Earth Will Continue to Warm and the Effects Will Be Profound

Global warming is not an issue for the future. Geographic ranges of plants and animals are shifting, glaciers and ice sheets are receding. River and lake ice is breaking up earlier and plants and trees are blooming sooner as a result of changes in Earth’s climate brought on by increased human emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases.

Sea ice loss, rapid sea level rise, and longer, more severe heat waves are among the effects of global climate change that scientists have long anticipated will happen.

Extreme rains, wildfires, and droughts are examples of changes that are occurring more quickly than previously thought by experts. In fact Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the United Nations body established to assess climate change science, modern humans have never witnessed the observed changes in our global climate, and some of these changes will be irreversible over the next hundreds to thousands of years.

Scientists are very confident that the greenhouse gases created by human activity will be the primary cause of the prolonged rise in global temperatures over the coming decades.

The course that human activity takes in the future will determine how severe the impacts of climate change are. Increased greenhouse gas emissions will result in more severe weather events and detrimental impacts that will affect the entire globe. But such aftereffects are contingent upon our overall carbon dioxide emissions. Therefore, some of the worst consequences may be avoided if we can lower emissions.

There is no doubt in the scientific community that climate change poses a danger to both the health of the earth and human well-being. If there is one more delay in taking coordinated global action, the window of opportunity to ensure a livable future will close quickly.