Climate & Biodiversity Facts
The Global Climate
The Global Climate has been warming at a historically rapid rate for over a century: According to the ESA Copernicus Programme at https://climate.copernicus.eu/copernicus-globally-seven-hottest-years-record-were-last-seven : Global surface air temperatures
Globally, 2022 was the sixth warmest year on record and Monday, July 3, was the hottest day ever recorded globally, according to data from the U.S. National Centers for Environmental Prediction: The average global temperature reached 17.01 degrees Celsius (62.62 Fahrenheit), surpassing the August 2016 record of 16.92C (62.46F).
From January-September 2022, GMST was 1.15 ± 0.13 °C warmer than the pre-industrial baseline (1850-1900).
The last nine years have been the warmest years on record by a clear margin
Why does the Global average temperature rise and fall so much?
'Climate' is the product of many interacting factors each of whose influence varies from month to month, year to year and place to place. If the long-term average displays a consistent trend it is called 'Climate Change'. A major cause of the short-term difference is related to the strong interannual variability of global average temperatures which is tied to the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) (El Niño-La Niña cycle): Periods of strong El Niño result in the global temperature remaining above average whilst during La Niñas it falls below average. The ENSO cycle overlays the overall warming trend under Climate Change resulting in short trem fluctuating global temperatures as explained in the NOAA's video below. The NOAA predict that we are now (January 2023) approaching the end of a three year La Niña. The cooling effect of La Niñas persists for a further 5 months after their peak, so we should not expect temperatures to rise back up to a new increased rate of warming until later in 2023. If another El Niño follows, the rise will be even greater or a further La Niña may occur. Go to the link to the NOAA Climate Dashboard for the latest assessment of the ENSO state. The NOAA's summary of 2022 global surface temperature details: "Despite the last two years (2021 and 2022) not ranking among the five warmest years on record, the global annual temperature increased at an average rate of 0.08°C (0.14°F) per decade since 1880 (Some 1.04°C in total to 2019) and over twice that rate (0.18°C / 0.32°F) since 1981, which if maintained a rise of 1.5°C will be reached by 2045."
The Global mean temperature and Ocean Niño Index graphs are from a NASA explanation, "Fig. 2." from: Columbia U "Global Warming Acceleration" (Hansen & Sato) published December 14, 2020. The Jan 1950 to Dec 2021 Temp and ENSO correlation is from the NOAA's annual Global Surface Temperature summary for 2021.
Green House Gases
The ability of the atmosphere to reflect, radiate or retain energy is dependent on its composition. If this changes the Earth's atmosphere will gradually cool or warm until a new equilibrium is re-established. Green House Gases (GHG) reduce the radiation of energy out into space so warm the atmosphere and Earth's surface.
The USA's National Oceangraphic and Atmospheric Administration monitors global GHG concentrations recorded around the world and which determine the net global GHG index. To view the latest available reports (CO2 for Mauna Loa is daily) and an explanation of the GHG Index click on the buttons below:
The pre-industrial concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere was 280 parts per million (ppm) or 0.028%. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has estimated that to give a 66% chance of keeping the rise in temperature at or below 1.5°C will mean holding concentrations of atmospheric CO2 to between 430 and 450 ppm (AR5). By 2011 it had reached 389ppm and by 2021, 413ppm.
By 29 July 2023 : 419.42 ppm
On the 30 October 2021, the start of COP 26 it was 415.76 ppm, it had been 391.51 ppm at the start of COP 17 on 28 November 2011.
(So between COP 17 and 26 an additional 24.25ppm or 186,000,000,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide was added to the atmosphere.)
If the 2.4ppm average annual rate of increase for 2010-19 is maintained and does not increase.
430 ppm will be reached in 2027 and 450ppm in 2036
Global GHG concentrations have increased at an increasing rate since the 1700s.
Carbon Dioxide's concentration has increased the most and had the greatest effect. Other GHGs' effects are reported as the quantity of CO2 that would have that effect (CO2 equivalent).
Where is warming?
