models and the range of predictions presented in the literature. One recent study making this point is that of Hausfather et al. [2022], which presents the “hot model” problem: the fact that some of the newer models in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6) model comparison yield predictions of global temperatures that are above the range presented in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) Sixth Assessment Report (AR6). The authors present a number of reasons for, and solutions to, the hot model problem.

Models are crucial in advancing any field of science. They represent a state-of-the-art summary of what the community understands about its subject. Differences among models highlight unknowns on which new research can be focused.

But Hausfather and colleagues make another point: As questions are answered and models evolve, they should also converge. That is, they should not only reproduce past measurements, but they should also begin to produce similar projections into the future. When that does not happen, it can make trust me moments even less convincing.

Are there simpler ways to make the major points about climate change, especially to general audiences, without relying on complex models?

We think there are.

Old Predictions That Still Hold True

In a recent article in Eos , Andrei Lapenis retells the story of Mikhail Budyko ’s 1972 predictions about global temperature and sea ice extent [ Budyko , 1972]. Lapenis notes that those predictions have proven to be remarkably accurate. This is a good example of effective, long-term predictions of climate change that are based on simple physical mechanisms that are relatively easy to explain.

There are many other examples that go back more than a century. These simpler formulations don’t attempt to capture the spatial or temporal detail of the full models, but their success at predicting the overall influence of rising carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) on global temperatures makes them a still-relevant, albeit mostly overlooked, resource in climate communication and even climate prediction.

One way to make use of this historical record is to present the relative consistency over time in estimates of equilibrium carbon sensitivity (ECS), the predicted change in mean global temperature expected from a doubling of atmospheric CO 2 . ECS can be presented in straightforward language, maybe even without the name and acronym, and is an understandable concept.

Estimates of ECS can be traced back for more than a century (Table 1), showing that the relationship between CO 2 in the atmosphere and Earth’s radiation and heat balance, as an expression of a simple and straightforward physical process, has been understood for a very long time. We can now measure that balance with precision [e.g., Loeb et al. , 2021], and measurements and modeling using improved technological expertise have all affirmed this scientific consistency.

Table 1. Selected Historical Estimates of Equilibrium Carbon Sensitivity (ECS)

Settled Science

Another approach for communicating with general audiences is to present an abbreviated history demonstrating that we have known the essentials of climate change for a very long time—that the basics are settled science.

The following list is a vastly oversimplified set of four milestones in the history of climate science that we have found to be effective. In a presentation setting, this four-step outline also provides a platform for a more detailed discussion if an audience wants to go there.

• 1850s: Eunice Foote observes that, when warmed by sunlight, a cylinder filled with CO 2 attained higher temperatures and cooled more slowly than one filled with ambient air, leading her to conclude that higher concentrations of CO 2 in the atmosphere should increase Earth’s surface temperature [ Foote , 1856]. While not identifying the greenhouse effect mechanism, this may be the first statement in the scientific literature linking CO 2 to global temperature. Three years later, John Tyndall separately develops a method for measuring the absorbance of infrared radiation and demonstrates that CO 2 is an effective absorber (acts as a greenhouse gas) [ Tyndall , 1859 ; 1861 ]. 
• 1908: Svante Arrhenius describes a nonlinear response to increased CO 2 based on a year of excruciating hand calculations actually performed in 1896 [ Arrhenius , 1896]. His value for ECS is 4°C (Table 1), and the nonlinear response has been summarized in a simple one-parameter model .
• 1958: Charles Keeling establishes an observatory on Mauna Loa in Hawaii. He begins to construct the “ Keeling curve ” based on measurements of atmospheric CO 2 concentration over time. It is amazing how few people in any audience will have seen this curve.
• Current: The GISS data set of global mean temperature from NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies records the trajectory of change going back decades to centuries using both direct measurements and environmental proxies.

The last three of these steps can be combined graphically to show how well the simple relationship derived from Arrhenius ’s [1908] projections, driven by CO 2 data from the Keeling curve, predicts the modern trend in global average temperature (Figure 1). The average error in this prediction is only 0.081°C, or 8.1 hundredths of a degree.

