Four sobering climate change reports

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3. NOAA: CLIMATE CHANGE HAPPENING TEN TIMES FASTER THAN ANY TIME IN THE PAST 65 MILLION YEARS

Climate change is 'accelerating', undergoing some of the largest changes recorded in the past 65 million years, Stanford scientists say.

Researchers warn that the calculated rate of change over the next hundred years will be at least 10 times faster than previous climate shifts. This could place "significant stress" on the planet's ecosystems.

"We know from past changes that ecosystems have responded to a few degrees of global temperature change over thousands of years," said study co-author Noah Diffenbaugh in a statement, "but the unprecedented trajectory that we're on now is forcing that change to occur over decades. That's orders of magnitude faster, and we're already seeing that some species are challenged by that rate of change."

Human activity appears to be a major contributor to accelerated climate change, according to researchers.

The paper argues that some aspects of transformation are unavoidable due to the greenhouse gases presently in the atmosphere.

However, some of the more dramatic changes could be stalled or avoided completely with a few adjustments from mankind.

"There are two key differences for ecosystems in the coming decades compared with the geologic past," Diffenbaugh said. "One is the rapid pace of modern climate change. The other is that today there are multiple human stressors that were not present 55 million years ago, such as urbanization and air and water pollution."

4. GOOGLE EARTH ENGINE TRACKS A CHANGING CLIMATE

Expansion, climate change and human activity have led to a dramatic transformation if the Earth's landscape over the past three decades -- and you can see happen in an instant with Google Earth Engine.

The clips were stitched together using Landsat satellite images taken between 1984-2012, with each frame representing one year of satellite data.

Take a look at these animated .gifs, courtesy of Buzzfeed:

Drying of Lake Urmia, Iran

Drought, coupled with high salinity, has caused about 60% of Lake Urmia to dry up.

Home to hundreds of species of birds, as well as mammals, reptiles and amphibians, it's estimated that up to 13 million people be displaced if this UNESCO Biosphere reserve dries up completely.

Coastal expansion of Dubai

Dubai's recent growth has been nothing short of explosive.

Dubbed "the fastest growing city in the world," Dubai's population grew from 58,971 in 1968 to more than 2 million people in 2012. As a point of comparison, the City of Toronto's population grew from approximately 2.1 million in 1971 to 2.6 million in 2012.