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Global Warming

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Glaciers are melting, sea levels are rising, cloud forests are dying, and wildlife is scrambling to keep pace. It has become clear that humans have caused most of the past century’s warming by releasing heat-trapping gases as we power our modern lives. Called greenhouse gases, their levels are higher now than at any time. Climate change encompasses not only rising average temperatures but also extreme weather events, shifting wildlife populations and habitats, rising seas, and a range of other impacts. All of those changes are emerging as humans continue to add heat-trapping greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, changing the rhythms of climate that all living things have come to rely on. With concentrations of greenhouse gases rising, Earth’s remaining ice sheets such as Greenland and Antarctica are starting to melt too. That extra water could raise sea levels significantly, and quickly. In addition to sea levels rising, weather can become more extreme. This means more intense major storms, more rain followed by longer and drier droughts — a challenge for growing crops — changes in the ranges in which plants and animals can live, and loss of water supplies that have historically come from glaciers. What will we do — what can we do — to slow this human-caused warming? How will we cope with the changes we’ve already set into motion? While we struggle to figure it all out, the fate of the Earth as we know it — coasts, forests, farms, and snow-capped mountains — hangs in the balance.

The Global Warming template consists of four bright and modern slides. The first slide represents the globe with various factories and enterprises. Modern infographics allow you to immediately grab the audience’s attention. You can use this slide when preparing a report on the protection of the environment, the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and the transition to green technologies. The slide will be useful for ecologists and public organizations for the protection of nature. The next slide shows our planet divided into two parts – life and lifeless space. Many companies are using the planet’s resources for uncontrolled enrichment. This leads to irreparable consequences. You can use this slide to draw public attention to this issue. The next slide will be useful for companies that develop environmentally friendly equipment. You can use this slide when preparing your marketing campaign. The last slide can be used to prepare a business plan for the construction of waste recycling plants. Also, the slide can be used by the city authorities to alert the population about the need to sort waste by type. All slides of the Global Warming template are easy to edit. You can customize the slides yourself according to your needs. This template will be useful for university teachers when preparing a course on environmental protection or the impact of the greenhouse effect. The slides of this template will organically complement your presentations.

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Global Warming Powerpoint Templates and Google Slides Themes

Discover a collection of visually stunning and impactful presentation templates designed to raise awareness and inspire action against the urgent issue of global warming.

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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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How does global warming work?

Where does global warming occur in the atmosphere, why is global warming a social problem, where does global warming affect polar bears.

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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.

Recent News

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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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, phytoplankton shield ice shelves from summer heat, forecasting caldera collapse using deep learning, an all-community push to “close the loops” on southern ocean dynamics.

Presentation and Press Releases

Presentation

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Press release

Summary for Policymakers

• I Introduction
• A Understanding Global Warming of 1.5°C*
• B Projected Climate Change, Potential Impacts and Associated Risks
• C Emission Pathways and System Transitions Consistent with 1.5°C Global Warming
• D Strengthening the Global Response in the Context of Sustainable Development and Efforts to Eradicate Poverty
• + Core Concepts Central to this Special Report
• + Acknowledgements
• SD SPM Downloads

Framing and Context

• ES Executive Summary
• 1.1.1 Equity and a 1.5°C Warmer World
• 1.1.2 Eradication of Poverty
• 1.1.3 Sustainable Development and a 1.5°C Warmer World
• 1.2.1.1 Definition of global average temperature
• 1.2.1.2 Choice of reference period
• 1.2.1.3 Total versus human-induced warming and warming rates
• 1.2.2 Global versus Regional and Seasonal Warming
• 1.2.3.1 Pathways remaining below 1.5°C
• 1.2.3.2 Pathways temporarily exceeding 1.5°C
• 1.2.3.3 Impacts at 1.5°C warming associated with different pathways: transience versus stabilisation
• 1.2.4 Geophysical Warming Commitment
• 1.3.1 Definitions
• 1.3.2 Drivers of Impacts
• 1.3.3 Uncertainty and Non-Linearity of Impacts
• 1.4.1 Classifying Response Options
• 1.4.2 Governance, Implementation and Policies
• 1.4.3 Transformation, Transformation Pathways, and Transition: Evaluating Trade-Offs and Synergies Between Mitigation, Adaptation and Sustainable Development Goals
• 1.5.1 Knowledge Sources and Evidence Used in the Report
• 1.5.2 Assessment Frameworks and Methodologies
• 1.6 Confidence, Uncertainty and Risk
• 1.7 Storyline of the Report
• FAQs Frequently Asked Questions
• SM Supplementary Material
• CD Chapter Downloads

Mitigation pathways compatible with 1.5°C in the context of sustainable development

• 2.1.1 Mitigation Pathways Consistent with 1.5°C
• 2.1.2 The Use of Scenarios
• 2.1.3 New Scenario Information since AR5
• 2.1.4 Utility of Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs) in the Context of this Report
• 2.2.1.1 Geophysical uncertainties: non-CO 2 forcing agents
• 2.2.1.2 Geophysical uncertainties: climate and Earth system feedbacks
• 2.2.2.1 Carbon budget estimates
• 2.2.2.2 CO 2 and non-CO 2 contributions to the remaining carbon budget
• 2.3.1.1 Socio-economic drivers and the demand for energy and land in 1.5°C pathways
• 2.3.1.2 Mitigation options in 1.5°C pathways
• 2.3.1.3 Policy assumptions in 1.5°C pathways
• 2.3.2.1 Variation in system transformations underlying 1.5°C pathways
• 2.3.2.2 Pathways keeping warming below 1.5°C or temporarily overshooting it
• 2.3.3.1 Emissions of long-lived climate forcers
• 2.3.3.2 Emissions of short-lived climate forcers and fluorinated gases
• 2.3.4.1 CDR technologies and deployment levels in 1.5°C pathways
• 2.3.4.2 Sustainability implications of CDR deployment in 1.5°C pathways
• 2.3.5 Implications of Near-Term Action in 1.5°C Pathways
• 2.4.1 Energy System Transformation
• 2.4.2.1 Evolution of primary energy contributions over time
• 2.4.2.2 Evolution of electricity supply over time
• 2.4.2.3 Deployment of carbon capture and storage
• 2.4.3.1 Industry
• 2.4.3.2 Buildings
• 2.4.3.3 Transport
• 2.4.4 Land-Use Transitions and Changes in the Agricultural Sector
• 2.5.1 Policy Frameworks and Enabling Conditions
• 2.5.2.1 Price of carbon emissions
• 2.5.2.2 Investments
• 2.5.3 Sustainable Development Features of 1.5°C Pathways
• 2.6.1 Geophysical Understanding
• 2.6.2 Integrated Assessment Approaches
• 2.6.3 Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR)

