The world is about one degree Celsius warmer than before widespread industrialisation, the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) says. The 20 warmest years on record all occurred in the past 22 years, with 2015-18 making up the top four. Across the globe, the average sea level increased by 3.6mm per year between 2005 and 2015. The rate in the last two decades, however, is nearly double that of the last century and is accelerating slightly every year. Most of this change was because water increases in volume as it heats up. However, melting ice is now thought to be the main reason for rising sea levels. Glaciers are retreating almost everywhere around the world — including in the Alps, Himalayas, Andes, Rockies, Alaska and Africa. And satellite records show a dramatic decline in Arctic sea-ice since 1979. The Greenland Ice Sheet has experienced record melting in recent years. Satellite data also shows the West Antarctic Ice Sheet is losing mass. A recent study indicated East Antarctica may also have started to lose mass. Data from NASA’s Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment show Greenland lost an average of 286 billion tons of ice per year between 1993 and 2016, while Antarctica lost about 127 billion tons of ice per year during the same time period. The rate of Antarctica ice mass loss has tripled in the last decade. Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, the acidity of surface ocean waters has increased by about 30 percent. This increase is the result of humans emitting more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and hence more being absorbed into the oceans. The amount of carbon dioxide absorbed by the upper layer of the oceans is increasing by about 2 billion tons per year. The effects of a changing climate can also be seen in vegetation and land animals. These include earlier flowering and fruiting times for plants and changes in the territories of animals. The evidence is overwhelming and what is mentioned here barely scratches the surface of the effects of climate change we’ve seen so far. Climate change is a fact and it is an issue we need to deal with.