Global Warming and Climate Change: Presented By: Akshay Puri Charu Puri Shruti Srivastava
Global Warming and Climate Change: Presented By: Akshay Puri Charu Puri Shruti Srivastava
Global Warming and Climate Change: Presented By: Akshay Puri Charu Puri Shruti Srivastava
If we don't act now, climate change will rapidly alter the lands and waters we all depend upon for survival, leaving our children and grandchildren with a very different world.
1. Higher Temperatures High temperatures are to blame for an increase in heat-related deaths and illness, rising seas, increased storm intensity, and many of the other dangerous consequences of climate change.
The planets oceans are also warming, which is causing dangerous consequences such as stronger storms, coral bleaching and rising seas.
2. Changing Landscapes Rising temperatures and changing patterns of rain and snow are forcing trees and plants around the world to move toward polar regions and up mountain slopes.
These vegetation shifts will undermine much of the work the conservation community has accomplished to date, with the potential to permanently change the face of Conservancy preserves, local land trusts, and even our national parks.
3. Wildlife at Risk
Rising temperatures are changing weather and vegetation patterns across the globe, forcing animal species to migrate to new, cooler areas in order to survive. The rapid nature of climate change is likely to exceed the ability of many species to migrate or adjust. Experts predict that one-fourth of Earths species will be headed for extinction by 2050 if the warming trend continues at its current rate.
Melting glaciers compound the problem by dumping even more fresh water into the oceans.
Rising seas threaten to inundate low-lying areas and islands, threaten dense coastal populations, erode shorelines, damage property and destroy ecosystems such as mangroves and wetlands that protect coasts against storms. Sea levels have risen between four and eight inches in the past 100 years. Current projections suggest that sea levels could continue to rise between 4 inches and 36 inches over the next 100 years.
A 36-inch increase in sea levels would swamp every city on the East Coast of the United States, from Miami to Boston.
5. Increased Risk of Drought, Fire, and Floods Climate change is intensifying the circulation of water on, above and below the surface of the Earth causing drought and floods to be more frequent, severe and widespread. Higher temperatures increase the amount of moisture that evaporates from land and water, leading to drought in many areas. Lands affected by drought are more vulnerable to flooding once rain falls. As temperatures rise globally, droughts will become more frequent and more severe, with potentially devastating consequences for agriculture, water supply and human health. This phenomenon has already been observed in some parts of Asia and Africa, where droughts have become longer and more intense. Hot temperatures and dry conditions also increase the likelihood of forest fires. In the conifer forests of the western United States, earlier snowmelts, longer summers and an increase in spring and summer temperatures have increased fire frequency by 400 percent and have increased the amount of land burned by 650 percent since 1970.
6. Heat-Related Illness and Disease As temperatures rise, so do the risks of heat-related illness and even death for the most vulnerable human populations.
In 2003, for example, extreme heat waves caused more than 20,000 deaths in Europe and more than 1,500 deaths in India. Scientists have linked the deadly heat waves to climate change and warn of more to come.
In addition to heat-related illness, climate change may increase the spread of infectious diseases, mainly because warmer temperatures allow disease-carrying insects, animals and microbes to survive in areas where they were once thwarted by cold weather. Diseases and pests that were once limited to the tropics such as mosquitoes that carry malaria may find hospitable conditions in new areas that were once too cold to support them. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that climate change may have caused more than 150,000 deaths in the year 2000 alone, with an increase in deaths likely in the future.
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