Impacts of 1.5ºC global warming on natural and human systems

• 3.1 About the Chapter
• 3.2.1 How are Changes in Climate and Weather at 1.5°C versus Higher Levels of Warming Assessed?
• 3.2.2 How are Potential Impacts on Ecosystems Assessed at 1.5°C versus Higher Levels of Warming?
• 3.3.1 Global Changes in Climate
• 3.3.2.1 Observed and attributed changes in regional temperature means and extremes
• 3.3.2.2 Projected changes in regional temperature means and extremes at 1.5°C versus 2°C of global warming
• 3.3.3.1 Observed and attributed changes in regional precipitation
• 3.3.3.2 Projected changes in regional precipitation at 1.5°C versus 2°C of global warming
• 3.3.4.1 Observed and attributed changes
• 3.3.4.2 Projected changes in drought and dryness at 1.5°C versus 2°C
• 3.3.5.1 Observed and attributed changes in runoff and river flooding
• 3.3.5.2 Projected changes in runoff and river flooding at 1.5°C versus 2°C of global warming
• 3.3.6 Tropical Cyclones and Extratropical Storms
• 3.3.7 Ocean Circulation and Temperature
• 3.3.8 Sea Ice
• 3.3.9 Sea Level
• 3.3.10 Ocean Chemistry
• 3.3.11 Global Synthesis
• 3.4.1 Introduction
• 3.4.2.1 Water availability
• 3.4.2.2 Extreme hydrological events (floods and droughts)
• 3.4.2.3 Groundwater
• 3.4.2.4 Water quality
• 3.4.2.5 Soil erosion and sediment load
• 3.4.3.1 Biome shifts
• 3.4.3.2 Changes in phenology
• 3.4.3.3 Changes in species range, abundance and extinction
• 3.4.3.4 Changes in ecosystem function, biomass and carbon stocks
• 3.4.3.5 Regional and ecosystem-specific risks
• 3.4.3.6 Summary of implications for ecosystem services
• 3.4.4.1 Observed impacts
• 3.4.4.2 Warming and stratification of the surface ocean
• 3.4.4.3 Storms and coastal runoff
• 3.4.4.4 Ocean circulation
• 3.4.4.5 Ocean acidification
• 3.4.4.6 Deoxygenation
• 3.4.4.7 Loss of sea ice
• 3.4.4.8 Sea level rise
• 3.4.4.9 Projected risks and adaptation options for oceans under global warming of 1.5°C or 2°C above pre-industrial levels
• 3.4.4.10 Framework organisms (tropical corals, mangroves and seagrass)
• 3.4.4.11 Ocean foodwebs (pteropods, bivalves, krill and fin fish)
• 3.4.4.12 Key ecosystem services (e.g., carbon uptake, coastal protection, and tropical coral reef recreation)
• 3.4.5.1 Global / sub-global scale
• 3.4.5.2 Cities
• 3.4.5.3 Small islands
• 3.4.5.4 Deltas and estuaries
• 3.4.5.5 Wetlands
• 3.4.5.6 Other coastal settings
• 3.4.5.7 Adapting to coastal change
• 3.4.6.1 Crop production
• 3.4.6.2 Livestock production
• 3.4.6.3 Fisheries and aquaculture production
• 3.4.7.1 Projected risk at 1.5°C and 2°C of global warming
• 3.4.8 Urban Areas
• 3.4.9.1 Tourism
• 3.4.9.2 Energy systems
• 3.4.9.3 Transportation
• 3.4.10.1 Livelihoods and poverty
• 3.4.10.2 The changing structure of communities: migration, displacement and conflict
• 3.4.11 Interacting and Cascading Risks
• 3.4.12 Summary of Projected Risks at 1.5°C and 2°C of Global Warming
• 3.4.13 Synthesis of Key Elements of Risk
• 3.5.1 Introduction
• 3.5.2.1 RFC 1 – Unique and threatened systems
• 3.5.2.2 RFC 2 – Extreme weather events
• 3.5.2.3 RFC 3 – Distribution of impacts
• 3.5.2.4 RFC 4 – Global aggregate impacts
• 3.5.2.5 RFC 5 – Large-scale singular events
• 3.5.3 Regional Economic Benefit Analysis for the 1.5°C versus 2°C Global Goals
• 3.5.4.1 Arctic sea ice
• 3.5.4.2 Arctic land regions
• 3.5.4.3 Alpine regions
• 3.5.4.4 Southeast Asia
• 3.5.4.5 Southern Europe and the Mediterranean
• 3.5.4.6 West Africa and the Sahel
• 3.5.4.7 Southern Africa
• 3.5.4.8 Tropics
• 3.5.4.9 Small islands
• 3.5.4.10 Fynbos and shrub biomes
• 3.5.5.1 Arctic sea ice
• 3.5.5.2 Tundra
• 3.5.5.3 Permafrost
• 3.5.5.4 Asian monsoon
• 3.5.5.5 West African monsoon and the Sahel
• 3.5.5.6 Rainforests
• 3.5.5.7 Boreal forests
• 3.5.5.8 Heatwaves, unprecedented heat and human health
• 3.5.5.9 Agricultural systems: key staple crops
• 3.5.5.10 Agricultural systems: livestock in the tropics and subtropics
• 3.6.1 Gradual versus Overshoot in 1.5°C Scenarios
• 3.6.2.1 Risks arising from land-use changes in mitigation pathways
• 3.6.2.2 Biophysical feedbacks on regional climate associated with land-use changes
• 3.6.2.3 Atmospheric compounds (aerosols and methane)
• 3.6.3.1 Sea ice
• 3.6.3.2 Sea level
• 3.6.3.3 Permafrost
• 3.7.1 Gaps in Methods and Tools
• 3.7.2.1 Earth systems and 1.5°C of global warming
• 3.7.2.2 Physical and chemical characteristics of a 1.5°C warmer world
• 3.7.2.3 Terrestrial and freshwater systems
• 3.7.2.4 Ocean Systems
• 3.7.2.5 Human systems

