内容摘要：ahead of attacks intended to pressure the Hamas militant group to release more hostages. New evacuation orders followed Tuesday.

ahead of attacks intended to pressure the Hamas militant group to release more hostages. New evacuation orders followed Tuesday.

, devastating floods in, scorching heat waves in

in the U.S. and Central America make up just some of the recent extreme weather events thatwould be more intense with a warming climate.“With just over one degree of warming since pre-industrial times, we are already seeing more extreme weather patterns,” said Elizabeth Robinson, director of the Grantham Research Institute in London.

EDITOR’S NOTE: This story is part of an ongoing series answering some of the most fundamental questions around climate change, the science behind it, the effects of a warming planet and how the world is addressing it.Scientists have been tracking precisely how much the climate has already changed due to human activity. Temperatures around the world have been inching upwards.

The average global temperature today, which tends to be compared to estimates for the pre-industrial era that kickstarted the mass burning of fossil fuels, has shot up between 0.9 and 1.2 degrees Celsius (1.6 to 2 degrees Fahrenheit) since 1850, in large part due to human activity, according to estimates in the most recent report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Most of that warming has happened from 1975 onwards, at a rate of 0.15 Celsius (0.27 Fahrenheit) to 0.2 Celsius (0.36 Fahrenheit) per decade.

Most people are living in areas that have heated up more than the global average, “partly that is urbanization — people move into cities, which are urban heat islands — and partly populations growing,” Robinson said. Urban areas, packed with plenty of heat-absorbing infrastructure like roads and buildings and less cooling tree cover, become “islands” of warmer weather.Follow Sibi Arasu on Twitter at @sibi123

Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiative. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

As the world warms and, governments and corporations have been called on to address climate change by