Ideas in this flowchart

• Future climate change and its associated impacts will vary from region to region around the globe.
• The effects of climate change will differ geographically.
• Anticipated climate changes
• Global temperatures are expected to increase.
• Sea levels are expected to rise.
• Precipitation patterns will change, and deserts will expand in the subtropics.
• Warming will be greater over land than over oceans and greatest in the Arctic, with continued retreat of glaciers, permafrost, and sea ice.
• Additional environmental changes
• Extreme weather events such as heat waves, droughts, heavy rainfall with floods, and heavy snowfall will become more frequent.
• Ocean acidification is expected to increase.
• Species extinctions will occur because temperature regimes are shifting.
• Significant effects on humans
• Decreasing crop yields will threaten food security.
• Rising sea levels may force the abandonment of populated areas.
• Climate-system inertia and the long atmospheric lifetime of greenhouse gases will prolong the impacts.
• Many effects will persist for decades or centuries and potentially for tens of thousands of years.