presentation on effects of global warming

ENCYCLOPEDIC ENTRY

Global warming.

The causes, effects, and complexities of global warming are important to understand so that we can fight for the health of our planet.

Earth Science, Climatology

Tennessee Power Plant

Ash spews from a coal-fueled power plant in New Johnsonville, Tennessee, United States.

Photograph by Emory Kristof/ National Geographic

Global warming is the long-term warming of the planet’s overall temperature. Though this warming trend has been going on for a long time, its pace has significantly increased in the last hundred years due to the burning of fossil fuels . As the human population has increased, so has the volume of fossil fuels burned. Fossil fuels include coal, oil, and natural gas, and burning them causes what is known as the “greenhouse effect” in Earth’s atmosphere.

The greenhouse effect is when the sun’s rays penetrate the atmosphere, but when that heat is reflected off the surface cannot escape back into space. Gases produced by the burning of fossil fuels prevent the heat from leaving the atmosphere. These greenhouse gasses are carbon dioxide , chlorofluorocarbons, water vapor , methane , and nitrous oxide . The excess heat in the atmosphere has caused the average global temperature to rise overtime, otherwise known as global warming.

Global warming has presented another issue called climate change. Sometimes these phrases are used interchangeably, however, they are different. Climate change refers to changes in weather patterns and growing seasons around the world. It also refers to sea level rise caused by the expansion of warmer seas and melting ice sheets and glaciers . Global warming causes climate change, which poses a serious threat to life on Earth in the forms of widespread flooding and extreme weather. Scientists continue to study global warming and its impact on Earth.

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What is global warming?

What causes global warming, how is global warming linked to extreme weather, what are the other effects of global warming, where does the united states stand in terms of global-warming contributors, is the united states doing anything to prevent global warming, is global warming too big a problem for me to help tackle.

A: Since the Industrial Revolution, the global annual temperature has increased in total by a little more than 1 degree Celsius, or about 2 degrees Fahrenheit. Between 1880—the year that accurate recordkeeping began—and 1980, it rose on average by 0.07 degrees Celsius (0.13 degrees Fahrenheit) every 10 years. Since 1981, however, the rate of increase has more than doubled: For the last 40 years, we’ve seen the global annual temperature rise by 0.18 degrees Celsius, or 0.32 degrees Fahrenheit, per decade.

The result? A planet that has never been hotter . Nine of the 10 warmest years since 1880 have occurred since 2005—and the 5 warmest years on record have all occurred since 2015. Climate change deniers have argued that there has been a “pause” or a “slowdown” in rising global temperatures, but numerous studies, including a 2018 paper published in the journal Environmental Research Letters , have disproved this claim. The impacts of global warming are already harming people around the world.

Now climate scientists have concluded that we must limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius by 2040 if we are to avoid a future in which everyday life around the world is marked by its worst, most devastating effects: the extreme droughts, wildfires, floods, tropical storms, and other disasters that we refer to collectively as climate change . These effects are felt by all people in one way or another but are experienced most acutely by the underprivileged, the economically marginalized, and people of color, for whom climate change is often a key driver of poverty, displacement, hunger, and social unrest.

A: Global warming occurs when carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) and other air pollutants collect in the atmosphere and absorb sunlight and solar radiation that have bounced off the earth’s surface. Normally this radiation would escape into space, but these pollutants, which can last for years to centuries in the atmosphere, trap the heat and cause the planet to get hotter. These heat-trapping pollutants—specifically carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, water vapor, and synthetic fluorinated gases—are known as greenhouse gases, and their impact is called the greenhouse effect.

Though natural cycles and fluctuations have caused the earth’s climate to change several times over the last 800,000 years, our current era of global warming is directly attributable to human activity—specifically to our burning of fossil fuels such as coal, oil, gasoline, and natural gas, which results in the greenhouse effect. In the United States, the largest source of greenhouse gases is transportation (29 percent), followed closely by electricity production (28 percent) and industrial activity (22 percent). Learn about the natural and human causes of climate change .

Curbing dangerous climate change requires very deep cuts in emissions, as well as the use of alternatives to fossil fuels worldwide. The good news is that countries around the globe have formally committed—as part of the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement —to lower their emissions by setting new standards and crafting new policies to meet or even exceed those standards. The not-so-good news is that we’re not working fast enough. To avoid the worst impacts of climate change, scientists tell us that we need to reduce global carbon emissions by as much as 40 percent by 2030. For that to happen, the global community must take immediate, concrete steps: to decarbonize electricity generation by equitably transitioning from fossil fuel–based production to renewable energy sources like wind and solar; to electrify our cars and trucks; and to maximize energy efficiency in our buildings, appliances, and industries.

A: Scientists agree that the earth’s rising temperatures are fueling longer and hotter heat waves , more frequent droughts , heavier rainfall , and more powerful hurricanes .

In 2015, for example, scientists concluded that a lengthy drought in California—the state’s worst water shortage in 1,200 years —had been intensified by 15 to 20 percent by global warming. They also said the odds of similar droughts happening in the future had roughly doubled over the past century. And in 2016, the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine announced that we can now confidently attribute some extreme weather events, like heat waves, droughts, and heavy precipitation, directly to climate change.

The earth’s ocean temperatures are getting warmer, too—which means that tropical storms can pick up more energy. In other words, global warming has the ability to turn a category 3 storm into a more dangerous category 4 storm. In fact, scientists have found that the frequency of North Atlantic hurricanes has increased since the early 1980s, as has the number of storms that reach categories 4 and 5. The 2020 Atlantic hurricane season included a record-breaking 30 tropical storms, 6 major hurricanes, and 13 hurricanes altogether. With increased intensity come increased damage and death. The United States saw an unprecedented 22 weather and climate disasters that caused at least a billion dollars’ worth of damage in 2020, but, according to NOAA, 2017 was the costliest on record and among the deadliest as well: Taken together, that year's tropical storms (including Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria) caused nearly $300 billion in damage and led to more than 3,300 fatalities.

The impacts of global warming are being felt everywhere. Extreme heat waves have caused tens of thousands of deaths around the world in recent years. And in an alarming sign of events to come, Antarctica has lost nearly four trillion metric tons of ice since the 1990s. The rate of loss could speed up if we keep burning fossil fuels at our current pace, some experts say, causing sea levels to rise several meters in the next 50 to 150 years and wreaking havoc on coastal communities worldwide.

A: Each year scientists learn more about the consequences of global warming , and each year we also gain new evidence of its devastating impact on people and the planet. As the heat waves, droughts, and floods associated with climate change become more frequent and more intense, communities suffer and death tolls rise. If we’re unable to reduce our emissions, scientists believe that climate change could lead to the deaths of more than 250,000 people around the globe every year and force 100 million people into poverty by 2030.

Global warming is already taking a toll on the United States. And if we aren’t able to get a handle on our emissions, here’s just a smattering of what we can look forward to:

• Disappearing glaciers, early snowmelt, and severe droughts will cause more dramatic water shortages and continue to increase the risk of wildfires in the American West.
• Rising sea levels will lead to even more coastal flooding on the Eastern Seaboard, especially in Florida, and in other areas such as the Gulf of Mexico.
• Forests, farms, and cities will face troublesome new pests , heat waves, heavy downpours, and increased flooding . All of these can damage or destroy agriculture and fisheries.
• Disruption of habitats such as coral reefs and alpine meadows could drive many plant and animal species to extinction.
• Allergies, asthma, and infectious disease outbreaks will become more common due to increased growth of pollen-producing ragweed , higher levels of air pollution , and the spread of conditions favorable to pathogens and mosquitoes.

Though everyone is affected by climate change, not everyone is affected equally. Indigenous people, people of color, and the economically marginalized are typically hit the hardest. Inequities built into our housing , health care , and labor systems make these communities more vulnerable to the worst impacts of climate change—even though these same communities have done the least to contribute to it.

A: In recent years, China has taken the lead in global-warming pollution , producing about 26 percent of all CO2 emissions. The United States comes in second. Despite making up just 4 percent of the world’s population, our nation produces a sobering 13 percent of all global CO2 emissions—nearly as much as the European Union and India (third and fourth place) combined. And America is still number one, by far, in cumulative emissions over the past 150 years. As a top contributor to global warming, the United States has an obligation to help propel the world to a cleaner, safer, and more equitable future. Our responsibility matters to other countries, and it should matter to us, too.

A: We’ve started. But in order to avoid the worsening effects of climate change, we need to do a lot more—together with other countries—to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels and transition to clean energy sources.

Under the administration of President Donald Trump (a man who falsely referred to global warming as a “hoax”), the United States withdrew from the Paris Climate Agreement, rolled back or eliminated dozens of clean air protections, and opened up federally managed lands, including culturally sacred national monuments, to fossil fuel development. Although President Biden has pledged to get the country back on track, years of inaction during and before the Trump administration—and our increased understanding of global warming’s serious impacts—mean we must accelerate our efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Despite the lack of cooperation from the Trump administration, local and state governments made great strides during this period through efforts like the American Cities Climate Challenge and ongoing collaborations like the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative . Meanwhile, industry and business leaders have been working with the public sector, creating and adopting new clean-energy technologies and increasing energy efficiency in buildings, appliances, and industrial processes. 

Today the American automotive industry is finding new ways to produce cars and trucks that are more fuel efficient and is committing itself to putting more and more zero-emission electric vehicles on the road. Developers, cities, and community advocates are coming together to make sure that new affordable housing is built with efficiency in mind , reducing energy consumption and lowering electric and heating bills for residents. And renewable energy continues to surge as the costs associated with its production and distribution keep falling. In 2020 renewable energy sources such as wind and solar provided more electricity than coal for the very first time in U.S. history.

President Biden has made action on global warming a high priority. On his first day in office, he recommitted the United States to the Paris Climate Agreement, sending the world community a strong signal that we were determined to join other nations in cutting our carbon pollution to support the shared goal of preventing the average global temperature from rising more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels. (Scientists say we must stay below a 2-degree increase to avoid catastrophic climate impacts.) And significantly, the president has assembled a climate team of experts and advocates who have been tasked with pursuing action both abroad and at home while furthering the cause of environmental justice and investing in nature-based solutions.

A: No! While we can’t win the fight without large-scale government action at the national level , we also can’t do it without the help of individuals who are willing to use their voices, hold government and industry leaders to account, and make changes in their daily habits.

Wondering how you can be a part of the fight against global warming? Reduce your own carbon footprint by taking a few easy steps: Make conserving energy a part of your daily routine and your decisions as a consumer. When you shop for new appliances like refrigerators, washers, and dryers, look for products with the government’s ENERGY STAR ® label; they meet a higher standard for energy efficiency than the minimum federal requirements. When you buy a car, look for one with the highest gas mileage and lowest emissions. You can also reduce your emissions by taking public transportation or carpooling when possible.

And while new federal and state standards are a step in the right direction, much more needs to be done. Voice your support of climate-friendly and climate change preparedness policies, and tell your representatives that equitably transitioning from dirty fossil fuels to clean power should be a top priority—because it’s vital to building healthy, more secure communities.

You don’t have to go it alone, either. Movements across the country are showing how climate action can build community , be led by those on the front lines of its impacts, and create a future that’s equitable and just for all .

This story was originally published on March 11, 2016 and has been updated with new information and links.

This NRDC.org story is available for online republication by news media outlets or nonprofits under these conditions: The writer(s) must be credited with a byline; you must note prominently that the story was originally published by NRDC.org and link to the original; the story cannot be edited (beyond simple things such as grammar); you can’t resell the story in any form or grant republishing rights to other outlets; you can’t republish our material wholesale or automatically—you need to select stories individually; you can’t republish the photos or graphics on our site without specific permission; you should drop us a note to let us know when you’ve used one of our stories.

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Climate Matters • November 25, 2020

New Presentation: Our Changing Climate

Key concepts:.

Climate Central unveils Our Changing Climate —an informative and customizable climate change presentation that meteorologists, journalists, and others can use for educational outreach and/or a personal Climate 101 tool.

The presentation follows a ”Simple, Serious, Solvable” framework, inspired by climate scientist Scott Denning. This allows the presenter to comfortably explain, and the viewers to easily understand, the causes (Simple), impacts (Serious), and solutions (Solvable) of climate change. 

Our Changing Climate is a revamped version of our 2016 climate presentation, and includes the following updates and features:

Up-to-date graphics and topics

Local data and graphics

Fully editable slides (add, remove, customize)

Presenter notes, background information, and references for each slide

Supplementary and bonus slides

Download Outline (PDF, 110KB)

Download Full Presentation (PPT, 148MB)

Updated: April 2021

Climate Central is presenting a new outreach and education resource for meteorologists, journalists, and others—a climate change presentation, Our Changing Climate . This 55-slide presentation is a guide through the basics of climate change, outlining its causes, impacts, and solutions. This climate change overview is unique because it includes an array of local graphics from our ever-expanding media library. By providing these local angles, the presenter can demonstrate that climate change is not only happening at a global-scale, but in our backyards.

This presentation was designed to support your climate change storytelling, but can also double as a great Climate 101 tool for journalists or educators who want to understand climate change better. Every slide contains main points along with background information, so people that are interested can learn at their own pace or utilize graphics for their own content. 

In addition to those features, it follows the “Simple, Serious, Solvable” framework inspired by Scott Denning, a climate scientist and professor of atmospheric science at Colorado State University (and a good friend of the program). These three S’s help create the presentation storyline and outline the causes (Simple), impacts (Serious), and solutions (Solvable) of climate change. 

Simple. It is simple—burning fossil fuels is heating up the Earth. This section outlines the well-understood science that goes back to the 1800s, presenting local and global evidence that our climate is warming due to human activities.

Serious. More extreme weather, rising sea levels, and increased health and economic risks—the consequences of climate change. In this section, well, we get serious. Climate change impacts are already being felt around the world, and they will continue to intensify until we cut greenhouse gas emissions. 

Solvable. With such a daunting crisis like climate change, it is easy to get wrapped up in the negative impacts. This section explains how we can curb climate change and lists the main pathways and solutions to achieving this goal. 

With the rollout of our new climate change presentation, we at Climate Central would value any feedback on this presentation. Feel free to reach out to us about how the presentation worked for you, how your audience reacted, or any ideas or topics you would like to see included. 

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS & SPECIAL THANKS

Climate Central would like to acknowledge Paul Gross at WDIV-TV in Detroit and the AMS Station Science Committee for the original version of the climate presentation, Climate Change Outreach Presentation , that was created in 2016. We would also like to give special thanks to Scott Denning, professor of atmospheric science at Colorado State University and a member of our NSF advisory board, for allowing us to use this “Simple, Serious, Solvable” framework in this presentation resource.

SUPPORTING MULTIMEDIA

• ENVIRONMENT

What is global warming, explained

The planet is heating up—and fast.

Glaciers are melting , sea levels are rising, cloud forests are dying , and wildlife is scrambling to keep pace. It has become clear that humans have caused most of the past century's warming by releasing heat-trapping gases as we power our modern lives. Called greenhouse gases, their levels are higher now than at any time in the last 800,000 years .

We often call the result global warming, but it is causing a set of changes to the Earth's climate, or long-term weather patterns, that varies from place to place. While many people think of global warming and climate change as synonyms , scientists use “climate change” when describing the complex shifts now affecting our planet’s weather and climate systems—in part because some areas actually get cooler in the short term .

Climate change encompasses not only rising average temperatures but also extreme weather events , shifting wildlife populations and habitats, rising seas , and a range of other impacts. All of those changes are emerging as humans continue to add heat-trapping greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, changing the rhythms of climate that all living things have come to rely on.

