Breaking News

The 5 telltale techniques of climate change denial

By John Cook

Updated 1625 GMT (0025 HKT) July 22, 2015

Chat with us in Facebook Messenger. Find out what's happening in the world as it unfolds.

The consequences of climate change go far beyond warming temperatures, which scientists say are melting the polar ice caps and raising sea levels. Click through the gallery for a look at 10 other key effects of climate change, some of which may surprise you.
Photos: Effects of global warming around the world
Melting polar ice caps – The consequences of climate change go far beyond warming temperatures, which scientists say are melting the polar ice caps and raising sea levels. Click through the gallery for a look at 10 other key effects of climate change, some of which may surprise you.
Hide Caption
1 of 11
In the coming decades climate change will unleash megadroughts lasting 10 years or more, according to <a href="http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/JCLI-D-12-00282.1" target="_blank">a new report</a> by scholars at Cornell University, the University of Arizona and the U.S. Geological Survey. We're seeing hints of this already in many arid parts of the world and even in California, which has been rationing water amid record drought. In this 2012 photo, a man places his hand on parched soil in the Greater Upper Nile region of northeastern South Sudan.
Photos: Effects of global warming around the world
Drought – In the coming decades climate change will unleash megadroughts lasting 10 years or more, according to a new report by scholars at Cornell University, the University of Arizona and the U.S. Geological Survey. We're seeing hints of this already in many arid parts of the world and even in California, which has been rationing water amid record drought. In this 2012 photo, a man places his hand on parched soil in the Greater Upper Nile region of northeastern South Sudan.
Hide Caption
2 of 11
There's not a direct link between climate change and wildfires, exactly. But many scientists believe the increase in wildfires in the Western United States is partly the result of tinder-dry forests parched by warming temperatures. This photo shows a wildfire as it approaches the shore of Bass Lake, California, in mid-September.
Photos: Effects of global warming around the world
Wildfires – There's not a direct link between climate change and wildfires, exactly. But many scientists believe the increase in wildfires in the Western United States is partly the result of tinder-dry forests parched by warming temperatures. This photo shows a wildfire as it approaches the shore of Bass Lake, California, in mid-September.
Hide Caption
3 of 11
Scientists say the oceans' temperatures <a href="http://blog.nature.org/science/2014/03/31/ipcc-coral-reefs-science-climate-change/" target="_blank">have risen by more than 1 degree Fahrenheit</a> over the last century. It doesn't sound like much, but it's been enough to affect the fragile ecosystems of coral reefs, which have been bleaching and dying off in recent decades. This photo shows dead coral off the coast of St. Martin's Island in Bangladesh.
Photos: Effects of global warming around the world
Coral reefs – Scientists say the oceans' temperatures have risen by more than 1 degree Fahrenheit over the last century. It doesn't sound like much, but it's been enough to affect the fragile ecosystems of coral reefs, which have been bleaching and dying off in recent decades. This photo shows dead coral off the coast of St. Martin's Island in Bangladesh.
Hide Caption
4 of 11
<a href="http://ipcc.ch/report/ar5/wg2/" target="_blank">A U.N. panel found in March</a> that climate change -- mostly drought -- is already affecting the global agricultural supply and will likely drive up<strong> </strong>food prices. Here, in 2010, workers on combines harvest soybeans in northern Brazil. Global food experts have warned that climate change could double grain prices by 2050.
Photos: Effects of global warming around the world
Food prices – A U.N. panel found in March that climate change -- mostly drought -- is already affecting the global agricultural supply and will likely drive up food prices. Here, in 2010, workers on combines harvest soybeans in northern Brazil. Global food experts have warned that climate change could double grain prices by 2050.
Hide Caption
5 of 11
Are you sneezing more often these days? Climate change may be to blame for that, too. Recent studies show that rising temperatures and carbon dioxide levels promote the growth of weedy plant species that produce allergenic pollen. The worst place in the United States for spring allergies in 2014, according to the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America? <a href="http://www.aafa.org/pdfs/FINAL_public_LIST_Spring_2014.pdf" target="_blank">Louisville, Kentucky</a>.
Photos: Effects of global warming around the world
Pollen allergies – Are you sneezing more often these days? Climate change may be to blame for that, too. Recent studies show that rising temperatures and carbon dioxide levels promote the growth of weedy plant species that produce allergenic pollen. The worst place in the United States for spring allergies in 2014, according to the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America? Louisville, Kentucky.
Hide Caption
6 of 11
Climate change has not been kind to the world's<strong> </strong>forests. Invasive species such as the bark beetle, which thrive in warmer temperatures, have attacked trees across the North American west, from Mexico to the Yukon. <a href="http://www.colorado.edu/news/releases/2012/03/14/discovery-pine-beetles-breeding-twice-year-helps-explain-increasing-damage#sthash.PCdFWhdi.dpuf" target="_blank">University of Colorado researchers have found</a> that some populations of mountain pine beetles now produce two generations per year, dramatically boosting the bugs' threat to lodgepole and ponderosa pines. In this 2009 photo, dead spruces of the Yukon's Alsek River valley attest to the devastation wrought by the beetles.