Strengthening and implementing the global response

• 4.1 Accelerating the Global Response to Climate Change
• 4.2.1.1 Challenges and Opportunities for Mitigation Along the Reviewed Pathways
• 4.2.1.2 Implications for Adaptation Along the Reviewed Pathways
• 4.2.2.1 Mitigation: historical rates of change and state of decoupling
• 4.2.2.2 Transformational adaptation
• 4.2.2.3 Disruptive innovation
• 4.3.1.1 Renewable electricity: solar and wind
• 4.3.1.2 Bioenergy and biofuels
• 4.3.1.3 Nuclear energy
• 4.3.1.4 Energy storage
• 4.3.1.5 Options for adapting electricity systems to 1.5°C
• 4.3.1.6 Carbon dioxide capture and storage in the power sector
• 4.3.2.1 Agriculture and food
• 4.3.2.2 Forests and other ecosystems
• 4.3.2.3 Coastal systems
• 4.3.3.1 Urban energy systems
• 4.3.3.2 Urban infrastructure, buildings and appliances
• 4.3.3.3 Urban transport and urban planning
• 4.3.3.4 Electrification of cities and transport
• 4.3.3.5 Shipping, freight and aviation
• 4.3.3.6 Climate-resilient land use
• 4.3.3.8 Sustainable urban water and environmental services
• 4.3.3.7 Green urban infrastructure and ecosystem services
• 4.3.4.1 Energy efficiency
• 4.3.4.2 Substitution and circularity
• 4.3.4.3 Bio-based feedstocks
• 4.3.4.4 Electrification and hydrogen
• 4.3.4.5 CO2 capture, utilization and storage in industry
• 4.3.5.1 Disaster risk management (DRM)
• 4.3.5.2 Risk sharing and spreading
• 4.3.5.3 Education and learning
• 4.3.5.4 Population health and health system adaptation options
• 4.3.5.5 Indigenous knowledge
• 4.3.5.6 Human migration
• 4.3.5.7 Climate services
• 4.3.6 Short-Lived Climate Forcers
• 4.3.7.1 Bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS)
• 4.3.7.2 Afforestation and reforestation (AR)
• 4.3.7.3 Soil carbon sequestration and biochar
• 4.3.7.4 Enhanced weathering (EW) and ocean alkalinization
• 4.3.7.5 Direct air carbon dioxide capture and storage (DACCS)
• 4.3.7.6 Ocean fertilization
• 4.3.8.1 Governance and institutional feasibility
• 4.3.8.2 Economic and technological feasibility
• 4.3.8.3 Social acceptability and ethics
• 4.4.1.1 Institutions and their capacity to invoke far-reaching and rapid change
• 4.4.1.2 International governance
• 4.4.1.3 Sub-national governance
• 4.4.1.4 Interactions and processes for multilevel governance
• 4.4.2.1 Capacity for policy design and implementation
• 4.4.2.2 Monitoring, reporting, and review institutions
• 4.4.2.3 Financial institutions
• 4.4.2.4 Co-operative institutions and social safety nets
• 4.4.3.1 Factors related to climate actions
• 4.4.3.2 Strategies and policies to promote actions on climate change
• 4.4.3.3 Acceptability of policy and system changes
• 4.4.4.1 The nature of technological innovations
• 4.4.4.2 Technologies as enablers of climate action
• 4.4.4.3 The role of government in 1.5°C-consistent climate technology policy
• 4.4.4.4 Technology transfer in the Paris Agreement
• 4.4.5.1 The core challenge: cost-efficiency, coordination of expectations and distributive effects
• 4.4.5.2 Carbon pricing: necessity and constraints
• 4.4.5.3 Regulatory measures and information flows
• 4.4.5.4 Scaling up climate finance and de-risking low-emission investments
• 4.4.5.5 Financial challenge for basic needs and adaptation finance
• 4.4.5.6 Towards integrated policy packages and innovative forms of financial cooperation
• 4.5.1 Assessing Feasibility of Options for Accelerated Transitions
• 4.5.2.1 Assessing mitigation options for limiting warming to 1.5˚C against feasibility dimensions
• Enabling conditions for implementation of mitigation options towards 1.5˚C
• 4.5.3.1 Feasible adaptation options
• 4.5.3.2 Monitoring and evaluation
• 4.5.4 Synergies and Trade-Offs between Adaptation and Mitigation
• 4.6 Knowledge Gaps and Key Uncertainties

