Abstract

The issue of global climate change has already occurred. Increased human emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases are altering Earth's climate, and these changes are already having a significant impact on the environment. For example, glaciers and ice sheets are melting faster, lake and river ice is breaking up earlier, plant and animal ranges are shifting, and flowers and leaves are blooming earlier. Sea ice loss, accelerated sea level rise, and longer, more intense heat waves are just a few of the effects of global climate change that scientists have long predicted would happen. Droughts, wildfires, and extreme rainfall are a few examples of changes that are occurring more quickly than previously thought by scientists. In fact, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a body of the UN tasked with evaluating the science surrounding climate change, asserts that the observed changes in our planet's climate are unprecedented in human history and that some of these changes will be irreversible over the course of the next hundreds to thousands of years. The majority of the greenhouse gases produced by human activity, according to scientists, are to blame for the long-term rise in global temperatures.