The warming, now approaching between 0.9°C and 1.2 °C above the pre-industrial average, is not evenly distributed with some regions much warmer and some cooler. In the last 40 years this variability has increased. The average temperatures experienced in 2019 compared to the 1981-2010 average show a range of -2°C in N America to + 3.5°C in Siberia. Monthly global updates are usually published by the 12th of the following month by the NOAA at
The summer (July) regional variation differs but over a similar range.
The summer or winter regional variations, attributable to the "weather", may be is markedly greater such as in Feb 2021. In 2020 the European arctic and in 2021 Eastern & SE Asia were >6°C warmer than the 1981-2010 while a strong negative Arctic Oscillation (AO) was present during the first half of Feb 21 resulting in the month average falling >5°C BELOW Global Feb 1981-2010 average: For two weeks temperatures fell >30°C across Central N America down to the Texas border matching 1969 and 1978 records: With Climate Change negative AOs are expected to be less extreme.
You can check the latest global Land, Ocean and combined Land and Ocean surface temperatures monitored and published monthly by the NOAA at
When did "we" discover how the Earth's atmosphere, cryosphere and hydrosphere function and how these interact with the biosphere?
While much remains uncertain, reseachers have now spent over 200 years investigating, recording, developing hypothesis which have then been tested, refined and some then proven by others. These can be tested against past proxy records that now extend back millions of years and predictions verified as we gather data from satelites, weather stations and the Argo buoy network. The resulting information has always been made available to the political and industrial leaderships across the world but often resulted in surprising policies and decisions. The resulting journey from the early 1800s to the present day with links to the relevant sources can be read here:
The history of our understanding of Climate Change and how we reached where we are today.
So what?
As the temperature rises physical and biological changes occur
Ice on polar seas melt - changing its albedo (White ice to dark water) so the sea surface warms as does the air above it. This influences 'weather' systems. The orange line shows the 1981-2010 mean sea ice cover. Last year sea ice extent was the 2nd lowest (after 2012) until the autumn when failure of the Laptev Sea (N of Siberia) to freeze has resulted in sea ice extent reached a new record low, at 60.6% of the 1981-2010 mean for 22 Oct 20.
Ice on land melts - Raising Sea levels. The Surface Mass Balance graph is for the Greenland Ice Sheet - units are a billion tonnes (Giga tonnes) each of which is a cubic kilometres of fresh water. 360Gt of terrestrial melt water added to the oceans will raise the average global sea level by 1mm. Greenland alone has added 0.6 to 0.9mm to sea levels in four years since 2010.
The oceans store some 90% of the additional thermal energy retained under Global warming. The upper 100m+ is warmed and so expand - raising sea level. The combination of added meltwater from ice sheets on land, glaciers and thermal expansion has increased global sealevel by 90mm since 1990. The sea is not level so some areas have experienced greater increases, while others have less.
Warm water evaporates and warm air carries more water to colder or different places (For each 1°C of warming above the pre-industrial global mean annual temperature of 13.69°C, saturated air contains 7 percent more water vapor on average.) Rainfall, where it arrives increases and where it no longer falls suffer droughts. (Few rain guages across e.g. Africa and Australia so data gaps...). In Europe the South is getting drier and the North wetter. The combination of warmer ocean and atmosphere generates more powerful cyclones that transport and rapidly deposit incrased volumes of water onto the continents leading to floods.
If more CO2 is in the air, more is available to disolve in the oceans. Disolved CO2 forms Carbonic Acid which lowers the pH. Since 1890 pH has fallen globally from 8.2 to 8.1 a 27% reduction (pH has a logarithmic scale). Many marine organisms are sensitive to pH as well as temperature. As pH falls some species are no longer able to precipitae Calcium Carbonate for their shells so move or die. Data from NOAA's Hawii pacific monitoring station. Like temperature pH changes vary and may be greater in colder waters - Cold water will dissolve more CO2 than warm so will get more acidic.... This also means that as ocean surfaces warm they reach equilibrium with the atmosphere after disolving less atmospheric CO2 - so reducing the Ocean's capacity as a sink for future emissions. The saturated/ acidified surface waters eventually physically sink, at higher latitudes and are replaced by upwelling, unsaturated waters. Thermohaline cycles take about a thousand years... but some may be slowing.
