Earth’s climate has changed several times throughout its history and will continue to do so. These changes are due to internal natural manifestations, like continental drifting, atmospheric composition, ocean currents, the Earth’s magnetic field, among others, or external natural manifestations, like solar variations (changes in the flow of solar radiation or emissions of solar wind), orbital variations or due to the impact of meteorites. This phenomenon is dubbed natural climate variability.
Presently, the planet’s surface, due to the alteration of solar radiation balance, is in a heating phase that could considerably modify climate.
In this process, man is causing a direct impact of the heating of the planet and due to this it is known as anthropogenic climate change.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which was created in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) (UNEP), stated that the last ten years have been the hottest since records have been kept and the future will be even hotter if nothing is done about it.
Also, predictions have been made that say global temperature will rise between 1.4 and 5.8°C throughout the XXI century as a consequence of human activities. This increase is very dangerous, especially for Man’s health, because, for example, massive outbreaks of infectious diseases could resurface (like malaria and dengue) and they could kill millions of people. The resurfacing of infectious diseases would be due to the fact that an increase in temperature brings with it warmer winters in many places, which would increase the effective area of the aforementioned disorders beyond their endemic regions, where inhabitants have a certain immunity.
Causes and consequences of climate change
The planet’s degradation process happens because of three fundamental processes: the emission of greenhouse effect gasses (the main cause), acid rain and weakening of the ozone layer.
These processes, separately or together, are affecting animals (including Man), plants and the biomes in which they develop. Next, we will see a few problematic consequences related to climate change:
– Aquatic ecosystems: the heating of the oceans could alter the development area of coral reefs.
– Deserts: due to the increase of temperature, deserts will get warmer and less humid everyday, producing an even greater shortage of water, for example in areas of the Middle East and Africa.
– Icecaps and others: half of them could melt, placing coastal cities at risk, as well as cities located in the valleys.
– Coasts: large coastal surfaces would disappear due to flooding, which would be generated because sea level would ascend between 0.5 and 2 meters.
– Farmland: high temperatures and shortness of water would affect cereal crops. They are especially important because they are the world’s main source of food.
– Human health: through a direct route, for example, due to heat and an increase in pollution, respiratory and cardiovascular diseases could increase, as well as stress. Many people could suffer physical injuries caused by extreme events like floods, hurricanes, etc. Also, indirectly, due to droughts and climate change that cause favorable conditions, infectious centers would appear (virus, bacteria or parasites), as well as their transmitters, called vectors (like insects).