What will we do—what can we do—to slow this human-caused warming? How will we cope with the changes we've already set into motion? While we struggle to figure it all out, the fate of the Earth as we know it—coasts, forests, farms, and snow-capped mountains—hangs in the balance.

Understanding the greenhouse effect

The "greenhouse effect" is the warming that happens when certain gases in Earth's atmosphere trap heat . These gases let in light but keep heat from escaping, like the glass walls of a greenhouse, hence the name.

Sunlight shines onto the Earth's surface, where the energy is absorbed and then radiate back into the atmosphere as heat. In the atmosphere, greenhouse gas molecules trap some of the heat, and the rest escapes into space. The more greenhouse gases concentrate in the atmosphere, the more heat gets locked up in the molecules.

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Scientists have known about the greenhouse effect since 1824, when Joseph Fourier calculated that the Earth would be much colder if it had no atmosphere. This natural greenhouse effect is what keeps the Earth's climate livable. Without it, the Earth's surface would be an average of about 60 degrees Fahrenheit (33 degrees Celsius) cooler.

A polar bear stands sentinel on Rudolf Island in Russia’s Franz Josef Land archipelago, where the perennial ice is melting.

In 1895, the Swedish chemist Svante Arrhenius discovered that humans could enhance the greenhouse effect by making carbon dioxide , a greenhouse gas. He kicked off 100 years of climate research that has given us a sophisticated understanding of global warming.

Levels of greenhouse gases have gone up and down over the Earth's history, but they had been fairly constant for the past few thousand years. Global average temperatures had also stayed fairly constant over that time— until the past 150 years . Through the burning of fossil fuels and other activities that have emitted large amounts of greenhouse gases, particularly over the past few decades, humans are now enhancing the greenhouse effect and warming Earth significantly, and in ways that promise many effects , scientists warn.

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Human activity isn't the only factor that affects Earth's climate. Volcanic eruptions and variations in solar radiation from sunspots, solar wind, and the Earth's position relative to the sun also play a role. So do large-scale weather patterns such as El Niño .

But climate models that scientists use to monitor Earth’s temperatures take those factors into account. Changes in solar radiation levels as well as minute particles suspended in the atmosphere from volcanic eruptions , for example, have contributed only about two percent to the recent warming effect. The balance comes from greenhouse gases and other human-caused factors, such as land use change .

The short timescale of this recent warming is singular as well. Volcanic eruptions , for example, emit particles that temporarily cool the Earth's surface. But their effect lasts just a few years. Events like El Niño also work on fairly short and predictable cycles. On the other hand, the types of global temperature fluctuations that have contributed to ice ages occur on a cycle of hundreds of thousands of years.

For thousands of years now, emissions of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere have been balanced out by greenhouse gases that are naturally absorbed. As a result, greenhouse gas concentrations and temperatures have been fairly stable, which has allowed human civilization to flourish within a consistent climate.

Greenland is covered with a vast amount of ice—but the ice is melting four times faster than thought, suggesting that Greenland may be approaching a dangerous tipping point, with implications for global sea-level rise.

Now, humans have increased the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere by more than a third since the Industrial Revolution. Changes that have historically taken thousands of years are now happening over the course of decades .

Why does this matter?

The rapid rise in greenhouse gases is a problem because it’s changing the climate faster than some living things can adapt to. Also, a new and more unpredictable climate poses unique challenges to all life.

Historically, Earth's climate has regularly shifted between temperatures like those we see today and temperatures cold enough to cover much of North America and Europe with ice. The difference between average global temperatures today and during those ice ages is only about 9 degrees Fahrenheit (5 degrees Celsius), and the swings have tended to happen slowly, over hundreds of thousands of years.

But with concentrations of greenhouse gases rising, Earth's remaining ice sheets such as Greenland and Antarctica are starting to melt too . That extra water could raise sea levels significantly, and quickly. By 2050, sea levels are predicted to rise between one and 2.3 feet as glaciers melt.

As the mercury rises, the climate can change in unexpected ways. In addition to sea levels rising, weather can become more extreme . This means more intense major storms, more rain followed by longer and drier droughts—a challenge for growing crops—changes in the ranges in which plants and animals can live, and loss of water supplies that have historically come from glaciers.

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Global Warming

Miss Parson – Allerton Grange School

Aims and objectives

• To be able to define and understand the process of Global Warming.
• Be able to describe the effects of Global Warming on a global and local scale.
• Be able to recognise how the effects of Global Warming can be reduced.

What is�Global Warming ?

Global warming is the increase in the world’s average temperature, believed to be the result from the release of carbon dioxide and other gases into the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels.

This increase in greenhouse gases is causing an increase in the rate of the greenhouse effect .

The Greenhouse�Effect

The earth is warming rather like the inside of a greenhouse. On a basic level the sun’s rays enter the earths atmosphere and are prevented from escaping by the greenhouse gases. This results in higher world temperatures.

In more detail………

Energy from the sun drives the earth's weather and climate, and heats the earth's surface; in turn, the earth radiates energy back into space. Atmospheric greenhouse gases (water vapor, carbon dioxide, and other gases) trap some of the outgoing energy, retaining heat somewhat like the glass panels of a greenhouse.�

Without this natural "greenhouse effect," temperatures would be much lower than they are now, and life as known today would not be possible. Instead, thanks to greenhouse gases, the earth's average temperature is a more hospitable 60°F. However, problems may arise when the atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases increases. �

What are the�greenhouse gases?

Since the beginning of the industrial revolution, atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide have increased nearly 30%, methane concentrations have more than doubled, and nitrous oxide concentrations have risen by about 15%. Why are greenhouse gas concentrations increasing?

Burning of fossil fuels and other human activities are the primary reason for the increased concentration of carbon dioxide.

CFC’s from aerosols, air conditioners, foam packaging and refrigerators most damaging (approx 6%).

Methane is released from decaying organic matter, waste dumps, animal dung, swamps and peat bogs (approx 19%).

Nitrous Oxide is emitted from car exhausts, power stations and agricultural fertiliser (approx 6%).

The major contributor is Carbon Dioxide (approx 64%).

Task 1:The �Greenhouse Effect

Complete your worksheet by cutting and labeling the diagram and answering the questions

Task 2 : Effects of global warming

You are about to see a series of pictures which show some of the effects of global warming.

Draw a rough sketch then write down the effects or titles for the pictures you've drawn

I’m thinking !

What are the consequences of Global Warming?

What are the pictures showing, what are the effects of global warming?

How did�you do?

Hurricanes –extreme weather

Flooding of coastal areas

Desertification

Ice caps melt

Rise in temperatures

Loss of wildlife habitats and species

Sea level rise

Extreme storms

There are also some positive effects of global warming

• Decrease in death and disease
• Healthier, faster growing forests due to excess CO2
• Longer growing seasons
• Warmer temperatures (UK Mediterranean climate!!)
• Plants and shrubs will be able to grow further north and in present desert conditions
• Heavier rainfall in certain locations will give higher agricultural production (Rice in India, Wheat in Africa).

How can Global Warming be reduced?

• Reduce the use of fossil fuels. A major impact would be to find alternatives to coal, oil and gas power stations.
• Afforest areas, trees use up the CO2, reduce deforestation.
• Reduce the reliance on the car (promote shared public transport).
• Try to use energy efficiently (turn off lights and not use as much!).
• Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.
• Careful long term planning to reduce the impact of global warming.
• Global Warming is the increase in global temperatures due to the increased rate of the Greenhouse Effect.
• Greenhouse gases trap the incoming solar radiation, these gases include Carbon Dioxide, CFCs, Methane, Nitrous Oxides and other Halocarbons. These are released by human activity.
• We need the Greenhouse effect to maintain life on earth as we know it…however if we keep adding to the Greenhouse gases there will be many changes.
• Consequences can be negative ( ice caps melt, sea level rise, extreme weather conditions) or positive (more rain in drought areas, longer growing season).

Re do diagram slide 7

http://www.flickr.com/photos/wwworks/2222523486/ - slide 1

http://www.flickr.com/photos/dzwjedziak/375723120/ - slide 8 and 1

http://www.flickr.com/photos/bratan/452189020/ - slide 4

http://www.flickr.com/photos/hogbard/412932972/- slide 6

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tiger_empress/467671978/ - slide 8

http://www.flickr.com/photos/48135670@N00/97951579/ - slide 9,12

http://www.flickr.com/photos/60158441@N00/177929708/ - slide 9,12

http://www.flickr.com/photos/andzer/1480068258/ - slide 9,12

http://www.flickr.com/photos/nickrussill/146743082/ - slide 9,12

http://www.flickr.com/photos/dasha/443747644/ - slide 10,13

http://www.flickr.com/photos/11371618@N00/469788104/ - slide 10,13

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mikebaird/2087879492/ - slide 10,13

http://www.flickr.com/photos/7471118@N02/432453250/ - slide 10,13

http://www.flickr.com/photos/madron/2595909135/ - slide 11

http://www.flickr.com/photos/chi-liu/491412087/ - slide 12,13

http://www.flickr.com/photos/fabbriciuse/2073789872/ - slide 16

http://www.flickr.com/photos/algo/92463787/ - slide 16

http://www.flickr.com/photos/nickwheeleroz/2295584401/ - slide 16

http://www.flickr.com/photos/andidfl/229169559/ - slide 16

Science News by AGU

Simpler Presentations of Climate Change

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Science Leads the Future

Are We Entering The Golden Age Of Climate Modeling?

Alumni push universities forward on climate, indoor air pollution in the time of coronavirus, how an unlikely friendship upended permafrost myths, the alarming rise of predatory conferences, science leads the future, and the future is now.

Has this happened to you? You are presenting the latest research about climate change to a general audience, maybe at the town library, to a local journalist, or even in an introductory science class. After presenting the solid science about greenhouse gases, how they work, and how we are changing them, you conclude with “and this is what the models predict about our climate future…”

At that point, your audience may feel they are being asked to make a leap of faith. Having no idea how the models work or what they contain and leave out, this final and crucial step becomes to them a “trust me” moment. Trust me moments can be easy to deny.

This problem has not been made easier by a recent expansion in the number of models and the range of predictions presented in the literature. One recent study making this point is that of Hausfather et al. [2022], which presents the “hot model” problem: the fact that some of the newer models in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6) model comparison yield predictions of global temperatures that are above the range presented in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) Sixth Assessment Report (AR6). The authors present a number of reasons for, and solutions to, the hot model problem.

Models are crucial in advancing any field of science. They represent a state-of-the-art summary of what the community understands about its subject. Differences among models highlight unknowns on which new research can be focused.

But Hausfather and colleagues make another point: As questions are answered and models evolve, they should also converge. That is, they should not only reproduce past measurements, but they should also begin to produce similar projections into the future. When that does not happen, it can make trust me moments even less convincing.

Are there simpler ways to make the major points about climate change, especially to general audiences, without relying on complex models?

We think there are.

Old Predictions That Still Hold True

In a recent article in Eos , Andrei Lapenis retells the story of Mikhail Budyko ’s 1972 predictions about global temperature and sea ice extent [ Budyko , 1972]. Lapenis notes that those predictions have proven to be remarkably accurate. This is a good example of effective, long-term predictions of climate change that are based on simple physical mechanisms that are relatively easy to explain.

There are many other examples that go back more than a century. These simpler formulations don’t attempt to capture the spatial or temporal detail of the full models, but their success at predicting the overall influence of rising carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) on global temperatures makes them a still-relevant, albeit mostly overlooked, resource in climate communication and even climate prediction.

One way to make use of this historical record is to present the relative consistency over time in estimates of equilibrium carbon sensitivity (ECS), the predicted change in mean global temperature expected from a doubling of atmospheric CO 2 . ECS can be presented in straightforward language, maybe even without the name and acronym, and is an understandable concept.

Estimates of ECS can be traced back for more than a century (Table 1), showing that the relationship between CO 2 in the atmosphere and Earth’s radiation and heat balance, as an expression of a simple and straightforward physical process, has been understood for a very long time. We can now measure that balance with precision [e.g., Loeb et al. , 2021], and measurements and modeling using improved technological expertise have all affirmed this scientific consistency.

Table 1. Selected Historical Estimates of Equilibrium Carbon Sensitivity (ECS)

Settled Science

Another approach for communicating with general audiences is to present an abbreviated history demonstrating that we have known the essentials of climate change for a very long time—that the basics are settled science.

The following list is a vastly oversimplified set of four milestones in the history of climate science that we have found to be effective. In a presentation setting, this four-step outline also provides a platform for a more detailed discussion if an audience wants to go there.

• 1850s: Eunice Foote observes that, when warmed by sunlight, a cylinder filled with CO 2 attained higher temperatures and cooled more slowly than one filled with ambient air, leading her to conclude that higher concentrations of CO 2 in the atmosphere should increase Earth’s surface temperature [ Foote , 1856]. While not identifying the greenhouse effect mechanism, this may be the first statement in the scientific literature linking CO 2 to global temperature. Three years later, John Tyndall separately develops a method for measuring the absorbance of infrared radiation and demonstrates that CO 2 is an effective absorber (acts as a greenhouse gas) [ Tyndall , 1859 ; 1861 ]. 
• 1908: Svante Arrhenius describes a nonlinear response to increased CO 2 based on a year of excruciating hand calculations actually performed in 1896 [ Arrhenius , 1896]. His value for ECS is 4°C (Table 1), and the nonlinear response has been summarized in a simple one-parameter model .
• 1958: Charles Keeling establishes an observatory on Mauna Loa in Hawaii. He begins to construct the “ Keeling curve ” based on measurements of atmospheric CO 2 concentration over time. It is amazing how few people in any audience will have seen this curve.
• Current: The GISS data set of global mean temperature from NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies records the trajectory of change going back decades to centuries using both direct measurements and environmental proxies.

The last three of these steps can be combined graphically to show how well the simple relationship derived from Arrhenius ’s [1908] projections, driven by CO 2 data from the Keeling curve, predicts the modern trend in global average temperature (Figure 1). The average error in this prediction is only 0.081°C, or 8.1 hundredths of a degree.

A surprise to us was that this relationship can be made even more precise by adding the El Niño index (November–January (NDJ) from the previous year) as a second predictor. The status of the El Niño–Southern Oscillation ( ENSO ) system has been known to affect global mean temperature as well as regional weather patterns. With this second term added , the average error in the prediction drops to just over 0.06°C, or 6 one hundredths of a degree.

It is also possible to extend this simple analysis into the future using the same relationship and IPCC AR6 projections for CO 2 and “assessed warming” (results from four scenarios combined; Figure 2).

Although CO 2 is certainly not the only cause of increased warming, it provides a powerful index of the cumulative changes we are making to Earth’s climate system.

A presentation built around the consistency of equilibrium carbon sensitivity estimates does not deliver a complete understanding of the changes we are causing in the climate system, but the relatively simple, long-term historical perspective can be an effective way to tell the story.

In this regard, it is interesting that the “Summary for Policy Makers” [ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change , 2021] from the most recent IPCC science report also includes a figure (Figure SPM.10, p. 28) that captures both measured past and predicted future global temperature change as a function of cumulative CO 2 emissions alone. Given that the fraction of emissions remaining in the atmosphere over time has been relatively constant, this is equivalent to the relationship with concentration presented here. That figure also presents the variation among the models in predicted future temperatures, which is much greater than the measurement errors in the GISS and Keeling data sets that underlie the relationship in Figure 1.

