Is climate change real?

I'll gather the latest scientific evidence to answer whether climate change is real.

Yes — climate change is real, and is unequivocally supported by the scientific evidence.

The Scientific Consensus

> There is overwhelming scientific evidence that the Earth is warming and that human activities, especially the emission of greenhouse gases, are the primary cause.

Major assessments including those by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) have established a strong consensus among climate scientists that global warming is real and largely human-induced.

•The United States National Academy of Sciences (2010) stated “A strong, credible body of scientific evidence shows that climate change is occurring, is caused largely by human activities, and poses significant risks”.

•The IPCC has stated “Since systematic scientific assessments began in the 1970s, the influence of human activity on the warming of the climate system has evolved from theory to established fact”.

•NASA states: There is unequivocal evidence that Earth is warming at an unprecedented rate. Human activity is the principal cause.

The level of agreement is extremely high:

•The vast majority of actively publishing climate scientists – 97 percent – agree that humans are causing global warming and climate change.

•A 2019 review of scientific papers found the consensus on the cause of climate change to be at 100%, and a 2021 study concluded that over 99% of scientific papers agree on the human cause of climate change.

Why Scientists Say The Current Change Is Different

Earth's climate has changed throughout history, but:

> While Earth’s climate has changed throughout its history, the current warming is happening at a rate not seen in the past 10,000 years.

> The current warming trend is different because it is clearly the result of human activities since the mid-1800s, and is proceeding at a rate not seen over many recent millennia.

Ancient evidence from ice cores, tree rings, ocean sediments and rocks reveals that current warming is occurring roughly 10 times faster than the average rate of warming after an ice age. Carbon dioxide from human activities is increasing about 250 times faster than it did from natural sources after the last Ice Age.

Evidence For Rapid Climate Change

NASA and other agencies list the evidence as compelling, based on satellites, direct measurements and paleoclimate data:

1.Global Temperature Is Rising: The planet's average surface temperature has risen about 2 degrees Fahrenheit (1 degrees Celsius) since the late 19th century, a change driven largely by increased carbon dioxide emissions.

2.The Ocean Is Getting Warmer: The ocean has absorbed much of this increased heat, with the top 100 meters of ocean showing warming of 0.67 degrees Fahrenheit since 1969. Earth stores 90% of the extra energy in the ocean.

3.Ice Sheets Are Shrinking: Data from NASA's Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment show Greenland lost an average of 279 billion tons of ice per year between 1993 and 2019, while Antarctica lost about 148 billion tons of ice per year.

4.Glaciers Are Retreating: Glaciers are retreating almost everywhere around the world — including in the Alps, Himalayas, Andes, Rockies, Alaska, and Africa.

5.Sea Level Is Rising: Global sea level rose about 8 inches (20 centimeters) in the last century. The rate in the last two decades, however, is nearly double that of the last century and accelerating slightly every year.

6.Arctic Sea Ice Is Declining: Both the extent and thickness of Arctic sea ice has declined rapidly over the last several decades.

Other observed changes include decreased spring snow cover in the Northern Hemisphere, more frequent extreme heat and intense rainfall events, and ocean acidification - acidity of surface ocean waters has increased by about 30% since the Industrial Revolution.

In short, while scientific debate continues about the most effective responses to climate change, the existence of climate change itself and its dominant human cause is not considered a scientific debate — it is an established fact supported by over a century of observations, physics, and independent data sources.

Citations (1)

1nasa.govGovernment
Climate Change - NASA Science
Backs: “NASA states: There is unequivocal evidence that Earth is warming at an unprecedented rate.”