A surprise to us was that this relationship can be made even more precise by adding the El Niño index (November–January (NDJ) from the previous year) as a second predictor. The status of the El Niño–Southern Oscillation ( ENSO ) system has been known to affect global mean temperature as well as regional weather patterns. With this second term added , the average error in the prediction drops to just over 0.06°C, or 6 one hundredths of a degree.

It is also possible to extend this simple analysis into the future using the same relationship and IPCC AR6 projections for CO 2 and “assessed warming” (results from four scenarios combined; Figure 2).

Although CO 2 is certainly not the only cause of increased warming, it provides a powerful index of the cumulative changes we are making to Earth’s climate system.

A presentation built around the consistency of equilibrium carbon sensitivity estimates does not deliver a complete understanding of the changes we are causing in the climate system, but the relatively simple, long-term historical perspective can be an effective way to tell the story.

In this regard, it is interesting that the “Summary for Policy Makers” [ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change , 2021] from the most recent IPCC science report also includes a figure (Figure SPM.10, p. 28) that captures both measured past and predicted future global temperature change as a function of cumulative CO 2 emissions alone. Given that the fraction of emissions remaining in the atmosphere over time has been relatively constant, this is equivalent to the relationship with concentration presented here. That figure also presents the variation among the models in predicted future temperatures, which is much greater than the measurement errors in the GISS and Keeling data sets that underlie the relationship in Figure 1.

A presentation built around the consistency of ECS estimates and the four steps clearly does not deliver a complete understanding of the changes we are causing in the climate system, but the relatively simple, long-term historical perspective can be an effective way to tell the story of those changes.

Past Performance and Future Results

Projecting the simple model used in Figure 1 into the future (Figure 2) assumes that the same factors that have made CO 2 alone such a good index to climate change to date will remain in place. But we know there are processes at work in the world that could break this relationship.

For example, some sources now see the electrification of the economic system, including transportation, production, and space heating and cooling, as part of the path to a zero-carbon economy [e.g., Gates , 2021]. But there is one major economic sector in which energy production is not the dominant process for greenhouse gas emissions and carbon dioxide is not the major greenhouse gas. That sector is agriculture.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has estimated that agriculture currently accounts for about 10% of total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, with nitrous oxide (N 2 O) and methane (CH 4 ) being major contributors to that total. According to the EPA (Figure 3), agriculture contributes 79% of N 2 O emissions in the United States, largely from the production and application of fertilizers (agricultural soil management) as well as from manure management, and 36% of CH 4 emissions (enteric fermentation and manure management—one might add some of the landfill emissions to that total as well).

If we succeed in moving nonagricultural sectors of the economy toward a zero-carbon state, the relationship in Figures 1 and 2 will be broken. The rate of overall climate warming would be reduced significantly, but N 2 O and CH 4 would begin to play a more dominant role in driving continued greenhouse gas warming of the planet, and we will then need more complex models than the one used for Figures 1 and 2. But just how complex?

In his recent book Life Is Simple , biologist Johnjoe McFadden traces the influence across the centuries of William of Occam (~1287–1347) and Occam’s razor as a concept in the development of our physical understanding of everything from the cosmos to the subatomic structure of matter [ McFadden , 2021]. One simple statement of Occam’s razor is, Entities should not be multiplied without necessity.

This is a simple and powerful statement: Explain a set of measurements with as few parameters, or entities, as possible. But the definition of necessity can change when the goals of a model or presentation change. The simple model used in Figures 1 and 2 tells us nothing about tomorrow’s weather or the rate of sea level rise or the rate of glacial melt. But for as long as the relationship serves to capture the role of CO 2 as an accurate index of changes in mean global temperature, it can serve the goal of making plain to general audiences that there are solid, undeniable scientific reasons why climate change is happening.

Getting the Message Across

When and if the simple relationship derived from Arrhenius’s calculations does fail as an accurate index of changes in mean global temperature, it will still provide a useful platform for explaining what has happened and why.

If we move toward an electrified economy and toward zero-carbon sources of electricity, the simple relationship derived from Arrhenius’s calculations will no longer serve that function. But when and if it does fail, it will still provide a useful platform for explaining what has happened and why. Perhaps there will be another, slightly more complex model for predicting and explaining climate change that involves three gases.