A presentation built around the consistency of ECS estimates and the four steps clearly does not deliver a complete understanding of the changes we are causing in the climate system, but the relatively simple, long-term historical perspective can be an effective way to tell the story of those changes.

Past Performance and Future Results

Projecting the simple model used in Figure 1 into the future (Figure 2) assumes that the same factors that have made CO 2 alone such a good index to climate change to date will remain in place. But we know there are processes at work in the world that could break this relationship.

For example, some sources now see the electrification of the economic system, including transportation, production, and space heating and cooling, as part of the path to a zero-carbon economy [e.g., Gates , 2021]. But there is one major economic sector in which energy production is not the dominant process for greenhouse gas emissions and carbon dioxide is not the major greenhouse gas. That sector is agriculture.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has estimated that agriculture currently accounts for about 10% of total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, with nitrous oxide (N 2 O) and methane (CH 4 ) being major contributors to that total. According to the EPA (Figure 3), agriculture contributes 79% of N 2 O emissions in the United States, largely from the production and application of fertilizers (agricultural soil management) as well as from manure management, and 36% of CH 4 emissions (enteric fermentation and manure management—one might add some of the landfill emissions to that total as well).

If we succeed in moving nonagricultural sectors of the economy toward a zero-carbon state, the relationship in Figures 1 and 2 will be broken. The rate of overall climate warming would be reduced significantly, but N 2 O and CH 4 would begin to play a more dominant role in driving continued greenhouse gas warming of the planet, and we will then need more complex models than the one used for Figures 1 and 2. But just how complex?

In his recent book Life Is Simple , biologist Johnjoe McFadden traces the influence across the centuries of William of Occam (~1287–1347) and Occam’s razor as a concept in the development of our physical understanding of everything from the cosmos to the subatomic structure of matter [ McFadden , 2021]. One simple statement of Occam’s razor is, Entities should not be multiplied without necessity.

This is a simple and powerful statement: Explain a set of measurements with as few parameters, or entities, as possible. But the definition of necessity can change when the goals of a model or presentation change. The simple model used in Figures 1 and 2 tells us nothing about tomorrow’s weather or the rate of sea level rise or the rate of glacial melt. But for as long as the relationship serves to capture the role of CO 2 as an accurate index of changes in mean global temperature, it can serve the goal of making plain to general audiences that there are solid, undeniable scientific reasons why climate change is happening.

Getting the Message Across

When and if the simple relationship derived from Arrhenius’s calculations does fail as an accurate index of changes in mean global temperature, it will still provide a useful platform for explaining what has happened and why.

If we move toward an electrified economy and toward zero-carbon sources of electricity, the simple relationship derived from Arrhenius’s calculations will no longer serve that function. But when and if it does fail, it will still provide a useful platform for explaining what has happened and why. Perhaps there will be another, slightly more complex model for predicting and explaining climate change that involves three gases.

No matter how our climate future evolves, simpler and more accessible presentations of climate change science will always rely on and begin with our current understanding of the climate system. Complex, detailed models will be central to predicting our climate future (Figure 2 here would not be possible without them), but we will be more effective communicators if we can discern how best to simplify that complexity when presenting the essentials of climate science to general audiences.

Arrhenius, S. (1896), On the influence of carbonic acid in the air upon temperature of the ground, Philos. Mag. J. Sci. , Ser. 5 , 41 , 237–276, https://doi.org/10.1080/14786449608620846 .

Arrhenius, S. (1908), Worlds in the Making: The Evolution of the Universe , translated by H. Borns, 228 pp., Harper, New York.

Budyko, M. I. (1972), Man’s Impact on Climate [in Russian], Gidrometeoizdat, St. Petersburg, Russia.

Foote, E. (1856), Circumstances affecting the heat of the Sun’s rays,  Am. J. Sci. Arts ,  22 (66), 382–383,  ia800802.us.archive.org/4/items/mobot31753002152491/mobot31753002152491.pdf .

Gates, B. (2021), How to Avoid a Climate Disaster , 257 pp., Alfred A. Knopf, New York.

Hausfather, Z., et al. (2022), Climate simulations: Recognize the ‘hot model’ problem, Nature , 605 , 26–29, https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-022-01192-2 .

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (2021), Summary for policymakers, in Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis—Contribution of Working Group I to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change , edited by V. Masson-Delmotte et al., pp. 3–32, Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge, U.K., and New York, https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/downloads/report/IPCC_AR6_WGI_SPM.pdf .

Loeb, N. G., et al. (2021), Satellite and ocean data reveal marked increase in Earth’s heating rate, Geophys. Res. Lett. , 48 (13), e2021GL093047, https://doi.org/10.1029/2021GL093047 .

McFadden, J. (2021), Life Is Simple: How Occam’s Razor Set Science Free and Shapes the Universe , 376 pp., Basic Books, New York.

Tyndall, J. (1859), Note on the transmission of radiant heat through gaseous bodies,  Proc. R. Soc. London ,  10 , 37–39,  https://www.jstor.org/stable/111604 . 

Tyndall, J. (1861), I. The Bakerian Lecture.—On the absorption and radiation of heat by gases and vapours, and on the physical connexion of radiation, absorption, and conduction, Philos. Trans. R. Soc. London , 151 , https://doi.org/10.1098/rstl.1861.0001 .

Author Information

John Aber ( [email protected] ) and Scott V. Ollinger, Department of Natural Resources and the Environment and the Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans, and Space, University of New Hampshire, Durham

Update, 26 September 2022: This article has been updated to include the early contribution of Eunice Foote in the study of CO 2 and its effects on Earth’s climate.

Citation:  Aber, J., and S. V. Ollinger (2022), Simpler presentations of climate change,  Eos, 103, https://doi.org/10.1029/2022EO220444 . Published on 13 September 2022.

Text © 2022. the authors.  cc by-nc-nd 3.0 except where otherwise noted, images are subject to copyright. any reuse without express permission from the copyright owner is prohibited., features from agu journals, warming experiment explores consequences of diminished snow, the unexplored microbial life in subterranean estuaries, exploring alfvén waves across space—and disciplines.

What are the effects of global warming?

The effects of global warming will be far-reaching and often devastating, scientists have warned.

• Temperature extremes
• Extreme weather

Sea levels and ocean acidification

Plants and animals, social effects.

• Further reading

Additional resources

Bibliography.

The effects of global warming can be seen and felt across the planet. Global warming , the gradual heating of Earth's surface, oceans and atmosphere, is caused by human activity, primarily the burning of fossil fuels that pump carbon dioxide (CO2), methane and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

Already, the consequences of global warming are measurable and visible.

"We can observe this happening in real time in many places," Josef Werne, a professor of geology and environmental science at the University of Pittsburgh, told Live Science. "Ice is melting in both polar ice caps and mountain glaciers. Lakes around the world, including Lake Superior, are warming rapidly — in some cases faster than the surrounding environment. Animals are changing migration patterns and plants are changing the dates of activity," such as trees budding their leaves earlier in the spring and dropping them later in the fall.

Here is an in-depth look at the ongoing effects of global warming.

Global warming increases average temperatures and temperature extremes

One of the most immediate and obvious consequences of global warming is the increase in temperatures around the world. The average global temperature has increased by about 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit (0.8 degrees Celsius) over the past 100 years, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

Since record keeping began in 1895, the hottest year on record worldwide was 2016, according to NOAA and NASA data . That year Earth's surface temperature was 1.78 degrees F (0.99 degrees C) warmer than the average across the entire 20th century. Before 2016, 2015 was the warmest year on record, globally. And before 2015? Yep, 2014. In fact, all 10 of the warmest years on record have occurred since 2005, which tied with 2013 as the 10th-warmest year on record, according to NOAA’s Global Climate Report 2021 . Rounding out the top 6 hottest years on record across the globe are (in order of hottest to not as hot): 2020, 2019, 2015, 2017 and 2021.

For the contiguous United States and Alaska, 2016 was the second-warmest year on record and the 20th consecutive year that the annual average surface temperature exceeded the 122-year average since record keeping began, according to NOAA . Shattered heat records in the U.S. are increasingly becoming the norm: June 2021, for example, saw the warmest temperatures on record for that month for 15.2%of the contiguous U.S. That's the largest extent of record warm temperatures ever recorded in the country, according to the National Centers for Environmental Information .

Global warming increases extreme weather events

As global average temperatures warm, weather patterns are changing. An immediate consequence of global warming is extreme weather. 

These extremes come in a lot of different flavors. Paradoxically, one effect of climate change can be colder-than-normal winters in some areas.

Changes in climate can cause the polar jet stream — the boundary between the cold North Pole air and the warm equatorial air — to migrate south, bringing with it cold, Arctic air. This is why some states can have a sudden cold snap or colder-than-normal winter, even during the long-term trend of global warming, Werne explained.

Werne received his doctorate in Geological Sciences at Northwestern University in 2000 with an emphasis in Biogeochemistry. He was a postdoctoral research scientist at the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research from 2000 to 2002 and on the faculty of the Large Lakes Observatory and Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry (assistant/associate professor) at the University of Minnesota Duluth, before joining the department in 2012. Werne spent a year in Perth, Australia, as a visiting senior fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies of the University of Western Australia, as well as a visiting scientist in the Western Australia Organic and Isotope Geochemistry Centre at Curtin University.

"Climate is, by definition, the long-term average of weather, over many years. One cold (or warm) year or season has little to do with overall climate. It is when those cold (or warm) years become more and more regular that we start to recognize it as a change in climate rather than simply an anomalous year of weather," he said. Global warming is also changing other extreme weather. According to the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory of NOAA , hurricanes are likely to become more intense, on average, in a warming world. Most computer models suggest that hurricane frequency will stay about the same (or even decrease), but those storms that do form will have the capacity to drop more rain due to the fact that warmer air holds more moisture.

"And even if they become less frequent globally, hurricanes could still become more frequent in some particular areas," said atmospheric scientist Adam Sobel, author of " Storm Surge: Hurricane Sandy, Our Changing Climate, and Extreme Weather of the Past and Future " (HarperWave, 2014). "Additionally, scientists are confident that hurricanes will become more intense due to climate change." This is because hurricanes get their energy from the temperature difference between the warm tropical ocean and the cold upper atmosphere. Global warming increases that temperature difference. "Since the most damage by far comes from the most intense hurricanes — such as typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines in 2013 — this means that hurricanes could become overall more destructive," said Sobel, a Columbia University professor in the departments of Earth and Environmental Sciences, and Applied Physics and Applied Mathematics. (Hurricanes are called typhoons in the western North Pacific, and they're called cyclones in the South Pacific and Indian oceans.) What's more, hurricanes of the future will be hitting shorelines that are already prone to flooding due to the sea-level rise caused by climate change. This means that any given storm will likely cause more damage than it would have in a world without global warming.

Lightning is another weather feature that is being affected by global warming. According to a 2014 study , a 50% increase in the number of lightning strikes within the United States is expected by 2100 if global temperatures continue to rise. The researchers of the study found a 12% increase in lightning activity for every 1.8 degree F (1 degree C) of warming in the atmosphere. NOAA established the U.S. Climate Extremes Index (CEI) in 1996 to track extreme weather events. The number of extreme weather events that are among the most unusual in the historical record, according to the CEI, has been rising over the last four decades. Scientists project that extreme weather events, such as heat waves, droughts , blizzards and rainstorms will continue to occur more often and with greater intensity due to global warming, according to Climate Central . Climate models forecast that global warming will cause climate patterns worldwide to experience significant changes. These changes will likely include major shifts in wind patterns, annual precipitation and seasonal temperatures variations. These impacts vary by location and geography. For example, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) , the eastern United States has been trending wetter over time, while the West – and particularly the Southwest – have become increasingly dry. Because high levels of greenhouse gases are likely to remain in the atmosphere for many years, these changes are expected to last for several decades or longer, according to the EPA.

Global warming melts ice

One of the primary manifestations of climate change so far is melt. North America, Europe and Asia have all seen a trend toward less snow cover between 1960 and 2015, according to 2016 research published in the journal Current Climate Change Reports. According to the National Snow and Ice Data Center, there is now 10% less permafrost , or permanently frozen ground, in the Northern Hemisphere than there was in the early 1900s. The thawing of permafrost can cause landslides and other sudden land collapses . It can also release long-buried microbes, as in a 2016 case when a cache of buried reindeer carcasses thawed and caused an outbreak of anthrax . One of the most dramatic effects of global warming is the reduction in Arctic sea ice. Sea ice hit record-low extents in both the fall and winter of 2015 and 2016, meaning that at the time when the ice is supposed to be at its peak, it was lagging. The melt means there is less thick sea ice that persists for multiple years. That means less heat is reflected back into the atmosphere by the shiny surface of the ice and more is absorbed by the comparatively darker ocean, creating a feedback loop that causes even more melt, according to NASA's Operation IceBridge . Glacial retreat, too, is an obvious effect of global warming. Only 25 glaciers bigger than 25 acres are now found in Montana's Glacier National Park, where about 150 glaciers were once found, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. A similar trend is seen in glacial areas worldwide. According to a 2016 study in the journal Nature Geoscience, there is a 99% likelihood that this rapid retreat is due to human-caused climate change. Some glaciers retreated up to 15 times as much as they would have without global warming, those researchers found.

In general, as ice melts, sea levels rise. According to a 2021 report by the World Meteorological Organization , the pace of sea level rise doubled from 0.08 inches (2.1 millimeters) per year between 1993 and 2002 to 0.17 inches (4.4 mm) per year between 2013 and 2021. 

Melting polar ice in the Arctic and Antarctic regions, coupled with melting ice sheets and glaciers across Greenland, North America, South America, Europe and Asia, are expected to raise sea levels significantly. Global sea levels have risen about 8 inches since 1870, according to the EPA, and the rate of increase is expected to accelerate in the coming years. If current trends continue, many coastal areas, where roughly half of the Earth's human population lives, will be inundated.

Researchers project that by 2100, average sea levels will be 2.3 feet (.7 meters) higher in New York City, 2.9 feet (0.88 m) higher at Hampton Roads, Virginia, and 3.5 feet (1.06 m) higher at Galveston, Texas, the EPA reports. According to an IPCC report , if greenhouse gas emissions remain unchecked, global sea levels could rise by as much as 3 feet (0.9 meters) by 2100. That estimate is an increase from the estimated 0.9 to 2.7 feet (0.3 to 0.8 meters) that was predicted in the 2007 IPCC report for future sea-level rise.

Sea level isn't the only thing changing for the oceans due to global warming. As levels of CO2 increase, the oceans absorb some of that gas, which increases the acidity of seawater. Werne explains it this way: "When you dissolved CO2 in water, you get carbonic acid. This is the same exact thing that happens in cans of soda. When you pop the top on a can of Dr Pepper, the pH is 2 — quite acidic."  

Since the Industrial Revolution began in the early 1700s, the acidity of the oceans has increased about 25 percent, according to the EPA. "This is a problem in the oceans, in large part, because many marine organisms make shells out of calcium carbonate (think corals, oysters), and their shells dissolve in acid solution," said Werne. "So as we add more and more CO2 to the ocean, it gets more and more acidic, dissolving more and more shells of sea creatures. It goes without saying that this is not good for their health."

If current ocean acidification trends continue, coral reefs are expected to become increasingly rare in areas where they are now common, including most U.S. waters, the EPA reports. In 2016 and 2017, portions of the Great Barrier Reef in Australia were hit with bleaching , a phenomenon in which coral eject their symbiotic algae. Bleaching is a sign of stress from too-warm waters, unbalanced pH or pollution; coral can recover from bleaching, but back-to-back episodes make recovery less likely.