Sustainable Development, Poverty Eradication and Reducing Inequalities

• 5.1.1 Sustainable Development, SDGs, Poverty Eradication and Reducing Inequalities
• 5.1.2 Pathways to 1.5°C
• 5.1.3 Types of Evidence
• 5.2.1 Impacts and Risks of a 1.5°C Warmer World: Implications for Poverty and Livelihoods
• 5.2.2 Avoided Impacts of 1.5°C versus 2°C Warming for Poverty and Inequality
• 5.2.3 Risks from 1.5°C versus 2°C Global Warming and the Sustainable Development Goals
• 5.3.1 Sustainable Development in Support of Climate Adaptation
• 5.3.2 Synergies and Trade-Offs between Adaptation Options and Sustainable Development
• 5.3.3 Adaptation Pathways towards a 1.5°C Warmer World and Implications for Inequalities
• 5.4.1.1 Energy Demand: Mitigation Options to Accelerate Reduction in Energy Use and Fuel Switch
• 5.4.1.2 Energy Supply: Accelerated Decarbonization
• 5.4.1.3 Land-based agriculture, forestry and ocean: mitigation response options and carbon dioxide removal
• 5.4.2.1 Air pollution and health
• 5.4.2.2 Food security and hunger
• 5.4.2.3 Lack of energy access/energy poverty
• 5.4.2.4 Water security
• 5.5.1 Integration of Adaptation, Mitigation and Sustainable Development
• 5.5.2 Pathways for Adaptation, Mitigation and Sustainable Development
• 5.5.3.1 Transformations, equity and well-being
• 5.5.3.2 Development trajectories, sharing of efforts and cooperation
• 5.5.3.3 Country and community strategies and experiences
• 5.6.1 Finance and Technology Aligned with Local Needs
• 5.6.2 Integration of Institutions
• 5.6.3 Inclusive Processes
• 5.6.4 Attention to Issues of Power and Inequality
• 5.6.5 Reconsidering Values
• 5.7 Synthesis and Research Gaps
• GD Glossary Downloads

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What is global warming, explained

The planet is heating up—and fast.

Glaciers are melting , sea levels are rising, cloud forests are dying , and wildlife is scrambling to keep pace. It has become clear that humans have caused most of the past century's warming by releasing heat-trapping gases as we power our modern lives. Called greenhouse gases, their levels are higher now than at any time in the last 800,000 years .

We often call the result global warming, but it is causing a set of changes to the Earth's climate, or long-term weather patterns, that varies from place to place. While many people think of global warming and climate change as synonyms , scientists use “climate change” when describing the complex shifts now affecting our planet’s weather and climate systems—in part because some areas actually get cooler in the short term.

Climate change encompasses not only rising average temperatures but also extreme weather events , shifting wildlife populations and habitats, rising seas , and a range of other impacts. All of those changes are emerging as humans continue to add heat-trapping greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, changing the rhythms of climate that all living things have come to rely on.

What will we do—what can we do—to slow this human-caused warming? How will we cope with the changes we've already set into motion? While we struggle to figure it all out, the fate of the Earth as we know it—coasts, forests, farms, and snow-capped mountains—hangs in the balance.

Understanding the greenhouse effect

The "greenhouse effect" is the warming that happens when certain gases in Earth's atmosphere trap heat . These gases let in light but keep heat from escaping, like the glass walls of a greenhouse, hence the name.

Sunlight shines onto the Earth's surface, where the energy is absorbed and then radiate back into the atmosphere as heat. In the atmosphere, greenhouse gas molecules trap some of the heat, and the rest escapes into space. The more greenhouse gases concentrate in the atmosphere, the more heat gets locked up in the molecules.

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Scientists have known about the greenhouse effect since 1824, when Joseph Fourier calculated that the Earth would be much colder if it had no atmosphere. This natural greenhouse effect is what keeps the Earth's climate livable. Without it, the Earth's surface would be an average of about 60 degrees Fahrenheit (33 degrees Celsius) cooler.

A polar bear stands sentinel on Rudolf Island in Russia’s Franz Josef Land archipelago, where the perennial ice is melting.

In 1895, the Swedish chemist Svante Arrhenius discovered that humans could enhance the greenhouse effect by making carbon dioxide , a greenhouse gas. He kicked off 100 years of climate research that has given us a sophisticated understanding of global warming.

Levels of greenhouse gases have gone up and down over the Earth's history, but they had been fairly constant for the past few thousand years. Global average temperatures had also stayed fairly constant over that time— until the past 150 years . Through the burning of fossil fuels and other activities that have emitted large amounts of greenhouse gases, particularly over the past few decades, humans are now enhancing the greenhouse effect and warming Earth significantly, and in ways that promise many effects , scientists warn.

Aren't temperature changes natural?

Human activity isn't the only factor that affects Earth's climate. Volcanic eruptions and variations in solar radiation from sunspots, solar wind, and the Earth's position relative to the sun also play a role. So do large-scale weather patterns such as El Niño .

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But climate models that scientists use to monitor Earth’s temperatures take those factors into account. Changes in solar radiation levels as well as minute particles suspended in the atmosphere from volcanic eruptions , for example, have contributed only about two percent to the recent warming effect. The balance comes from greenhouse gases and other human-caused factors, such as land use change .

The short timescale of this recent warming is singular as well. Volcanic eruptions , for example, emit particles that temporarily cool the Earth's surface. But their effect lasts just a few years. Events like El Niño also work on fairly short and predictable cycles. On the other hand, the types of global temperature fluctuations that have contributed to ice ages occur on a cycle of hundreds of thousands of years.

For thousands of years now, emissions of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere have been balanced out by greenhouse gases that are naturally absorbed. As a result, greenhouse gas concentrations and temperatures have been fairly stable, which has allowed human civilization to flourish within a consistent climate.

Greenland is covered with a vast amount of ice—but the ice is melting four times faster than thought, suggesting that Greenland may be approaching a dangerous tipping point, with implications for global sea-level rise.

Now, humans have increased the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere by more than a third since the Industrial Revolution. Changes that have historically taken thousands of years are now happening over the course of decades .

Why does this matter?

The rapid rise in greenhouse gases is a problem because it’s changing the climate faster than some living things can adapt to. Also, a new and more unpredictable climate poses unique challenges to all life.

Historically, Earth's climate has regularly shifted between temperatures like those we see today and temperatures cold enough to cover much of North America and Europe with ice. The difference between average global temperatures today and during those ice ages is only about 9 degrees Fahrenheit (5 degrees Celsius), and the swings have tended to happen slowly, over hundreds of thousands of years.

But with concentrations of greenhouse gases rising, Earth's remaining ice sheets such as Greenland and Antarctica are starting to melt too . That extra water could raise sea levels significantly, and quickly. By 2050, sea levels are predicted to rise between one and 2.3 feet as glaciers melt.

As the mercury rises, the climate can change in unexpected ways. In addition to sea levels rising, weather can become more extreme . This means more intense major storms, more rain followed by longer and drier droughts—a challenge for growing crops—changes in the ranges in which plants and animals can live, and loss of water supplies that have historically come from glaciers.

