The change of climate throughout the world is due heavily to the interference of mankind’s polluting the atmosphere with chemicals. By burning fossil fuels we have created an overload of carbon dioxide in the earth’s atmosphere causing an imbalance that has increased negative effects of global warming to become more severe. The addition of chemicals and CO2 has caused the atmosphere to trap in more of the sun’s rays, which expedites the heating of the earth. This increase in climate change can affect the factors that contribute to the influx of frequent and severe natural disasters. Disasters such as earthquakes are caused by the movement of the tectonic plates, so they will not be affected by global warming much, if at all. However, droughts, flooding, and hurricanes are all common natural disasters which can be significantly affected by the atmospheric alterations caused by global warming.
In the western region of America, there is a high possibility of an increase in droughts due to the rising temperatures, especially in states such as California. Due to the western region’s geography, retaining water is not easy, and the amount of rainfall is already low. The change in climate over a period of 10 to 20 years will result in the continuous decrease of annual rainfall. In contrast, the severity of droughts will continue to increase, making it harder to live or survive in this region. And while the amount of rain decreases in this region, there will be an increase in rain in the mid-American region.
Since the Midwest of America mainly consists of agricultural areas, an excess of rain can cause immense flooding and ruin the geography of the land by turning the soil into mud, making farming near impossible. This takes a heavy toll for the people that live there, since they need to to make money from their crops, as well the rest of the country that depends on the crops for food.. As time progresses, these rains will increase along with global warming, and if the flooding increases then this could render the land useless to farmers since they cannot use it to grow crops. In addition to flooding and drought being factors caused by global warming, there is also the matter of hurricanes.
Hurricanes are caused by a sudden surge of hot air from below the ocean and cool air from above the ocean. With the advancement of global warming, hurricanes are not entirely likely to occur more frequently, but studies do show that the scale of these hurricanes may become more drastic. With more hot air systems over the oceans, the hurricanes that do form are more likely to expand with higher wind speeds and more rain. Natural disasters like that are more likely to occur long the East Coast of America, where hurricanes are more common because the land is closer to the ocean. An increase in the destructive power of hurricanes can destroy the land, as well as the buildings situated in the hurricane’s path.
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Findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (https://www.ipcc.ch/) shows that humans have significant influence on climate change. The largest human contribution to this issue has been the emission of greenhouse gases, with approximately 90% of the impact from carbon dioxide and methane. Burning fossil fuels like gasoline and other oils is one of the most important sources of those gases, with agricultural emissions and deforestation playing important roles. Increasing atmospheric energy and large rates of water evaporation are causing more devastating storms and extreme weather change, impacting in a negative way the agricultural infrastructure. Surface temperatures will increase and are higher in the Arctic and that contributes to the melting and decreasing of sea ice. Environmental impacts include the extinction or relocation of many species as a result of changes in their ecosystem, most immediately in coral reefs, mountains, and the Arctic. Surface temperatures could stabilize and decline if the emissions decreased, however different influences will preserve for centuries, along with rising sea levels from melting ice sheets, rising ocean temperatures, and ocean acidification from elevated ranges of carbon dioxide. Mitigation efforts to address international warming include the improvement and deployment of low carbon energy technology, rules to reduce fossil gas emissions, reforestation, wooded area protection, in addition to the development of capacity climate engineering technologies. Societies and governments are also running to adapt to modern and destiny global warming influences, along with advanced coastline protection, higher disaster management, and the development of extra resistant plants. Countries are working together on climate change below the umbrella of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which has many countries as members. The goal of the convention is to “avoid dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system”. The IPCC has highlighted the need to hold international warming lower than pre-business ranges to be able to stave off some irreversible affects. With present day regulations and pledges, international warming is predicted to rise to about 2.8 °C. At the cutting-edge greenhouse gas emission rate, the emissions price range for staying under could be exhausted via 2028.