~Climate Change~
Global climate change is caused by many factors working together. The enhanced greenhouse effect is the additional atmospheric warming produced by increasing levels of greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, CFC’s, and tropospheric ozone, due to human activities. These greenhouse gases trap the sun’s infrared radiation inside the atmosphere and the radioactive forcing describes how these gasses affect heat in the atmosphere, the more heat contained the greater the temperature. While the burning of fossil fuels does contribute 70-75% of anthropogenic CO2 sources, land use change also plays a major role in the release of stored CO2 into the atmosphere. The melting of ice on land and in the oceans has contributed to the rising of sea levels, alongside with thermal expansion as the oceans get warmer.
The effects of climate change
globally include an increase of the average global temperature, melting of land
and ocean ice, sea level rise, changing precipitation patterns, and drought.
The rising sea level will effect small islands such as Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and
the Caribbean through shrinking the land mass, increasing storm surge
vulnerability, and salt water intrusion. Food security will decrease through
the increase of pests damaging crops and the increase of irrigation needs which
will then contribute to higher costs of water and water availability conflicts.
Food security will also be impacted by precipitation changes altering the
harvesting seasons, shifts in suitable growing temperatures to higher latitudes
with soil unsuitable for growing crops, and higher severity, duration, and
frequency of droughts. There will also be a higher disease prevalence as
pathogens will gain access to colonize new areas previously unsuitable for
their niche. Climate change effects in North America include increased incidences
of sever hot weather events over most of the USA, increases in heavy
precipitation over most of the North American continent, and a decrease in
frost days. It is predicted that the changes of precipitation patterns and sea
level rise will contribute to issues gaining access to water, agriculture,
economic activities, and urban settlement. The decrease in precipitation and
increase in temperature in region of North America will result in a decline in
net productivity of major crops. In the Midwest and Northwestern parts of the
USA the annual precipitation and runoff would increase while it would decrease
in the southern region. Climate change
along with development will cause the water quality in North America to decline
decreasing the amount of accessible potable water in the region. These changes
in climate will reduce not only water availability but also soil moisture in
the US West/Southwest, the Western Prairies in Canada, and central and northern
Mexico causing food scarcity issues and a loss in economic gains.
Although the effects of climate
change can be detrimental to live on earth there are some ways to mitigate
these changes. These methods include reducing CO2 emission through reducing
forest fires, degradation, and deforestation and implementing afforestation to
store the carbon in terrestrial systems, decarbonizing electric generation, and
replacing the current coal-fired power plants with highly efficient natural gas
combined-cycle power plants (IPCC, 2014). Another way to mitigate the changes
in by changes in consumption patterns. This includes mobility demand and mode,
such as the type of car we drive and the use of public transportation and
ride-share, energy use in individual household, and choosing longer-lasting
recyclable products. Changing our consumption pattern also includes dietary changes
and a reduction in food waste.
In addition to mitigation there are
ways we as humans can adapt to the changing climate. Some examples of
adaptation strategies are New York City using green infrastructure to capture rainwater
before a flood can ensue, the state of Washington building a Ross Dam on a
specially made foundation so that it can later be raised in height, The South Florida
Water Management District using forward pumping, and Cambridge, Ontario installing
extra-capacity culverts to anticipate large runoff (Romero-Lankao, 2014) .
Other strategies include programs that reduce Canadian forest pest
infestations, breeding disease and insect resistance crops, and provide
governmental assistance to low-income groups and vulnerable communities.
References
Doyle, Julie. Environmental Sociology : Mediating Climate
Change. Farnham, GB: Routledge, 2011. ProQuest ebrary. Web. 18 April 2017.
IPCC, 2014: Climate
Change 2014: Synthesis
Report. Contribution of Working
Groups I, II and
III to
the Fifth Assessment Report
of the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change [Core Writing Team, R.K. Pachauri and L.A. Meyer (eds.)].
IPCC, Geneva, Switzerland, 151 p
Romero-Lankao,
P., J.B. Smith, D.J. Davidson, N.S. Diffenbaugh, P.L. Kinney, P. Kirshen, P.
Kovacs, and L. Villers Ruiz, 2014: North America. In: Climate Change 2014: Impacts,
Adaptation, and Vulnerability. Part
B: Regional Aspects. Contribution of Working Group II to the Fifth Assessment
Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Barros, V.R., C.B.
Field, D.J. Dokken, M.D. Mastrandrea, K.J. Mach, T.E. Bilir, M. Chatterjee,
K.L. Ebi, Y.O. Estrada, R.C. Genova, B. Girma, E.S. Kissel, A.N. Levy, S.
MacCracken, P.R. Mastrandrea, and L.L. White (eds.)]. Cambridge University
Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA, pp. 1439-149
