Climate change impact on developing countries

Climate change is not only major environmental issue but also a major economic issue. The fast growing climate change impact will have devastating effect on global economy, and the most affected will be the developing nations because climate change effect will limit their long-term economic growth.

Ben Olken, a professor of economics at MIT, believes that the global temperature increase will have particularly negative impact on poor developing countries, not just because of damage done to the agriculture by frequent droughts but also because this will lead to major decrease in investment, political stability and industrial output.

Olken calculated that every 1-degree-Celsius temperature increase in a poor country, over the course of a given year, reduces its economic growth by about 1.3 percentage points.

His equation only applies to the world's developing nations because rich developed world does not appear to be affected this much by these variations in temperature.

The higher than normal temperatures hurt economy on many different levels, for instance by slowing down workforce, commerce, and in some cases even the capital investment.

Olken concluded that higher temperatures in a given year affect not only country's present economic activity but its long-term economic growth prospects.

Olken and his colleagues collected temperature and economic-output data for each country in the world, in every year from 1950 through 2003, and realized that by the numbers, growth fell following hot years.

It also has to be added that this study does not include all the possible issues that could be generated by long-term climate change, such as rising oceans, floods or increased storms, meaning that the climate change economic impact could prove to be much worse in years to come.

Chronic droughts to become normal sight in years to come

Many areas of the world have experienced severe droughts in the last two decades, with one the worst drought periods being the chronic drought that hit western North America from 2000 to 2004. The result of this drought was not only dying forests and depleted river basins but also increased climate change impact due to reduction in carbon sequestration.

Since carbon emissions continue to grow these type of chronic droughts could soon become a common sight for many areas all over the world, leading to massive environmental and economic damage. Even worse, these drought may after certain period of time be seen as the good old days because climate change is set to show us even scarier face in years to come.

The chronic droughts lead to massive destruction of vegetation, and this releases more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, further amplifying global warming effect.

The trees and plants are large carbon absorbers and their increased mortality means that their ability to sequester carbon is going to severely decline with frequent droughts and resulting wildfires.

The current drought in the American Midwest is also said to be directly connected with climate change and global warming.  If the world fails to reduce global carbon emissions, the future will look much worse.

The infamous 2000-2004 drought had massive negative impact on precipitation, soil moisture, river levels, crops, forests and grasslands, and this current drought in Midwest could follow this pattern, and was already called the worst since the Dust Bowl.

The scientists from the Oregon State University said in their latest study that „the situation will continue to worsen, and that 80 of the 95 years from 2006 to 2100 will have precipitation levels as low as, or lower than the 2000-2004 drought“.

The worst part of this story is that droughts are just one of many scary faces that climate change has.

The global temperatures continue to rise with warm July

The global temperatures continue to rise as the June 2012 was the fourth warmest June since record keeping began in 1880. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) scientists said that the average global temperature over land and ocean surfaces was 61.03°F, 1.13°F above the 20th century average.

The clear sign of ongoing global warming is also the fact that the June 2012 also represents the 36th consecutive June and 328th consecutive month with a global temperature above the 20th century average.

The scientists also report that most areas of North America, Eurasia, and northern Africa have experienced significant above-average monthly temperatures with only Australia, northern and Western Europe, and the northwestern United States being somewhat cooler than average.

The only real exception to the warmer than usual June was United Kingdom where temperatures were 0.5°F below the 1971-2000 average, making this the coolest June in the last 20 years.

If we look at the oceans alone then we can see that the June global ocean surface temperature was 0.85°F above the 20th century average of 61.5°F, making it the 10th warmest June on record.

By the current looks of it July and August should follow the June pattern, giving yet another clear proof of the ongoing global warming phenomenon.

Climate change impact on animal species

Climate change is one of tremendous dangers, which might occur in the next 100 years. To date it is of scientific concern to forecast what transformations will happen to the world, including natural environment, technology, social livelihood, etc. Animals are probably the only living creatures, which have already passed the age of major natural alterations dozens of millions years ago, at least some of them did. Do you remember dinosaurs, much depicted by modern film industry? That’s right, this is animal species, which could not overcome severe climate change. Age of tropic climate has been replaced by glacial eras for several times, but what consequences might bring next climate change period for animal habitat?

1.       Temperature shift is one of the most urgent in this context. In particular, it influences on processes in a body of any being, and the nature taken as a whole. Plants can experience severe changes, which leads to meal disorder for animals. Therefore, they may have less food to eat and, in the end, reduction of species sizes or even population quantity is unavoidable. In addition, scholars from Singapore National University state that hot temperature and unstable precipitations will definitely reduce body sizes of animals. In particular, their research gives some examples of possible body mass decline: fish – on 6-22% per 1°, bugs – 1-3%, salamanders   -14%. For the last 50 years certain species have already experienced major body decrease (common frogs (Bufobufo), red deer (Cervuselaphus), and marine iguanas (Amblyrhynchuscristatus).

2.       The emergence of new species and decrease of common ones is also a point to consider. Scientists from Washington University claim that some animals have not much time to avoid climate change influence. The Earth temperature rises due to greenhouse gases, the climate in Western Hemisphere will change dramatically and mammals in the North and South America will have to move into new habitats, which are more suitable for their existence. According to scientific estimates, 9% of American species, as well as 40% of animals from other regions, will not manage to escape climate change due to low speed.

3.       On the contrary, tropical species might also clash with despite the fact that hot climate is essential for them.The key thing is that there are some animal kinds, which possess extra-sensitivity to even the slightest temperature shifts. 

4.       Among already confirmed species, which are likely to survive, there are many carnivore species, armadillos, deer, coyotes and some moose. Many of these animals can move at a fairly long distances to reach the places where they can normally survive quickly.

5.       Massive animal migration to colder planet areas is noticed even today. There are 2 thousand records about changes of animal areal borders. Equatorial species move with a speed of 1,5 km / year to Northern and Southern poles, while birds are flying 12 meters higher. So, the direct influence of climate change on animals and their habitat is a no-doubt-issue, which testifies the probability of species’ survival.