Portal:Climate change

The Climate Change Portal

P:CCP:CC

Present-day climate change includes both global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its wider effects on Earth's climate system. In a broader sense, climate change also includes previous long-term changes to Earth's climate. The modern-day rise in global temperatures is driven by human activities, especially fossil fuel (coal, oil and natural gas) 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. Earth's atmosphere now has roughly 50% more carbon dioxide, the main gas driving global warming, than it did at the end of the pre-industrial era, reaching levels not seen for millions of years.

Climate change has an increasingly large impact on the environment. 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.

There is widespread support for climate action worldwide, and most countries aim to stop emitting carbon dioxide. Fossil fuels can be phased out by ending their subsidies, 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 store carbon in soil. (Full article...)

Read more about climate change

View new selections below (purge)

Selected article – show another

Climate crisis is a term that is used to describe global warming and climate change and their effects. This term and the term climate emergency have been used to emphasize the threat of global warming to Earth's natural environment and to humans, and to urge aggressive climate change mitigation and transformational adaptation.

The term climate crisis is used by those who "believe it evokes the gravity of the threats the planet faces from continued greenhouse gas emissions and can help spur the kind of political willpower that has long been missing from climate advocacy". They believe, much as global warming provoked more emotional engagement and support for action than climate change, calling climate change a crisis could have an even stronger effect.

A study has shown the term climate crisis invokes a strong emotional response by conveying a sense of urgency. However, some caution this response may be counter-productive and may cause a backlash due to perceptions of alarmist exaggeration. (Full article...)

List of selected articles

edit

Selected picture – show another

Antarctica

Credit: NASA

Image showing the temperature trend in Antarctica between 1957 and 2006

More selected pictures

edit

WikiProjects


WikiProject Climate change	WikiProject Environment	WikiProject Globalization

Selected biography – show another

Erdoğan in 2023

Emine Erdoğan (née Gülbaran; born 16 February 1955) is the current first lady of Turkey as the wife of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

Born in Üsküdar, Istanbul, her family originates from Siirt and is of Arab origin. She attended Istanbul Mithatpaşa Vocational Evening School for Girls but did not graduate, and became involved in social activities from a young age. Gülbaran married Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in 1978, and they have four children. She became active in politics as a founding member of the Provincial Women's Branch Administrative Board of the Welfare Party and later participated in social responsibility initiatives after her husband became Mayor of Istanbul. She has supported and led projects focused on education, women and children, social development, humanitarian aid, environmental conservation and zero waste, including campaigns promoting girls' schooling and early childhood education. Erdoğan has also received international recognition, including the Nishan-e-Pakistan, while attracting controversy over her use of luxury goods. (Full article...)

List of selected biographies

General images

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

Image 1Modeled 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 2The 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 3The concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide has been increasing in progressively greater amounts. (from Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of Earth)
Image 4James Croll (from History of climate change science)
Image 5Milutin Milanković (from History of climate change science)
Image 6Cumulative land-use change contributions to CO₂ emissions, by region. (from Causes of climate change)
Image 7Carbon dioxide observations from 2008 to 2017 showing the seasonal variations and the difference between northern and southern hemispheres (from Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of Earth)
Image 8The Global Carbon Project shows how additions to CO₂ have been caused by different sources ramping up one after another. (from Causes of climate change)
Image 9The Keeling Curve shows the long-term increase of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO₂) concentrations since 1958. (from Causes of climate change)
Image 10Eunice Newton Foote recognized carbon dioxide's heat-capturing effect in 1856, appreciating its implications for the planet. (from History of climate change science)
Image 11Over 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 the atmosphere of Earth)
Image 12Annual 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 the atmosphere of Earth)
Image 13Since 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 14Mean 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 15Air 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 16Scientific 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 17The 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 18A 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 19This 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 the atmosphere of Earth)
Image 20Global 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 21Main sources of global methane emissions (2008–2017) according to the Global Carbon Project (from Causes of climate change)
Image 22Human fingerprints for global warming (summary of observational evidence that human carbon dioxide emissions are causing the climate to warm). (from Causes of climate change)
Image 23A diagram which shows where the extra heat retained on Earth due to the energy imbalance is going.
Image 24The 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 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 26Joseph Fourier (from History of climate change science)
Image 27Earth heating estimates from a combination of space altimetry and space gravimetry (from Earth's energy budget)
Image 28CO₂ concentrations over the last 800,000 years as measured from ice cores (blue/green) and directly (black) (from Causes of climate change)
Image 29Anthropogenic global warming—not global cooling or "imminent ice ages"—dominated peer-reviewed literature in the 1970s, contrary to false claims that climate science subsequently reversed its consensus. (from History of climate change science)
Image 30John 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 31Earth'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. (from Earth's energy budget)
Image 32The 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 33Atmospheric 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 the atmosphere of Earth)
Image 34Correspondence between temperature and atmospheric CO₂ during the last 800,000 years (from Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of Earth)
Image 35Sea 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 36Exterior of a Stevenson screen used for temperature measurements on land stations. (from History of climate change science)
Image 37Graphs of carbon dioxide concentration and temperature over time. (from Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of Earth)
Image 38Between 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 the atmosphere of Earth)
Image 39Top panel: Observed global average temperature change (1870— ).Bottom panel: Data from the Fourth National Climate Assessment is merged for display on the same scale to emphasize relative strengths of forces affecting temperature change. Human-caused forces have increasingly dominated.
(from Causes of climate change)
Image 40Warming 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 41CO₂ 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 42Increase in the Earth's non-cloud greenhouse effect (2000–2022) based on satellite data (from Earth's energy budget)
Image 43Physical 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 the atmosphere of Earth)
Image 44CO₂ concentrations over the last 500 million years (from Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of Earth)
Image 45Erratics, 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 46Air-sea exchange of CO₂ (from Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of Earth)
Image 47Schematic drawing of Earth's excess heat inventory and energy imbalance for two recent time periods (from Earth's energy budget)
Image 48Charles Keeling, receiving the National Medal of Science from George W. Bush, in 2001 (from History of climate change science)
Image 49CO₂ 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 the atmosphere of Earth)
Image 50Longwave-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 the atmosphere of Earth)

edit

Did you know – show another

... that ocean warming has been found to result in stronger hurricanes? Article on Nature News

(Pictured left: Hurricane Isabel (2003) as seen from orbit during Expedition 7 of the International Space Station.)

Other "Did you know" facts...

Read more...

edit

Related portals

edit

Selected panorama – show another

Global Historical Climatology Network

Credit: Created by Robert A. Rohde from data published by the U.S. NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory, Global Monitoring Division

The Global Historical Climatology Network (GHCN) is one of the primary reference compilations of temperature data used for climatology, and is the foundation of the GISTEMP Temperature Record. This map shows the 7,280 fixed temperature stations in the GHCN catalog color coded by the length of the available record. Sites that are actively updated in the database (2,277) are marked as "active" and shown in large symbols, other sites are marked as "historical" and shown in small symbols. In some cases, the "historical" sites are still collecting data but due to reporting and data processing delays (of more than a decade in some cases) they do not contribute to current temperature estimates. As is evident from this plot, the most densely instrumented portion of the globe is in the United States, while Antarctica is the most sparsely instrumented land area. Parts of the Pacific and other oceans are more isolated from fixed temperature stations, but this is supplemented by volunteer observing ships that record temperature information during their normal travels. This image shows 3,832 records longer than 50 years, 1,656 records longer than 100 years, and 226 records longer than 150 years. The longest record in the collection began in Berlin in 1701 and is still collected in the present day.