As one of the lead authors of the U.N. report, Cobb detailed for The Washington Post an array of new observational data from satellites and weather stations that has given scientists more information about Earth’s climate than ever before.

The U.N. report and the data it shares also reaffirms the urgency in what we’ve known for decades, that the more greenhouse gases people emit, the further along the road humanity goes toward global changes that will take centuries or millennia to undo. According the U.N. assessment, future rates of ocean acidification and sea level rise will be determined by emissions reductions in the next 10-20 years. The report stresses that it is not too late to hold warming to a level of 1.5 degrees Celsius – the most ambitious target outlined in the 2015 Paris Climate Accord - but would require deep, sustained emissions reductions.

"The pile of evidence is now enormous,” Cobb told National Public Radio in an interview following the U.N. report's release. “Human activities are warming the planet… we now have abundant, solid lines of evidence linking this warming to any number of impacts, including weather and climate extremes across land and the ocean."

Read more of Kim Cobb’s insights on the U.N. report findings from The Washington Post and National Public Radio.