The (Northern) summer of 2018 was intense: deadly wildfires, persistent drought, killer floods and record-breaking heat. Although scientists exercise great care before linking individual weather events to climate change, the rise in global temperatures caused by human activities has been found to increase theseverity,likelihoodanddurationof such conditions.

Globally, 2018 is on pace to be the fourth-hottest year on record. Only 2015, 2016 and 2017 were hotter. The Paris climate agreement aims to hold temperature rise below 1.5 to 2 degrees Celsius, but if humankind carries on its business-as-usual approach to climate change, theres a93 percent chancewere barrelling toward a world that is 4 degrees Celsius warmer by the end of the century, a potentially catastrophic level of warming.

In 1992, 1,700 scientists around the world issued a chilling warning to humanity. The infamous letter declared that humans were on a collision course with the natural world if they did not rein in their environmentally damaging activities.Such apocalyptic thinking might be easy to mock, and not entirely helpful in inspiring political action if end times are nigh. In 2017, however, more than 15,000 scientists from 184 countries co-signed their names to an updated and even bleaker version of the 1992 manifesto.

The latestversion, titled World Scientists Warning to Humanity: A Second Notice, asserts that most of the environmental challenges raised in the original letter i.e. depletion of freshwater sources, overfishing, plummeting biodiversity, unsustainable human population growth remain unsolved and are getting far worse.Especially troubling is the current trajectory of potentially catastrophic climate change due to rising [greenhouse gases] from burning fossil fuels, deforestation, and agricultural production particularly from farming ruminants for meat consumption, the paper states.

Moreover, the authors wrote, We have unleashed a mass extinction event, the sixth in roughly 540 million years, wherein many current life forms could be annihilated or at least committed to extinction by the end of this century.But they stressed that Soon it will be too late to shift course away from our failing trajectory, and time is running out.

More recently, President Trumps own administration released on 23 November the 1,600-pageFourth National Climate Assessment, a quadrennial report compiled by 13 federal agencies. This report paints a particularly grim picture, including more frequent droughts, floods, wildfires and extreme weather, declining crop yields, the rise of disease-carrying insects and rising seas all of which couldreduce US gross domestic product by a tenth by the end of the century.

So what we saw this summer? Unless humanity gets its act together, we can expect much worse to come. Heres a peek into our climate-addled future.

1. Species Extinction.

The Amazon, one of the most biodiverse places on Earth, could lose about 70 percent of its plant and amphibian species and more than 60 percent of its birds, mammals and reptile species from unchecked climate change, according to a 2018studyby the University of East Anglia, the James Cook University and World Wildlife Fund (WWF), which analyzed the impact of climate change on nearly 80,000 species of plants, birds, mammals, reptiles and amphibians inhabiting the WWFs 35 Priority Places for conservation.

The studys most alarming projection was for theMiombo Woodlandsin central and Southern Africa, one of the priority places most vulnerable to climate change. If global temperatures rose 4.5 degrees Celsius, the researchers projected the loss of 90 percent of amphibians and 80 percent or more of plants, birds, mammals and reptiles.

This incredible loss of biodiversity affects humans, too. This is not simply about the disappearance of certain species from particular places, but about profound changes to ecosystems that provide vital services to hundreds of millions of people, the authors warned.

2. Food insecurity and nutritional deficiencies

While climate change couldactually benefitcolder parts of the world with longer growing seasons, tropical and subtropical regions in Africa, South America, India and Europe could lose vast chunks of arable land. For coastal countries,rising seascould inundate farming land and drinking water with salt.

Staple crops such as wheat, rice, maize and soybeans, which providetwo-thirds of the worlds caloric intake, are sensitive to temperature and precipitation and to rising atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide. A sweeping 2017studyshowed that every degree-Celsius of warming will reduce average global yields of wheat by 6 percent, rice by 3.2 percent, maize by 7.4 percent and soybeans by 3.1 percent.

