Is climate change real? I'll gather the latest scientific evidence to answer you.
Yes, climate change is real according to the overwhelming scientific evidence and consensus.
> There is unequivocal evidence that Earth is warming at an unprecedented rate. Human activity is the principal cause.
What the science says
•The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) - the UN body that assesses climate science with 195 member countries - stated: “It is unequivocal that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, ocean and land… climate change is already affecting many weather and climate extremes in every region across the globe.”
•This language was described as the strongest statement the IPCC has ever made, marking a shift from "extremely likely" in previous reports to "unequivocal"
•Another summary: "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."
•There is a clear scientific consensus on the reality of climate change:
> There is overwhelming scientific evidence that the Earth is warming and that human activities, especially the emission of greenhouse gases, are the primary cause. Multiple large-scale 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 overwhelming consensus among climate scientists, affirmed by leading scientific organizations worldwide, is that the Earth is warming, and human activity is the dominant cause.
•Quantifying the consensus:
> Multiple studies published in peer-reviewed scientific journals show that 97 percent or more of actively publishing climate scientists agree: Climate-warming trends over the past century are extremely likely due to human activities.
Other reviews have found even higher agreement in the published literature - a 2019 review found the consensus at 100%, and a 2021 study concluded that over 99% of scientific papers agree on the human cause of climate change
How we know - key evidence
NASA and other agencies measure climate change through satellites, ocean buoys, ice cores, tree rings and other data collected over many years:
•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
•Scientific information taken from natural sources (such as ice cores, rocks, and tree rings) and from modern equipment (like satellites and instruments) all show the signs of a changing climate.
•From global temperature rise to melting ice sheets, the evidence of a warming planet abounds.
Specific observed changes compiled by NASA include:
•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
•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 (0.33 degrees Celsius) since 1969. Earth stores 90% of the extra energy in the ocean.
•The Ice Sheets Are Shrinking - The Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets have decreased in mass. 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
•Glaciers Are Retreating - Glaciers are retreating almost everywhere around the world — including in the Alps, Himalayas, Andes, Rockies, Alaska, and Africa.
•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
•Arctic Sea Ice Is Declining - Both the extent and thickness of Arctic sea ice has declined rapidly over the last several decades.
Other documented effects include decreasing spring snow cover in the Northern Hemisphere, increasing frequency of extreme events, and that since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, the acidity of surface ocean waters has increased by about 30% due to absorption of human-emitted CO2.