No matter how our climate future evolves, simpler and more accessible presentations of climate change science will always rely on and begin with our current understanding of the climate system. Complex, detailed models will be central to predicting our climate future (Figure 2 here would not be possible without them), but we will be more effective communicators if we can discern how best to simplify that complexity when presenting the essentials of climate science to general audiences.

Arrhenius, S. (1896), On the influence of carbonic acid in the air upon temperature of the ground, Philos. Mag. J. Sci. , Ser. 5 , 41 , 237–276, https://doi.org/10.1080/14786449608620846 .

Arrhenius, S. (1908), Worlds in the Making: The Evolution of the Universe , translated by H. Borns, 228 pp., Harper, New York.

Budyko, M. I. (1972), Man’s Impact on Climate [in Russian], Gidrometeoizdat, St. Petersburg, Russia.

Foote, E. (1856), Circumstances affecting the heat of the Sun’s rays,  Am. J. Sci. Arts ,  22 (66), 382–383,  ia800802.us.archive.org/4/items/mobot31753002152491/mobot31753002152491.pdf .

Gates, B. (2021), How to Avoid a Climate Disaster , 257 pp., Alfred A. Knopf, New York.

Hausfather, Z., et al. (2022), Climate simulations: Recognize the ‘hot model’ problem, Nature , 605 , 26–29, https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-022-01192-2 .

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (2021), Summary for policymakers, in Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis—Contribution of Working Group I to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change , edited by V. Masson-Delmotte et al., pp. 3–32, Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge, U.K., and New York, https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/downloads/report/IPCC_AR6_WGI_SPM.pdf .

Loeb, N. G., et al. (2021), Satellite and ocean data reveal marked increase in Earth’s heating rate, Geophys. Res. Lett. , 48 (13), e2021GL093047, https://doi.org/10.1029/2021GL093047 .

McFadden, J. (2021), Life Is Simple: How Occam’s Razor Set Science Free and Shapes the Universe , 376 pp., Basic Books, New York.

Tyndall, J. (1859), Note on the transmission of radiant heat through gaseous bodies,  Proc. R. Soc. London ,  10 , 37–39,  https://www.jstor.org/stable/111604 . 

Tyndall, J. (1861), I. The Bakerian Lecture.—On the absorption and radiation of heat by gases and vapours, and on the physical connexion of radiation, absorption, and conduction, Philos. Trans. R. Soc. London , 151 , https://doi.org/10.1098/rstl.1861.0001 .

Author Information

John Aber ( [email protected] ) and Scott V. Ollinger, Department of Natural Resources and the Environment and the Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans, and Space, University of New Hampshire, Durham

Update, 26 September 2022: This article has been updated to include the early contribution of Eunice Foote in the study of CO 2 and its effects on Earth’s climate.

Citation:  Aber, J., and S. V. Ollinger (2022), Simpler presentations of climate change,  Eos, 103, https://doi.org/10.1029/2022EO220444 . Published on 13 September 2022.

Text © 2022. the authors.  cc by-nc-nd 3.0 except where otherwise noted, images are subject to copyright. any reuse without express permission from the copyright owner is prohibited., features from agu publications, ocean spray is relatively lifeless, future global flood hazards at unprecedented accuracy, lifting the veil of journal editing.

Climate Change: Evidence and Causes: Update 2020 (2020)

Chapter: conclusion, c onclusion.

This document explains that there are well-understood physical mechanisms by which changes in the amounts of greenhouse gases cause climate changes. It discusses the evidence that the concentrations of these gases in the atmosphere have increased and are still increasing rapidly, that climate change is occurring, and that most of the recent change is almost certainly due to emissions of greenhouse gases caused by human activities. Further climate change is inevitable; if emissions of greenhouse gases continue unabated, future changes will substantially exceed those that have occurred so far. There remains a range of estimates of the magnitude and regional expression of future change, but increases in the extremes of climate that can adversely affect natural ecosystems and human activities and infrastructure are expected.

