Climate Changes Everything…
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We’ve also got you covered if you’d prefer to read the information. The below summarizes the latest assessment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the United Nations team of leading scientists from the 195 member nations.
The climate change story starts long ago, during the last Ice Age. That period featured erratic changes in the global average surface temperature, which produced catastrophically disruptive extreme weather events. The Ice Age ended 15,000 years ago, and it took another 5,000 years for the global average surface temperature to stabilize.
For the next 10,000 years, the global average surface temperature remained stable at approximately 57° F +/- 1.8° F (13.9° C +/- 1° C). The more constant temperatures led to more predictable global weather patterns. This allowed primitive hunter-gatherer communities to innovate farming, which ultimately produced excess food. Having extra stores of food allowed the population to increase and facilitated trading the surplus. Time marched on and trade turned to commerce.
As the internal combustion engine was developed at the beginning of the 1800’s, fossil fuels became the primary energy source for the new, industrialized global economy. Fossil fuels (e.g., coal, natural gas, and oil) emit carbon dioxide (or methane) when burned to create energy. As the carbon dioxide accumulated in the atmosphere, it absorbed sunlight reflected from the surface of the Earth, holding it in the atmosphere and warming the planet like insulation in a home.
Since 1850, approximately 2,400 gigatons (2177 metric gigatons) of carbon dioxide have accumulated in the atmosphere, which is more carbon than the Earth has experienced in over 800,000 years. By 2020, the global average surface temperature had reached approximately 59° F (15° C), an increase of 2° F (1.1° C) since 1850. For the first time in 10,000 years, the global average surface temperature exceeded the stable temperature range of 1.8° F (1° C).
As the Earth’s surface heated up, the Earth’s predictable weather patterns started becoming erratic. Since the 1980’s, extreme weather events exceeding a billion dollars in damage have tripled. For example, in the U.S., science shows that our warmer surface temperatures contributed to the intensity of Hurricanes Andrew, Katrina, Sandy and Ian, and to the proliferation of wildfires and degraded availability of fresh water in the western states.
It took 170 years (1850 to 2020) to increase global average surface temperature approximately 2° F (1.1° C), but all scientific models indicate it will take less than 20 years to increase global average surface temperature another 0.6° F (.4°C). There are two primary causes:
- Global energy use is increasing annual greenhouse gas emissions
- Positive feedback loops such as the melting of the Greenland Ice Cap and carbon saturation of the oceans is accelerating the warming.
Yet there is good news. According to the latest IPCC Climate Mitigation Report, our current technology can facilitate the global transition to a net zero carbon economy while avoiding irreversible climate-related impacts. The challenge is harnessing global collaboration to front-load the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by 43% by 2030. With the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act and the Infrastructure Law, the U.S. is investing in a pathway that could reduce economy-wide greenhouse gas emissions by 40% by 2030. Additional regulation and international treaties can help codify the necessary global collaboration.