Like marine species tolerance to pH, most species on land and in the sea can only survive in narrow temperature and humidity bands. If these change they must move elsewhere or die. As the seas and land warm migrating up or towards the poles are their only option. Up is limited by the height of mountains and reducing space. Space is also limiting as species move away from the equator towards the poles.
All this effects us Humans too: Just temperature alone will limit where we can physically live.
Expansion of extremely hot regions in a business-as-usual climate scenario. In the current climate, Mean Annual Temperatures (MAT) >29 °C are restricted to the small dark areas in the Sahara region. Chi et al. show that for thousands of years, humans have concentrated in a surprisingly narrow subset of Earth’s available climates, characterized by mean annual temperatures around ∼13 °C. This distribution likely reflects a human temperature niche related to fundamental constraints. They demonstrate that depending on scenarios of population growth and warming, over the coming 50 years, 1 to 3 billion people are projected to be left outside the climate conditions that have served humanity well over the past 6,000 years. Absent climate mitigation or migration, a substantial part of humanity will be exposed to mean annual temperatures warmer than nearly anywhere today. In 2070, such conditions are projected to occur throughout the shaded area following the RCP8.5 scenario. Absent migration, that area would be home to 3.5 billion people in 2070 following the SSP3 scenario of demographic development. Background colours represent the current MATs.
From: Future of the human climate niche: Chi Xu, Timothy A. Kohler, View ORCID ProfileTimothy M. Lenton, View ORCID ProfileJens-Christian Svenning, and Marten Scheffer PNAS May 26, 2020 117 (21) 11350-11355; first published May 4, 2020; https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1910114117
Then there is tolerable humidity range, availability of safe drinking water, adequate land to grow our food crops, surviving sustainable fish stocks, cyclone frequency and intensity, floods, locust swarms, more novel diseases, etc. all of which limit where we and our children will be able to survive.
You can look up the latest available data for these trends:
Arctic and Antarctic Sea Ice.
The National Snow and Ice Data Centre (NSIDC) publishes daily updates of polar sea ice extent and quality (% coverage and if single or multi year accumulations.) and the satelite record back to 1979.
NOAA's Zackary Labe has produced a series of regularly updated 'Visualisations' of the changes over time in various aspects of Arctic and Antarctic Sea Ice Cover available at his website: https://zacklabe.com/arctic-sea-ice-extentconcentration/ The NOAA's daily statistics for Arctic and Antarctic sea ice coverage are accessible via the button below:
Terrestrial Ice Sheets / Glaciers
The NSIDC publishes daily reports from early spring to late autum on the extent of surface melting, net mass loss (or gain) across the Greenland Ice sheet, the second largest terrestrial ice sheet at 2,900million square kilometres. These can be found at a link on their Sea ice webpages above. NASA and the Eupopean Space Agency (ESA) monitor both the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets generating mass balance records. Daily reports are not published for the Antarctic Ice sheets but summary data is available below. The IPCC's "Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate" details past trends for all sea and terrestrial ice sheets and glaciers, with projections for their change under a range of scenarios.
Global and Regional Sea level Rise
NASA have monitored the global sea level since the mid 1990s via an array of satelites that compliment local shore stations. These provide a global average rate of increases (Currently 3.3mm/year) and also show those areas where changes are above or below that average:
Various organisations use this data combined with climate models to forecast the likely sea level rise at a particular location. e.g. 'Surging Seas'
Global and Regional Precipiation Trends
The NOAA's monthly Global Surface Temperature reports (above) include records of monthly and annual precipitation. The EU's Environment Agency monitores rainfall and produces forcasts for future summer and annual rainfall. Annual precipitation since 1960 shows an increasing trend of up to 70 mm per decade in north-eastern and north-western Europe, and a decrease of up to 90 mm per decade in some parts of southern Europe.
How are we doing to keep (or return ) the rise in temperature to no more than +1.5° C by 2100?
