Twenty years after the first publication using the term microplastics, we review current understanding, refine definitions and consider future prospects. Microplastics arise from multiple sources including tires, textiles, cosmetics, paint and the fragmentation of larger items. They are widely distributed throughout the natural environment with evidence of harm at multiple levels of biological organization. They are pervasive in food and drink and have been detected throughout the human body, with emerging evidence of negative effects. Environmental contamination could double by 2040 and widescale harm has been predicted. Public concern is increasing and diverse measures to address microplastics pollution are being considered in international negotiations. Clear evidence on the efficacy of potential solutions is now needed to address the issue and to minimize the risks of unintended consequences.

Global emission reduction efforts continue to be insufficient to meet the temperature goal of the Paris Agreement. This makes the systematic exploration of so-called overshoot pathways that temporarily exceed a targeted global warming limit before drawing temperatures back down to safer levels a priority for science and policy.
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The possibility that global warming could be reversed many decades into the future might be of limited relevance for adaptation planning today. Temperature reversal could be undercut by strong Earth-system feedbacks resulting in high near-term and continuous long-term warming.

In Central Europe, river flooding has been recently recognized as a major hazard, in
particular after the 1997 Odra /Oder flood, the 2001 Vistula flood, and the most destructive
2002 deluge on the Labe/Elbe.

Having observed that flood risk and vulnerability are likely to have grown in many areas,
one is curious to understand the reasons for growth. These can be sought in socio-economic
domain (humans encroaching into floodplain areas), terrestrial systems
(land-cover changes – urbanization, deforestation, reduction of wetlands, river regulation),
and climate system.
The atmospheric capacity to absorb moisture, its potential water content, and thus
potential for intense precipitation, are likely to increase in a warmer climate.

General acceleration of hydrological cycle in the warming world, observed already to
some extent and projected in the future to a larger extent, leads to the con-
clusion that intense summer precipitation events could be on the rise.

The Elbe flood of August 2002 was caused by extreme rainfall in a large area. The associated
circulation pattern was rather typical of previous flood events both in recent years and in
the more distant past.

The model simulations consid ered suggest that their frequency might increase in the future.

According to Fricke and Kaminski (2001) an increase of days with extreme precipitation can
already be observed in the long station time-series of the Hohenpeissenberg Observatory
in southern Germany.

This seems to agree with the trends produced in simulations of anthropogenic climate change.

86% of participants estimated maximum global warming of greater than 2 °C by or before the year 2100 (med = 2.7 °C) while 58% of the sample believed that there was at least a 50% chance of reaching or exceeding 3 °C by or before 2100 (med = 50%).

A previous survey found 60% of Working Group 1 authors believed that warming of 3 °C or more is likely by 2100, while another found that 77% of IPCC authors and editors expected at least 2.5 °C in the same timeframe. Our results corroborate that there is a widespread belief among IPCC authors that substantial warming is likely before 2100