The effects of global warming on Earth's ecosystems are expected to be significant and widespread. Many species of plants and animals are already moving their range northward or to higher altitudes as a result of warming temperatures, according to a report from the National Academy of Sciences.

"They are not just moving north, they are moving from the equator toward the poles. They are quite simply following the range of comfortable temperatures, which is migrating to the poles as the global average temperature warms," Werne said. Ultimately, he said, this becomes a problem when the rate of climate change velocity (how fast a region changes put into a spatial term) is faster than the rate that many organisms can migrate. Because of this, many animals may not be able to compete in the new climate regime and may go extinct.

Additionally, migratory birds and insects are now arriving in their summer feeding and nesting grounds several days or weeks earlier than they did in the 20th century, according to the EPA.

Warmer temperatures will also expand the range of many disease-causing pathogens that were once confined to tropical and subtropical areas, killing off plant and animal species that formerly were protected from disease.

In addition, animals that live in the polar regions are facing an existential threat. In the Arctic, the decline in sea ice and changes in ice melt threaten particularly ice-dependent species, such as narwhals ( Monodon monoceros ), polar bears ( Ursus maritimus ) and walruses ( Odobenus rosmarus ), the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) noted. Animals in the Antarctic also face serious challenges — in Oct. 2022 the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service declared emperor penguins (Aptenodytes forsteri) as endangered due to the threat of climate change. 

A 2020 study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences suggested that 1 in every 3 species of plant and animal are at risk of extinction by 2070 due to climate change.

As dramatic as the effects of climate change are expected to be on the natural world, the projected changes to human society may be even more devastating.

Agricultural systems will likely be dealt a crippling blow. Though growing seasons in some areas will expand, the combined impacts of drought, severe weather, lack of accumulated snowmelt, greater number and diversity of pests, lower groundwater tables and a loss of arable land could cause severe crop failures and livestock shortages worldwide.

North Carolina State University also notes that carbon dioxide is affecting plant growth. Though CO2 can increase the growth of plants, the plants may become less nutritious.

This loss of food security may, in turn, create havoc in international food markets and could spark famines, food riots, political instability and civil unrest worldwide, according to a number of analyses from sources as diverse as the U.S Department of Defense, the Center for American Progress and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

In addition to less nutritious food, the effect of global warming on human health is also expected to be serious. The American Medical Association has reported an increase in mosquito-borne diseases like malaria and dengue fever, as well as a rise in cases of chronic conditions like asthma, most likely as a direct result of global warming. The 2016 outbreak of Zika virus , a mosquito-borne illness, highlighted the dangers of climate change. The disease causes devastating birth defects in fetuses when pregnant women are infected, and climate change could make higher-latitude areas habitable for the mosquitoes that spread the disease, experts said. Longer, hotter summers could also lead to the spread of tick-borne illnesses .

Further reading on the impacts of global warming

Many governments and agencies keep up-to-date information on climate change research and statistics online. The most comprehensive and in-depth global reports are produced by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which released its Sixth Assessment Report on the science of climate change in 2021.

— 8 ominous climate milestones reached in 2021

— Ignoring climate change will lead to 'untold suffering,' scientist panel warns

— Earth's lower atmosphere is expanding due to climate change

For a historical look at the effects of climate change on Earth (and how modern warming compares), read Peter Brannen's " The Ends of the Earth: Volcanic Apocalypses, Lethal Oceans, and Our Quest to Understand Earth’s Past Mass Extinctions " (Ecco, 2017).

For more on the potential impacts of climate change in urban environments, the freely available book chapter Climate Change and its Impacts in the book " Climate Change Resilience in the Urban Environment " (IOP Publishing, 2017) covers the challenges that lay ahead for human populations.

Finally, for a psychological deep-dive on why all of this bad news is hard to take in, try " Don't Even Think About It: Why Our Brains Are Wired to Ignore Climate Change " (Bloomsbury USA, 2015) by climate activist and communicator George Marshall.

• This NASA page includes a series of visualizations that illustrate how some of Earth's key climate indicators —  sea ice, sea level, global temperature and carbon dioxide — are changing over time.
• This NOAA sea-level rise learning module includes educational videos, background for teachers, learning objectives and more.
• ClimateBrief has gathered 10 of the best climate change videos on YouTube. 
• EPA: Climate Change: Basic Information  
• NASA: Global Climate Change
• NOAA: Climate News and Data

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Stephanie Pappas is a contributing writer for Live Science, covering topics ranging from geoscience to archaeology to the human brain and behavior. She was previously a senior writer for Live Science but is now a freelancer based in Denver, Colorado, and regularly contributes to Scientific American and The Monitor, the monthly magazine of the American Psychological Association. Stephanie received a bachelor's degree in psychology from the University of South Carolina and a graduate certificate in science communication from the University of California, Santa Cruz. 

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

• 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." 1
• 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.

The rate of change since the mid-20th century is unprecedented over millennia.

Earth's climate has changed throughout history. Just in the last 800,000 years, there have been eight cycles of ice ages and warmer periods, with the end of the last ice age about 11,700 years ago marking the beginning of the modern climate era — and of human civilization. Most of these climate changes are attributed to very small variations in Earth’s orbit that change the amount of solar energy our planet receives.

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. 1 It is undeniable that human activities have produced the atmospheric gases that have trapped more of the Sun’s energy in the Earth system. This extra energy has warmed the atmosphere, ocean, and land, and widespread and rapid changes in the atmosphere, ocean, cryosphere, and biosphere have occurred.

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. These data, collected over many years, reveal the signs and patterns of a changing climate.

Scientists demonstrated the heat-trapping nature of carbon dioxide and other gases in the mid-19th century. 2 Many of the science instruments NASA uses to study our climate focus on how these gases affect the movement of infrared radiation through the atmosphere. From the measured impacts of increases in these gases, there is no question that increased greenhouse gas levels warm Earth in response.

Scientific evidence for warming of the climate system is unequivocal.

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

Ice cores drawn from Greenland, Antarctica, and tropical mountain glaciers show that Earth’s climate responds to changes in greenhouse gas levels. Ancient evidence can also be found in tree rings, ocean sediments, coral reefs, and layers of sedimentary rocks. This ancient, or paleoclimate, evidence 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. 3

The Evidence for Rapid Climate Change Is Compelling:

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. 4 Most of the warming occurred in the past 40 years, with the seven most recent years being the warmest. The years 2016 and 2020 are tied for the warmest year on record. 5 Image credit: Ashwin Kumar, Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic.

The Ocean Is Getting Warmer

The ocean has absorbed much of this increased heat, with the top 100 meters (about 328 feet) of ocean showing warming of 0.67 degrees Fahrenheit (0.33 degrees Celsius) since 1969. 6 Earth stores 90% of the extra energy in the ocean. Image credit: Kelsey Roberts/USGS

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, while Antarctica lost about 148 billion tons of ice per year. 7 Image: The Antarctic Peninsula, Credit: NASA

Glaciers Are Retreating

Glaciers are retreating almost everywhere around the world — including in the Alps, Himalayas, Andes, Rockies, Alaska, and Africa. 8 Image: Miles Glacier, Alaska Image credit: NASA

Snow Cover Is Decreasing

Satellite observations reveal that the amount of spring snow cover in the Northern Hemisphere has decreased over the past five decades and the snow is melting earlier. 9 Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

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. 10 Image credit: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Norfolk District

Arctic Sea Ice Is Declining

Both the extent and thickness of Arctic sea ice has declined rapidly over the last several decades. 11 Credit: NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio

Extreme Events Are Increasing in Frequency

The number of record high temperature events in the United States has been increasing, while the number of record low temperature events has been decreasing, since 1950. The U.S. has also witnessed increasing numbers of intense rainfall events. 12 Image credit: Régine Fabri,  CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

Ocean Acidification Is Increasing

Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, the acidity of surface ocean waters has increased by about 30%. 13 , 14 This increase is due to humans emitting more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and hence more being absorbed into the ocean. The ocean has absorbed between 20% and 30% of total anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions in recent decades (7.2 to 10.8 billion metric tons per year). 1 5 , 16 Image credit: NOAA

1. IPCC Sixth Assessment Report, WGI, Technical Summary . B.D. Santer et.al., “A search for human influences on the thermal structure of the atmosphere.” Nature 382 (04 July 1996): 39-46. https://doi.org/10.1038/382039a0. Gabriele C. Hegerl et al., “Detecting Greenhouse-Gas-Induced Climate Change with an Optimal Fingerprint Method.” Journal of Climate 9 (October 1996): 2281-2306. https://doi.org/10.1175/1520-0442(1996)009<2281:DGGICC>2.0.CO;2. V. Ramaswamy, et al., “Anthropogenic and Natural Influences in the Evolution of Lower Stratospheric Cooling.” Science 311 (24 February 2006): 1138-1141. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1122587. B.D. Santer et al., “Contributions of Anthropogenic and Natural Forcing to Recent Tropopause Height Changes.” Science 301 (25 July 2003): 479-483. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1084123. T. Westerhold et al., "An astronomically dated record of Earth’s climate and its predictability over the last 66 million years." Science 369 (11 Sept. 2020): 1383-1387. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1094123

2. In 1824, Joseph Fourier calculated that an Earth-sized planet, at our distance from the Sun, ought to be much colder. He suggested something in the atmosphere must be acting like an insulating blanket. In 1856, Eunice Foote discovered that blanket, showing that carbon dioxide and water vapor in Earth's atmosphere trap escaping infrared (heat) radiation. In the 1860s, physicist John Tyndall recognized Earth's natural greenhouse effect and suggested that slight changes in the atmospheric composition could bring about climatic variations. In 1896, a seminal paper by Swedish scientist Svante Arrhenius first predicted that changes in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels could substantially alter the surface temperature through the greenhouse effect. In 1938, Guy Callendar connected carbon dioxide increases in Earth’s atmosphere to global warming. In 1941, Milutin Milankovic linked ice ages to Earth’s orbital characteristics. Gilbert Plass formulated the Carbon Dioxide Theory of Climate Change in 1956.

3. IPCC Sixth Assessment Report, WG1, Chapter 2 Vostok ice core data; NOAA Mauna Loa CO2 record O. Gaffney, W. Steffen, "The Anthropocene Equation." The Anthropocene Review 4, issue 1 (April 2017): 53-61. https://doi.org/abs/10.1177/2053019616688022.

4. https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/monitoring https://crudata.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/ http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp

5. https://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/news/20170118/

6. S. Levitus, J. Antonov, T. Boyer, O Baranova, H. Garcia, R. Locarnini, A. Mishonov, J. Reagan, D. Seidov, E. Yarosh, M. Zweng, " NCEI ocean heat content, temperature anomalies, salinity anomalies, thermosteric sea level anomalies, halosteric sea level anomalies, and total steric sea level anomalies from 1955 to present calculated from in situ oceanographic subsurface profile data (NCEI Accession 0164586), Version 4.4. (2017) NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information. https://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/3M_HEAT_CONTENT/index3.html K. von Schuckmann, L. Cheng, L,. D. Palmer, J. Hansen, C. Tassone, V. Aich, S. Adusumilli, H. Beltrami, H., T. Boyer, F. Cuesta-Valero, D. Desbruyeres, C. Domingues, A. Garcia-Garcia, P. Gentine, J. Gilson, M. Gorfer, L. Haimberger, M. Ishii, M., G. Johnson, R. Killick, B. King, G. Kirchengast, N. Kolodziejczyk, J. Lyman, B. Marzeion, M. Mayer, M. Monier, D. Monselesan, S. Purkey, D. Roemmich, A. Schweiger, S. Seneviratne, A. Shepherd, D. Slater, A. Steiner, F. Straneo, M.L. Timmermans, S. Wijffels. "Heat stored in the Earth system: where does the energy go?" Earth System Science Data 12, Issue 3 (07 September 2020): 2013-2041. https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-12-2013-2020.

7. I. Velicogna, Yara Mohajerani, A. Geruo, F. Landerer, J. Mouginot, B. Noel, E. Rignot, T. Sutterly, M. van den Broeke, M. Wessem, D. Wiese, "Continuity of Ice Sheet Mass Loss in Greenland and Antarctica From the GRACE and GRACE Follow-On Missions." Geophysical Research Letters 47, Issue 8 (28 April 2020): e2020GL087291. https://doi.org/10.1029/2020GL087291.

8. National Snow and Ice Data Center World Glacier Monitoring Service

9. National Snow and Ice Data Center D.A. Robinson, D. K. Hall, and T. L. Mote, "MEaSUREs Northern Hemisphere Terrestrial Snow Cover Extent Daily 25km EASE-Grid 2.0, Version 1 (2017). Boulder, Colorado USA. NASA National Snow and Ice Data Center Distributed Active Archive Center. doi: https://doi.org/10.5067/MEASURES/CRYOSPHERE/nsidc-0530.001 . http://nsidc.org/cryosphere/sotc/snow_extent.html Rutgers University Global Snow Lab. Data History

10. R.S. Nerem, B.D. Beckley, J. T. Fasullo, B.D. Hamlington, D. Masters, and G.T. Mitchum, "Climate-change–driven accelerated sea-level rise detected in the altimeter era." PNAS 15, no. 9 (12 Feb. 2018): 2022-2025. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1717312115.

11. https://nsidc.org/cryosphere/sotc/sea_ice.html Pan-Arctic Ice Ocean Modeling and Assimilation System (PIOMAS, Zhang and Rothrock, 2003) http://psc.apl.washington.edu/research/projects/arctic-sea-ice-volume-anomaly/ http://psc.apl.uw.edu/research/projects/projections-of-an-ice-diminished-arctic-ocean/

12. USGCRP, 2017: Climate Science Special Report: Fourth National Climate Assessment, Volume I [Wuebbles, D.J., D.W. Fahey, K.A. Hibbard, D.J. Dokken, B.C. Stewart, and T.K. Maycock (eds.)]. U.S. Global Change Research Program, Washington, DC, USA, 470 pp, https://doi.org/10.7930/j0j964j6 .

13. http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/co2/story/What+is+Ocean+Acidification%3F

14. http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/co2/story/Ocean+Acidification

15. C.L. Sabine, et al., “The Oceanic Sink for Anthropogenic CO2.” Science 305 (16 July 2004): 367-371. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1097403.

16. Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate , Technical Summary, Chapter TS.5, Changing Ocean, Marine Ecosystems, and Dependent Communities, Section 5.2.2.3. https://www.ipcc.ch/srocc/chapter/technical-summary/

Header image shows clouds imitating mountains as the sun sets after midnight as seen from Denali's backcountry Unit 13 on June 14, 2019. Credit: NPS/Emily Mesner Image credit in list of evidence: Ashwin Kumar, Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic.

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Global warming is contributing to extreme weather events

Extreme weather can be linked to global warming.

New scientific approaches make it possible to determine how global warming affected individual extreme weather events.

Even a decade ago, it was hard to link a specific weather event, such as a heat wave or an intense rainstorm, with climate changes happening on a global scale. However, climate scientists are getting better at making these kinds of connections, called  extreme event attribution . These studies can’t say whether global warming caused a specific event—but they can look at whether the warming climate made an event  more severe or more likely to happen . Scientists use  computer models  to simulate weather conditions with and without global warming and other contributing factors. By comparing different scenarios, they can identify how global warming has affected observed extreme weather events.

