Effects Of Global Warming

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

There have been many effects of global warming. As we know, global warming is caused by human activities such as open burning, deforestation and developing of industrial area. Global warming will directly and indirectly influence human health. Directly affect human health includes asthma, cardiovascular diseases and heat stress. However, indirectly affect human health includes some communicable diseases, injury and changes in diet and nutrition. These diseases may increase the death rate. Those young and elderly will suffer due to the extreme changes in weather where there is lesser coping capacity. The extreme rise in temperature may increase ground level ozone concentrations. This causes direct lung injury and as a result increases the pulmonary disease. Besides, global warming distributes the transmission of infectious. Insects are the primary vector. The most common insect is mosquitoes. Dengue and yellow fever are examples of disease transmitted by mosquitoes. The virus that causes yellow fever lives in mosquitoes only when temperature is exceeding 24 ͦC under high relative humidity. Thus, climate change will directly affect the distribution of viruses and mosquitoes.

http://edugreen.teri.res.in/explore/climate/health.htm#dir

On the other hand, global warming causes drought. Global warming is the increasing of average earth’s surface temperature. The droughts of 1998-2002 are indeed highly anomalous and consistent with global warming caused by emission of greenhouse gases ( Hoerling & Kumar, 2003). There will be increased risk for drying of the mid-latitudes in the future. Rate of evaporation of water will increase due to the drastically increase in temperature which caused by greenhouse effect. Drying of rainforest instead will happen too. There will be less rain fall which causes many crops to die. Consequently, low yield will be produced. The higher rate of evaporation also will lead to wildfire. The hydrological cycle is affected. This is because water will keep evaporating. The drier condition is then increasing the probability of wildfire occurrence. The earth’s surface heat builds up easily. Hence, the rainforest are not able to afford the high earth surface heat.

Global warming will change the terrestrial and aquatic system ecosystems too. Some species migrate from one particular place to another and some of the species will lead to extinction. Some bodies of water become warm. The increase in temperature causes most of the species cannot adapt to the changing environment. River will dry up if the weather is getting warm and hot. All the marines, plants and animals cannot survive due to lack source of water. Ecosystem processes such as low of nutrient, decomposition and respiration are sensitive to the changing in temperature and moisture. This is how global warming affects them.

(Ecology & Field Biology, Sixth Edition, Smith & Smith<author>, Printed in United States of America , 2001, Benjamin Cummings<publisher> )

Everyone fears the effects of global warming. Another effect of global warming is the increasing of sea level. Global climatic change brings greater variance in temperature. The average surface temperature keeps climbing. This global climatic change leads to the melting of ice caps. Human activities such as the burning of fossil fuel increase greenhouse gases in atmosphere. Ice glacier is melting worldwide and it melts faster with the increasing of temperature in air. It is obviously observing other sign of change all over the planet. For example, ice glacier in South America is melting faster and it is expected could disappear by years 2020. This also has reduced ice cover over earth in turn is causing temperatures to rise further. Theoretically, ice glacier is absorbed 20% of the heat and 80% of of heat is deflected. On the other hand , 20% of heat is deflected back and 80% of heat is absorbed by the earth when ice glacier melts. (http://www.buzzle.com/articles/global-warming-and-melting-glaciers.html)

Melting of ice glacier causes the increase in temperature in sea level. When the ice glacier melts, the water will flow from ice glacier to sea water and ocean. All the low land area or place that nearby the seaside will be displaced by the melting water of ice glacier and causing flood in the particular area. According to 2007 IPCC report, it is estimated that the global mean sea level will rise by 0.18 to 0.59 m between year 1990 and year 2100. As global temperatures increase, the oceans become warmer and therefore expand. Most of the smaller low-lying islands lie almost below 3m above the sea level. Increasing of sea level will tremendously reduce the land area. Besides, it will cause an impact on fresh water supply. The hydrological cycle also will be affected. This is because there will be more evaporation and less precipitation due to the high average surface temperature. The warmer the atmosphere, the higher the capacity to hold the water vapour increases. Ground water levels tend to be dropping due to pumping for irrigation rather than the lack of rain fall. Consequently, rainfall pattern is being altered.

Besides, global warming influences the agriculture production. Plant species distribution will be limited directly by some environmental factors such as temperature and moisture that impact the plant species to survive, grow and reproduce. Climate change will indirectly influence the productivity of crop species. For example, increasing in temperature has a greater effect on countries whose climate is already very high and cause low agriculture production.