The United Nations Environment Programme (UN EP) publishes an annual "Emissions Gap" report (EGR) that reports on progress in reducing enissions, forecasts future total annual Green House Gas emissions and the resulting temperature increase. The "gap" is the difference between the forcast level of global emissions in 2030 if the Intended Nationally Determined Contributions are fully implemented, and the range consistent with keeping the temperature rise well below 2° C or 1.5° C above the pre-industrial level.
"The Emissions Gap Report 2021 shows that new national climate pledges combined with other mitigation measures put the world on track for a global temperature rise of 2.7°C by the end of the century." This is some improvement from 2020 when Inger Andersen, Executive Director, UN EP "Overall, we are heading for a world that is 3.2°C warmer by the end of this century, even with full implementation of unconditional nationally determined contributions (NDCs) under the Paris Agreement.". However the forcast emissions "gap" in 2030 between what is 'promised' by governments and what would give a median chance of keeping average warming at or below 1.5°C by 2100 remains some 25GtCO2e.... By 2030 we will still be emitting twice the safe amount of green house gasses.
If Giga tonnes (Gt) of CO2(equivalent) and billions of barrels of oil equivalent aren't familiar quantities...
a. A litre (l) of water has a mass of 1kg, so 1,000 l has a mass of 1,000 kg or 1 tonne and will occupy one cubic meter. A million tonnes occupies one cubic hectare and 1,000,000,000 or a billion tonnes or 1 Gt occupies 1 cubic kilometre. (Oil's have a density of around 80% of water so occupy about 25% more space or a cubic km will only have a mass of 0.8 Gt.)
b. Fossil fuels are hydrocarbons chains ranging from natural gas ~ methane (CH4), to the heavy bunker oils used in shipping that is nearly solid at room temperature and contains long chain hydrocarbons with boiling points above 300 deg C along with much else (Everything left when short chain hydrocarbons and other volatiles are boiled off crude oil during refining.) to coal which for anthrecites may approach solid carbon. So the generic fossil fuel formula is (CH2)n + 2H. Hence burning each CH2 unit requires one molecule of oxygen to combine with the carbon to form CO2 and a second molecule to combine with the hydrogen producing water. Each unit of fossil fuel has a mass of 14 and on combustion forms a unit of CO2 with a mass of 44... so burning one kg of a fossil fuel produces just over three kg of CO2. (Brown coals, high sulphur crudes, etc. will also generate particulates, sulphur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, etc.). A 159 litre 'Barrel of Oil' will weigh about 127 kg and generate about 400 kg of CO2.
c. The energy from fossil fuels is often expressed in barrels of oil equivalent (BOE) where natural gas, liquid and solid fuel quantities are converted to the BOEs that have the same energy output from burning one barrel or 159 litres of crude oil. Just over six barrels per tonne. So for natural gas: A billion cubic feet of natural gas is equivalent to 178 million barrels of oil; 1 million tonnes of coal is equivalent to 4,800,000 BOE. While not precise total fossil fuel consumption and emissions can therefore be approximated (As gas energy density is higher than coal burning equal masses of gas generates less emissions than coal hence the UK's emission reduction from switching to gas from coal for electricity generation.)
d. Atmospheric CO2 concentrations are measured in parts per million and have risen from a pre-industrial level of 280ppm. To increase this by 1ppm requires an additional 7.67 Giga tonnes of CO2 to stay in the atmosphere (Some 50% of emissions are sequestrated on land and dissolved into the oceans.). Currently the CO2 atmospheric concentration is rising at about 2.5 ppm per year. This adds about 18Gt remaining from the release of some 38Gt of CO2 by the combustion of the equivalent of 12 Gt or 15 cubic kilometers of oil.
e. The other anthropogenic GHGs (Methane, N2O, SF6, CFCs, HFCs, HCFCs, CCl4, etc.) have a warming effect equivalent to an additional 20% of CO2 in the atmosphere. (Good news - thanks to the Montreal Protocul CFC and CCl4, concentrations are falling and HCFC concentrations are levelling off allowing the Ozone layer to recover.... but they were partialy replaced by HFCs the concentrations of which are rising. HFCs do not affect atmospheric Ozone but have climate forcing potentials thousands of times greater than CO2.). The NOAA monitors the long-term global trends of atmospheric trace gases which are published here:
The UN's World Meteriological Organisation (WMO) publishes annual summaries: The most recent is :
Provisional State of the Global Climate in 2022
This is a peer-reviewed report with contributions from climate scientists around the world, including the British Met Office. The report covers:
Greenhouse Gases:
Real-time data indicate that global greenhouse gas emissions continued to increase in 2022.