For example, scientists completed extreme event attribution studies after Hurricane Harvey soaked Texas in 2017 with record-breaking rains of more than 60 inches in some places. They concluded that  global warming  worsened the flooding and made a Harvey-sized storm  at least three times more likely .

Understanding global warming’s impacts on extreme weather is important because it can help inform choices about managing risks. For example, if a community knows that increased rainfall from global warming has turned what was previously a “500-year flood” into a “100-year flood” (or more accurately: a flood that had a 1-in-500 chance of happening each year into a 1-in-100 chance of happening each year), it may make different choices about how to manage land, what and where people can build, or whether to build a floodwall.

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ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

• American Meteorological Society – Explaining Extreme Events in 2016 from a Climate Perspective
• American Meteorological Society – Explaining Extreme Events in 2017 from a Climate Perspective
• Climate at the National Academies
• Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis (2021)
• National Academy of Sciences and The Royal Society – Climate Change: Evidence & Causes (2020)
• National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine – Attribution of Extreme Weather Events in the Context of Climate Change (2016)
• National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine – Earth Sciences | Topic
• National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine – Energy and Energy Conservation | Topic
• National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine – Environment and Environmental Studies | Topic
• The Science Behind It: Climate Change - National Academy of Sciences
• The Science Behind It: Extreme Weather – National Academy of Sciences
• U.S. Global Change Research Program – Fourth National Climate Assessment (2018)

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Predictions of Future Global Climate

Scientists from around the world serve as part of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). These scientists have found that from 1900-2020, the world's surface air temperature increased an average of 1.1° Celsius (nearly 2°F) due to burning fossil fuels that releases carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. This may not sound like very much change, but this warming is unprecedented in over 2000 years of records. Even one degree can impact the planet in many ways. Climate models predict that Earth's global average temperature will rise an additional 4° C (7.2° F) during the 21st Century if greenhouse gas levels continue to rise at present levels. Without swift action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, models project that holding global average temperatures to within a 1.5-2.0°C (2.7-3.6°F) increase may no longer be possible. 

The amount of climate change by the end of the century depends on decisions we make today. If we reduce CO 2 amounts to stop increasing after 2050, global average temperature will increase from 1-1.5°C, and this is considered a best case scenario (blue line in graph). If we don’t reduce CO 2 and the amounts continue to increase, the worst case scenario warming will be 4.5-5°C (red line in graph).

IPCC Working Group I, 2021

Predicted Impacts of Climate Change

Climate change is predicted to impact regions differently . For example, temperature increases are expected to be greater on land than over oceans and greater at high latitudes than in the tropics and mid-latitudes.

Warming is already occurring in all areas of the globe, but models of future temperatures show that the changes will not be distributed equally. Polar regions and land areas are expected to see the largest temperature changes.

Warmer temperatures will cause (and are causing) changes to other aspects of climate - such as rain, snow, and clouds. They are also causing changes to the ocean, life, ice, and all other parts of the Earth system.

Changing Precipitation

A warmer average global temperature will cause the water cycle to “speed up” due to a higher rate of evaporation. More water vapor in the atmosphere will lead to more precipitation. Global average precipitation can increase by 7% for each degree of warming, which means we are looking at a future with much more rain and snow, and a higher risk of flooding to some regions. With a 2°C temperature increase, heavy rain events are expected to become 1.7 times more likely, and 14% more intense. However, changes in precipitation will not be evenly distributed. Some locations will get more, and others will see less .

Future changes in precipitation will vary regionally, with some parts of the globe likely to become wetter and other areas projected to become drier.  

Melting Snow and Ice

As the climate warms, snow and ice melt . It is predicted that the melting of glaciers, ice sheets, and other snow and ice on land in the summer will continue to be greater than the amount of precipitation that falls in the winter, which means a decrease in the total amount of snow and ice on the planet. Over the past 100 years, mountain glaciers in all areas of the world have decreased in size and so has the amount of permafrost in the Arctic. Greenland's ice sheet is melting faster, too. The amount of sea ice (frozen seawater) floating in the Arctic Ocean and around Antarctica is expected to decrease. Already the summer thickness of sea ice in the Arctic is about half of what it was in 1950.  Arctic sea ice is melting more rapidly than the Antarctic sea ice. Melting ice may lead to changes in ocean circulation, too. Although there is some uncertainty about the amount of melt, summer in the Arctic Ocean will likely be ice-free by the end of the century.

Rising Sea Level

A warmer climate causes sea level to rise via two mechanisms: (1) melting glaciers and ice sheets (ice on land) add water to the oceans, raising the sea level, and (2) ocean water expands as it warms, increasing its volume and thus also raising sea level. Since 1880, sea levels have risen about 0.10 to 0.20 meters (0.3 to 0.75 feet) depending on region and location. Thermal expansion and melting ice each contributed about half of the rise, though there is some uncertainty in the exact magnitude of the contribution from each source. By the year 2050, models predict sea level will rise an additional 0.25 to 0.30 meters, and by 2100, without immediate reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, global sea level rise is expected to be on the order of 1.1 meters (3.5 feet). Some low-lying areas could experience even higher levels, threatening coastal communities, wetlands, and global trade. Even if swift emission reductions occur, the greenhouse gases levels currently present will still likely result in about 0.6 meters (2 feet) of sea level rise by the end of the century.

Observed (black line) and projected sea level rise through 2100, where the colored curves indicate sea level rise for different emissions scenarios. 

IPCC Sixth Assessment Report

Acidic Ocean Water

Earth’s oceans are predicted to act as a buffer against climate change by taking up some of the excess heat and carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. This is good news in the short run, but more problematic in the long run. Carbon dioxide combined with seawater forms weak carbonic acid. Scientists believe this process has reduced the pH of the oceans by about 0.1 pH since pre-industrial times. Further acidification of 0.14 to 0.35 pH is expected by the year 2100. Higher acidity in the ocean causes problems for coral reefs and other marine organisms.

Changes to Ocean Currents

Large-scale ocean currents called thermohaline circulation , driven by differences in salinity and temperature, may also be disrupted as the climate warms. Changes in precipitation patterns and the influx of fresh water into the oceans from melting ice can alter salinity. Changing salinity, along with rising water temperature, may disrupt the currents . In an extreme case, thermohaline circulation could be disrupted or even shut down in some parts of the ocean, which could have large effects on climate.

Changing Severe Weather

Some climate scientists believe that hurricanes, typhoons, and other tropical cyclones will change as a result of global warming . Warm ocean surface waters provide the energy that drives these immense storms. Warmer oceans in the future are expected to cause the intensification of such storms. Although there may not be more tropical cyclones worldwide in the future, some scientists believe there will be a higher proportion of the most powerful and destructive storms. Some scientists believe we already see evidence for an upswing in the numbers of the most powerful storms. Others are less convinced.

Changing Clouds

Clouds are a bit of a wild card in global climate models. Warmer global temperatures produce faster overall evaporation rates, resulting in more water vapor in the atmosphere...and more clouds. Different types of clouds at different locations have different effects on climate. Some shade the Earth, cooling the climate. Others enhance the greenhouse effect with their heat-trapping water vapor and droplets. Scientists expect a warmer world to be a cloudier one, but are not yet certain how the increased cloudiness will feed back into the climate system. Modeling the influence of clouds in the climate system is an area of active scientific research.

Risks to Marine Life

Ocean ecosystems will change as sea-surface temperatures continues to warm. Animals like fish are able to move to other ecosystems with cooler water at higher latitudes. But many marine organisms – like kelp and corals – that aren’t able to swim elsewhere are at high risk. Warmer waters in the shallow oceans have contributed to the death of about a quarter of the world's coral reefs in the last few decades. Many of the coral animals died after being weakened by bleaching, a process tied to warmed waters.

Risks to Life on Land

Changes in temperature, precipitation, and seasonal timing will alter the geographic ranges of many types of plants and animals. Since species can only survive if they are in a habitat that suits their needs, many species will face extinction if the geographic range where they can survive shrinks. If warming is kept to 2°C, 18% of insects, 16% of plants, and 8% of vertebrate animals are projected to lose over half of their geographic range. However, if we can keep the amount of warming to 1.5°C, the habitat loss to insects, plants, and vertebrates decreases by about a half. On the other hand, the range of some species, such as mosquitos which carry different types of diseases, may increase due to climate warming. Warming surface temperatures are also predicted to increase the frequency of heat waves and droughts, which can affect crop production, increase the risk of wildfires, and even impact human health.

Climate change is causing many other aspects of Earth to change, including the examples noted in this graphic. Using models, scientists can project how these aspects of Earth are likely to change in the future as the climate continues to warm.  Credit: NOAA NCDC

Abrupt changes are also possible as the climate warms

Some changes to the climate are gradual and predictable, while others are more sudden and difficult to foresee. The latter is often referred to as “tipping points.” A tipping point is a large, abrupt change that cannot readily be stopped at the last minute, even by employing drastic measures. Possible tipping points include:

The collapse of major ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica

Melting of these ice sheets is an ongoing process. However, there are signs that moderate melting may accelerate into a runaway situation that leads to a relatively sudden loss of large amounts of ice. Such a collapse could lead to dramatic changes in sea level and could also impact ocean circulation.

Disruption of thermohaline circulation

If the ocean’s circulation changed dramatically or even shut down altogether, the transfer of heat in the climate system would be altered in a huge way.

A sudden release of methane

If the potent greenhouse gas methane were released rapidly from its stores in Arctic permafrost and special ices beneath the seafloor (called methane hydrates or clathrates), the rate of warming would increase. Methane releases would generate a feedback loop of increased greenhouse warming by methane, driving further methane emissions. Some scientists suspect that sudden increases in methane may have played a role in major extinction events in the past.

Ocean uptake of carbon

Today, the ocean is absorbing CO2 that would otherwise stay in the atmosphere. At some point, seawater will become saturated with CO2 and unable to absorb any more. At that point, anthropogenic emissions of CO2 would all land in the atmosphere, increasing the rate of greenhouse warming. Acidification of the oceans could also disrupt marine life, causing photosynthesizing plankton to succumb, preventing them from removing CO2 from the air. Shells of many types of marine organisms might begin to dissolve in the presence of the acidic oceans, releasing the carbon stored within the shells back into the environment.

None of these tipping points are considered very likely to occur over the next several decades. Still, the consequences of any of them are so severe, and the fact that we cannot retreat from them once they’ve been set in motion is so problematic, that we must keep them in mind when evaluating the overall risks associated with climate change.

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• Regional Impacts of Climate Change
• The Water Cycle and Climate Change

Vital Signs

Global temperature, key takeaway:.

The 10 most recent years are the warmest years on record.

This graph shows the change in global surface temperature compared to the long-term average from 1951 to 1980. Earth’s average surface temperature in 2023 was the warmest on record since recordkeeping began in 1880 (source: NASA/GISS ). NASA’s analysis generally matches independent analyses prepared by the​ National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and other research groups. Overall, Earth was about 2.45 degrees Fahrenheit (or about 1.36 degrees Celsius) warmer in 2023 than in the late 19th-century (1850-1900) preindustrial average. The 10 most recent years are the warmest on record.

The animation on the right shows the change in global surface temperatures. Dark blue shows areas cooler than average. Dark red shows areas warmer than average. Short-term variations are smoothed out using a 5-year running average to make trends more visible in this map.

The data shown are the latest available, updated annually.

GLOBAL LAND-OCEAN TEMPERATURE INDEX

Time series: 1884 to 2022.

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• Open access
• Published: 21 March 2024

Global warming and heat extremes to enhance inflationary pressures

• Maximilian Kotz   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-2564-5043 1 , 2 ,
• Friderike Kuik 3 ,
• Eliza Lis 3 &
• Christiane Nickel 3  

Communications Earth & Environment volume  5 , Article number:  116 ( 2024 ) Cite this article

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• Climate-change impacts

Climate impacts on economic productivity indicate that climate change may threaten price stability. Here we apply fixed-effects regressions to over 27,000 observations of monthly consumer price indices worldwide to quantify the impacts of climate conditions on inflation. Higher temperatures increase food and headline inflation persistently over 12 months in both higher- and lower-income countries. Effects vary across seasons and regions depending on climatic norms, with further impacts from daily temperature variability and extreme precipitation. Evaluating these results under temperature increases projected for 2035 implies upwards pressures on food and headline inflation of 0.92-3.23 and 0.32-1.18 percentage-points per-year respectively on average globally (uncertainty range across emission scenarios, climate models and empirical specifications). Pressures are largest at low latitudes and show strong seasonality at high latitudes, peaking in summer. Finally, the 2022 extreme summer heat increased food inflation in Europe by 0.43-0.93 percentage-points which warming projected for 2035 would amplify by 30-50%.

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Introduction

The effects of climate change on the economy are becoming increasingly well understood. Key progress has been made using empirical methods to demonstrate impacts on labour productivity 1 , agricultural output 2 , 3 , 4 , energy demand 5 , 6 , and human health 7 , 8 from historical weather fluctuations. The resulting consequences for macroeconomic production have also been quantified empirically, with non-linear impacts of average temperature 9 , 10 , 11 , temperature variability 12 , and various aspects of precipitation 13 on aggregate economic output identified in historical data. The future changes in weather conditions expected due to greenhouse gas emissions imply considerable welfare losses when evaluated through both these micro- 3 , 14 , 15 and macroeconomic impact channels 10 , 11 , 16 , 17 .

Despite these advances, weather impacts on inflation and, in particular, the implications for inflation risks under future climate change, remain understudied. Advancing this understanding is crucial to a comprehensive assessment of climate change risk because rising or unstable prices threaten economic 18 , 19 and human welfare 20 , 21 as well as political stability 22 . The 2021/2022 cost of living crisis provides an example of such implications, with estimates by the United Nations having suggested that an additional 71 million people may have fallen into poverty due to rapidly rising prices 23 . Moreover, the potential for climate change to impact inflation dynamics is of increasingly high-relevance for the conduct of monetary policy and for central banks’ ability to deliver on their price stability mandate in the future 24 , 25 , 26 . A comprehensive assessment of climatic risks on inflation is therefore an important element in guiding the mitigation and adaptation efforts of governments, as well as informing monetary policy concerning the risks posed by climate change.

Previous work in this area has used historical weather fluctuations to identify impacts on inflation from changes in average temperatures 27 , 28 , 29 , 30 , temperature variability 30 , as well as from annual precipitation 31 . However, assessments of the implications of these historical impacts under future climate change are lacking. Here, we provide a comprehensive assessment of the historical impacts on inflation from fluctuations in a wide range of weather conditions, while flexibly accounting for the heterogeneity of their impacts across seasons and regions given different baseline climatic and socio-economic conditions. Moreover, by combining our results with projections from physical climate models we are able to assess the implications of these impacts under the weather conditions projected with future climate change.

We combine measures of national exposure to different weather conditions, based on high-resolution data from the European Centre for Medium-range Weather Forecast Reanalysis version 5 (ERA5) 32 , with a dataset of monthly price indices for different aggregates of goods and services across 121 countries of the developed and developing world over the period 1996-2021 (see Supplementary Table  S1 for summary statistics) 33 . As well as providing over 27,000 observations, the availability of monthly price indices allows a detailed assessment of the temporal dynamics of the response of inflation to weather shocks and the heterogeneity of such effects across seasons. Our empirical framework quantifies the plausibly causal effects of fluctuations in historical weather conditions on national, month-on-month inflation rates (measured as the change in the logarithm of consumer price indices (CPI)) by exploiting within-country variation using fixed-effects panel regression models. Country-fixed effects account for unobserved differences between regions such as baseline climate and inflation rates, while the use of year fixed effects accounts for contemporaneous global shocks to both variables such as El Nino events or global recessions. We further include country-month fixed effects to account for country-specific seasonality – a crucial step given the strong seasonal cycle in both monthly inflation and weather data. Furthermore, our baseline specification accounts for country-specific time trends to avoid spurious correlations arising from common trends. Consequently, our framework accounts for a wide variety of un-observed confounders, and our results stem from the deviations of weather conditions from their national and seasonal patterns which cannot be accounted for by global shocks or country-specific trends. Combined with the exogenous nature of weather fluctuations, these methodological choices strengthen confidence in a causal interpretation of our results 34 .