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ENCYCLOPEDIC ENTRY

Global warming.

The causes, effects, and complexities of global warming are important to understand so that we can fight for the health of our planet.

Earth Science, Climatology

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Global warming is the long-term warming of the planet’s overall temperature. Though this warming trend has been going on for a long time, its pace has significantly increased in the last hundred years due to the burning of fossil fuels . As the human population has increased, so has the volume of fossil fuels burned. Fossil fuels include coal, oil, and natural gas, and burning them causes what is known as the “greenhouse effect” in Earth’s atmosphere.

The greenhouse effect is when the sun’s rays penetrate the atmosphere, but when that heat is reflected off the surface cannot escape back into space. Gases produced by the burning of fossil fuels prevent the heat from leaving the atmosphere. These greenhouse gasses are carbon dioxide , chlorofluorocarbons, water vapor , methane , and nitrous oxide . The excess heat in the atmosphere has caused the average global temperature to rise overtime, otherwise known as global warming.

Global warming has presented another issue called climate change. Sometimes these phrases are used interchangeably, however, they are different. Climate change refers to changes in weather patterns and growing seasons around the world. It also refers to sea level rise caused by the expansion of warmer seas and melting ice sheets and glaciers . Global warming causes climate change, which poses a serious threat to life on Earth in the forms of widespread flooding and extreme weather. Scientists continue to study global warming and its impact on Earth.

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Vital Signs

Ocean warming.

• natural variability (some years, more heat goes into the ocean, other years, less so; some years, more energy goes increasingly deeper in the ocean, and other years, more of it stays closer to the surface)
• how accurately available instruments are able to measure ocean heat; this has substantially improved over time since 1955

Key Takeaway:

About ninety percent of global warming is occurring in the ocean.

Ninety percent of global warming is occurring in the ocean, causing the water’s internal heat to increase since modern recordkeeping began in 1955, as shown in the upper chart. (The shaded blue region indicates the 95% margin of uncertainty.) This chart shows annual estimates for the first 2,000 meters of ocean depth.

Each data point in the upper chart represents a five-year average. For example, the 2021 value represents the average change in ocean heat content (since 1955) for the years 2019 up to and including 2023.

The lower chart tracks monthly changes in ocean heat content for the entire water column (from the top to the bottom of the ocean) from 1992 to 2023, integrating observations from satellites, in-water instruments, and computer models. Both charts are expressed in zettajoules .

Heat stored in the ocean causes its water to expand, which is responsible for one-third to one-half of global sea level rise. Most of the added energy is stored at the surface, at a depth of zero to 700 meters. The last 10 years were the ocean’s warmest decade since at least the 1800s. The year 2023 was the ocean’s warmest recorded year.

About the NOAA Data

About the NASA ECCO Data

Instruments That Measure Ocean Heat

Argo floats

Conductivity, Temperature, Depth (CTDs)

Expendable BathyThermographs (XBTs)

OCEAN HEAT CONTENT CHANGES SINCE 1955 (NOAA)

Ocean heat content changes since 1992 (nasa).

Covering more than 70% of Earth’s surface, our global ocean has a very high heat capacity. It has absorbed 90% of the warming that has occurred in recent decades due to increasing greenhouse gases, and the top few meters of the ocean store as much heat as Earth's entire atmosphere.

The effects of ocean warming include sea level rise due to thermal expansion, coral bleaching, accelerated melting of Earth’s major ice sheets, intensified hurricanes*, and changes in ocean health and biochemistry.

*Accurate ocean heat content data add valuable information about the heat below the ocean's surface that fuels hurricanes and affects their intensity. NASA provides estimates of ocean heat content derived from the sea surface height that has been measured by satellite altimetry missions since early 1990s, including the recently launched Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich mission.

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• Revealed: The 11 slides that finally convinced Boris Johnson about global warming

Multiple Authors

A scientific briefing that UK prime minister Boris Johnson says changed his mind about global warming has been made public for the first time, following a freedom-of-information (FOI) request by Carbon Brief.

Last year, on the eve of the UK hosting COP26 in Glasgow, Johnson described tackling climate change as the country’s “ number one international priority ”. He also published a net-zero strategy and told other countries at the UN General Assembly to “ grow up ” when it comes to global warming.

However, just a few years earlier, Johnson was publicly doubting established climate science. For example, in a Daily Telegraph column published in 2015 he claimed unusual winter heat had “ nothing to do with global warming ”. And, in 2013, he said he had an “ open mind ” to the idea that the Earth was heading for a mini ice-age.

Last year, acknowledging his past climate scepticism, Johnson told journalists that he had now changed his mind, largely due to a scientific briefing he received shortly after becoming prime minister in 2019.

Johnson admitted he had been on a “road to Damascus” when it comes to climate science:

“I got them [government scientists] to run through it all and, if you look at the almost vertical kink upward in the temperature graph, the anthropogenic climate change, it’s very hard to dispute. That was a very important moment for me.”

The Sunday Times later reported that this briefing had been given by Sir Patrick Vallance , the government’s chief scientific advisor, and, according to one of the prime minister’s close allies, it “had a huge impact”. Using a FOI request submitted to the UK’s Government Office for Science (“GO-Science”), Carbon Brief has now obtained the contents of this pivotal scientific briefing, which took place on 28 January 2020 inside 10 Downing Street.

Below, Carbon Brief reveals the 11 slides that were used to “teach” Johnson about climate change, as well as the email correspondence exchanged between leading scientists and advisors as they prepared the prime minister’s briefing. [ Jump straight to see the 11 slides used in the presentation. ]

The emails suggest that some No 10 advisors were suspicious of important aspects of climate science – for example, asking whether UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports were “worth taking note of”.

Email correspondence

The exchange of emails begins on 23 January 2020 when someone in the office of the  government’s chief scientific adviser , Sir Patrick Vallance, emails Met Office chief scientist Prof Stephen Belcher and Prof Gideon Henderson , the chief scientific adviser at the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra). (See Carbon Brief’s in-depth interview with Belcher published in April 2018.)

