Climate change and its effects The most significant event to indicate climate change is the melting of the polar ice caps. The area of sea covered by the Arctic ice at the North Pole has shrunk by 10% in recent decades, and the thickness of the ice above the water has decreased by about 40%. On the other side of the world, the ice sheet above the Antarctic continent has become unstable. Glaciers are retreating all around the world. Since 1979, glaciers in the European Alps have lost about one-fifth of their volume, and the loss rate has clearly accelerated since the 1980s. The huge Greenland ice sheet has started to melt. It is losing at least 100 billion tonnes of ice a year and this is pushing up sea levels. If the ice sheet melted completely, which would probably take many hundreds of years, sea levels could rise by as much as 7 metres. Climate change is expected to increase the intensity and/or frequency of extreme weather events, such as storms, floods, droughts and heat waves. About 90% of all natural disasters in Europe since 1980 have been directly caused by climate. The average number of weather and climate-related disasters per year in Europe increased by about 65% between 1998 and 2007 compared with the average for the 1980s. These disasters not only …show more content…
Stakeholders of businesses bring different perspectives expectations and values that can help a business better understand the nature and scope of climate risks and opportunities, and how best to approach the issues at hand. Ensuring a broader range of perspectives increases the likely acceptability, as well as effectiveness of proposed actions. Consequently, stakeholder engagement and communication become a critical element of how businesses approach climate
What is climate change exactly? Climate change happens when long-term weather problems occur. For example: global warming can be a part of climate change because the weather changes and the heat increase very slowly. Climate change is becoming a huge problem and is affecting the world's ecosystems and communities. The world could become one huge oven or it won't. Nobody knows.
Devastating natural disasters happen all the time take Hurricane, Katrina for example. An increase in climate change causes the seas to also adjust in temperature and could lead to more tropical storms. “The oceans have absorbed much of the increased heat, with the top 700 meters of ocean showing warming of .302F since 1969” (Shaftel 8). Extreme climate change has been rapidly changing our environment and causes an increase of severe weather. “Most of the Earth warming has occurred since the 1970s, with the 20 warmest years having occurred since 1981 and with all 10 of the warmest years occurring in the past 12 years” (Shaftel 7). “Global sea level rose about 17 cm in the last century. The rate in the last decade is nearly double that of the last century” (Shaftel 6). “Greenland lost 150 to 250 cubic kilometers of ice
Climate change is one of the most important challenges of humankind in this century. The ability to adapt, mitigate and reduce carbon emissions will be decisive to preserve the world for future generations. The last IPCC report has provided more evidence regarding the rise in temperature and sea level. Apparently, additional 2°C above the pre-industrial average temperature levels is unavoidable, and it will continue at that level due the accumulation of gases in the atmosphere (Solomon 2009). Climate change will affect people all around the world in different ways, though the capacity to cope with it is different among regions and countries. The Latin America region is notably susceptible to climate change, due its geographical position, population location and its economy relying in natural resources (Vergara et. al. 2013a). The withdrawal of the coral biome, glaciers melting, jungles & forest savannization and strongest climate events are only some of the threats that will affect their inhabitants.
When you hear the words “climate change” what comes to mind? Probably weather and the changes. Many of us watch the news or use an app on our cellphones/electronic devices to keep an eye on the weather for the day, week, or even the month. But, there is actually a difference between weather and climate. Weather is actually “the changes we see and feel outside from day to day. It might rain one day and be sunny the next. Weather also changes from place to place” (Dunbar, 2014). Whereas “climate is the usual weather of a place. Climate can be different for different seasons. Different places can have different climates” (Dunbar, 2014). This paper will focus on the ins and outs of climate change, specifically focusing on what climate change
The concept of climate change has been around for quite a while. The earliest mention of climate change dates back to the 19th century. Swedish scientist, Svante Archenius was the first scientist to study the effect of CO2 on climate. (Rodhe et al 1997)
These phenomena have been increasing rapidly in recent years as a direct result of the warming of ocean waters. Evidence that the Earth is undergoing climate change can also be seen in the Arctic, where ice sheets have been receding for several years. Satellite measurements have confirmed that summer sea ice levels in the Arctic are at their lowest levels since the 1970s, a clear indication that ocean and atmospheric temperatures are rising. Moreover, the decrease in sea ice and increase in ocean temperatures has contributed to a 7-inch increase in sea levels over the past century, contributing to more frequent flooding in coastal
Studies held in Svalbard have shown that the reindeer population has been decreasing it’s body mass. Reindeer born in the 1990’s weighed about 121 pounds, and those born in 2010 weighed about 106 pounds. This issue is a direct result of climate change, which is the expansion of the greenhouse effect, that is being caused by the doings of humans. Climate change indicates warmer winters means more rain. When the rain freezes, it creates a thick layer of ice above their food, which prevents the reindeer from eating, and creating serious competition for other food. The hungry females either aren’t able to give birth or produce babies that are much tinier.
