Effects of climate change Flashcards
Sea levels shrinking is leading to what?
Loss of Polar habitats
What are warmer temperatures causing?
They are causing glaciers to shrink and ice sheets to melt. Melting land ice, like the Greenland and Antarctica ice sheets means that water stored on land is returning to the oceans, causing sea levels to rise.
Rising sea levels will mean what?
Like low-lying and coastal areas, like Miami in the USA will flood more regularly. Coastal erosion will increase with sea level rise and some coastal areas will be submerged, so habitats will be lost.
Other species are declining due to warming, like the great barrier reef in Australia, are suffering from bleaching which could cause what?
Temperatures making coral expel that algae that lives them, could cause them to starve and die.
Precipitation patterns are changing, what is this affecting?
Global warming by how much rain areas are getting.
What could happen to the distribution and quantity of some species could do what?
Could change biodiversity and could decrease some species how they live at higher latitudes due to warming temperatures and some habitats are being damaged or destroyed because of climate change and animals may become extinct.
In some places why has deaths increased?
Because of the heat- but due to the cold they have decreased.
Why could some places become hot and dry?
Because they are difficult or impossible to habitat. Low-lying coastal areas, e.g. the Maldives, could be lost to the sea or flood so often that they also become uninhabitable. This may lead to migration and overcrowding in other areas.
Why are some areas struggling to supply enough water for their residents?
Because there are problems with water availability caused by changing rainfall patterns. This can lead to political tensions, especially when rivers cross borders.
Farming is affecting climate change in what ways?
Globally some crops have suffered from climate change (e.g. warming in recent years has called smaller yields in Argentina’s wheat crops).
But some farmers in high-latitude countries are finding that their crops benefit from the warmer conditions and produce higher yields.
Why could lower crop yields increase?
Because malnutrition, ill health and death from starvation, particularly in lower latitudes.
What does climate change do to the weather?
Means it will get more extreme. This means more money has to be spent on predicting extreme weather events, reducing their impacts and rebuilding after they take place.
