The U.N.'s climate panel, the IPCC, has released its latest findings on climate change. If it were a report card for the human race, we would be flunking.
Change in surface temperatures, 1901-2012. (Note: red means hotter) Source: IPCC via BBC
In a sentence: earth is warmer, there is less snow and ice, sea levels are up, amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is up.
Scientists are 95% certain that humans are the "dominant cause" of global warming since the 1950s.Some talking points here, in numbers:"Each of the last three decades has been successively warmer at the Earth's surface than any preceding decade since 1850"
- 800,000 years: Atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide are now at levels "unprecedented in at least the last 800,000 years."
- 2 degrees C: Threshold at which a warming climate will begin to "wreak serious changes to the planet."
- 0.3C to 4.8C: Expected rise in global temperatures by the end of the century.
- 26-82cm: Expected rise in sea levels by the end of the century.
U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon: "The heat is on. We must act."Sources: The Guardian, BBCU.S. Secretary of State John Kerry: "This is yet another wake-up call: those who deny the science or choose excuses over action are playing with fire."
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