Curated category
Effects of climate change
- Soil carbon feedbackMeasurements from a long-term study in Harvard, Massachusetts, began tracking soil behavior in 1991. That research suggests global warming could trigger the…
- Ice–albedo feedbackIce-albedo feedback is one of the most consequential self-reinforcing loops in Earth's climate system, and understanding it begins with a single physical…
- Marine heatwaveIn the summer of 2011, a massive warming event struck the west coast of Australia. This unprecedented heat caused kelp forests to die back rapidly along…
- Food securityFood security is the state of having reliable access to a sufficient quantity of affordable, healthy food. In 2024, an estimated 2.28 billion people…
- Effects of climate change on oceansThe effects of climate change on oceans are reshaping the planet's largest ecosystem in ways that will persist for millennia.
- Sea level riseSea level rise is already reshaping the coastlines that hundreds of millions of people call home. Since the end of the Last Glacial Maximum roughly 20,000…
- Atlantic meridional overturning circulationThe Atlantic meridional overturning circulation moves warm, saline water northward in the upper layers of the ocean. This flow originates from the tropical…
- Effects of climate change on human healthThe effects of climate change on human health reach every age, from infancy through old age. In 2019 alone, heat-related deaths among people older than 65…
- Effects of climate changeEffects of climate change are already documented across Earth's natural environment and human societies, yet the full scale of what is coming remains the…
- Coral bleachingIn 1985, a coral polyp in the Great Barrier Reef expelled its microscopic algae partners when water temperatures rose just one degree above average.
- Effects of climate change on the water cycleA warmer atmosphere can hold more water vapor. This relationship follows the Clausius-Clapeyron equation. The law states that saturation vapor pressure…
- Tropical cyclones and climate changeTropical cyclones and climate change share a relationship that scientists have been piecing together for decades, and the picture that has emerged is not a…
- Extreme weatherExtreme weather killed more than 5,000 people directly during a single American heat wave in 1936. That figure comes from one of the deadliest summers on…
- Climate change in the ArcticClimate change in the Arctic is reshaping a region that, by 2050, scientists expect to be profoundly different from anything currently alive.
- Extinction risk from climate changeIn 2019, the Australian government officially confirmed that the Bramble Cay melomys had gone extinct. This small rodent lived on a low-lying island in the…
- Effects of climate change on agricultureEffects of climate change on agriculture represent one of the most consequential intersections of planetary science and human survival.
- Greenhouse effectThe greenhouse effect is the reason Earth is not a frozen rock. Without it, the planet's surface would be far colder than the 20th century average of about…
- Retreat of glaciers since 1850Alaska's McCarty Glacier retreated about 10 kilometers in less than a century, and dense, diverse vegetation has become established on the slopes.