Recent History of Climate Change

This chapter discusses current trends in climate science, beginning with maps produced by Professor James Hansen. The first map shows a bell curve of temperatures for each place during the time interval of 1951 to 1980 so that we know the normal distribution of temperatures in each part of the world and define extreme events as three-stand-deviation outliers of super hot and cold to determine the frequency of such events. While these extreme events did not occur during that period, they occur frequently by 2006 so that extremes are the new normal. Extreme heat waves and droughts are striking the whole planet, to be followed by extreme flooding and hurricanes. Droughts lead to crop failures, which causes tremendous suffering and conflict like that which was seen in Syria. What begins as an ecological crisis turns into full fledged human disaster, and even war.

This video is part of the module The Basics of Climate Change Science.