Citizens and governments can choose among several options (or a mixture of those options) in response to this information: they can change their pattern of energy production and usage in order to limit emissions of greenhouse gases and hence the magnitude of climate changes; they can wait for changes to occur and accept the losses, damage, and suffering that arise; they can adapt to actual and expected changes as much as possible; or they can seek as yet unproven “geoengineering” solutions to counteract some of the climate changes that would otherwise occur. Each of these options has risks, attractions and costs, and what is actually done may be a mixture of these different options. Different nations and communities will vary in their vulnerability and their capacity to adapt. There is an important debate to be had about choices among these options, to decide what is best for each group or nation, and most importantly for the global population as a whole. The options have to be discussed at a global scale because in many cases those communities that are most vulnerable control few of the emissions, either past or future. Our description of the science of climate change, with both its facts and its uncertainties, is offered as a basis to inform that policy debate.

A CKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The following individuals served as the primary writing team for the 2014 and 2020 editions of this document:

• Eric Wolff FRS, (UK lead), University of Cambridge
• Inez Fung (NAS, US lead), University of California, Berkeley
• Brian Hoskins FRS, Grantham Institute for Climate Change
• John F.B. Mitchell FRS, UK Met Office
• Tim Palmer FRS, University of Oxford
• Benjamin Santer (NAS), Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
• John Shepherd FRS, University of Southampton
• Keith Shine FRS, University of Reading.
• Susan Solomon (NAS), Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• Kevin Trenberth, National Center for Atmospheric Research
• John Walsh, University of Alaska, Fairbanks
• Don Wuebbles, University of Illinois

Staff support for the 2020 revision was provided by Richard Walker, Amanda Purcell, Nancy Huddleston, and Michael Hudson. We offer special thanks to Rebecca Lindsey and NOAA Climate.gov for providing data and figure updates.

The following individuals served as reviewers of the 2014 document in accordance with procedures approved by the Royal Society and the National Academy of Sciences:

• Richard Alley (NAS), Department of Geosciences, Pennsylvania State University
• Alec Broers FRS, Former President of the Royal Academy of Engineering
• Harry Elderfield FRS, Department of Earth Sciences, University of Cambridge
• Joanna Haigh FRS, Professor of Atmospheric Physics, Imperial College London
• Isaac Held (NAS), NOAA Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory
• John Kutzbach (NAS), Center for Climatic Research, University of Wisconsin
• Jerry Meehl, Senior Scientist, National Center for Atmospheric Research
• John Pendry FRS, Imperial College London
• John Pyle FRS, Department of Chemistry, University of Cambridge
• Gavin Schmidt, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
• Emily Shuckburgh, British Antarctic Survey
• Gabrielle Walker, Journalist
• Andrew Watson FRS, University of East Anglia

The Support for the 2014 Edition was provided by NAS Endowment Funds. We offer sincere thanks to the Ralph J. and Carol M. Cicerone Endowment for NAS Missions for supporting the production of this 2020 Edition.

F OR FURTHER READING

For more detailed discussion of the topics addressed in this document (including references to the underlying original research), see:

• Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), 2019: Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate [ https://www.ipcc.ch/srocc ]
• National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM), 2019: Negative Emissions Technologies and Reliable Sequestration: A Research Agenda [ https://www.nap.edu/catalog/25259 ]
• Royal Society, 2018: Greenhouse gas removal [ https://raeng.org.uk/greenhousegasremoval ]
• U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP), 2018: Fourth National Climate Assessment Volume II: Impacts, Risks, and Adaptation in the United States [ https://nca2018.globalchange.gov ]
• IPCC, 2018: Global Warming of 1.5°C [ https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15 ]
• USGCRP, 2017: Fourth National Climate Assessment Volume I: Climate Science Special Reports [ https://science2017.globalchange.gov ]
• NASEM, 2016: Attribution of Extreme Weather Events in the Context of Climate Change [ https://www.nap.edu/catalog/21852 ]
• IPCC, 2013: Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) Working Group 1. Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis [ https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/wg1 ]
• NRC, 2013: Abrupt Impacts of Climate Change: Anticipating Surprises [ https://www.nap.edu/catalog/18373 ]
• NRC, 2011: Climate Stabilization Targets: Emissions, Concentrations, and Impacts Over Decades to Millennia [ https://www.nap.edu/catalog/12877 ]
• Royal Society 2010: Climate Change: A Summary of the Science [ https://royalsociety.org/topics-policy/publications/2010/climate-change-summary-science ]
• NRC, 2010: America’s Climate Choices: Advancing the Science of Climate Change [ https://www.nap.edu/catalog/12782 ]