The message describes plans for a climate change-themed “teach in” involving the two scientists which will be attended by a selection of No 10 staff, including some redacted names and “SpAds” (special advisors). Munira Mirza has been the director of the “No10 policy unit”, which is referred to in the email, since Johnson became prime minister in 2019. (See the note at the end of the article about the reasoning given by GO-Science for redacting some names.)

Also copied into the email is Dr Stuart Wainwright , who is the director of GO-Science and, therefore, works under Vallance.

Henderson responds, noting that “we’ll need to prioritise this when we hear the time”.

The next day, an email is sent “on behalf of” Dominic Cummings , then the prime minister’s chief adviser, inviting the scientists to an event on 28 January in the Cabinet Room at No 10.

Shortly afterwards, Wainwright contacts Belcher outlining what they want to cover in the briefing. The plan focuses on what could be described as the basics of climate science, including evidence for human-caused climate change and the formation of scientific consensus. There is a notable focus on “uncertainty”. 

This is followed by an email from Vallance’s office to a number of people, including Cummings, reiterating these three priority areas and indicating that Belcher has “previously discussed an idea of how to structure the session” with the chief scientific adviser. 

They indicate that Belcher should “liaise with academic colleagues on pulling something together”, to which he replies: “Will do.” (The Met Office has confirmed to Carbon Brief that its senior climate scientists Prof Richard Betts and Prof Peter Stott both assisted Belcher in preparing for the briefing.)

An email from Wainwright follows explaining that the planned climate change session is “part of a broader set of teach in’s [sic] on various policy, economic, science aspects that will inform advice to the PM”. 

At this point, Johnson had been in No 10 for six months, after taking over as Conservative leader in July 2019 and winning a general election in December.

The next email is from Chris Pook , a deputy director in GO-Science working under Wainwright and Vallance. 

He invites Richard Barker , head of energy and environment at National Physical Laboratory , to participate in the meeting as an expert, saying they need someone who can discuss uncertainty in climate measurements and help understand “what this means for decision-making”. 

Two days later, on 26 January, Belcher emails the government scientists explaining that he has been working on a series of slides. Topics he mentions include the “need for quantitative advice on carbon budgets to achieve targets” and “current challenges” on tipping points and future impacts and extremes . 

He also says they could discuss the concept of scientific peer review, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and Berkeley Earth , a US-based institution that analyses land temperature data, “as an example of a new group coming in as independent tests”.

Additionally, he suggests a selection of five experts who could contribute to the session. The names of all but one – Baroness Brown , chair of the Climate Change Committee’s (CCC) adaptation committee – are redacted. One is proposed with the caveat that “she has done lots of media work, quite campaigning”. Another is described as an “excellent communicator on impacts”. A further suggestion comes with the remark: “I appreciate Stuart you thought she might appear too close? She is excellent.”

On 27 January, the day before the meeting, Vallance’s office contacts Belcher confirming that Barker and another individual whose name has been redacted will be invited to the event. They mention that they have been delayed due to “trying to juggle the response to Wuhan coronavirus”. (The first cases of Covid-19 in the UK were confirmed four days later.)

This email builds on the three priority areas previously mentioned, adding some more specific questions that No 10 would like the experts to address. These questions indicate a degree of scepticism about some of the key processes underlying climate science:

“No10 will want an answer to the question ‘why are the numbers so round’ eg 2050 target, and 1.5 degree etc. They also mentioned the IPCC reports and authors – ‘scientists or not’ – and are the reports worth taking note off!!! [sic]”

The “2050 target” likely refers to the UK’s legally binding goal for achieving net-zero emissions by 2050, established during the final days in office of Johnson’s predecessor, Theresa May. The mention of “1.5 degree” references the Paris Agreement’s stretch goal of limiting warming to 1.5C, which scientists think would limit some of the worst impacts of climate change.

The IPCC is a UN body that is regarded internationally as the authority on climate change. Its landmark assessment reports, assembled by hundreds of leading scientists every seven years or so, present comprehensive overviews of the state of knowledge on the topic.

This email is followed later that day by an internal message between GO-Science staff indicating that Belcher will lead the session and reiterating some key points from the session plan.

Again, this message highlights a focus on “what’s clear, what’s unsettled”, how scientific consensus is reached, “convenient numbers” and whether the IPCC process is “actually science”. 

It also asks: “…should we be worried that [the] range of uncertainty hasn’t changed (climate sensitivities)?” This references the point that estimates of climate sensitivity – a measure of how much the planet is expected to warm in response to rising CO2 levels – had not been narrowed for decades. While this is no longer the case following new research captured in last year’s IPCC sixth assessment report (AR6), this information had not yet been published at the time.

The final line of the email mentions a “Koonin red-teaming exercise” – presumably a reference to Dr Steven Koonin , a US physicist who has worked for both BP and the Obama administration, and who has more recently been accused of downplaying the severity of climate change.

During the years of the Trump administration in the US, Koonin advocated for a “ red team ” methodology to “test assumptions and analyses, identify risks, and reduce – or at least understand – uncertainties” around climate science. The approach saw some support within the Trump administration, but was dismissed by other scientists as inappropriate for assessing climate science. No such exercise ever ended up taking place.

It is notable that Dominic Cummings has also been a prominent supporter of the “red-team” approach in various fields as a means of combating what he describes as “groupthink and normal cognitive biases”. (Carbon Brief has approached Cummings for comment, but, upon publication, had not received a response.)

As the meeting approaches, the participants arrange a 45-minute “pre-meet” before heading to No 10. At this point, Belcher, Henderson, Vallance and Barker are listed as attending the meeting, along with one more redacted name. Another redacted name is unable to come as “she is in France”.

On the morning of 28 January, Belcher sends over his slides – which he describes as “reasonably vanilla” – to “guide discussion later today”. Among other things, he emphasises that the “goal is to stabilise climate, which requires net-zero emissions”. He asks for feedback from the others.

