“The era of procrastination, of half measures, of soothing and baffling expedients of delay are coming to a close. In its place, we are entering a period of consequences.” Winston Churchill
Physical impacts
This section describes physical impacts of climate change. For some of these physical impacts, their effect on social and economic systems are also described.
Effects on weather
Increasing temperature is likely to lead to increasing precipitation [12][13] but the effects on storms are less clear. Extratropical storms partly depend on the temperature gradient, which is predicted to weaken in the northern hemisphere as the polar region warms more than the rest of the hemisphere.[14]
Extreme weather
See also: Extreme weather, Tropical cyclone#Global warming, and List of Atlantic hurricane records
IPCC (2007a:8) predicted that in the future, over most land areas, the frequency of warm spells or heat waves would very likely increase.[3] Other likely changes are listed below:
• Increased areas will be affected by drought
• There will be increased intense tropical cyclone activity
• There will be increased incidences of extreme high sea level (excluding tsunamis)
Local climate change
Main article: Regional effects of global warming
The first recorded South Atlantic hurricane, "Catarina", which hit Brazil in March 2004
Regional effects of global warming vary in nature. Some are the result of a generalised global change, such as rising temperature, resulting in local effects, such as melting ice. In other cases, a change may be related to a change in a particular ocean current or weather system. In such cases, the regional effect may be disproportionate and will not necessarily follow the global trend.
There are three major ways in which global warming will make changes to regional climate: melting or forming ice, changing the hydrological cycle (of evaporation and precipitation) and changing currents in the oceans and air flows in the atmosphere. The coast can also be considered a region, and will suffer severe impacts for
0 comments:
Post a Comment