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How Climate Change Will Affect Our Future, istockphoto-1318690298-612x612,…
How Climate Change Will Affect Our Future
Rising Sea Levels
Flooding
If sea levels continue to rise, many people and parts of the land will be affected. When the sea levels increase, more water can be evaporated, therefore increasing the chance of heavy rain and tsunamis. Coastal lands will be especially affected by this because they have the highest chance of flooding due to how close they are to the water.
Storm Surges
Storm surges are the abnormal rise in sea levels from strong wind gusts and contribute largely to flooding and hurricanes. From the rise in sea levels, storm surges will grow to be stronger and deadlier than ever before. Storm surges are worst when there is high tide and when the wind speeds are high. With the increase in sea levels, hurricanes and floods will be more common leading to more deaths and damage to our planet.
Habitats
Habitats will be lost and species will flee them looking for other places to live. Depending on the severity, some species could be killed by the rising sea levels if they can't go anywhere or leave fast enough. An example of a situation where species may be killed by rising sea levels is that coastal plants will drown in the water once the levels are high enough and the water reaches them.
Erosion
As sea levels increase, the negative effects of erosion do too. Erosion happens when changing and strong waves pull away rocks and sediments from the coastal land. This process is damaging to coastal ecosystems and habitats and can affect the fishing industries that are dependant on the fish within the habitats.
Temperature
Infrastructure
With the increase in temperature, infrastructure will be significantly impacted in many different ways. The increase is pushing materials and equipment beyond their temperature thresholds causing them to break down. Power lines, refrigeration units, roads, and rail lines are among the many pieces of equipment and resources that will fail if this continues.
Land
Rising temperatures will increase the chance of droughts and allow erosion to happen due to the dryness of the land. The supply of water will grow to be less and less after it's evaporated from the high temperatures and crops won't be able to grow due to the lack of water and wet soil. In the future most of our land is going to be very dry.
Natural Disasters
Natural disasters are caused by many different things and there are many different types of them. The main one that will be affected by the rise in temperature is forest fires. They will become far deadlier and more frequent with the rise in temperatures because of how dry the land and forests will be. With a drier climate, these fires will be able to spread at a much more rapid pace and destroy much more land.
Human Health
The increasing rise in temperature will allow diseases and illnesses to spread easier and faster in the air; making the risk of human health greater. The warmer temperatures will also decrease the want to even go outside because of some of the major effects. Some examples of the effects on human health are heat cramps, heat exhaustion, heatstroke, and hyperthermia. Temperatures will be significantly higher in the future if we keep this up.
Ecosystems
Biotic Factors
Climate Change is affecting lots of species and not just animals. The conditions that each specie has to adapt to and live under are too harsh and lots of ecosystems are crashing because they're losing the biotic factors. When one species dies, the food web is messed up and that leads to the starvation of other species. Ecosystems are crashing right now and will continue to do so in the future if we don't make a change.
Abiotic Factors
In every ecosystem, the biotic factors rely on the abiotic factors for their survival. If the abiotic factors aren't there to serve the biotic factors then the ecosystem crashes. For example, if polar bears who rely on ice and cold weather don't receive those things, they will die. In the future the only abiotic factors that will be left in these ecosystems are the sun and some dry land.
Animals
Any type of animal that is currently living in an ecosystem is at risk of death due to the threatening effects of climate change. Various species have recently been going extinct and one of the main reasons they are is because of climate change. They can't survive without food and water nor can they live in opposite climates than what they're supposed to live in. For example, polar bears should be living in cold, icy conditions, but they're living in warmer wet conditions as their land (ice) is melting. In the future many of these species will be extinct.
Location and Adaptation
Species are constantly moving around and having to adapt to new ecosystems and habitats because they had to leave their old ones. Adaptation is a good quality that all animals should have, but not every animal is good at adapting and for those who aren't, they won't make it out alive. Animals shouldn't have to be making drastic changes to their lifestyle, but because of climate change, they have to in order to survive. Some are even changing their body size to cool down faster. In the future, we will see more and more animals moving towards to poles and changing their lifestyle to cope with the hot climate.
Air Pollution
The Greenhouse Effect
The Greenhouse Effect is the trapping of the Sun's warmth in the Earth's lower atmosphere by absorbing some of the Sun's UV rays in greenhouse gases. We need the greenhouse effect to warm our Earth, but it is currently warming our Earth too much and it's because we're emitting too much carbon right now. If we continue to warm our Earth, the ice in the artic will be gone and we will have crazy high temperatures.
Diseases
As our temperatures rise, the risk of diseases spreading through the polluted air is much higher. There are many different types of airborne diseases and many of them travel through warmer polluted air. If we don't want everyone getting sick and having health problems in the future, we need to act now.
Respiratory Health
The human respiratory system is how each one of us is alive today and it's how we breathe air. The warmer temperatures produced by climate increase pollutants and allergens in the air. With poor air quality, there is a higher risk of heart attacks, asthma and reduced lung function. If we can't breathe than we can't live, so if we don't act now, our population will drastically decrease in the future and deaths will be more frequent.
Reliance on Plants
Our greatest source of oxygen is plants. Plants are what help us to breathe and be alive. They get rid of all of the carbon dioxide in our atmosphere and turn it into oxygen. We will need to rely heavily on plants to get rid of the carbon dioxide because if we don't keep planting more, we won't have any more air to breathe. In the future, we will need to have lots of plants or else we will get sick and not be able to breath from all of the polluted air.
Food
Quality
The quality of food in our future will be far less good than it is today if we don't make a big change fast. Through air pollution and rising temperatures, and sea levels, the food we eat will be more contaminated with diseases and substances that come from sewage and toxins and the air. In the future the food that we eat will carry many diseases and pollutants unless we act fast.
Supply
The Supply of food in the future will drastically decrease if climate change takes over. Unless we can come up with a solution, our supply of food in the future will be little to none. With the changes in temperatures and overall climate, the growing conditions for food will be too harsh to grow or produce any food at all and we will be left with no more food. That's the worst-case scenario though, we will have to come up with a plan to keep our supply up.
Agriculture
In the future, the farming of crops will be much more convenient than it is today. With the rise in temperature and droughts, it's unlikely there will be any more fields of crops. Instead, crops will have to be grown in big greenhouses and under LED lighting to promote faster and more sustainable growth.
Precision Agriculture
Another way of farming that may be used in the future, is a method to help us grow crops more efficiently called precision agriculture. Precision agriculture is a farming method that uses technological innovations like GPS, drones, sensors and soil sampling to help farmers to know what to do with their crops and when. It will help promote sustainability in farming and help to grow crops at higher efficiency.
