Changing the lives of survivors and volunteers worldwide
What is Climate Change?
For more than 100 years, scientists have been tracking a warming trend on a global level — we know it now as Global Warming. Global Warming is causing our climate to change with disastrous results ranging from droughts and crop failures to floods, mudslides and salination of water supplies.
Over the past 157 years (source) scientists have tracked a general warming trend. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change writes:
For the global average, warming in the last century has occurred in two phases, from the 1910s to the 1940s (0.35°C), and more strongly from the 1970s to the present (0.55°C). An increasing rate of warming has taken place over the last 25 years, and 11 of the 12 warmest years on record have occurred in the past 12 years. [Published in 2007] (source)
In addition to an increase in average global temperature, climate change is characterised by changes in cloud cover, the melting of ice caps and glaciers, and increases to ocean temperature and acidity. (source) Scientists have also observed upswings in severe weather events like droughts, heat waves, and heavy precipitation, all of which have been linked to our changing climate. Read more about climate change and severe weather events here.
Climate-induced changes have been documented in at least 420 physical processes and biological species or communities. (source) One particularly frightening example of climate-induced change is the ability of malaria-carrying mosquitoes to survive longer at higher altitudes, as regions at those altitudes become warmer. This spread exposes populations with no knowledge of this disease to a devastating new threat.
Sea level change is also affecting the lives of thousands around the world. The global average sea level has risen by 10 to 20 cm over the past 100 years. The rate of increase has been 1 – 2 mm per year — some 10 times faster than the rate observed for the previous 3,000 years. (source) With snow and ice continuing to melt across the globe, sea levels are predicted to rise further still.
Our rising oceans are already forcing the evacuation of some low lying areas. 60% of the population of an island called Kutubdia in Bangladesh has emigrated. The island has been reduced from 250 to about 37 sq km within a century. (source)
While debate remains about some specific aspects of climate change, the scientific consensus is clear on what is causing our climate to change. Human activity has caused the amount of greenhouse gases in our atmosphere to rise, leading to an enhanced greenhouse effect, which is warming the earth and causing climate change. (Read more on what causes climate change)
