We Asked a NASA Scientist: Why Does Climate Change Matter?

Why does climate change matter?

Well, it’s happening. We look at the Earth from space and we measure it on the ground. And what we see is that the planet’s climate is changing. The last years have been the warmest since modern record-keeping began.

It’s serious. Even a little change in temperature can have big effects. And we’re seeing some of those effects now. Sea levels are rising. We’re seeing more extreme events like heatwaves and heavy rainfall and wildfire. And we know that a lot of those effects are going to increase with more warming. These changes are impacting decisions that some people make every day, like a farmer thinking about what crops to grow or a homeowner thinking about flood risk.

But there’s hope. There are scientists at ” data-gt-translate-attributes=”[{[{“attribute”:”data-cmtooltip”, “format”:”html”}]”>NASA and around the world that are researching this. We know more about our planet than we have ever before, and we learn more every day.

Why does climate change matter? Because it’s happening and we’re already feeling its effects around the world. But there’s hope. NASA Chief Scientist and Senior Climate Advisor Dr. Kate Calvin explains how NASA collects data and develops tools that can help us better understand and prepare for climate change. Credit: NASA

So we know why climate is changing. We know that it’s due to increasing greenhouse gases from human activity. We also have tools that can help us better understand and better prepare for future climate change. So we develop computer models that help us understand how much it might change in the future. And we’re also developing technologies here at NASA and around the world that can help us limit future warming or respond to the warming that we’re experiencing.

So why does climate change matter? It’s real. It’s serious, and it’s here.