Relentless drought in China, East Africa, the U.S. West and northern Mexico, devastating floods in Pakistan and Kentucky, scorching heat waves in Europe and the Pacific Northwest, destructive cyclones in southern Africa and intense hurricanes in the U.S. and Central America make up just some of the recent extreme weather events that scientists have long predicted would be more intense with a warming climate.
“With just over one degree of warming since pre-industrial times, we are already seeing more extreme weather patterns,” said Elizabeth Robinson, director of the Grantham Research Institute in London.
EDITOR’S NOTE: This story is part of an ongoing series answering some of the most fundamental questions around climate change, the science behind it, the effects of a warming planet and how the world is addressing it.
Scientists have been tracking precisely how much the climate has already changed due to human activity. Temperatures around the world have been inching upwards.
The average global temperature today, which tends to be compared to estimates for the pre-industrial era that kickstarted the mass burning of fossil fuels, has shot up between 0.9 and 1.2 degrees Celsius (1.6 to 2 degrees Fahrenheit) since 1850, in large part due to human activity, according to estimates in the most recent report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Most of that warming has happened from 1975 onwards, at a rate of 0.15 Celsius (0.27 Fahrenheit) to 0.2 Celsius (0.36 Fahrenheit) per decade.
