Climate Change is presenting many challenges including:

• Increased warming: Eleven of the last twelve years rank among the warmest years in global surface temperature since 1850. The rate of warming averaged over the last 50 years is nearly twice that for the last 100 years. The average global temperature went up by about 0.74°C during the 20^th Century with the warming affecting land more than ocean areas.
• There is more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere: Carbon dioxide is the dominant contributor to current climate change and its atmospheric concentration has increased from a pre-industrial value of 278 parts-per million (ppm) to 379 in 2005.
• More water, but not everywhere: More precipitation has been observed in the eastern parts of North and South America, northern Europe and northern and central Asia in recent decades. But the Sahel, the Mediterranean, southern Africa and parts of southern Asia have experienced drying. More intense and longer droughts have been observed over wider areas since the 1970s.
• Sea level is rising: The report is highly confident that the rate of observed sea level rise increased from the 19^th to 20^th century, and the total 20^th century rise is estimated to be 0.17 metre. Geological observations indicate that sea level rise over the previous 2,000 years was far less. The average temperature of the global ocean has increased to depths of at least 3,000 metres.
• Less snow cover: Snow cover is decreasing in most regions, particularly in spring. The maximum extent of frozen ground in the winter/spring season has decreased by about 7 per cent in the Northern Hemisphere since 1900, and on average rivers that freeze do so some 5.8 days later than a century ago and their ice breaks-up 6.5 days earlier.
• Glaciers are melting: Mountain glaciers and snow cover have declined, on average, in both hemispheres, and have contributed to sea level rise by 0.77 millimetres a year from 1993 to 2003. Shrinkage of the ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica have contributed to a sea level rise of 0.4 millimetres a year between 1993 and 2003.
• Arctic is warming: Average Arctic temperatures increased at almost twice the global average rate in the past 100 years. Satellite data since 1978 show that the average Arctic sea ice extent has shrunk by 2.7 per cent per decade.

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