Temperature increases cause nonlinear, persistent increases in food and headline inflation

We find a rich response of inflation in different price aggregates to fluctuations in a variety of weather conditions (see Supplementary Fig.  S1 , Tables  S2 and S3 ). The strongest and most consistent signal arises from fluctuations in average monthly temperatures (Fig.  1 and Supplementary Fig.  S1a & f ). Impacts are strongest in the food price component (Fig.  1b and Supplementary Fig.  S1f ), indicative of a supply-side productivity shock given the considerable evidence for impacts on agricultural production from temperature 2 , 4 and other weather fluctuations (Fig.  1a ) 35 , 36 , 37 . Although larger in food prices, these impacts also translate into considerable effects on headline inflation (Fig.  1c ). We find limited evidence for impacts on other price sub-components asides from weak evidence in the electricity sector (Supplementary Figs.  S1 & S2 ).

a A schematic outline of the mechanisms via which temperature shocks may impact inflation via agricultural productivity and food prices. The results of fixed-effects panel regressions from over 27,000 observations of monthly price indices and weather fluctuations worldwide over the period 1996-2021 demonstrate persistent impacts on food ( b ) and headline ( c ) prices from a one-off increase in monthly average temperature. Lines indicate the cumulative marginal effects of a one-off 1 C increase in monthly temperature on month-on-month inflation rates, evaluated at different baseline temperatures (colour) reflecting the non-linearity of the response by baseline temperatures which differ across both seasons and regions (see methods for a specific explanation of the estimation of these marginal effects from the regression models). Error bars show the 95% confidence intervals having clustered standard errors by country. Full regression results are shown in Tables  S2 & S3. Icons are obtained from Flaticon ( https://www.flaticon.com/ ) using work from Febrian Hidayat, Vectors Tank and Freepik.

The response to average temperature is strongly non-linear, such that increases in hotter months and regions cause larger inflationary impacts (Fig.  1 ). Consequently, increases in average temperatures at high latitudes cause upwards inflationary pressures when occurring in the hottest month of the year, opposing downward pressures when occurring in colder months. By contrast, increases in average temperatures at lower latitudes cause upwards inflationary pressures all year round (Supplementary Fig.  S3 ). These heterogeneities arise from the dependence of the impacts on baseline temperatures in the empirical model expressed through an interaction term (see methods), rather than explicit dependence on season or latitude, a distinguishing feature from previous work 28 . By using lagged weather variables, we further find that the impacts of a 1 C increase in monthly temperature on the price level persist across the entire 12 months following the initial shock (Fig.  1 ), causing a cumulative effect on food inflation of 0.17 percentage points over the following year (when occurring in country-months with a temperature of 25 C, under our central specification shown in column 1 of Supplementary Tables  S4 & S5 and Fig.  1a ). That is, the initial spike in inflation is not offset by a decline in prices over the following year.

The response of inflation to other weather variables

In addition to the impacts arising from average temperature changes, we also assess impacts from daily temperature variability (the standard deviation of daily temperatures within each month, see methods). We find significant upwards pressures on food and headline inflation from increased variability (Supplementary Tables  S2 & S3 , Fig.  S1b & g ), which depend on the magnitude of the seasonal temperature cycle, with larger impacts at lower latitudes where the seasonal cycle is less pronounced (Supplementary Fig.  S3c ). This reflects the same patterns of vulnerability as that identified to the impacts of daily variability on economic growth 12 . Impacts from variability persist over twelve months, although with increasingly large errors (Supplementary Fig.  S1b & g ).

With regards to precipitation, we assess exposure to monthly extremes using the Standardised Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI, see methods for further details). Excess wet conditions cause upwards impacts on food and headline prices which persist over twelve months, independent of baseline climate conditions (Supplementary Table  S2 & S3 , Fig.  S1c & h ). Excess dry conditions have some significant upwards impacts when coinciding with hot months or regions, but these are generally less persistent or significant (Supplementary Fig.  S1i ). These results are qualitatively consistent under different SPEI timescales and thresholds (see Supplementary Fig.  S4 ). We further consider the impacts of daily precipitation extremes (defined as population exposure to the grid-cell level relative exceedance of the 99 th percentile, see methods Eq.  1 for further details) to assess potential heavy-precipitation impacts arising over shorter timescales such as flooding 13 . Statistically significant upwards pressures on headline inflation can be identified in hot months in the first month following the shock, but these impacts appear not to persist with insignificant cumulative impacts at further time-horizons (Supplementary Tables  S2 & S3 , Fig.  S1e & j ).

Robustness of the impact of temperature on inflation

In general, we find the strongest and most significant historical weather impacts on inflation from changes in average temperature. These effects are robust to a number of tests and alternative specifications, an overview of which is shown in Supplementary Tables  S4 and S5 (the results of the robustness tests for all weather variables can be found in Supplementary Figs.  S5 – 9 ). Such tests include using a dynamic panel specification to account for auto-correlations in inflation, for example, associated with inflation developments through the business cycle, using Driscoll-Kraay errors to account for cross-sectionally correlated errors, and including explicit controls for changes in monetary policy frameworks (Supplementary Tables  S4 & S5 Columns 2-4, Figs.  S5 & S6a–j ) 38 . Moreover, we conduct tests in which we split our estimates based on national income (estimated from World Bank GDP and population data), as well as when normalising inflation data by its historical volatility. Doing so we find the effects of temperature increases to be consistent across both higher- and lower-income countries and when accounting for different historical inflation volatility (Supplementary Tables  S4 & S5 Columns 5 & 6, Figs.  S7 & S8 ).

The fact that fluctuations of average temperature cause equivalent impacts on inflation in high- and low-income countries suggests that historical adaptation to temperature increases via socioeconomic development has been limited. To further test whether adaptation can be seen in the historical period we alternatively define temperature shocks with respect to a moving average over the past 30 years rather than a static 1990–2021 average. This choice would reflect the fact that agents may adjust their expectations as long-term climatic conditions change. Empirical results using these temperature shocks provide very similar response functions (Fig.  S6k–t ). Moreover, Information Criteria do not provide strong evidence for using shocks defined in either way. Empirical models of impacts on headline inflation produce Bayesian Information Criteria (BIC) and Akaike Information Criteria (AIC) values of −146636 and −163551.5 when using shocks defined with a moving baseline, compared to −146638.8 and −163554.3 when defined with a fixed baseline. For impacts on food inflation the BIC and AIC show values of −105528.5 and −122443.7 for moving baseline shocks and −105526.7 and −122442 for shocks with a constant baseline. We interpret this as a lack of evidence for significant adjustment in the historical period.

In further tests we use an alternative price index dataset from the World Bank 39 , finding a qualitatively and quantitatively consistent response of food inflation (Supplementary Fig.  S9 ). Estimates for headline inflation differ notably when using World Bank data, most likely due to the inclusion of imputed rents in the World Bank data which may bias estimates away from the effects on widely consumed goods (see Methods for further discussion).

Following the principle of parsimony, and since the magnitude of its impacts lie in the middle range of the other specifications, we use the simple specification of column 1 in Supplementary Tables  S4 & S5 as our baseline for the rest of the paper. We nevertheless continue to discuss the robustness of our results to this choice and present a range of uncertainty arising from this choice of baseline empirical specification (see methods).

Future warming to amplify pressures on inflation

The empirical evidence for the historical impacts of weather shocks on inflation suggests that the ongoing warming and intensification of weather extremes and variability due to anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions 40 may have consequences for future inflation. To assess these consequences, we evaluate the empirical responses identified above for temperatures under projected future climate conditions. Future projections are taken from an ensemble of 21 bias-adjusted climate models from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP-6) under different emission forcing scenarios from the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSP) 41 (see methods for further details and comparison to the forcing scenarios considered by the Network for Greening the Financial System 42 ). We focus on the role of average temperature due to the persistence of its impacts across income groups and price aggregates, as well as due to the stronger response of average temperatures to greenhouse gas forcing compared to other weather variables.

We consider the impacts we estimate using future climate projections as the effects of future weather conditions on inflation, which would occur (i) in the absence of historically un-precedented adaptation via socioeconomic development or adjustment to warmer climatic conditions, (ii) without a targeted monetary policy response, and (iii) abstracting from any possible interactions with macroeconomic developments. (i) Though we do not introduce explicit models of future adaptation, which could mitigate impacts from future climate change we note that several robustness tests account for historical adaptations, which may have evolved via socio-economic development or prolonged exposure to different climate conditions, or through adjustment to warmer climatic conditions (see above). The results suggest that historical adaptation to temperature increases through socio-economic development and adjustment to warmer climatic conditions has been limited. (ii) A monetary policy reaction aimed at limiting persistent impacts on inflation from long-term changes in average weather conditions is plausible. However, central banks usually pursue a medium-term orientation with respect to their price stability objective, which allows them to be patient when confronted with temporary shocks, such as the weather shocks that we identify historically (Fig.  1 ). (iii) We do not aim to forecast inflation or provide scenarios for it, which would require a range of assumptions on socioeconomic and macroeconomic developments as well as a suite of structural models (as for example, used in the context of the scenarios of the Network for Greening the Financial System 42 ). Rather, we provide an assessment of the potential future exogenous pressure on inflation from future climate conditions, based on the causal relationships inferred with the empirical models, and assuming other socioeconomic factors such as demographic developments and changes in the consumption basket remain constant (principle of ceteris paribus). As such, these results should provide helpful guidance on the likely magnitude and range of exogenous pressures to which society will be exposed and to which monetary policy may have to respond (see also the discussion section).

We find that the temperature conditions projected for 2035 under future warming imply upwards inflationary pressures across all of the world (Fig.  2a, b ). In the global average, these effects constitute persistent upwards pressures on food inflation of 1.49±0.45 or 1.79±0.54 percentage-points per year (p.p.p.y.) respectively in a best- (SSP126) or worst-case (SSP585) emission scenario (uncertainty indicating the standard deviation across climate model projections). Pressures on headline inflation are approximately half as large, 0.76±0.23 or 0.91±0.28 p.p.p.y. under a best- or worst-case emission scenario (Fig.  2a, c ). These results are qualitatively robust across empirical specifications, although impacts vary quantitatively dependent on this choice (shown in Supplementary Tables  S4 & S5 row 5 and Figs.  S10 – 12 ). Combining the uncertainty arising from empirical specification, emission scenario and range of climate model projections (see methods) results in a range of potential pressures on food inflation of 0.92-3.23 p.p.p.y. by 2035, and of 0.32-1.18 p.p.p.y. for headline inflation, on average across the world. These results therefore provide robust evidence that projected global warming would cause persistent upward exogenous pressures on inflation of considerable magnitudes already during the next few decades, independent of future emission trajectories and assuming ceteris paribus.

Maps of the pressure on annual national inflation in the food ( a ) and headline ( b ) price aggregates from the average weather conditions expected by 2035 under a high-emission scenario (SSP585) as estimated from the projections of CMIP-6 climate models. The annual pressure on inflation aggregated across world regions (population weighted), at different time periods under both a low (SSP126) and high (SSP585) emission scenario for food ( c ) and headline ( d ) price aggregates. Point estimates show the average, and error bars the standard deviation, of impacts as projected across the ensemble of 21 CMIP-6 climate models. Impacts are estimated accounting only for increasing average temperatures using the baseline empirical specification shown in column 1 of Supplementary Tables  S4 & S5 . Estimates reflect the exogenous pressure on inflation arising from future weather conditions in the absence of historically un-precedented adaptation, policy response, and abstracting from any possible interactions with macroeconomic developments (see text for discussion). Data on national administrative boundaries are obtained from the GADM database version 3.6 ( https://gadm.org/ ).

Exogenous pressures on inflation from projected future temperature conditions are generally larger in the global south, with the largest pressures found across Africa and South America robustly across specifications (Fig.  2 & Supplementary Figs.  S10 – 12 ). This occurs despite projected warming being greater at higher latitudes (Supplementary Fig.  S13 ). This indicates that the heterogenous vulnerabilities to temperature increases due to different baseline temperature levels (as encoded in our empirical model shown in Eq.  3 ) outweigh heterogeneity in projected warming. Nevertheless, the magnitudes of pressures on inflation are also already considerable by 2035 across advanced economies, in the range of 1-2% on food inflation in North America and Europe under our baseline specification.

Beyond 2035 the magnitude of estimated pressures on inflation diverges strongly across emission scenarios (Fig.  2c, d ), suggesting that decisive mitigation of greenhouse gases could substantially reduce them. By 2060, there is a strong and robust difference in the average global pressures on food inflation between the highest and lowest emission scenarios: 2.1 p.p.p.y. in our central estimate with a range of 1.6-3.8 across empirical specifications and climate models (Row 6 of Supplementary Tables  S4 & S5 ). Under a best-case emission scenario, exogenous pressures on inflation are only marginally larger in 2060 than in 2035, but a worst-case emission scenario would cause pressures on food inflation exceeding 4 p.p.p.y. across large parts of the world (Fig.  2c , Supplementary Figs.  S10 – 12c ).

Although the empirical evidence indicates that adaptation to temperature shocks has been limited historically, we explore the potential of adaptation via adjustment to changing temperatures to reduce these future impacts. We do so by using empirical models in which temperature shocks are defined relative to a 30-year moving average rather than a constant baseline (Fig.  S6k–t ), and by evaluating potential impacts using future temperatures defined in this way. This method indicates that adaptation via adjustment could substantially reduce future impacts (Supplementary Fig.  S14 ). In particular, in a low emission-scenario most impacts could be removed by adjustment once global temperatures stabilise (Supplementary Fig.  S14c, d ). However, in scenarios of un-mitigated warming, persistent impacts of considerable size remain despite introducing adjustment of this type which has not been observed historically (Supplementary Fig.  S14 ).

The seasonality of pressures on inflation from future warming

The use of monthly CPI data allows us to further assess how the estimated pressures on inflation from future temperature conditions under projected climate change are distributed across the year. Concerning food inflation, these impacts are fairly constant across seasons at low latitudes but vary considerably across seasons in Northern mid-latitudes (20-40 N) where they can be more than twice as large in summer compared to winter (Fig.  3a ). At the highest latitudes (>40 N) upwards pressure in summer contrasts downwards pressure in winter. This seasonal and spatial heterogeneity is robust across empirical specifications (Supplementary Figs.  S15 – S17 ), although accounting for different historical baseline inflation volatilities (column 6 of Supplementary Tables  S4 & S5 ) introduces additional noise (Supplementary Fig.  S17 ). Moreover, similar patterns are observed for headline inflation (Supplementary Figs.  S18 – S21 ).

a The pressures on monthly food inflation averaged across latitudinal bands estimated from the temperature conditions expected by 2035 under a high-emission scenario, as projected on average across the ensemble of CMIP-6 climate models. Impacts are estimated accounting only for increasing average temperatures. b The percentage change in the seasonal variability of food inflation under the pressures from future temperature conditions, estimated as the change in the standard deviation of the seasonal inflation cycle. c – f Country-specific examples of the pressures on the seasonal cycle of food inflation for the United States, Germany, Colombia and Kenya. Black curves show the historical average month-on-month percentage change in the food consumer price index (CPI) with blue error bars indicating the standard deviation across the years of the historical period (1996–2021). Red curves show this historical average plus the pressures estimated from the future weather conditions under projected warming, with the error bars indicating the standard deviation of projections across climate models. Estimates reflect the exogenous pressure on inflation arising from future weather conditions in the absence of historically un-precedented adaptation or policy response (see text for discussion). Data on national administrative boundaries are obtained from the GADM database version 3.6 ( https://gadm.org/ ).

