Is climate change real?

Yes

I'll search for the latest scientific evidence on whether climate change is happening.

Yes, climate change is real — this is supported by overwhelming scientific evidence and consensus.

The evidence is unequivocal

> There is unequivocal evidence that Earth is warming at an unprecedented rate. Human activity is the principal cause.

NASA and other scientific agencies base this conclusion on multiple independent lines of evidence collected over many years:

•Earth-orbiting satellites and new technologies have helped scientists see the big picture, collecting many different types of information about our planet and its climate all over the world

•The scientific community is certain that the Earth's climate is changing because of the trends that we see in the instrumented climate record and the changes that have been observed in physical and biological systems.

•The evidence of a warming trend over the past century is unequivocal.

While Earth's climate has changed throughout its history, the current warming is different:

> 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.

According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), "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."

Key signs of a warming planet

From NASA's evidence review:

•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 into the atmosphere and other human activities.

•The Ocean Is Getting Warmer: The ocean has absorbed much of this increased heat - Earth stores 90% of the extra energy in the ocean.

•Ice Sheets and Glaciers 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. Glaciers are retreating almost everywhere around the world

•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

•Other evidence includes decreasing spring snow cover in the Northern Hemisphere, rapidly declining Arctic sea ice, increasing extreme events, and ocean acidification. Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, the acidity of surface ocean waters has increased by about 30%.

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.

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.

Scientific consensus

There is overwhelming agreement among scientists:

> Yes, the vast majority of actively publishing climate scientists – 97 percent – agree that humans are causing global warming and climate change.

Other analyses are even higher. A survey of 88,125 climate-related studies found that over 99.9 % of these peer-reviewed articles support the view that humans are causing recent climate change.

Most of the leading science organizations around the world have issued public statements expressing this, including international and U.S. science academies, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and a whole host of reputable scientific bodies around the world

In short: climate change is happening, it is happening faster than natural climate variations in the past, and human activities — primarily the emission of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide — are the dominant cause.

Citations (1)

1nasa.govGovernment
Evidence - NASA Science
Backs: “While Earth's climate has changed throughout its history, the current warming is different: 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.”
evidence, article, points to yes. Claim: Current warming is happening at a rate not seen in the past 10,000 years, unlike natural climate changes earlier in Earth's history.