Climate change can affect global climate patterns, sea level fluctuations, and heat waves. From a statistical source, the chart in source 8 titled, “Average Global Temperature, 1880-2009” shows a gradual spike since the last century. One of the most controversial topics that revolve around Global Warming and Climate Change, being controversial topics themselves, are the polar ice caps. One of the immediate and recordable results of Climate Change, can be seen and recorded and studied from these ice caps. Because of the greenhouse gases being contained within the atmosphere, the gradually increasing warmth could influence the melting rates of these ice caps and glaciers, causing a rippling effect into increasing sea levels as well. In the Vice documentary, it shows how that once these glaciers start to melt and add into the oceans’ rising sea level, low levelled cities and countries would be drowned, becoming relatively sub-sea level, to the rising tide. Many places such as Florida, Thailand, and Bangladesh would be reduced into nothing but oceanic
There are many questions that arise when talking about climate change, and one of those questions is what are some evidences of climate change? There are nine major evidences of climate change and they are: seal level rise, global temperature rise, warming oceans, shrinking ice sheets, declining Arctic sea ice, glacial retreat, extreme events, ocean acidification, and decreased snow cover. These evidences occur all around the world and are very noticeable by anyone who comes in contact with them (“Climate Change”).
Climate change is happening and it is happening quite rapidly all around the world. The earth is undoubtedly warming and over the past one hundred years, Earth’s average temperature has increased by about 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit. (EPA 1) The big problem with the average temperature rising is that it can have a negative effect on the planet and potentially have dramatic shifts in the global climate. According to the EPA, the United States Environmental Protection Agency, “Many places have seen changes in rainfall, resulting in more floods, droughts, or intense rain, as well as more frequent and severe heat waves. The planet's oceans and glaciers have also experienced some big changes - oceans are warming and becoming more acidic, ice caps are
Human health is slowly diminishing, the ocean and sea levels are increasing dramatically, and plant life around the earth is vanishing- all due to the longly debated topic of climate change. Climate change is no myth; it’s a further analysis of how our planet is suffering the negative effects of human carelessness, which can be observed through the glaciers worldwide. Due to fossil fuel consumption and deforestation, greenhouse gasses are beyond regular amounts and affecting the glaciers, causing them to melt and increase ocean and sea levels.
Climate change in the world can be caused by various activities. When climate change occurs; temperatures can increase a dramatically. When temperature rises, many different changes can occur on Earth. For example, it can result in more floods, droughts, or intense rain, as well as more frequent and severe heat waves. Oceans and glaciers have also experienced some changes: oceans are warming and becoming more acidic, glaciers are melting, and sea levels are rising. As these changes frequently occur in future decades, they will likely present challenges to our society and environment.
After decades of studies and impacts becoming more significant, people from every society should unite in their stand on climate change in order to clearly communicate stimulating pieces of information that lead to definite actions in addressing environmental problems.
Climate change is one of the biggest problems the whole world is collectively facing. Even though climate change is partially caused by the natural cycles of Earth, humans I think are still a major part of it and I think that we can do more to protect the environment that we live in. Climate change happens when temperatures increase dramatically. When climate change causes temperature rises many environmental problems can occur here on earth . Temperatures rising can result in more floods, droughts, or flooding rain, as well as more frequent and severe heat waves which can cause wildfires. Oceans and the Antarctic Ice Glaciers have also experienced changes in oceans that are rising temperatures and are becoming more acidic. The Antarctic ice glaciers are melting and sea levels are rising destroying many habitats along the ice glaciers such as penguins and polar bears. As these changes frequently occur in future decades, they will likely present challenges to our society and environment.
From the observations presented in the paper it is clear that there is direct/indirect link between extreme events and climate change and the similar observation was found by Seneviratne et al., 2012) supporting that Climate change has resulted in changes in the occurrence of extreme events. Moreover, Out of 24 extreme events analyzed in this paper, 12 showed direct or indirect links to anthropogenic climate change and some could not be explained. Once a change has been detected it is important to attribute that change to some cause. Attribution, especially to human greenhouse gas emissions, gives confidence to model projections of the future driven by anthropogenic forcing as well as predictions of extremes at shorter time scales (Seneviratne and Zwiers, 2015). When an extreme event occurs, the question of attribution of these events to human-induced climate change is of particular interest. Two schools of thought have emerged in this rapidly developing field. “Oxford” quantifies the change in probability of an extreme event of a particular observed magnitude caused by the human alteration of the climate system whereas “Boulder” (NOAA 's Earth System Research Laboratory) examines the human induced change in magnitude of an extreme event. While providing different types of information to stakeholders, both these probabilistic and mechanistic schools of thought have been shown to be equivalent (Easterling et al 2016). But in some cases, some scientists have concluded that a