Whats more, according to a recentpaper, carbon dioxide levels expected by 2050 will make staple crops such as rice and wheat less nutritious. This could result in 175 million people becoming zinc deficient (which can cause awide array of health impacts, including impaired growth and immune function and impotence) and 122 million people becoming protein deficient (which cancauseoedema, fat accumulation in liver cells, loss of muscle mass and in children, stunted growth). Additionally, the researchers found that more than 1 billion women and children could lose a large portion of their dietary iron intake, putting them at increased risk of anaemia and other diseases.

3. Farewell to coastal cities and island nations

Unless we cut heat-trapping greenhouse gases, scientists predict sea levels could rise up to three feet by 2100, according to the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fifth Assessmentreport.This could bring high tides and surges from strong storms, and be devastating for the millions of people living in coastal areas. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)published a reportearlier this year that predicted parts of Miami, New York City and San Francisco could flood every day by 2100, under a sea-level rise scenario of three feet.

Entire countries could also be swallowed by the sea due to global warming. Kiribati, a nation consisting of 33 atolls and reef islands in the South Pacific, isexpected to be one of the first.Kiribati wont be alone.At least eightislands have already disappeared into the Pacific Ocean due to rising sea levelssince 2016, and an Aprilstudysaid that most coral atolls will be uninhabitable by the mid-21st century.

4. Social conflict and mass migration

In 2017, New York Magazine Deputy Editor David Wallace-Wells wrote an alarming and widely read essay called The Uninhabitable Earth that focused almost entirely on worst-case climate scenarios. He discussed that, with diminished resources and increased migration caused by flooding, social conflict could more than double this century.

The articles scientific merit has beenfiercely debated, but the World Bank didconcludein March 2018 that water scarcity, crop failure and rising sea levels could displace 143 million people by 2050. The report focused on Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia and Latin America, which represent 55 percent of the developing worlds population. Unsurprisingly, the poorest and most climate-vulnerable areas will be hardest hit.

5. Lethal heat

Today, around 30 percent of the global population suffers deadly levels of heat and humidity for at least 20 days a year, a 2017analysisshowed. If emissions continue increasing at current rates, the researchers suggested 74 percent of the global population three in four people will experience more than 20 days of lethal heat waves.

Our attitude towards the environment has been so reckless that we are running out of good choices for the future, Camilo Mora of the University of Hawaii at Manoa, the studys lead author, toldNational Geographic.For heatwaves, our options are now between bad or terrible, he added. Many people around the world are already paying the ultimate price of heatwaves.

6. Surging wildfires

The Camp Fire, which burned more than 150,000 acres in Butte County in November, was the deadliest and most destructive fire in Californias history, killing at least 85 people. The Mendocino Complex Fire, which started in July and torched roughly 300,000 acres in Northern California, was the largest fire in the states modern history. The second-largest was 2017s Thomas Fire, which burned 281,000 acres in Santa Barbara and Ventura counties.

But the Golden States fires will only get worse, according toCalifornias Fourth Climate Change Assessmentreleased by the governors office in August. If greenhouse gases continue rising, large fires that burn more than 25,000 acres will increase by 50 percent by the end of the century, and the volume of acres that will be burned by wildfires in an average year will increase by 77 percent, the report said.

Higher spring and summer temperatures andearlier spring snowmelt typicallycause soils to be drier for longer, increasing the likelihood of drought anda longer wildfire season, particularly in the western United States, The Union of Concerned Scientists explained in ablog post.These hot, dry conditions also increase the likelihood that wildfires will bemore intense and long-burningonce they are started by lightning strikes or human error.

7. Hurricanes: more frequent, more intense

Its not currently clear if changes in climate directly led to 2017s major hurricanes, including Harvey, Irma, Maria and Ophelia. What we do know is this: Moist air over warm ocean water is hurricane fuel.

