What will climate change look like

As the world warms, the UK is likely to have hotter, drier summers and warmer, wetter winters, according to the Met Office. Extreme weather events such as heatwaves and heavy downpours could become more frequent and more intense. Many scientists are concerned. We are already seeing the impacts of climate change, but the level of global warming we reach and by when will depend primarily on the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. To some, warming weather may not seem like such a big deal.

But even the smallest incremental changes in climate can have far-reaching effects. Temperatures above 30C for two or more days can trigger a public-health warning. In the s, this happened about once every four years for locations in the South.

By the s, projections suggest it could be as frequently as four times per year - 16 times more often, if we do not curb our emissions. Agriculture has been described as being on the front line of climate change, the first to feel its impacts.

This year was a bad one for British farms. And while many crops suffered, wheat production faced its worst yield in at least 30 years, according to Tom Bradshaw, deputy president of the National Union of Farmers. A wet winter prevented his plants from developing healthy roots and a hot dry summer stunted their growth. The Met Office projects rainy winters, which keep the soil wet into spring, and dry summers of infrequent rainfall will become the norm.

Summer rain is likely to become less frequent but could be heavier. Without regular rainfall, the ground has a harder time absorbing water when it finally does come, leading to a greater risk of flash flooding.

Steady rain, which is currently a feature of winter months, will probably continue, and total rainfall is expected to increase. When the ground is already saturated, waterways tend to rise. Bridges and sewers designed for historical rainfall levels may come increasingly under pressure. Warming temperatures could also mean cold spells become less frequent.

Temperatures below freezing during the day and areas with considerable amounts of snow on the ground may be limited to parts of Scotland by the end of the century if emissions continue to rise. Right now the world is about 1. That warming has been caused by greenhouse gas emissions, that have ramped up over the last 50 years, from the global growth in industry, transport and agriculture. The real problem is that gases like CO2 hang around in the atmosphere for centuries, warming all the while.

Not even a pandemic could stop their build up. Well, recent promises by major emitters including China, the EU and others to reach net-zero carbon emissions by the middle of this century are good news.

Scientists believe that if the pledges are kept, then warming could be limited to 2. But even that level of warming promises great danger, destroying all the coral reefs and threatening wide swathes of the world with flooding.

The present-day data shows averages of observed measurements for The future data shows projected temperature and rainfall measurements produced by climate models for two different levels of global warming: if global average temperatures rise 2C above records from the midth Century, the start of major industrialisation, and if that rise is 4C.

Climate models are computer simulations of how the atmosphere, oceans, land, plants and ice behave under various levels of atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations. They help scientists come up with projections for what conditions on Earth we are likely to see as global warming continues. The level of global warming depends on a number of factors.

The most important is the amount of emissions produced in the coming years. Emissions are greenhouse gases released into our atmosphere. The accumulation of these gases has a warming effect on the globe, which in turn leads to changes in climatic conditions. Governments around the world have pledged to reduce their emissions to limit the degree of warming. The most recent of these pledges was the Paris Agreement in which world leaders committed to take action to keep a rise in global temperatures this century well below 2C above pre-industrial levels.

In climate models, this 2C rise by the end of the century represents sizeable cuts in global emissions. If no interventions are taken, global average temperatures could rise by up to 4C by At current rates of global emissions, the world is on a pathway somewhere between 2C and 4C. The modelled projections in this data do not represent a specific time period.

Instead, they show what conditions could be like in these two different levels of global warming. By , that number could grow to 25 floods. Low-lying countries like Bangladesh, Vietnam, and the Seychelles are especially vulnerable.

That's because hurricanes use warm water as fuel, so as Earth's oceans and air heat up, tropical storms get stronger, wetter, and slower. That means more time that you're going to have those winds. That's a long period of time to have hurricane-force winds," National Hurricane Center director Ken Graham said in a Facebook Live video as Dorian approached the Bahamas.

That means up to 4 inches of water per hour. Hurricane Harvey in was a prime example of this: After it made landfall, Harvey weakened to a tropical storm then stalled for days, dumping unprecedented amounts of rain on the Houston area. Scientist Tom Di Liberto described it as the "storm that refused to leave. The WHO expects that heat-related illnesses will be a major culprit, killing up to , additional people by In January , Cape Town, South Africa, got dangerously close to this reality: The government announced the city was three months from day zero.

Residents successfully limited their water use enough to make it to the next rainy season, however. A study found that climate change nearly doubled the amount of forest that burned in the western US between and , adding over 10 billion additional acres of burned area.

In California in particular, the annual area burned in summer wildfires increased fivefold from to Rapid warming means that crucial sea ice is melting, which accelerates warming even more. That's because the Amazon stores up to billion tons of carbon dioxide — the equivalent of 14 decades' worth of human emissions. Releasing that would accelerate global warming. High ocean temperatures can cause coral to expel the algae living in its tissue and turn white, a process called coral bleaching.

These largely irreversible changes will eventually force mass migrations of marine life, upend ocean ecosystems, and threaten human livelihoods that depend on the ocean, according to a study. Many species that can't adapt could die out.

She added: "You can think also of the scenario of the poor who live in cities who could be at greater exposure to heat stress if they lack air conditioning and heat waves increase in frequency and duration. That will make food more scarce and more expensive, especially in sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia.

And we're seeing unprecedented heat waves and flooding events throughout the US. That means "we need to shift across the board in terms of policies, technologies, and behavior," she added. Levin and the IPCC both say that, since we're so far off the path towards quitting fossil fuels, the transition will also require technologies that suck carbon out of the atmosphere. For you. World globe An icon of the world globe, indicating different international options.

Get the Insider App. Click here to learn more. A leading-edge research firm focused on digital transformation. The UK is hosting a summit for world leaders, called COP26, in November, where countries will set out their carbon reduction plans for Many countries have pledged to get to net zero by This means reducing greenhouse gas emissions as much as possible and balancing out remaining emissions by absorbing an equivalent amount from the atmosphere.

Experts agree that this is achievable , but it will require governments, businesses and individuals to make big changes. Major changes need to come from governments and businesses, but scientists say some small changes in our lives can limit our impact on the climate :.

The COP26 global climate summit in Glasgow in November is seen as crucial if climate change is to be brought under control. Almost countries are being asked for their plans to cut emissions, and it could lead to major changes to our everyday lives.

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