Where is global warming

The climate of the U. Southeast, like that of any region, is influenced by many factors, including latitude, topography, and proximity to large bodies of water like the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico. Researchers have also connected the cooling trend in the southeastern United States to periods of thick clouds and unusually high soil moisture.

Despite cooling trends in some locations, temperatures across the U. Southeast are expected to increase over the next century, even as they fluctuate annually and decade-to-decade.

This natural climate variability is the reason that, as the vast majority of the world warms, a few locations are cooling and many are warming even faster than the rest of the globe. When you filter out all of the natural 'noise' by averaging over large areas and long periods of time, however, the global warming trend is loud and clear.

And of course, warming is also evident in a suite of other climate indicators, including loss of sea ice , glaciers , and ice sheets; increasing ocean heat conten t; rising sea level ; and geographic shifts in the ranges of plants and animals on land and in the ocean. Fahey, K. Hibbard, D. Dokken, B. Stewart, and T. Maycock eds. Carter, L. Jones, L. Berry, V. Burkett, J. Murley, J. Obeysekera, P. Schramm, and D. Wear, Ch. Melillo, Terese T. Richmond, and G. Yohe, Eds. Global Change Research Program, Qin, G.

Plattner, M. Tignor, S. Allen, J. Boschung, A. Nauels, Y. 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 —the year that accurate recordkeeping began—and , it rose on average by 0. The result? A planet that has never been hotter. Nine of the 10 warmest years since have occurred since —and the 5 warmest years on record have all occurred since 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. 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.

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. 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.

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 Paris Climate Agreement —to lower their emissions by setting new standards and crafting new policies to meet or even exceed those standards.

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 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. They also said the odds of similar droughts happening in the future had roughly doubled over the past century.

And in , 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.

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 s, as has the number of storms that reach categories 4 and 5. The 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 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 s. 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 years and wreaking havoc on coastal communities worldwide.

Goddard Scientific Visualization Studio. An extensive collection of animated climate change and Earth science visualizations.

Sea Level Change Portal. NASA's portal for an in-depth look at the science behind sea level change. Weather vs. This graph illustrates the change in global surface temperature relative to average temperatures, with the year tying with for warmest on record Source: NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies.

Learn more about global surface temperature here. Images of Change. Explore a stunning gallery of before-and-after images of Earth from land and space that reveal our home planet in a state of flux. Climate Mobile Apps. Keep track of Earth's vital signs, see the planet in a state of flux and slow the pace of global warming with NASA's free mobile apps.