CLIMATE CHANGE: THE EFFECTS AND SOME SUGGESTED SOLUTIONS

Climate change refers to general shifts in climate, including temperature, precipitation, winds, and other factors. Global warming (as well as global cooling) refers specifically to any change in the global average surface temperature. Global warming is often misunderstood to imply that the world will warm uniformly. In fact, an increase in average global temperature will also cause the circulation of the atmosphere to change, resulting in some areas of the world warming more, others less. Some areas can even cool. Dont let average temperatures fool you: A one-degree increase may be found in one place, a 12-degree increase in another place, and yet other areas may become much colder. Unfortunately, although it significantly misrepresents what really happens, the term global warming' is still often used by media and others to describe climate change.

The effects of climate change:

What could happen if the climate changes?

1. Higher temperature
Have you ever taken your temperature to see if you are getting sick? Scientists have been taking the Earth's temperature and have found that it is getting warmer. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 1 concludes that most of the observed temperature increase since the middle of the 20th century was very likely caused by increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases resulting from human activity such as fossil fuel burning and deforestation.

The IPCC is a group of hundreds of experts from more than 100 countries. They work at universities, research centers, businesses, and environmental organizations. Together, to build the IPCC reports. The IPCC does not do research about climate change. Instead, the group produces reports that explain what we know about climate change. These reports are based on all the books and articles that describe the science of our planet and climate and as such they are like the worlds most extensive book reports. The reports of the IPCC are used by government officials in countries around the world as they make policies about how their countries will tackle problems like greenhouse gas emissions, climate change, and other global changes. The reports are also read by scientists, other experts, students, and anyone else who wants to better understand what we know about Earths climate system

Over 100 years ago, people worldwide began burning more coal and oil for homes, factories, and transportation. Burning these fossil fuels releases carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, which have caused Earth to warm more quickly than it has in the past. The world's surface air temperature increased an average of 0.6 Celsius (1.1F) during the 20th century according to IPPC. This may not sound like very much of a temperature change, but it is. And the warmer temperature is causing noticeable changes to our planet. Some effects of higher temperature that we can see happening: Sea level is rising Floods, drought, hurricane have changed in frequency and strength: worse trend Human health is affecting If annual emissions continued at todays levels, greenhouse gas levels would be close to double pre-industrial levels by the middle of the century. If this concentration were sustained, temperatures are projected to eventually rise by 2 5C or even higher.

2. Changing landscapes
Rising temperatures and changing patterns of rain and snow are forcing trees and plants around the world to move toward polar regions and up mountain slopes. As plant communities try to adjust to the changing climate by moving toward cooler areas, the animals that depend on them will be forced to move. Development and other barriers may block the migration of both plants and animals. Some species and communities such as polar bears and alpine meadows may be left without any remaining viable habitat, putting much of our treasured wildlife at risk.

3. Wildlife at risk
The rapid nature of climate change is likely to exceed the ability of many species to migrate or adjust. Experts predict that one-fourth of Earths species will be headed for extinction by 2050 if the warming trend continues at its current rate. Many species are already feeling the heat: In 1999, the death of the last Golden Toad in Central America marked the first documented species extinction driven by climate change. Due to melting ice at the two poles of the earth, polar bears at the north pole and penguins at the south pole may be gone from the planet in as little as 100 years. In the tropics, increased sea temperatures are causing more coral reefs to bleach, as the heat kills colorful algae that are necessary to coral health and survival.

4. Rising seas
As the Earth heats up, sea levels rise because: Warmer water takes up more room than colder water (a process known as thermal expansion) Melting glaciers and melting ice at the north and south poles.

Rising seas threaten to the low-lying areas and islands, threaten dense coastal populations, erode shorelines, damage property and destroy ecosystems such as mangroves and wetlands that protect coasts against storms. Worldwide, approximately 100 million people live within three feet of sea level. Sea level rise associated with climate change could displace tens of millions of people in lowlying areas especially in developing countries. Inhabitants of some small island countries that rest barely above the existing sea level are already abandoning their islands, some of the worlds first climate change refugees Sea levels have risen between 15 and 25 centimetres in the past 100 years. In 2008, 60 million people live in areas at risk of flooding. This amount could increase rapidly if sea levels rose. Scientists estimate that a sea rise of only 50 centimetres would increase the number of people at risk to 100 million. A sea level rise of 1 metre would put 120 million people at risk. Scientists believe that there will be a sea level rise of 60 centimetres over the next 40 to 100 years2. The diagram below shows the effect of a rising sea level on the low lying area of the Nile Delta.

The Effect of a Rise in Sea Level on the Nile Delta

BBC News, 2008

5. Increased risk of drought, fire and floods

Climate change is intensifying the circulation of water on, above and below the surface of the Earth causing drought and floods to be more frequent, severe and widespread. Higher temperatures increase the amount of moisture that evaporates from land and water, leading to drought in many areas. Lands affected by drought are more vulnerable to flooding once rain falls. As temperatures rise globally, droughts will become more frequent and more severe, with potentially devastating consequences for agriculture, water supply and human health. This phenomenon has already been observed in some parts of Asia and Africa, where droughts have become longer and more intense. Hot temperatures and dry conditions also increase the likelihood of forest fires. In the conifer forests of the western United States, earlier snowmelts, longer summers and an increase in spring and summer temperatures have increased fire frequency by 400 percent and have increased the amount of land burned by 650 percent since 1970.

