Earth’s polar caps quickly losing ice. Coral reefs bleaching to a chalky white. Stronger storms devastating islands and cities, claiming lives and destroying homes. Those aren’t claims of what our world faces in a warmer future. Those climate change impacts are already happening — and due to worsen. That’s the finding of a new report from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC.
The United Nations issued a summary of the new assessment on September 25. It’s the panel’s first comprehensive update on how human-driven climate change is upsetting not only Earth’s oceans, but also its frozen regions, or cryosphere. Just how severe things get will depend on whether most countries lower their releases of climate-warming greenhouse gases — or just continue pumping large quantities of them into the air.
The report focuses on two potential scenarios. One involves cutting greenhouse gases enough to limit global warming to around 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above preindustrial levels. By the way, the world is already more than halfway there; global temps have warmed by 1.1 degrees C (2 degrees F) since 1900, according to a second new report. Prepared by the World Meteorological Organization, it was released September 22. In a second scenario, pollution continues at its current pace to where Earth eventually warms some 4 degrees C (7.2 degrees F).
Science News for Students took a look at the report’s predictions. They offer a scary view of potential changes that would impact societies and our natural world. They’re based on the latest available science.
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