This is my second round of research about climate change, in my first round of research it was all about how greenhouse gasses cause climate change.
In this round I will be talking about the impacts of climate change.
Climate change causes high temperatures that increase heat related diseases. Wildfires are more common in places with high temperatures and spread more rapidly. High temperatures cause high evaporation rates, which exacerbates extreme rainfall and flooding leading to destructive storms. Flooding is increasing due to climate change because it has been noted that there have been more instances of heavy and frequent rainfall(2). Drought is also becoming common due to the intense heat(1). These storms destroy homes and communities. Some infrastructure is really vulnerable to climate change because extreme weather patterns that bring that heavy rainfall, flood, temperatures, wind and snow may cause stress on the infrastructure hence destroying them (2).
Climate change is affecting health in various ways. It may lead to death due to increasingly frequent extreme weather events such as heat waves, storms and floods (3). Climate change causes involuntary displacement of the people due to increased weather disasters which leads to destruction of homes(4).
The increase in temperatures has lead to the permafrost in the Arctic regions melt and these disrupts the ecosystem. Climate change impacts agriculture and food production around the world due to elevated CO2 absorbs the sun rays causing high temperatures that alter with precipitation in that area hence there will be no enough water for irrigation. Climate change also warms the ocean causing knock off effects such as thermal expansion which leads to rise of sea levels and changes in ocean currents. As the excessive heat and energy warms the ocean, the change in temperature leads to unparalleled cascading effects, including sea level rise (5). Warm climate causes sea water to expand and ice over land to melt both of which can cause a rise in sea levels(6). Sea level rise at specific locations may be more or less than the global average due to many local factors example: variations in land height(6).
In my third round of research i will be looking more into the impacts stated above.
(1)https://www.un.org/en/climatechange/science/causes-effects-climate-change#:~
(2)https://www.noaa.gov/education/resource-collections/climate/climate-change-impacts
(3)https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/climate-change-and-health
(4)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_climate_change
(5)https://www.un.org/en/climatechange/science/climate-issues/ocean-impacts
(6)https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/sealevelclimate.html
A short video to show the impact of climate change