THE PLANET IS DYING
Human activities (primarily the burning of fossil fuels) have fundamentally increased the concentration of greenhouse gases in Earth’s atmosphere, warming the planet. Natural drivers, without human intervention, would push our planet toward a cooling period.
GLOBAL TEMPERATURE
+ 1.18°C since 1880
Earth’s surface continues to significantly warm, with recent global temperatures being the hottest in the past 2,000-plus years.
Nineteen of the hottest years have occurred since 2000.
CARBON DIOXIDE
+ 417 parts per million
Since the beginning of the industrial era (1850), human activities like deforestation and burning fossil fuels have raised atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide (a heat-trapping gas) by nearly 49%.
ARCTIC SEA ICE EXTENT
- 13% per decade since 1979
Arctic sea ice reaches its minimum each September since the satellite measurement began in 1979. September Arctic sea ice is now declining at a rate of 13% per decade.
ICE SHEETS
- 428 billion metric tons per year
The Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets are losing significant amounts of land-based ice as a result of human-caused global warming.
Source: NASA
Source: NASA