Carbon dioxide: 415.7ppm ± 0.2 = 149% of pre-industrial levels.
Methane: 1908±2 ppb = 262% of pre-industrial levels. (The annual increase of methane was 18 ppb from 2020 to 2021. This is the largest increase on record. Its causes are still being investigated.).
Nitrous oxide: 334.5±0.1 ppb = 124% of pre-industrial levels.
Global Mean Surface Temperature:
From January-September 2022, GMST was 1.15 ± 0.13 °C warmer than the pre-industrial baseline (1850-1900).
Despite La Niña conditions keeping global temperature low for the second consecutive year, 2022 is still likely to be 5th or 6th warmest year on record.
The last 8 years are likely to be the 8 warmest years on record.
Extreme Events
Rising global temperatures have contributed to more frequent and severe extreme weather events around the world, including cold and heat waves, floods, droughts, wildfires and storms.
Ocean Heat Content
Around 90% of the excess energy that accumulates in the earth system due to increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases, goes into the ocean.
Ocean Heat Content (OHC) is a measure of this heat accumulation in the Earth system. It is measured at various ocean depths, up to 2000m deep.
All data sets agree that ocean warming rates show a particularly strong increase in the past two decades. The ocean continued to warm in 2021 (the latest year for which data is available). It is expected that the ocean will continue to warm well into the future – a change which is irreversible on centennial to millennial time scales.
Sea Level Rise
Globally, sea level has been rising faster at an average of 4.4 mm per year over Jan 2013 - Aug 2022 compared to 2.9mm /y Jan 03-Dec 12 and 2.1mm / y Jan 93- Dec 02.
Sea level has risen around 10 mm since January 2020. While this may not sound significant, it is nearly 10% of rise since 1993 in less than 2 years, despite an ongoing La Niña which is now (Mar 23) ending.
Glacial Mass
Preliminary results for 2022 are only available for a few selected regions at this time, as field observations are recently completed and need to be evaluated..
From 2020-2021, the glaciers with long-term observations experienced an average mass balance of –0.77 m water equivalent (m w.e.). This was a smaller loss than the average for the last decade but still more than the average for the period 1991-2020.
Eight out of the ten most negative mass balance years have been recorded since 2010.
Sea Ice Extent
- Arctic sea-ice extent was below the long-term average for most of the year. The September extent was 1.54 million km 2 below the long-term mean extent, making it tied for the 11th lowest monthly minimum ice extent in the satellite record. (Record low persisted from Dec 22 to Feb 23)
Antarctic sea-ice extent dropped to 1.92 million km2 on February 25 2022, the lowest level on record and almost 1 million km 2 below the long-term (1981-2010) mean.
Ocean Acidification
The ocean absorbs around 23% of the annual emissions of anthropogenic CO2 to the atmosphere, helping to alleviate the impacts of climate change but at a high ecological cost to the ocean.
Global mean ocean pH has been steadily declining: It had fallen to pH 8.05 oin 2020, from 8.11 in 1985.
By whom, when and how did we find out that the atmosphere's composition affects the global climate?
We have now known for nearly 200 years and with ever increasing detail. Predictions made over the last century, well before remote satelite monitoring of the atmosphere, sealevel, extent of fires and the changes of land use or the temperature composition, direction and speed of ocean currents ( see Argo Project), have proved to be remarkably accurate and no evidence has been found to suggest that forecasts for the next 100 years will be any less accurate - unless tipping points are reached!
Is the 6th Mass Extinction underway?