Henderson responds with some last-minute changes to the presentation. He notes that it largely misses out impacts of sea-level rise, including on the UK and its flood defences, something that is “perhaps more important than arctic [sic] sea ice for HMG [the government]”. He adds that, “personally, I would put more focus on C cycle [carbon cycle] as cause of problem, important feedbacks, and the bit we need to act on”.

There is another, lengthy, response to Belcher from a redacted email address. It suggests adding a chart showing the long-term record of carbon dioxide (CO2), as well as various climate impacts taken from the IPCC, including huge losses for coral reefs, impacts on crop production and increased spread of various diseases. The writer stresses that “it may be worth pointing out that to achieve 1.5C (and perhaps 2C) requires net *negative* emissions ”.

They also attach the chart below as an example of one that could be added to the presentation, noting that a “striking thing to show” would be “the long-term record of CO2”. They note that they cannot find a suitable chart from the IPCC’s fifth assessment report (AR5), published in 2013, and so include one from the fourth assessment (AR4), from 2007. The emailer notes that “it’s out of date, of course – CO2 is now up to 400 ppm [parts per million]”.

The chart, or a more recent version of it, does not make it into the final presentation.

Barker also responds to Belcher’s call for suggestions with a “rather basic question” around the conclusion they want to present to No 10:

“My assumption is that we want this meeting to establish the big opportunity for us to take a big step forward.”

While Belcher says he will leave Vallance to “comment on the overall purpose of the meeting”, there is no email from the chief scientific adviser clarifying this point in the released documents. His office does note again at this point that they are “currently quite immersed in coronavirus”.

Finally, as the meeting approaches, the final slides are sent out to GO-Science with a request for 15 hard copies to be printed, possibly indicating the final number of attendees at the event.

(Carbon Brief has learned that Boris Johnson received at least one further science briefing on climate change following this January 2020 presentation. In March 2021, for example, he was specifically briefed about, among other topics, the projected climate impacts at 2C and 4C of global warming. The information about these impacts was prepared by Prof Richard Betts from the Met Office and the University of Exeter using findings from the EU-funded HELIX project . Prof Betts also provided UK examples from the Technical Report of the Third UK Climate Change Risk Assessment, often known as CCRA3 . Carbon Brief also understands that, even though Sir Patrick Vallance led the briefing at No 10 Downing Street on 28 January 2020, the 11 slides themselves were presented by Prof Belcher.)

S cience slides

Below, with explanation by Carbon Brief, are the 11 slides shown to the prime minister on the evening of 28 January 2020 in the Cabinet Room at No 10 Downing Street.

The three charts come from the Met Office Hadley Centre ’s Climate Dashboard – a website that brings together “the key indicators of climate change”. The site features graphs such as temperature change, sea level change and atmospheric CO2 change over time – drawing on data produced by “respected institutes and research groups around the world”. 

The graph in the top left is known as a Keeling Curve , and shows the increase in atmospheric CO2 levels over 1960-2020, measured in parts per million. The graph uses data from three sources – the Mauna Loa observation centre (blue), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (yellow) and the World Data Centre for Greenhouse Gases (red).

The graph in the bottom left shows the increase in global temperatures over 1850-2020, compared to the 1850-1900 average. The coloured lines indicate different datasets, including the Met Office HadCRUT (black) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration NOAAGlobalTemp (yellow).

The graph in the bottom right shows global sea level from 1993 to 2020, compared to the 1993-2010 average, in mm. The graph uses satellite datasets from organisations including the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (pink) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (light blue).

The map in the top right shows warming over 2009-19, compared to the 1961-90 average. The graph is similar in appearance to one used on the Met Office HadObs website .

The two charts on the left are from FAQ 10.1 in chapter 10 of the Working Group I report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change ’s (IPCC) fifth assessment report (AR5), published in 2013. This chapter focuses on “detection and attribution” of climate change.

The black lines show observations of global temperature since 1860, based on datasets including the Met Office HadCRUT4 dataset, while the red and blue lines show model results. The upper chart shows model simulations excluding the influence of human activity on global temperature results. Conversely, models in the lower chart include human influence on global temperatures. While the upper chart shows a clear departure between model runs and observations from the 1960s, the lower chart shows close agreement between the models and observations. This shows how “human forcing” plays a key role in observed temperature trends .

The map in the top right is a repeat of the one shown in the first slide. The map below it shows the equivalent data from climate model output (taken as an average across a number of models).

The large graphic was produced by the Met Office’s “Knowledge Integration” team – a group responsible for communicating climate science produced at the Met Office Hadley Centre to the general public and government. The map compares Arctic sea ice extent in 1980 and 2019. Meanwhile, the text states that over this time, September Arctic sea ice extent declined by 12% on average – resulting in an overall loss of almost 3.5m km2. 

The smaller insert is from the Met Office Climate Dashboard , and shows the decline in Arctic sea ice over 1980-2019, compared to the 1981-2020 average. The plot uses datasets from the Copernicus Climate Change Service , the Ocean and Sea Ice Satellite Application Facility and the National Snow and Ice Data Center .

The slide is titled “a tipping point”, but as a scientist in the email chain (with their name redacted) points out, the decline in Arctic sea ice is not strictly a tipping point. They write: “To me, that means sudden rapid change (through some unstable feedback) or irreversibility. There isn’t evidence for the former, as far as I know, and there are model studies that show that sea-ice comes back if you cool down the climate, so it’s not an irreversibility like ice-sheet loss could be.” For more on this, see the final section of Carbon Brief ’s tipping points explainer.

These figures were produced using the HadEX3 dataset . This dataset uses daily observations of both variables, taken at thousands of locations across the globe over 1901-2018, to produce “indices” of extreme temperature and precipitation.

The figures on the left show the change in extreme temperatures over 1950-2018. The top left map shows the regional pattern – where red indicates an increase in temperature extremes, blue indicates a decrease and grey denotes areas in which there was no data. The line plot below shows the number of days per year, over 1901-2018, that the global average temperature crossed a given threshold. The line plot compares the more recent dataset (HadEX3, black) with similar, older datasets.

