Key learning points

1. Increasing average global temperatures leads to an increase in sea levels.
2. Increasing average temperatures cause more powerful convection currents, increasing the number and severity of storms.
3. Increasing average temperatures can affect atmospheric air streams and change weather patterns.
4. Changes of human behaviour can lead to smaller increases in global temperature.
5. Climate engineering may enable humans to reduce global temperatures through the application of technologies.

Keywords

• Global warming - increase in Earth’s global temperature, likely caused by more greenhouse gases in the atmosphere

• Glacier - a large, slow-moving mass of ice that forms on land

• Climate - the average weather conditions for a particular location over a long period of time

• Climate engineering - large-scale changes to Earth’s environment that are made to counteract climate change

Common misconception