A 'mass extinction' event is when some 75% of ALL species become globally extinct. A literature review published in Frontiers of Conservation Science on 21 Jan 21 (Link at "Avoiding a ghastly future" below. ) reports that some 1 million of the 7 to 10 million Eukaryote species (all except bacteria, viruses and archae) are at risk of extinction with e.g. 700 vertebrate described species already lost along with 600 higher plant species.
Of greatest concern is that the extent of habitat loss, primarily due to direct anthropogenic change of land usage (To agriculture, mineral extraction, urbanisation, transport, etc.), combined with the rate of the physical changes attributable to anthropogenic climate change, described above, will leave species unable to migrate to or survive in the available remaining intact habitats.
Pro Publica and Time have published a USA centric summary of the threats that just Americans face over the next decades variously from temperature to sea level rise. Europe and Asia will experience similar effects as habitable zones migrate Northwards. N.B. Gradual migration towards the S. Pole is not an available option for terrestial species in Australia, S America, Africa or Oceana.
If both habitat loss and climate change remain unchecked available survivable refugia reduce, including for humans, our crops, domesticated animals and marine food species. The conclusion is yes, we are on a path, that not quite yet inevitably, will lead to a 6th Mass Extinction.
Is Hydrogen a Solution for reducing Carbon Dioxide emissions?
Image - National Physical Laboratory
Hydrogen is often cited as the solution to global energy requirements: If you oxidise hydrogen you get energy + water.....so no polution. But first you have to get the hydrogen. As at 2020 >95% of global Hydrogen production was dependent on burning natural gas. So for the same energy out more CO2 is produced than by oxidising the methane.... So the Hydrogen must come from somewhere else. Dr Richard Sharp has researched the issue: The attached Powerpoint slides have explantory notes, with links to sources. (To view notes download and open the .ppt and select Outline View under the View tab OR View in Google Slides .)
Is Hydrogen Really the Answer RJS 28-02-21 ver6 6.97MB.pptxThere are a variety of other reliable data sources covering virtually all aspects of our environment - Most are easy to navigate, others present a challenge!
"Our World in Data and the SDG-Tracker are collaborative efforts between researchers at the University of Oxford, who are the scientific editors of the website content; and the non-profit organization Global Change Data Lab, who publishes and maintains the website and the data tools that make our work possible. At the University of Oxford we are based at the Oxford Martin Programme on Global Development. " Data sets are updated regularly but inevitable theer is lag of several years before some become available.
Climate Dashboards
Various trustworthy organisations now provide 'dash boards' that bring together at one page a series of key indicators presented clearly with links to explanations, sources and datasets.
UK Met Office
"A Met Office Hadley Centre dashboard monitoring key indicators of global climate is providing an authoritative way to stay up to date with the current state of the climate. "
USA NOAA Global Climate Dashboard
The most comnprehensive with 14 key indicators:
European Environment Agency
The European Environment Agency publishes a variety of data sets (which until BREXIT included the UK) that are accessible from 15 subject matter "Dashboards"
Some UK specific policy and data sources (Most are updated annually but may be a year or more in arears with provisional figures available initially.).
UK National Statistical Office: UK Environmental Accounts: 2022
UK National Statistical Office: Digest of UK Energy Statistics (DUKES) 2022
DBEIS: Energy flow chart 2021
Carbon Brief (Mar 21): Analysis: UK is now halfway to meeting its ‘net-zero emissions’ target
Carbon Brief (Mar 23): The UK’s greenhouse gas emissions fell by 3.4% in 2022, according to new Carbon Brief analysis, ending a post-Covid rebound.
DBEIS (last update Nov 2022) : Updated energy and emissions projections
DBEIS (21 Dec 2020) : Energy white paper: Powering our net zero future
Grid Watch: UK Electricity Generation
Global Carbon Atlas
Annual National Carbon (CO2 and CH4) from Fossil Fuel and Land Use Change emissions. Includes breakdowns for Territorial (With breakout for Coal, Gas, Oil, Flaring and cement), Consumption, Transfer emissions by country and per capita.