These heterogeneities arise from the dependence of the impacts on baseline temperatures as outlined in the empirical model (Eq.  3 ), rather than an explicit dependence on season or latitude. Large seasonal cycles of temperature at higher latitudes lead to stronger upward pressures in summer contrasting weak or downward pressures in winter, whereas less variable baseline temperatures throughout the year at low-latitudes result in fairly constant impacts across seasons. Projected temperature increases are typically stronger in winter than in summer in Northern mid-to-high latitudes (with the exception of Europe, Supplementary Fig.  S13 ) indicating that most of the seasonality observed at high latitudes in Fig.  3 results from the distribution of baseline temperatures across seasons rather than differential warming between seasons (except in Europe, where more rapid warming in summer also contributes to these patterns).

These seasonally heterogenous pressures would cause alterations to the usual seasonal cycle of food inflation, resulting in an amplification of seasonal variability across most of the global south and the USA, and reductions in seasonal variability across most of Europe (excluding Spain) and the higher northern latitudes (Fig.  3b & Supplementary Fig.  S15 – 21b ). A reduction in seasonal variability arises when the strongest upwards pressures occur in months with historically lower inflation rates, as compared to other months (as shown in the case of Germany in Fig.  3d ).

Amplified impacts from unpredictable heat extremes

In addition to shifting average conditions, climate change is also altering the intensity and frequency of unpredictable hot extremes which may pose additional short-term risks to inflation. The summer heat extreme in Europe in 2022 is a prominent example in which combined heat and drought had wide-spread impacts on agricultural and economic activity. These effects likely added to inflationary pressures in Europe, but the magnitude of their contribution has so far been difficult to assess, particularly in the context of other pressures from the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic. Combining our empirical results with estimates of monthly temperatures in June, July and August of 2022 (from the ERA5 reanalysis of historical observations), we estimate that the anomalous heat over these three months alone caused a cumulative annual impact of 0.67 percentage-points (0.43–0.93 across empirical specifications) on food inflation and 0.34 percentage-points (0.18–0.41) on headline inflation in Europe, with larger impacts across Southern Europe (Fig.  4a , see Supplementary Figs.  S22 – S24 for results using other empirical specifications).

The cumulative annual impacts on food ( a ) and headline ( b ) inflation from the observed temperatures of June, July and August of 2022 across Europe. ( c , d ) Regionally aggregated (using a population weighting) impacts from the historical 2022 summer temperatures, as well as those impacts which would result from an equivalent summer if amplified by future warming as projected by CMIP-6 climate models (see methods) under future emission scenarios specified by the SSPs. Point estimates and error bars show the mean and standard deviation of impacts across climate models. Data on national administrative boundaries are obtained from the GADM database version 3.6 ( https://gadm.org/ ).

Future climate change will amplify the magnitude of such heat extremes, thereby also amplifying their potential impact on inflation. To assess such effects, we make use of the fact that climate change will alter the distribution of future summer temperatures predominantly by shifting their mean 43 , 44 . We therefore add the future summer warming projected to occur from 2022 onwards in the CMIP-6 projections to the historical temperatures realised in 2022, and re-evaluate their impact using our empirical response functions (see methods for further details). This approach suggests that if amplified by future warming, an equivalent extreme summer (i.e., in the upper tail of the shifted temperature distribution) would – ceteris paribus - cause impacts on food inflation in Europe of 1.0 percentage-points (0.6–1.6, uncertainty range across climate models and empirical specifications) in 2035 under a high-emission scenario, or of 0.9 percentage-points (0.5–1.4) under a low-emission scenario (Fig.  4c ). These constitute an amplification of the impacts of extreme heat on inflation in Europe by 30–50% due to climate change already by 2035. By 2060, the amplification of such extreme impacts would diverge under different emission scenarios, remaining at 1.1 percentage-points (0.6–1.8) under the most optimistic scenario compared to 1.8 percentage-points (1.0–3.2) under the most pessimistic scenario of emission mitigation, an amplification of nearly 200%. These results highlight the short-term risks to inflation posed by unpredictable heat extremes which are already occurring under present climatic conditions, and which will be amplified by future warming.

This work has identified a number of weather variables with significant historical impacts on headline and food inflation globally (Supplementary Fig.  S1 ), but limitations persist in providing a comprehensive relationship between weather conditions and inflation. For example, the fact that we do not find such significant or consistent impacts of precipitation changes on food prices may be surprising given the clear sensitivity of agricultural productivity to precipitation 36 . However, precipitation changes exhibit a higher spatial variability than temperature 34 and the use of national-level data may therefore be a limiting factor in our ability to accurately detect such effects should they exist. The development of consistent datasets of consumer prices at higher spatial resolutions, such as for sub-national regions may reduce these issues to the extent that local prices reflect local production. To the extent that local prices reflect imported production, assessments of spill-overs via trade 45 or pressures arising through global commodity prices may provide further interesting insights.

Second, our empirical results refer predominantly to food and headline inflation, whereas we find a limited response of other price aggregates to weather changes. However, the strong response of electricity demand to temperature 5 , 6 suggests that impacts on electricity prices are plausible. Indeed, we find that electricity prices show some consistent and persistent response to temperature increases (Supplementary Fig.  S1k ), but with much larger uncertainty which precludes statements of significance at conventional levels. Lesser data availability for this more detailed price aggregate as well as complex and heterogeneous electricity price-setting practices may contribute to these large errors. However, as electricity supply is increasingly met with renewable sources, the price sensitivity to weather may change. A detailed analysis of electricity and other price aggregates may be a fruitful avenue of future work.

Compared to previous literature, our empirical results are similar to those of Mukherjee 29 in identifying persistent impacts of temperature increases in both developed and developing countries. Moreover, they are similar to those of Faccia et al. 28 in identifying that temperature increases in hot seasons cause the largest and most significant upwards pressures on food inflation. Our approach is qualitatively different to Faccia et al. 28 in that it models the heterogeneity across seasons and regions using interactions of the temperature shocks with baseline temperatures rather than assessing shocks in specifically defined seasons. Faccia et al. find contemporaneous impacts of 0.38%-points on food inflation from a 1.5 C quarterly summer temperature increase. Evaluating the regression coefficients pertaining to average temperatures in our central model (shown in Column 1 of Supplementary Table  S2 ) at the baseline temperature observed in our dataset on the three hottest months of the year on average across countries (23.5 C), and given a 1.5 C temperature increase, indicates an impact of 0.17%-points. Given that our data are monthly, we must further consider a temperature shock, which persists across all three months of a quarter to compare to Faccia et al., implying an impact of 0.49%-points which is closely consistent. The slightly larger estimates we obtain may result from the use of more granular climate data (monthly vs quarterly) which likely limits attenuation of the impact signal.

The implications of our empirical results under future temperature conditions are considerable regarding societal welfare in general and price stability in particular: our results suggest that climate change is likely to alter inflation seasonality, increase inflation volatility, inflation heterogeneity and place persistent pressures on inflation levels.

In our empirical results we find upward pressures on food and headline inflation from higher-than-normal temperatures, especially when occurring in hot months and countries. This implies short-term rises in inflation from exceptionally hot periods such as that experienced in Europe in the summer of 2022 (Fig.  4a, b ). With the intensity of hot extremes and their impacts on inflation being amplified with continuing climatic change (Fig.  4c, d ), while being unpredictable in the medium- to longer-term, this relationship is set to increase inflation volatility. This in turn may pose challenges to inflation forecasting and monetary policy, likely increasing the difficulty of identifying temporary supply shocks and disentangling them from more persistent drivers.

We find that the inflationary impact of temperature shocks depends on the baseline climatic conditions. At the same time, future climate change implies different warming levels depending on the season and latitude. Taken together, this implies that temperature shocks under future climate change would both amplify inflation heterogeneity (Fig.  2 ) and alter the seasonality of inflation within individual countries (Fig.  3b ). Inflation heterogeneity poses challenges in monetary union areas such as the euro area, where larger inflationary pressures from climate change in southern Europe (Fig.  2 & 4 ) may increase inflation differentials, making the calibration of a single monetary policy more difficult 46 . Moreover, heterogeneous effects on inflation within an economic union such as the EU could exacerbate pre-existing welfare discrepancies, which can fuel anti-EU sentiment 47 . In addition, an altered inflation seasonality could pose additional challenges to inflation forecasting, which may however be (partially) mitigated through the development of weather-dependent forecasts for production 48 and inflation 49 .

Finally, evaluating our empirical results under future temperature conditions suggests that – ceteris paribus - persistent upward pressures on annual food inflation of 1-3 percentage-points per-year could result from temperatures projected for 2035 (Fig.  2c ). In addition, we test for adaptation via socio-economic development (Supplementary Fig.  S8 , Table  S4 & S5 column 5), prolonged exposure to higher temperatures (Fig.  1 and all other empirical specifications), and adjustment to gradual warming (Supplementary Fig.  S6k–t ), with results suggesting that these forms of historical adaptation have been very limited (see earlier discussion). It should however be noted that our estimates assume constancy in other factors which may be important for future developments of inflation such as general macroeconomic developments and structural changes in the economy. Our estimates should therefore be understood as the likely exogenous pressure on inflation from future climate conditions based on the causal relationships inferred from the empirical models, in the absence of unprecedented adaptation. More persistent upward inflationary pressures from increasing temperatures under a changing climate would have important implications for monetary policy, as it would render the identification of drivers of inflation more difficult when relying on traditionally used models, and also risk the de-anchoring of inflation expectations. As a result, central banks may need to make monetary policy decisions also in response to weather and climate shocks, as in such a situation weather and climate shocks can no longer be considered temporary. Moreover, persistent upward pressures on inflation may have adverse effects on purchasing power, often with regressive distributional effects and potential impacts on social cohesion 50 , as well as inefficiency costs due to nominal rigidities and adverse interactions with taxation 50 . Overall, these results strongly highlight the importance for central banks and macroeconomic modelling in general to consider future climate change in their macroeconomic assessment and forecasting tools.

Future adaptation to climate change through unprecedented technological changes – which we do not explicitly model - offers an opportunity to limit pressures on inflation in a changing climate. For example, planned adoption of space cooling could limit heat stress impacts on labour productivity and crop switching could limit agricultural productivity losses, two major channels of impacts with potential relevance to inflation. Exploring the possibility for historically un-precedented adaptation to reduce impacts via adjustment to changes in long-term climate conditions indicates that it could do so substantially (Supplementary Fig.  S14 ). However, without considerable mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions pressures on inflation would remain persistent and sizeable, even when accounting for such adaptation which goes beyond what has been observed historically. The efficacy and opportunity costs of the necessary investments in these adaptations also remain largely unknown and therefore present an important avenue for further research on the scope to limit the risks to inflation from a warming climate and intensifying heat extremes.

Inflation data

Data on national-level inflation of different price aggregates are obtained from a dataset developed by reference 33 (see the Supplementary Methods for further information). The data used here constitute monthly, non-seasonally adjusted prices at different levels of aggregation. Data are available for 121 countries with varying temporal coverage from 1996-2021. The countries included cover most of the developed world (minus Australia and New Zealand where monthly data are not available), as well as large parts of the developing world. Coverage across South America and Africa is good, but large gaps exist in South East Asia where detailed information on price aggregates at monthly timescales are not available. Month-on-month inflation rates are used as the main dependent variable, estimated as the first difference in the logarithm of consumer price indices (CPI).

In a robustness test conducted in Fig.  S9 , we alternatively use monthly inflation data from the World Bank cross-country database on inflation 39 . Differences in the aggregation procedures exist and are documented extensively in reference 33 . Two important differences are the inclusion of imputed rents in some headline inflation indices in the World Bank data and differences in the aggregation of food (see Supplementary Methods for further details). We use the data compiled by reference 33 as our main specification because the inclusion of imputed rents may bias estimates away from the impacts on widely consumed goods. In those countries where imputed rents are incorporated, they typically have a large weight, but there are many indices that do not incorporate them, notably including all European countries using the Harmonised Index of Consumer Prices. We find that the impacts on food inflation from mean temperature are qualitatively and quantitatively consistent when using World Bank data, Fig.  S9 . The response of headline inflation differs considerably, likely due to the inconsistent inclusion of imputed rents in headline inflation in the World Bank data.

Climate data

The primary source of climate data for this study is the ERA-5 reanalysis of historical observations 32 . ERA-5 combines satellite and in-situ observations with state-of-the-art assimilation and modelling techniques to provide estimates of climate variables with global coverage and at 6-hourly resolution. Daily 2 m air temperature and surface precipitation rates for the years 1990-2021 are used as well as monthly average temperature for the months of June, July and August in 2022 for use in Fig.  4 . All data from ERA-5 is obtained on a regular 0.25-by-0.25-degree grid for the years 1990-2021. For the estimates of SPEI, we follow the literature 51 in using monthly mean temperature and monthly precipitation totals from the Climate Research Unit (CRU) TS v4.05 for the years 1901-2021. This data is obtained at the same resolution and on the same grid as ERA-5.

Weather variables

Monthly, m, averages, \({\bar{T}}_{x,m}\) , and standard deviations, \({\widetilde{T}}_{x,m}\) , of daily ERA-5 temperatures are calculated at the grid cell, \(x\) , level. Moreover, the relative exceedance of certain high precipitation thresholds, \({T}_{x}\) , are calculated according to

where \({P}_{x,d}\) are daily precipitation totals, \(H\) the Heavide step function and \({D}_{m}\) the number of days in a given month. Following reference 13 , we use the 99th percentile of the distribution of historical daily rainfall to set thresholds locally (1990-2021).

Standardised Precipitation Evapotranspiration Indices (SPEI) are calculated following the methods of reference 51 , applying their publicly available code to monthly temperature and precipitation data from CRU TS v4.05. The SPEI calculation is based on a physical model of moisture balance and considers contributions to dry or wet conditions from both temperature and precipitation. It is a widely used tool to flexibly compare dry and wet conditions across countries. Moreover, its flexible estimation over different timescales allows exploration of different impact-relevant timescales. We estimate SPEI at one, two-, three-, six- and twelve-month timescales to flexibly assess the impacts of shocks across these timescales.

Spatial aggregation

We use gridded population estimates from the History database of the Global Environment (HYDE) 52 to estimate national-level exposure to changes in these climate variables. The data are provided at 0.25-by-0.25-degree resolution by the Inter-Sectoral Impact Model Intercomparison Project (ISIMIP). Monthly average temperature, temperature variability and the measure of daily precipitation extremes are aggregated to the national level using a population weighted average. In this weighting we also account for the proportion of grid-cells falling within a given administrative unit, estimated by evenly distributing 100 points within each grid-cell and estimating the proportion which fall within the given administrative unit. Given these weightings, \({w}_{x,n},\) for all \({{{{{{\boldsymbol{N}}}}}}}_{{{{{{\boldsymbol{x}}}}}}}\) grid-cells falling at least partially within the administrative boundary of a country, \(c\) , this weighted average reads:

for monthly average temperature for example. The equivalent procedure applies for temperature variability and the measure of daily precipitation extremes.