Much of the original data underlying the scientific findings discussed here are available at:

• https://data.ucar.edu/
• https://climatedataguide.ucar.edu
• https://iridl.ldeo.columbia.edu
• https://ess-dive.lbl.gov/
• https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/
• https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/
• http://scrippsco2.ucsd.edu
• http://hahana.soest.hawaii.edu/hot/

Climate change is one of the defining issues of our time. It is now more certain than ever, based on many lines of evidence, that humans are changing Earth's climate. The Royal Society and the US National Academy of Sciences, with their similar missions to promote the use of science to benefit society and to inform critical policy debates, produced the original Climate Change: Evidence and Causes in 2014. It was written and reviewed by a UK-US team of leading climate scientists. This new edition, prepared by the same author team, has been updated with the most recent climate data and scientific analyses, all of which reinforce our understanding of human-caused climate change.

Scientific information is a vital component for society to make informed decisions about how to reduce the magnitude of climate change and how to adapt to its impacts. This booklet serves as a key reference document for decision makers, policy makers, educators, and others seeking authoritative answers about the current state of climate-change science.

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Africa faces disproportionate burden from climate change and adaptation costs

Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire (WMO) - Africa bears an increasingly heavy burden from climate change and disproportionately high costs for essential climate adaptation, according to a new report from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).

On average, African countries are losing 2–5 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and many are diverting up to 9 percent of their budgets responding to climate extremes. In sub-Saharan Africa, the cost of adaptation is estimated to be between US$ 30-50 billion annually over the next decade, or 2-3 percent of the region's Gross Domestic Product, says the WMO State of the Climate in Africa 2023 report .

By 2030, it is estimated that up to 118 million extremely poor people (living on less than US$ 1.90 per day) will be exposed to drought, floods and extreme heat in Africa, if adequate response measures are not put in place. This will place additional burdens on poverty alleviation efforts and significantly hamper growth, according to figures cited in the report. 

African countries need to prioritize increased investment in National Meteorological and Hydrological Services and accelerate implementation of the Early Warnings For All initiative to save lives and livelihoods. This will help mitigate risks, build adaptive capacity, boost resilience at local, national, and regional levels and guide sustainable development strategies, says the report.

It focuses on climate change indicators and impacts in 2023 – the world’s hottest year on record to date. It supplements the WMO State of the Global Climate report and is one of a series of WMO regional reports which provide the observational basis to help drive action and support decision-making. 

“Over the past 60 years, Africa has observed a warming trend that has become more rapid than the global average. In 2023, the continent experienced deadly heatwaves, heavy rains, floods, tropical cyclones, and prolonged droughts,” said WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo. 

“While many countries in the Horn of Africa, southern and North-West Africa continued to suffer exceptional multi-year drought, other countries experienced extreme precipitation events in 2023 leading to flooding with significant casualties. These extreme events led to devastating impacts on communities, with serious economic implications,” said Celeste Saulo.

“This pattern of extreme weather has continued in 2024. Parts of southern Africa have been gripped by damaging drought. Exceptional seasonal rainfall has caused death and devastation in East African countries, most recently in Sudan and South Sudan. This exacerbates an already desperate humanitarian crisis,” she said.  

WMO, the African Union Commission, United Nations Economic Commission for Africa and the African Ministerial Conference on Meteorology will release the report in collaboration with partners at the 12th Climate Change for Development in Africa (CCDA) Conference in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire on 2 September 2024.

“The State of Climate in Africa 2023 Report highlights the urgent need for investing in meteorological services and early warning systems to help adapt to climate change and build resilience in Africa. As the impacts of climate change continue to manifest globally, the African continent stands at a critical juncture,” said H.E. Ambassador Josefa Leonel Correia Sacko, Commissioner for Agriculture, Rural Development, Blue Economy and Sustainable Environment at the African Union Commission.

“Africa faces disproportionate burdens and risks arising from climate change related weather events and patterns, which cause massive humanitarian crises with detrimental impacts on agriculture, and food security, education, energy, infrastructure, peace, and security, public health, water resources, and overall socio-economic development,” she said. 

• Early warning system
• State of the Climate in Africa 2023
• Region I: Africa

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