What will global warming do to us

One or two days isn't a big deal. But four days straight where temperatures don't go down, even at night, leads to severe health consequences. Indeed, extreme heat kills more Americans each year, on average, than hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, and lightning combined. Rising temperatures also worsen air pollution by increasing ground level ozone, which is created when pollution from cars, factories, and other sources react to sunlight and heat.

Ground-level ozone is the main component of smog, and the hotter things get, the more of it we have. Dirtier air is linked to higher hospital admission rates and higher death rates for asthmatics. It worsens the health of people suffering from cardiac or pulmonary disease. And warmer temperatures also significantly increase airborne pollen, which is bad news for those who suffer from hay fever and other allergies.

As humans, we face a host of challenges, but we're certainly not the only ones catching heat. As land and sea undergo rapid changes, the animals that inhabit them are doomed to disappear if they don't adapt quickly enough. Some will make it, and some won't. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's assessment, many land, freshwater, and ocean species are shifting their geographic ranges to cooler climes or higher altitudes, in an attempt to escape warming.

They're changing seasonal behaviors and traditional migration patterns, too. And yet many still face "increased extinction risk due to climate change. The report is designed to serve as the foundation for efforts to assess climate-related risks and inform decision-making about responses. USGCRP oversaw the production of this stand-alone report of the state of science relating to climate change and its physical impacts.

CSSR is designed to be an authoritative assessment of the science of climate change, with a focus on the United States, to serve as the foundation for efforts to assess climate-related risks and inform decision-making about responses. The CSSR integrates and evaluates the findings on climate science and discusses the uncertainties associated with these findings.

It analyzes current trends in climate change, both human induced and natural, and projects major trends to the end of this century. Other agencies involved include NASA and the Department of Energy; representatives from national laboratories, universities, and the private sector also helped write the report.

What results is a comprehensive document on the state of climate science, with assessments of statistically likely scenarios of climate in the United States through the end of the century.

As such, the report reflects a number of advances in climate science since the Third U. Researchers can now more closely pinpoint the human influences for individual climate and weather extreme events.

For example, since NCA3, stronger evidence has emerged for the ongoing, rapid, human-caused warming of the global atmosphere and ocean.

In addition, significant advances have been made in understanding extreme weather events in the United States and how they relate to increasing global temperatures and associated climate changes.

The new report also discusses the extent to which atmospheric circulation in the midlatitudes is changing or is projected to change, possibly in ways not captured by current climate models.

At the heart of the report are some indisputable facts. The global atmospheric carbon dioxide CO 2 concentration is now everywhere more than parts per million ppm , a level that last occurred about 3 million years ago, when both global average temperature and sea level were significantly higher than today.

Continued growth in human-made emissions of CO 2 over this century and beyond would lead to an atmospheric concentration not experienced in tens to hundreds of millions of years. Global annually averaged surface air temperature has increased by about 1.

Many other aspects of global climate are changing. For example, global average sea level has risen by about 7—8 inches since , with almost half about 3 inches of that rise occurring since Human-caused climate change has made a substantial contribution to this rise, contributing to a rate of rise that is greater than during any preceding century in at least 2, years. Global average sea levels are expected to continue to rise, by at least several inches in the next 15 years and by 1—4 feet by A rise of as much as 8 feet by cannot be ruled out.

Annual average temperature over the contiguous United States has increased by 1. The report documents how, across the board, the higher temperatures projected for the United States and the world are expected to increase the intensity and frequency of extreme events. Internationally, more intense and longer lasting droughts over wider areas could cause global food shortages and political unrest, contributing to mass starvation and armed conflicts.

Barros, T. Stocker, D. Qin, D. Dokken, K. Ebi, M. Mastrandrea, K. Mach, G. Plattner, S. Allen, M. Tignor, and P.

Midgley eds. Karl, J. Weather refers to short term atmospheric conditions while climate is the weather of a specific region averaged over a long period of time. Climate change refers to long-term changes. How can climate change affect natural disasters? With increasing global surface temperatures the possibility of more droughts and increased intensity of storms will likely occur. As more water vapor is evaporated into the atmosphere it becomes fuel for more powerful storms to develop.

More heat in the atmosphere and warmer ocean surface temperatures can lead to increased wind speeds in tropical What are some of the signs of climate change? What is the difference between global warming and climate change?

Although people tend to use these terms interchangeably, global warming is just one aspect of climate change. Why is climate change happening and what are the causes? Climate change has always happened on Earth, which is clearly seen in the geological record; it is the rapid rate and the magnitude of climate change occurring now that is of great concern worldwide.

Greenhouse gases in the atmosphere absorb Does the USGS monitor global warming? Not specifically. Our charge is to understand characteristics of the Earth, especially the Earth's surface, that affect our Nation's land, water, and biological resources. That includes quite a bit of environmental monitoring.

How do changes in climate and land use relate to one another? The link between land use and the climate is complex. First, land cover--as shaped by land use practices--affects the global concentration of greenhouse gases.

Second, while land use change is an important driver of climate change, a changing climate can lead to changes in land use and land cover.

For example, farmers might shift from their How do we know the climate is changing? The scientific community is certain that the Earth's climate is changing because of the trends that we see in the instrumented climate record and the changes that have been observed in physical and biological systems. The instrumental record of climate change is derived from thousands of temperature and precipitation recording stations around the Will global warming produce more frequent and more intense wildfires?

Hot, dry conditions, however, do not automatically mean fire—something needs to create the Invalid Scald ID. What are the impacts of glacier loss, other than losing an aesthetic landscape feature? Glaciers act as reservoirs of water that persist through summer.

Continual melt from glaciers contributes water to the ecosystem throughout dry months, creating perennial stream habitat and a water source for plants and animals. The cold runoff from glaciers also affects downstream water temperatures. Many aquatic species in mountainous How do we know glaciers are shrinking? The USGS Benchmark Glacier project has collected mass balance data on a network of glaciers in Alaska, Washington, and Montana for decades, quantifying trends of mass loss at all sites.

Extensive field data collection at these What causes drought? A drought is a period of drier-than-normal conditions that results in water-related problems. The amount of precipitation at a particular location varies from year to year, but over a period of years, the average amount is fairly constant. In the deserts of the Southwest, the average precipitation is less than 3 inches per year.

In contrast, the Filter Total Items: Year Published: Monitoring and assessing urban heat island variations and effects in the United States Landsat surface temperature and land cover products have been used to estimate surface temperatures in urban and surrounding nonurban areas and to quantify urban heat island intensity.

Xian, George Z. View Citation. Xian, G. Geological Survey Fact Sheet —, 2 p. Year Published: Using information from global climate models to inform policymaking—The role of the U.