For SPEI, we first estimate binary variables indicating whether a grid cell is experiencing conditions which exceed a certain level of dry or wet (indicated as SPEI  <  and SPEI >, respectively in Eq.  3 ). We choose thresholds of one, one-point-five, two and two-point-five deviations to flexibly assess the exceedance of different thresholds. We then apply the same spatial aggregation procedure as outlined in Eq.  2 to estimate the proportion of population exposed to these excessively wet or dry conditions. By calculating the grid-cell level exceedance of certain SPEI thresholds and aggregating the proportion of national population exposed to these excess wet or dry conditions, we aim to limit the issue of spatially averaging over opposing effects. This is particularly relevant for precipitation given its larger spatial variability 34 .

The magnitude of the temperature seasonal cycle, \({\hat{T}}_{c}\) is estimated as the difference between the maximum and minimum national monthly temperatures within a given year, which is then averaged over the historical period (1990-2021) before use in the regression models. Deviations of average temperature, \(d{\bar{{{{T}}}}}_{{{{c}}}{{{,}}}{{{m}}}}\) , and temperature variability, d \({\widetilde{T}}_{c,m}\) , from their historical average (1990-2021) over the same calendar month are also calculated for use as dependent variables. This choice is intended to reflect the impact of deviations of monthly climate conditions from their historical seasonal patterns, following the intuition that the economy is well adapted to historical weather patterns from which deviations are a source of potential impacts. We note that the use of country-month fixed effects in the empirical model (see next section), results in an equivalent differencing process for the other independent variables.

Empirical framework for estimation of causal effects

The combination of price and climate data results in 27,340 country-month observations across 121 countries. We then apply fixed-effects panel regression models to identify the causal effects of changes in weather variables on national level inflation. Month-on-month national level inflation rates, \({dlCP}{I}_{c,m}\) are the dependent variable. Deviations of average temperature are included with an interaction with the average temperature level, whereas deviations of temperature variability are included with an interaction with the magnitude of the seasonal temperature cycle, following the heterogeneities identified in previous studies on the impacts of climate conditions on growth 12 . The interaction with the average temperature level introduces a heterogeneity in the response to temperature shocks across both geographical locations and seasons, based on the prevailing temperature of those regions and seasons. This choice follows previous literature which finds larger impacts on inflation in hotter seasons 28 , and larger impacts on different economic factors in hotter regions 1 , 2 , 10 , 11 . Daily precipitation extremes are included with an interaction with the monthly average temperature level (having also tested alternative interactions with the monthly share of annual precipitation). Both positive (excess wet) and negative (excess dry) SPEI threshold exceedance are used. For the former we find no significant effect of interactions with the monthly average temperature level or the monthly share of annual precipitation and as a result include no interactions in our main specification. For the latter we find a significant effect of an interaction with monthly average temperature level and therefore include this in our main specification. We include all weather variables simultaneously to ensure that any effects we identify occur independently of one another and are therefore additive 12 , 34 . Each weather variable is included with 11 lags in addition to the contemporaneous term, to assess the delayed effects of monthly weather shocks over the course of the following year and in particular whether they are recovered or persist over this time frame.

Our baseline specification includes country, \({\mu }_{c}\) , date, \({\eta }_{t},\) and country-month, \({\pi }_{c,m},\) fixed effects, in addition to country specific linear time-trends, \({\gamma }_{c}y\) . Country fixed effects account for unobserved differences between regions such as baseline climate and inflation rates, while the use of date fixed effects accounts for contemporaneous global shocks to both variables such as El Nino events or global recessions. The inclusion of country-month fixed effects accounts for country specific seasonality – a crucial step given the strong seasonal cycle in both monthly inflation and weather data. This constitutes an additionally conservative step by ignoring inflation impacts which could repeatedly occur seasonally due to seasonal weather patterns. This ensures that our results only estimate the impacts of deviations from normal seasonal conditions. Finally, our baseline specification accounts for country specific time trends to avoid spurious correlations arising from common trends. This is important given the presence of strong warming trends in the historical period which could cause spurious correlations to inflation changes. Interestingly, we find that accounting for these linear trends enhances the magnitude of estimated effects, suggesting that it indeed assists in removing estimation biases. Estimates without linear time trends are nevertheless qualitatively and quantitatively similar. The regression model of the baseline specification then reads:

where \(t\) is the date in terms of a given year and month and \({\varepsilon }_{c,t}\) is the country-date residual error. Note that here \(t\) refers to the date i.e., the month of a specific year, whereas m refers to all general occurrences of a particular month, and y refers to the particular year. In our baseline specification, errors are clustered by country. Coefficients \(\alpha\) and \(\beta\) describe the common impact across countries and months of a 1-unit increase in each independent variable on month-on-month inflation rates and are shown in Tables  S2 and S3 .

In alternative robustness tests we estimate a dynamic model in which we also include 11 lags of the inflation rates, \({dlCP}{I}_{c,t}\) to account for serial correlations due to for example business cycles (Supplementary Tables  S4 & S5 Column 2, Fig.  S5 ), account for cross-sectionally correlated and heteroskedastic errors using Driscoll Kraay errors 38 (Supplementary Tables  S4 & S5 Column 3, Fig.  S5 ), and test an inflation database provided by the World Bank (Supplementary Tables  S4 & S5 Column 7 Fig.  S9 ). Moreover, in an additional robustness test we include controls for transitions in monetary policy using data from the Comprehensive Monetary Policy Framework project 53 . We use the data in its most granular form (32 classifications of monetary policy frameworks) introducing dummy variables in the regression for each potential framework. Our results are qualitatively and quantitatively robust to these additional controls (Supplementary Tables  S4 & S5 Column 4, Fig.  S6a–j ). Furthermore, we also estimate models in which we include additional interactions of each climate variable with a binary term indicating whether a given country has above or below median national income per capita (based on world bank estimates of GDP and population, see Supplementary Tables  S4 & S5 Column 5, Fig.  S8 ), and also when normalising monthly inflation rates by their interannual standard deviation to account for differing baseline inflation volatilities (see Supplementary Tables  S4 & S5 Column 6, Fig.  S7 ). These robustness tests of our main results are summarised in Supplementary Tables  S3 and S4 of the supplementary information.

We do not include further controls for variables which affect inflation such as employment and economic output for a number of reasons. First, important aspects of their effects which are linked to business cycles are already accounted for by the use of a dynamic panel with lagged inflation as independent variables, as used in similar contexts with global panels 28 . Second, such data is not available at the monthly resolution used here for most countries in our panel. Third, including such control variables could only alter our results if they were correlated with the weather variables. Given the strong a-priori assumption of exogeneity between weather and these variables, the presence of such correlations would indicate that these control variables are themselves impacted by the weather variables. Therefore, any alteration to our results when including these variables would not alter our main interpretation but rather indicate that these variables (employment/output) are a mediating variable through which weather impacts inflation. While such mechanistic insights may be interesting, due to data availability they are beyond the scope of our manuscript which primarily aims to understand the overall impacts of climate variables on inflation.

Cumulative marginal effects

In Fig.  1 and a number of supplementary figures we display the results of the empirical models by plotting the cumulative marginal effects of each climate variable. These cumulative marginal effects reflect the theoretical cumulative impact on prices from a 1-unit climate shock. These effects are estimated by summing the lagged coefficients (shown in Eq. ( 3 )) which are relevant to a particular climate variable. Moreover, because of the use of interaction terms, the coefficient pertaining to the interaction term must be multiplied by a chosen value of the moderating variable of the interaction. For example, in Fig.  1 the cumulative marginal effects, \({ME}\) , of average temperature are plotted, having been calculated as follows:

Calculating the cumulative marginal effects therefore requires an evaluation of the coefficients at a particular baseline temperature, and their summation over the different lags. In Fig.  1 , these marginal effects are plotted when evaluating the above summation over different numbers of lags, from 0 to 11 months after the initial shock. We show results having evaluated Eq. ( 4 ) at the temperatures observed at the lower and upper quartiles and median of the distribution of country-month temperatures present in our data. We conduct equivalent procedures for estimating and plotting the cumulative marginal effects for the other climate variables in the Supplementary Figs.  S1 , S2 & S4 – S9 .

Climate model data

Daily 2-m temperature and precipitation totals are taken from 21 climate models participating in CMIP-6 under the most pessimistic (SSP-RCP8.5, referred to as SSP585 in the main text) and most optimistic (SSP-RCP2.6, referred to as SSP126) greenhouse gas emission scenario from 2015-2100. SSP126 provides approximately equivalent emission forcing as the orderly and dis-orderly transition scenarios provided by the Network for Greening the Financial System (NGFS), with an average end-of-century global temperature change of 1.7 C. SSP585 provides stronger emission forcing (4.9 C end-of-century global temperature change) than the hot-house world scenario from NGFS (3.2 C end-of-century temperature change). While considered by some as un-realistic 54 , RCP8.5 tracks recent emissions well and is arguably likely to provide a good estimation of emission forcing up until mid-century based on current (2020) policies 55 . The data have been bias-adjusted and statistically downscaled to a common half-degree grid to reflect the historical distribution of daily temperature and precipitation of the W5E5 dataset (WATCH Forcing Data Methodology applied to the ERA5 data) using the trend-preserving method developed by ISIMIP 56 , 57 .

Estimating impacts from projected future warming

We evaluate the hypothetical impact on inflation which future weather conditions under projected climate change would cause given our empirical models. We note the important distinction that these are not projections of future inflation, but simply an evaluation of this particular mechanism via which climate conditions effect inflation under future conditions. Important factors including demographic developments, changes in the consumption basket, and fiscal and monetary policies are purposefully held fixed (although we note that our empirical results are strongly robust to changes in the regime of monetary policy, Supplementary Fig.  S6a–j ; also see the discussion included in the main part of the manuscript).

To do so, we evaluate the first terms pertaining to monthly average temperatures of Eq.  3 under future temperature conditions. That is, we calculate future monthly average national temperatures from the CMIP-6 models (using a population weighting equivalent to that used with the historical data), \({\bar{T}}_{c,y > 2020,m}\) , as well as their deviations from the 1990-2021 average, \(\Delta {\bar{T}}_{c,y > 2020,m}\) , and then apply these to the first terms of Eq.  3 to calculate the impacts on inflation:

Note that in practice, \(m-L\) , may need to refer to a month in the preceding year. These impacts are then averaged over 30-year periods centered on the future period in question (usually 2035 or 2060). These impacts at the country-month level are then either summed over the year to provide estimates of annual impacts on inflation as in Fig.  2 or presented at the monthly level as in Fig.  3 . This procedure is conducted separately for each of the 21 climate models in the CMIP-6 ensemble, from which the mean and standard deviation are presented as central estimates and errors.

In Fig.  4 we assess the impacts of the 2022 extreme summer heat in Europe using ERA-5 estimates of monthly temperatures in June, July and August. In this case, the total impacts on inflation from those three summer months are estimated using the temperature levels in those months, \({\bar{T}}_{c,m}\) , their deviation from the historical (1990-2021) average, \(\Delta {\bar{T}}_{c,m}\) , and the relevant terms from Eq.  3 pertaining to average temperature impacts:

As such, these impacts reflect the estimated effects on net inflation from June 2022 to August 2023 from the three months of temperature in June, July and August of 2022.

We further assess how the impacts from such extremes could be amplified under future warming. To do so, we evaluate the future warming occurring between 2022 and 2035 or 2060 in each summer month in each country (using the difference between 30-year averages of temperature centered on 2022 and 2035 or 2060 in each climate model and emission scenario). This additional month-specific warming is then added to the historically observed 2022 summer temperatures, and the impacts on inflation evaluated as before using Eq.  6 . This approach assumes that future warming will shift the mean of the distribution of possible summer temperatures and does not account for the potential role of changing temperature variability in altering the intensity of future temperature extremes. However, evidence for a role of temperature variability in enhancing extremes at monthly time-scales is limited 43 , 44 .

When presenting estimated inflationary impacts under projected future climate, we also present country-level impacts aggregated to larger spatial regions. In Figs.  2 and 4 we do so using a population weighted average (using World Bank estimates of national level population in 2017) to reflect the human exposure to future inflationary pressures. In Fig.  3a and S3d we take binned averages across latitudinal zones to convey the relationship between latitude and the seasonality of inflation response and impacts. Countries are considered part of a latitudinal zone if their centroid falls within the zone’s boundaries, and in this context, we use an average without population weighting to reflect the nature of the relationship between latitude and impacts rather than to reflect the average human exposure to impacts.

Uncertainty in estimated impacts from future weather conditions under projected warming arises from a combination of factors, including the choice of empirical specification, the range of climate model projections, as well as future emission scenarios if their differences are not explicitly compared. In Figs.  2 – 4 we show projection estimates for a particular empirical specification, showing the range of projections across climate models and emission scenarios visually. In the text, we discuss the robustness of these figures to the use of different empirical specifications (results of which are shown in the Supplementary Information Figs. S10 – S24 ), and report estimates of projected impacts with an uncertainty range accounting for these contributing factors. This uncertainty range spans the lowest projection across the empirical specifications shown in columns 1-7 of Supplementary Tables  S4 & S5 (and emission scenario unless explicitly comparing their differences) combined with the lower range of climate model projections (the mean minus one standard deviation of impacts across climate models), and the largest projection across empirical specifications combined with the higher range of climate model projections (the mean plus one standard deviation of impacts across climate models). This framework provides a transparent assessment of uncertainty across a range of factors.

Data availability

ERA-5 climate data are publicly available at https://www.ecmwf.int/en/forecasts/datasets/reanalysis-datasets/era5 , and raw data is available for 10 of the bias-adjusted climate models from the ISIMIP repository at: https://data.isimip.org/ . Raw data on price indices was taken from a forthcoming publicly available dataset developed by ref. 33 . All processed climate data and anonymised inflation data (until publication of the inflation data-set by ref. 33 ) necessary for replication of our analysis is publicly available at: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10183679 . Source data required only for reproducing the main figures is also available at the same repository.

Code availability

All code used for the replication of our analysis is publicly available at: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10183679 .

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Acknowledgements

We gratefully acknowledge the work of Miles Parker and Chiara Osbat in collecting the data on consumer price indices and providing it to us prior to its publication. We also thank them both for insightful feedback on early versions of the manuscript. MK gratefully acknowledges funding from the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH on behalf of the Government of the Federal Republic of Germany and Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). Part of the work for this paper was also conducted during a joint project procured by the European Central Bank. We note that the views expressed are those of the authors and should not be reported as representing the views of the European Central Bank (ECB) or the Eurosystem.

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M.K. designed the weather variables, empirical approach, the use of physical climate models, conducted all analyses, produced all figures and lead the writing of the manuscript. F.K. proposed the collaboration, contributed to the design of the weather variables and the empirical approach as well as the interpretation of the results and writing of the manuscript. E.L. contributed to the design of the weather variables and the empirical approach as well as the interpretation of the results and writing of the manuscript. C.N. gave feedback on results and contributed to the writing of the manuscript.

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Kotz, M., Kuik, F., Lis, E. et al. Global warming and heat extremes to enhance inflationary pressures. Commun Earth Environ 5 , 116 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-023-01173-x

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DOI : https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-023-01173-x

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