6. Stronger storms and increased storm damage

Scientific research indicates that climate change will cause hurricanes and tropical storms to become more intense lasting longer, unleashing stronger winds, and causing more damage to coastal ecosystems and communities. Scientists point to higher ocean temperatures as the main culprit, since hurricanes and tropical storms get their energy from warm water. As sea surface temperatures rise, developing storms will contain more energy. At the same time, other factors such as rising sea levels, disappearing wetlands, and increased coastal development threaten to intensify the damage caused by hurricanes and tropical storms.

7. More heat-related illness and disease

As temperatures rise, so do the risks of heat-related illness and even death for the most vulnerable human populations. In 2003, for example, extreme heat waves caused more than 20,000 deaths in Europe and more than 1,500 deaths in India. Scientists have linked the deadly heat waves to climate change and warn of more to come. In addition to heat-related illness, climate change may increase the spread of infectious diseases, mainly because warmer temperatures allow disease-carrying insects, animals and microbes to survive in areas where they were once thwarted by cold weather. Diseases and pests that were once limited to the tropics such as mosquitoes that carry malaria may find hospitable conditions in new areas that were once too cold to support them.

The Malaria Carrying Mosquito

The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that climate change may have caused more than 150,000 deaths in the year 2000 alone, with an increase in deaths likely in the future.

8. Economic losses
Climate change is affecting businesses and economies at home and around the world. If action is not taken to curb global carbon emissions, climate change could cost between 5 and 20 percent of the annual global gross domestic product, according to a British government report. In comparison, it would take 1 percent of GDP to lessen the most damaging effects of climate change, the report says. Globally, more intense hurricanes and downpours could cause billions of dollars in damage to property and infrastructure. Declining crop yields due to prolonged drought and

high temperatures, especially in Africa, could put hundreds of thousands of people at risk for starvation. High sea temperatures also threaten the survival of coral reefs, which generate an estimated $375 billion per year in goods and services.

9. Climate Change and Poverty

The 3 billion people who live in poverty around the world will be hardest hit by climate change. The poor are more dependent on natural resources and have less of an ability to adapt to a changing climate. Diseases, declining crop yields and natural disasters are just a few of the impacts of climate change that could devastate the world's most vulnerable communities. The world's poorest are also the least responsible for climate change: The world's least developed countries contribute only 10 percent of annual global carbon dioxide emissions.

Some suggested solutions:

The U.N.'s top climate official, Yvo de Boer issued a stark reminder that the clock has run out. "The time for formal statements is over. The time for re-stating well known positions is past. The time has come to reach out to each other. I urge you to build on your achievements, take up the work that has already been done and turn it into action." We only can avoid the worst impacts of climate change if we take strong actions now. And what can we do? Will turning down the heating, recycling rubbish and planting a tree be enough? Or are governments going to have to force us to count up our carbon emissions and change our energy-guzzling ways? Here are some solutions for climate change:

1. What governments can do

Action on climate change is required across all countries, and it need not cap the aspirations for growth of rich or poor countries. Tackling climate change is the pro-growth strategy for the longer term, and it can be done in a way that does not cap the aspirations for growth of rich or poor countries. "At the highest level, the key role of governments is to set up internationally agreed global frameworks to tackle climate change" says Mike Hulme, director of the Tyndall Centre for climate change research at the University of East Anglia.

The Kyoto protocol was supposed to be just that, but many people feel that without the US - the world's biggest CO2 emitter - the treaty will have little impact. However, there is no 'one size fits all' solution and instead, solutions need to be tailored to fit the needs of individual countries. At the national level, governments need to persuade people to change their ways. Put high taxes for large and inefficient cars. Encourage investments in low carbon technology Governments can also play a major role by funding research to establish the basic science behind climate change

2. What scientists and engineers advise

All over the world, scientists are working hard at understanding our climate and coming up with ingenious solutions for tackling the global warming problem. So what are they suggesting? First up is cleaner, greener forms of energy. Driving a car accounts for about 40% of the average person's greenhouse gas emissions, so developing low emission cars could make a real difference. Bio-power cars, such as those produced for Saab's 9-5 range, run almost entirely on wood chip, wheat and sugar. Meanwhile, hybrid cars, such as the Toyota Prius, combine the power of a petrol engine with the efficiency of an electric motor. Biopower cars are already popular in Brazil and Sweden, while congestion charge exemption and tight emissions laws have made hybrids the latest fashion accessory in London and California, respectively Fuel cell vehicles using hydrogen created from renewable power emit virtually no carbon. Fuel cells work by converting chemical energy into electrical energy, like a battery, but with a continuous supply of fuel. The great advantage of a hydrogen fuel cell is that its only product is water.

