In my last post, I said that the effects of climate change are bad. In this post, I am going to explain what the effects of climate change (both direct and indirect), how climate change causes them, and some of the outcomes of the effect.
First, let’s talk about warming temperatures. As mentioned in the last post, greenhouse gases (GHGs) make the planet warmer by trapping heat into the earth. This is the root cause of many of the other things mentioned in this post. The main effect that is directly related to heat that effect humans directly are heat-related illnesses. The main heat-related illnesses are heat rash, sunburn, heat cramp, heat exhaustion, and heat stroke. Here is a graph about earth’s surface temperature over time:
Another effect of climate change is more severe and frequent storms. As temperatures continue to rise, the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere also continues to rise. This is essentially fuel for more severe storms to develop. The heat in the atmosphere also leads to warmer sea level temperatures. Since the ocean is having more water vapor and heat, the wind blows stronger and the rainfall gets heavier as the storm goes through the warm oceans, which makes the storm more severe. The fast wind speed from this could cause more severe hurricanes.
Another effect of climate change is rising sea levels. The heat can lead to ice sheets and glaciers to melt, adding more water to the ocean, causing sea levels to rise. The heat from the atmosphere can also cause the sea water to expand, which also leads to sea level rise. This is bad because it is also a factor that can lead to more severe storms, as well as cause flooding and damage to coastal areas. At this rate, the sea level is expected to rise somewhere between 1 and 6.6 feet by the end of the century. Here is a graph of the sea level rise over time:
Another effect of climate change is more frequent and longer droughts. This is bad for many reasons. One of the reasons it is bad is it can cause many deaths in plants, animals, and insects due to it not being easy to access water. In some parts of the world, this includes humans, but it is not that common in well-developed countries like the United States. This is just one reason, but there are other reasons it is very bad.
Another effect of climate change is a longer and more severe wildfire season. In order for a wildfire to continue, it relies on warmer temperatures, lower relative humidity, and less moisture in flammable things like trees. All of these can and will be triggered by climate change in certain parts of the world.
Another effect of climate change is the Arctic melting. This would be catastrophic. This would speed up sea level rise due to more water in the ocean, accelerate global warming and cause more extreme heatwaves due to not being able to reflect the sunlight, release methane (which is another GHG) by having it exposed to the atmosphere, and cause severe winters around the world by allowing the polar jet stream (which is strong wind that goes around the Arctic) to be further south than it is, leading to more sever winters in the far northern part of the world. At this rate, the Arctic is expected to be melted by 2040.
As you have realized by now, climate change is a big deal and not something we should ignore. People are trying to help with climate change, but, unless we take drastic measures very soon, it won’t be much help for a majority of the population to not help with climate change. Help use spread the word to help us deal with the ongoing climate crisis.
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