Precipitation totals noaa drivers#

These include sea level rise, and warmer, more acidic oceans. Even if efforts to minimise future warming are successful, some effects will continue for centuries. The World Health Organization (WHO) calls climate change the greatest threat to global health in the 21st century. Human migration and conflict can be a result. Climate change threatens people with food and water scarcity, increased flooding, extreme heat, more disease, and economic loss. Rapid environmental change in mountains, coral reefs, and the Arctic is forcing many species to relocate or become extinct. Higher temperatures are also causing more intense storms, droughts, and other weather extremes. Increased warming in the Arctic has contributed to melting permafrost, glacial retreat and sea ice loss. ĭue to climate change, deserts are expanding, while heat waves and wildfires are becoming more common. As the planet heats up it causes changes like the loss of sunlight-reflecting snow cover, amplifying global warming. As their name suggests, these gases trap heat from sunlight near the earth’s surface, causing present day warming and climate change. Certain agricultural practices, industrial processes, and forest loss are additional sources. Burning fossil fuels for energy use creates most of these emissions. Instead, they are caused by the emission of greenhouse gases, mostly carbon dioxide (CO 2) and methane. There have been previous periods of climate change, but the current changes are distinctly more rapid and not due to natural causes. Ĭontemporary climate change includes both global warming and its impacts on Earth's weather patterns. Human activity has caused increased temperatures, with natural forces adding some variability.

Precipitation totals noaa drivers#

Change in average surface air temperature since the industrial revolution, plus drivers for that change.