EFFECTS OF CLIMATE CHANGE

Global climate change has already had observable effects on the environment.

The effects of human-caused global warming are happening now, are irreversible on the timescale of people alive today, and will worsen in the decades to come.

As climate change transforms global ecosystems, it affects everything from the places we live to the water we drink to the air we breathe.

Let us list a few of these effects as seen in our world today: 

• Global temperatures will continue to rise for decades to come, largely due to greenhouse gases produced by human activities.
• Extreme Weather; As the earth’s atmosphere heats up, it collects, retains, and drops more water, changing weather patterns and making wet areas wetter and dry areas drier. 
• Air pollution and climate change are inextricably linked, with one exacerbating the other. 
• According to the World Health Organization, “climate change is expected to cause approximately 250,000 additional deaths per year” between 2030 and 2050. As air pollution worsens, so does respiratory health—particularly for the 300 million people living with asthma worldwide; there’s more airborne pollen and mold to torment hay fever and allergy sufferers, too. Extreme weather events, such as severe storms and flooding, can lead to injury, drinking water contamination, and storm damage that may compromise basic infrastructure or lead to community displacement.
• Rising Seas. The Arctic is heating twice as fast as any other place on the planet.
• The earth’s oceans absorb between one-quarter and one-third of our fossil fuel emissions and are now 30 percent more acidic than they were in preindustrial times. This acidification poses a serious threat to underwater life, particularly creatures with calcified shells or skeletons like oysters, clams, and coral. It can have a devastating impact on shellfisheries, as well as the fish, birds, and mammals that depend on shellfish for sustenance.
• Climate change is increasing pressure on wildlife to adapt to changing habitats—and fast. Many species are seeking out cooler climates and higher altitudes, altering seasonal behaviors, and adjusting traditional migration patterns. These shifts can fundamentally transform entire ecosystems and the intricate webs of life that depend on them. As a result, according to a 2014 IPCC climate change report, many species now face “increased extinction risk due to climate change.” And one 2015 study showed that mammals, fish, birds, reptiles, and other vertebrate species are disappearing 114 times faster than they should be, a phenomenon that has been linked to climate change, pollution, and deforestation—all interconnected threats. 

So what are the effects of climate change in the future? Let's browse through some of them. 

• Global climate is projected to continue to change over this century and beyond. The magnitude of climate change beyond the next few decades depends primarily on the amount of heat-trapping gases emitted globally, and how sensitive the Earth’s climate is to those emissions.
• Temperatures will continue to rise
• Frost- free season (and growing season) will lengthen 
• More droughts and heat waves
• Hurricanes will become stronger and more intense 
• Sea levels will rise drastically 
• The Arctic likely to become ice free! 

We asked the same questions on our social media and here are some of the answers we received from our Instagram family: 

baus_taka_enterprise: 

"Drought, icebergs melting, fires, global warming, landslides, floods." 

sumaiyaharunany: 

"Rising sea levels, melting glaciers, heatwaves, frequent and intense droughts, storms."

phoenix_marketing_solutions:

"Temperature rises, sea level rises, drought." 

zainab_akadir:

"Global Warming."

_real_rizwana: 

"Temperatures and natural caused disasters."

REFRENCES: 

1. https://climate.nasa.gov/effects/