Everything in the atmosphere now is impacted by the fact that its warmer than its ever been, CNN Senior Meteorologist Brandon Millersaid. Theres more water vapor in the atmosphere. The ocean is warmer. And all of that really only pushes the impact in one direction, and that is worse: higher surge in storms, higher rainfall in storms. NOAAconcludedthis June that It is likely that greenhouse warming will cause hurricanes in the coming century to be more intense globally and have higher rainfall rates than present-day hurricanes.

8. Melted polar ice and permafrost

The Arctic is warming at a rate twice as fast as the rest of the planet, and continued loss of ice and snow cover will cause big changes to ocean currents, to circulation of the atmosphere, to fisheries and especially to the air temperature, which will warm up because there isnt any ice cooling the surface anymore, Peter Wadhams, head of the Polar Ocean Physics Group at the University of Cambridge, toldPublic Radio International. That will have an effect, for instance, on air currents over Greenland, which will increase the melt rate of the Greenland ice sheet.

Not only that, frozen Arctic soil or permafrost is starting to melt, causing the release of methane, a far more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. Its said that the permafrost holds 1.8 trillion tons of carbon, more than twice as much as is currently suspended in the Earths atmosphere. Wadhams explained that the fear is that the permafrost will melt in one rapid go. If that happens, The amount of methane that comes out will be a huge pulse, and that would have a detectable climate change, maybe 0.6 of a degree. So, it would be just a big jerk to the global climate.

9. The spread of pathogens

Disturbingly, permafrost is full of pathogens, and its melting could unleash once-frozen bacteria and viruses,The Atlanticreported. In 2016, dozens of people were hospitalized and a 12-year-old boy died after an outbreak of anthrax in Siberia. More than 2,000 reindeer were also infected. Anthrax hadnt been seen in the region for 75 years. The cause? Scientists suggested that a heat wave thawed a reindeer carcass that was infected with the disease decades ago, according toNPR.

While we shouldnt get too frightened about Earths once-frozen pathogens wiping us out (yet), the warming planet has also widened the geographic ranges of ticks, mosquitoes and other organisms that carry disease.

We now have dengue in southern parts of Texas, George C. Stewart, McKee Professor of Microbial Pathogenesis and chair of the department of veterinary pathobiology at the University of Missouri, toldScientific American. Malaria is seen at higher elevations and latitudes as temperatures climb. And the cholera agent,Vibrio cholerae, replicates better at higher temperatures.

10. Dead corals

As the worlds largest carbon sink, our oceans bear the brunt of climate change. But the more carbon it absorbs (about 22 million tons a day), the more acidic the waters become. This could put a whole host of marine life at risk, including coral reef ecosystems, the thousands of species that depend on them and the estimated1 billion peoplearound the globe who rely on healthy reefs for sustenance and income. According toScience, Researchers predict that with increasing levels of acidification,most coral reefs will be gradually dissolving awayby the end of the century.

These climate predictions are worst-case scenarios, but there are many more dangers to consider in our warming world. Areportrecently published in the journal Nature Climate Change found evidence for 467 pathways by which human health, water, food, economy, infrastructure and security have been recently impacted by climate hazards such as warming, heatwaves, precipitation, drought, floods, fires, storms, sea-level rise and changes in natural land cover and ocean chemistry.

Since the 19th century, the Earth has warmed by 1 degree Celsius. Now, a major IPCCspecial reportreleased in October warns that even just a half-degree more of warming could be disastrous. Every extra bit of warming matters, especially since warming of 1.5C or higher increases the risk associated with long-lasting or irreversible changes, such as the loss of some ecosystems, saidHans-Otto Prtner, co-chair of IPCC Working Group II.The panelsaidthat limiting global warming to 1.5C compared to 2C could go hand in hand with ensuring a more sustainable and equitable society.

With President Trump saying hedoesnt believe his own administrations climate report, that sustainable and equitable society remains a distant dream.

Lorraine Chow is a freelance writer and reporter based in South Carolina.

This article was produced byEarth | Food | Life, a project of the Independent Media Institute and was first published in TruthOut on 28 December 2018.