When the temperature rose to above 40°C in Europe during the heatwave in July there was a lot of talk whether it is because of climate change. Surprisingly, many people believe that climate is not changing, let us look at some facts and then you will be able to understand on your own.

“Since 1980s, each decade has been warmer than the previous one and this is expected to continue and the warmest seven years have all been since 2015; the top three being 2016, 2019 and 2020”, World Meterological Department. CO2 levels in the atmosphere have reached more than 410 ppm, highest in the 800,000 years.

The current warming is the attributed to the human activities since the start of Industrial Revolution in 1850s, since then humans have been burning fossil fuels at an alarming rate and pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. This has result in trapping the Sun’s energy and ultimately warming the earth, known as “Global Warming”. Global Temperature have risen by 1.01°C since 1880s.

This warming has resulted in extreme weather events such as heatwaves, hurricanes and has lead to melting to ice in polar regions resulting increase in sea levels.

As per IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), based on current trends the global temperature might rise to 1.5°C by 2050, which will be catastrophic.

In conclusion, there should be no debate about whether climate is changing instead all the focus should be on preventing this change.

References:

1. https://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/
2. https://climate.nasa.gov/