The figures on the right use the same format for changes in extreme rainfall. The map shows the change in extreme rainfall over 1950-2018, where blue indicates an increase in rainfall extremes and brown indicates a decrease. The line plot shows the number of days per year global rainfall crossed a given threshold, for each year between 1901-2018.

The graphics show that while temperature extremes have increased across the globe since the 1970s, the signal for rainfall is less clear.

This slide features a range of images, maps and graphics showing the impacts of climate change. These are grouped under four subheadings – “flooding and sea level rise”, “heatwaves, health and disease”, “wildfires” and “biodiversity”.

For example, the blue graphic in the “flooding and sea level rise” category states that in the UK, “extended periods of extreme winter rainfall are now seven times more likely”. The graphic has previously been displayed on a section of the Met Office website detailing the impacts of climate change , both in the UK and globally. These pages have since been restructured.

This figure comes from the IPCC AR5 synthesis report , published in 2014. It shows the relationship between accumulating atmospheric CO2, rising global temperatures and climate change risks. (More up-to-date versions are available in the IPCC’s special report on 1.5C , published in 2018.)

Panel a) illustrates the five “Reasons For Concern” – also known as a “ burning embers ” chart – which summarise five key categories of risk around climate change. The colour of the shading – from white to purple – indicates an increasing level of risk with higher levels of warming.

Panel b) shows the relationship between cumulative CO2 emissions and global average surface temperature increase. The ellipses show expected total human-caused warming in 2100 expected from each level of cumulative emissions, plotted as a function of that total from 1870 to 2100. The filled black ellipses show observed emissions to 2005 and observed temperatures in the decade 2000-09, and the equivalent for 2017. The latter appears to have been added retrospectively to the IPCC chart for this presentation.

According to the credit on the image, this figure was created by Dr Erich Fischer , a senior scientist and lecturer in the Department of Environmental Systems Science at ETH Zurich . It was created using the Earth System Model Evaluation Tool (ESMValTool), which “allows for routine comparison of single or multiple models, either against predecessor versions or against observations”.

The figure shows observations (black lines) and climate model projections (coloured lines) of global average surface temperature change from 1850 to 2100. The left-hand chart shows the projections from the sixth Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP6) under five Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs). The right-hand chart shows the equivalent projections from CMIP5 using the Representative Concentration Pathways – the predecessors to CMIP6 and the SSPs, respectively. The right-hand chart has been flipped to allow a direct comparison between the two. The shading indicates the range in the projections under each scenario.

The figure on the left is a repeat of the sea level rise chart shown in the first slide.

The figure on the right is taken from the UK Climate Projections 2018 (UKCP18), produced by the Met Office. The charts on the left show UK average sea level rise from 2000 to 2100 under a scenario that likely keeps warming below 2C by 2100 ( RCP2.6 ) and a scenario of very high global emissions ( RCP8.5 ). The solid line and shaded regions represent the central estimate and ranges for each scenario, while the dashed lines indicate the overall range across RCP scenarios. The maps on the right show projected sea level rise in 2100 around the UK coastline under the central estimate of each RCP. The original figure (pdf) also includes an intermediate RCP4.5 scenario. All data are relative to a baseline period of 1981-2000.

This chart shows the Met Office decadal forecast for global temperatures, issued in January 2021. The forecast suggests that annual global average temperatures during 2021-25 are very likely to be between 0.91C and 1.61C above pre-industrial levels. In the chart, the black lines show observed data (from the Met Office, NASA and NOAA ), the blue shading shows the latest prediction, and the red shading shows previous predictions at five-year intervals starting from November 1960 and through to 2010. In addition, 22 model simulations from CMIP5 – that have not been initialised with observations – are shown in green. In all cases, the data is shown as rolling 12-month averages and the shading represents the probable range, such that the observations are expected to lie within the shading 90% of the time.

This figure was produced by Climate Action Tracker (CAT), an independent group that tracks government climate action towards the Paris Agreement goals. The chart was part of its December 2019 global update (pdf), although it does not appear to still be on the CAT website (there have been a number of updates since). The same chart is referenced in a June 2020 article by S&P Global . 

The chart shows the expected global temperature increase by the end of the century compared to pre-industrial levels implied by global emissions pathways in six scenarios: Baseline emissions, emissions compatible with warming of 1.5C and 2C, respectively, and the three scenarios resulting from aggregation of 32 country assessments: Pledges & targets, Current policies and an optimistic scenario. The shaded ranges indicate uncertainty in emissions projections and the dotted lines indicate median (50%) levels.

This table identifies a number of climate “ tipping points ” – thresholds beyond which a system can be pushed into a completely new state – and their potential impacts globally and for the UK. The table divides tipping points into three categories: the carbon cycle and other biogeochemical cycles, the cryosphere and sea level, and ocean/atmosphere circulation. The source of the table is not clear, though it could have been created specifically for the presentation.

All 38 emails released under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 by GO-Science to Carbon Brief can be viewed as a PDF . An earlier version of the presentation, which was discussed and shared in the emails, can also be viewed as a PDF , as well as the final version shown to the prime minister, also available as a PDF .

In responding to Carbon Brief’s FOI request, GO-Science provided the following explanation for why it delayed the release for more than a month to conduct a “public interest” test, as well as why some names in the emails were redacted:

“The requested information engaged Section 35(1)(a) – information related to the formulation of government policy; because of this we have carried out a public interest test. In this instance the information is in relation to factual background information and scientific consensus on climate science, provided to inform policy decisions regarding climate change. There is a high public interest in climate change-related policies, which have and will have a significant impact on the public. Given the public interest in transparency regarding the scientific information provided to government in this context, we have determined that it is in the public interest to disclose the information held, and we have not applied this exemption. We are refusing some of this information (redacted in the annexes) under: Section 40(2) – Personal information. We have withheld personal information if disclosure would breach one or more of the principles of the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) or Data Protection Act 2018 .

Carbon Brief also submitted an FOI request to the Cabinet Office asking for the same information about the 28 January 2020 briefing, but it responded – inaccurately, as GO-Science’s release of files proves – saying: “Searches of our records have not identified any information in scope of your request under the Act.”

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