Contemporary
climate change involves rising
global temperatures and significant shifts in Earth's weather patterns. Climate change is driven by
emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane. Emissions come mostly from burning
fossil fuels (coal, oil and natural gas), and also
from agriculture,
forest loss, cement production and steel making. Climate change causes
sea level rise,
glacial retreat and
desertification, and intensifies
heat waves,
wildfires and
tropical cyclones. These
effects of climate change endanger
food security,
freshwater access and
global health.
Climate change can be limited by using
low-carbon energy sources such as wind and solar energy, by
forestation, and shifts in agriculture.
Adaptations such as
coastline protection cannot by themselves avert the risk of severe, pervasive and irreversible impacts. Limiting global warming in line with the goals of the 2015
Paris Agreement requires reaching
net-zero emissions by 2050. This animation, produced by
NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio with data from the
Goddard Institute for Space Studies, shows global surface
temperature anomalies from 1880 to 2023 on a world map, illustrating the rise in global temperatures. Normal temperatures (calculated over the 30-year baseline period 1951–1980) are shown in white, higher-than-normal temperatures in red, and lower-than-normal temperatures in blue. The data are averaged over a running 24-month window.
Video credit: NASA; visualized by Mark SubbaRao
