Writing Workshop 1

📁 Climate Fact File — Grade 9 Science

TEMPERATURE: The Earth’s average surface temperature has risen by about 1.1–1.2°C since the late 1800s, when people started burning large amounts of coal. The year 2024 was the first full calendar year when the average was more than 1.5°C above that level.
THE MAIN CAUSE: Burning fossil fuels — coal, oil and gas — releases carbon dioxide (CO₂). CO₂ traps heat in the atmosphere. Before the 1800s, there were about 280 parts per million (ppm) of CO₂ in the air. Today there are over 420 ppm.
WHERE DOES IT COME FROM? Most emissions come from producing electricity and heat, from transport (cars, lorries, planes and ships), from factories and from farming. Cutting down forests also adds CO₂, because trees store carbon while they are alive.
THE SEA: Global sea level rose by about 20 centimetres between 1901 and 2018. Warmer water takes up more space, and melting ice on land adds more water.
ICE: Arctic sea ice in September, at the end of the summer melt, now covers much less area than it did in the 1980s.
WEATHER: Scientists say heatwaves have become more frequent and more intense in most parts of the world, and heavy rainfall has also increased in many places. Poorer countries, which have produced the least CO₂, are often the worst affected, because they have less money to protect people from floods and droughts.
THE PARIS AGREEMENT (2015): Almost every country in the world agreed to try to keep warming well below 2°C, and to try to limit it to 1.5°C.
WHAT NEXT? If emissions keep rising, temperatures will continue to rise, and extreme weather is likely to become more common. If emissions fall quickly, warming might slow down and eventually stop. Every tenth of a degree matters, because each small rise makes heatwaves, floods and droughts a little worse.