Scientists have calculated that CO2 emissions from vehicles could drop to nearly zero by 2050 if everyone started to adopt hydrogen fuel cell cars. But the problem is encouraging people to switch over. "Hydrogen is not used outside demonstrations and its introduction would be a major shift In the short term, we are more likely to see fuel cells doing the job that conventional batteries do. "Within the next few years, you may be charging your mobile phone with a methanol fuel cell.

More than a third of the average UK person's greenhouse emissions come from energy used at home, so finding new ways of heating and powering homes is a priority. Robert Mather, of Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, is developing solar-powered clothing and fabrics. The challenge is to create solar cells that can bend as the fabric moves, creating flexible solar panels and possibly even solar clothes. "We envisage these new solar cells on curved surfaces of buildings, or as transportable power that can be rolled up and moved around," he says. Nonetheless, there is a limit to what solar power can do, so what about the other renewables: wind, wave and tide? "If wind, tidal and wave power were developed to their full potential, they could provide 30% of the worlds power needs," says Graham Sinden, from the Environmental Change Institute at Oxford University. Another possibility is a very common rock formation known as a saline aquifer. "These contain a dome-like structure, which can be filled with CO2, just like an upturned cup," says Clair Gough, a Tyndall Centre researcher based at the University of Manchester. Experimental carbon storage projects already exist, including one under the North Sea, which swallows 1m tonnes of CO2 every year from a gas field just off Norway. "There is still more work to be done in surveying the geology of saline aquifers, but in theory we could store decades-worth of CO2" says Gough. Unfortunately, the most suitable ocean is the environmentally sensitive Southern Ocean, around Antarctica. And no one is sure exactly how much of the carbon gets locked away at the bottom of the ocean, and how much might bubble back out again. If reducing energy consumption and gathering up CO2 are not sufficient to solve the climate change problem, some scientists say we may need to turn down the Earth's thermostat. John Latham, from the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado, has come up with an idea to make the clouds more reflective, bouncing more sunlight back into space and helping the Earth to cool down. "Modifying clouds over around 3% of the Earth's surface would be enough to balance out the warming from doubled levels of atmospheric CO2," he says. Meanwhile, Lowell Wood, from the University of California's Lawrence Livermore National Lab, has ideas for reflecting sunlight from higher up. "The quick and dirty solution would be to fire particles into the Earth's stratosphere, which would enhance scattering of sunlight in a similar way to violent volcanoes like Pinatubo," he says. "With just a modest amount of particles we could scatter around 1% of incoming sunlight." More ambitious still is Wood's idea to scatter sunlight before it even reaches the Earth. He has suggested using rockets and solar sails to place a hi-tech transparent screen between the Earth and the sun, which would bend a fraction of the light and bounce it around the sides of the Earth. "The screen would be made from exceedingly fine wire, which would diffuse the infra-red portion of the sunlight and make it skitter around the Earth," says Wood.

3. What we can do
Much as the idea of technological fixes like these are appealing, it is unlikely that we would all manage to agree on such drastic solutions. Smaller changes are easier for governments to implement, and therefore more likely to be introduced. Most of us have very little say in these big decisions, but we can still help to tackle the problem. "If everyone in the world moderated their transport use, made small changes to their home energy and paid attention to the foods they ate, then we would achieve the Kyoto protocol targets six times over," says Dave Reay, an environmental scientist at the University of Edinburgh and author of Climate Change Begins at Home. According to Reay, just small changes in lifestyle can make huge differences. One of the most significant contributions we can make is to change the type of car we drive, or better still, take public transport. "A large four-wheel drive produces around three times as much CO2 as a 1.3 litre car," Reay says. Vehicle Compact car Full-size car Truck/Van Bus MPG 24 16 13 8 Pounds per gallon 20 20 21 22*

*Buses add more per gallon, but they carry more passengers, so be sure to consider contribution by passenger, not just vehicle. Very small changes in the home can also add up to big savings. The biggest impact comes from things like better insulating your home, turning down the thermostat and wearing an extra jumper, and buying energy efficient appliances. Curbing your appetite for exotic foods and eating local produce can also help slash your emissions. "By looking at individual actions and then multiplying them up, street by street, town by town and city by city, I found that small changes in lifestyle could make a huge difference," says Reay.

For people in the developed world, these changes could amount to a 30% reduction in emissions if everyone did them. There is no silver bullet solution to global warming, but it also isn't an impossible problem. While governments set up international policies, and scientists and engineers

conceive technical fixes, we can all do our bit at home and be confident that it really is making a difference.

The time to act is now and for everyone!!!

APPENDIX
The UK Met Office (UKMO) & Climatic Research Unit (CRU) maintain a dataset of mean global air temperature anomalies over land (relative to 1961-1990) from 1850 known as HadCRUT3. This dataset gives the 15 warmest years since 1850 as:

Rank

Year

Difference (C) in mean average temperature from 1961 to 1990 +0.70 +0.52 +0.48 +0.46 +0.46 +0.43 +0.42 +0.41 +0.40 +0.36 +0.28 +0.26 +0.25 +0.24 +0.20

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15

2008 1998 2005 2003 2002 2004 2006 2007 2001 1997 1995 1999 1990 2000 1991

Based on this dataset, 2008 was the 1st warmest year on record and the 15 warmest years since 1850 have all occurred since 1990.