Negative Effects of Climate Change

¶ … Negative Effects of Climate Change The weather patterns are changing all over the world and it has become one of the most debated issues across the globe with environmentalists having their concerns pertaining to global warming and its adverse effects on the environment in general.

It is important for us to note here that scientists at NASA are doing extensive research on this issue and it has been proposed that the climate change is predicted to have harmful effects in some regions of the world; meanwhile the changes in the weather patterns will also have some beneficial effects in some other parts of the world. However, the main focus of this paper will be on the harmful effects of climatic changes (Cox et al.).

Current and Future Consequences The effects of global climate change on the environment of the world have already been observed by the scientists and environmentalists. Ice on lakes and rivers breaks up earlier than it is supposed, the glaciers have shrunk, animal as well as plant ranges have started to shift and the trees have started to flower sooner than their expected season.

The negative effects of the changes in the climate had already been predicted by the scientists in the past and these effects includes stronger heat waves, accelerated and longer rise in sea levels as well as loss of sea ice in some parts of the world (Vitousek).

After conducting several studies and researches in this field, scientists have now claimed that they have high confidence that the temperatures all over the world will continue to rise for the coming few decades, mainly because of the greenhouse gases that are being produced as a result of the human activities. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the rise in temperature forecasted over the next century is 2.5 to 10 degrees of Fahrenheit. The aforementioned organization includes over 1,300 scientists from United States and many other countries (Randal Jackson).

The organization has also claimed that the degree of adverse effects of environmental change will vary from one region to another and over a different period of time. The adverse effects will be dependent on the various environmental and societal systems that are present in different regions to adapt or mitigate the changes.

It has been predicted by IPCC that the rise in mean temperature of the world of below 1.8 to 5.4 degrees of Fahrenheit, which makes 1 to 3 degrees Celsius, more than 1990 levels will result in beneficial impacts in some parts of the world and harmful ones in other regions. Over time, the net annual costs are also expected to increase with the increase in the global temperatures (Randal Jackson).

Considering the world in general, it has been stated by IPCC that the degree of published evidence pertaining to the net damage costs of changes in the global climate, it has been indicated that the likelihood of these costs to increase over time is quite significant. In this part of the paper, we shall take into consideration some of the predicted effects of global changes in the climate with respect to some particular parts of the world (Randal Jackson).

As for North America, scientists have stated that the snowpack in the mountains located towards the West is decreasing. In some regions, there has been a 5 to 20% increase in the production of rain-fed agriculture. Apart from that, there has been an increase in the intensity, frequency and duration of heat waves in many cities of the region (Randal Jackson). Latin America is expected to experience a gradual replacement of savannah situated in the eastern Amazonia in the place of tropical forest.

The scientists have also predicted the risk of considerable reduction in biodiversity because of the extinction of certain species, owing to the changes in the climate in the tropical regions. It has also been predicted that significant changes in agriculture, water availability with respect to human consumption and energy generation will also take place. Europe stands at a higher risk of adverse effects due to the global climate changes.

It has been predicted that the region will experience a great risk of inland flash floods, including increased erosion from sea level rise and storms and increase in the frequency of coastal floods. It has also been predicted that the mountainous regions of the continent will experience glacial retreat with a reduction in winter tourism because of reduced snow. Apart from that, scientists have also forecasted that crop production will also decline in southern Europe with an extensive loss of several species.

By the year 2020, it has been forecasted that 75 to 250 million African people will be put at a greater risk of increased water stress. It has also been predicted that the productivity of the rain-fed agricultural lands might decrease by.