Climate Change in Numbers
Author: Jana Bronsch-Chassard
The Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), published in August 2021, shows what can already be observed in many regions around the world: Climate change is here. More than 230 authors from 66 countries evaluated and summarized over 14,000 scientific papers on climate research. An overview.
Weather Extremes
The frequency of extreme weather events, which occurred on average once per decade in the 1850 – 1900 reference period (pre-industrial era), is increasing in the wake of global warming. Projected calculations in a climate without human influence.
Global Extreme Temperature Events
Observations conducted since the 1950s show that change in hot extremes have increased in nearly all regions of the world and that humans are a contributing factor. For the most part, scientists agree on this.
Economic Impact
At an annual temperature increase of 0.04°C, the real gross domestic product (GDP) per capita would decline by the year 2100 as follows (data in %):
CO2 Concentration in the Atmosphere
In 2019, every million molecules (parts per million, ppm) in dry air contained a total of 410 molecules of CO2. In 2100, the value could be 1,100 ppm in the worst case scenario and 400 ppm in the best.
Temperature Increase
By 2020, the global surface temperature had increased by about 1.09°C since the beginning of instrumental measurement (reference period: 1850 – 1900). Since 1970, the temperature has increased faster than in any other 50-year period of the past 2,000 years.
Sea Level
Between 1901 and 2018, global mean sea level increased by a total of 0.2 m. The average annual rate of sea level rise was:
Source: AR6 Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis – IPPC, Design: Matthias Holz / Kombinatrotweiss