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January 15, 2016
How Will Climate Change Affect the World and Society?
Climate change is already affecting the planet and society and will
continue to do so for generations to come. The physical and chemical
changes of human activities are being felt in natural ecosystems on land
and at sea, on farms and ranches, and in cities and suburbs, but the
changes are not happening uniformly. Differences in how regions are
affected by varying degrees of warming, precipitation, and changes of
animal and plant species are likely to get even more extreme as climate
change continues. Some areas may actually get a bit cooler for a while!
Similarly for rainfall, some parts of the planet will get drier, while others
will get more precipitation in more extreme events.

The poles have already seen the greatest warming, and will continue to
warm more rapidly than other areas. Already we’re seeing record losses
of ice in the Arctic. That melting ice contributes to rising sea levels,
affecting the entire planet. In addition, warm water expands, so sea
levels will rise as the atmosphere warms. The ocean has risen 4-8
inches (10-20 centimeters) globally over the last hundred years. As sea
level continues to rise, flooding and storm surges will threaten freshwater
sources, as well as coastal homes and buildings. Coastal facilities and
barrier islands in many parts of the world are gradually submerging, and
some low-lying islands have already had to be evacuated, as
Australia’s The Age (July 29, 2009) describes happening in the Carteret
Islands of Papua New Guinea.
As climate change causes the ocean to rise, increased atmospheric
carbon dioxide is also changing ocean chemistry. When carbon dioxide
dissolves in water, it makes water more acidic. Warmer ocean water also
contain less oxygen. These changes harm marine ecosystems,
destroying coral reefs that shelter much of the ocean’s biodiversity, and
harming many other species. In addition to the harmful effects on natural
ecosystems, this affects fish that people eat, coral reefs that tourists
visit, and the whales, dolphins, sharks, and other marine life that
fascinate so many people. Climate change and changing oceanic
chemistry affect the tiny plankton in the ocean which produce much of
the oxygen in our air, as researchers Graeme Hays, Anthony
Richardson, and Carol Robinson explained (PDF) in a 2005 review
in Trends in Ecology and Evolution. Changes to the growth of these tiny
organisms have surprisingly large effects on global climate, as do
climate change-induced changes to the movements of marine life,
as reported by Wired magazine (July 2009). Changing ocean chemistry
thus has complex and unpredictable effects on global climate and even
the air we breathe. In 2005, the Royal Society issued (PDF) a detailed
report for policymakers in the United Kingdom examining the ways
climate change and ocean acidification would affect the oceans.

Freshwater resources are being affected as well, with winter snowpack

and mountain glaciers that provide water declining in many parts of the
world. Climate change — especially droughts and desertification — is
likely to increase the demands on those water supplies even as they
fade away.

The frequency of extreme weather events is increasing through the

warming and moistening of the atmosphere. Hot days are becoming
even hotter and more frequent, and both drought and heavy rain and
snow will continue to occur more often. Because hurricanes draw their
strength from the heat of water on the ocean’s surface, a warmer climate
means hurricanes have been getting stronger. Researchers work to
understand how these changes to the weather affect coastal
populations, not to mention shipping, fishing, and other industries in
those waters.
Changes in rainfall and temperature will alter where various plants and
animals can live, forcing some species to migrate, disrupting delicate
ecosystems, and increasing the rate of extinctions globally. Scientists
are studying how different species responded to past climate changes,
hoping to better understand the impacts of today’s climate change on
wildlife. Already, hunters and anglers are seeing changes in migration
patterns and animal behavior, and gardeners and farmers see plants
sprouting, flowering, and losing their leaves at different times, forcing
them to change what they can plant. Historic droughts are forcing
farmers to plant different crops, and some farmland is becoming
unusable.

As climate change causes plants and animals to relocate, disease will

also move, exposing human populations — and crop plants, livestock,
and wildlife — to new diseases. Climate change also affects human
health and mortality, with the Environmental Protection Agency and
the Centers for Disease Control warning about direct effects from rising
temperatures, degraded air quality, and greater risks from Lyme disease,
hantavirus, and other diseases carried by insects and animals. Drought,
degraded air and water quality, and greater hazards in coastal and low-
lying regions will, as the World Health Organization points out, create
additional health problems, especially among the populations most
vulnerable to natural hazards and disease.
As leaders in the U.S. military recognize (for instance in the 2007
National Research Council Report National Security Implications of Climate
Change for U.S. Naval Forces), the effects of climate change will affect the
security of nations as conflicts brew over competition for water, food, and
land. The prospect of large groups of climate refugees migrating across
borders is a concern for governments as well as for organizations
devoted to reducing risk and helping those who are living in poverty and
in vulnerable regions.
The insurance industry is already planning for the effects of climate
change, which will often occur as natural hazards, such as floods, fires,
heat waves, and droughts. Insurance regulators have demanded that
insurers in the United States report their risks from climate change, with
one regulator saying, “Climate change will have huge impacts on the
insurance industry and we need better information on how insurers are
responding to the challenge.” Reinsurers, the companies that insure
insurance companies, are also watching these consequences. Munich
Re, one of the largest reinsurers, keeps a database of natural disasters,
and finds, “The high number of weather-related natural catastrophes and
record temperatures both globally and in different regions of the world
provide further indications of advancing climate change.” Other leading
insurance and finance companies have commissioned reports to
evaluate the risks and opportunities created by climate change.
Many researchers work to develop detailed predictions about the effects
of climate change in local areas, and to make those predictions available
to the general public. Predicting the long-term consequences is
complicated in part because choices we make as individuals and as a
society will change those outcomes. By reducing the amount of carbon
dioxide and other heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere, the effects will
be less severe than if we choose to increase the amounts of those
gases. This is one reason it’s so important to learn all we can about
climate change: to make informed choices about the climate, and
prepare for the results of those choices.

Further reading:

 Global Climate Change Impacts on the United States , a 2009 report

from the United States Global Change Research Program
summarizing the impacts of climate change based on data from
across the United States government.
 Climate Change 2007: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability , a major
report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, an
international organization that periodically brings together scientists
to evaluate the state of climate science, reviewing the evidence of
how climate change in affecting society and the natural world.
The Summary for Policymakers (PDF) is especially accessible.
 Insurance in a Climate of Change, a collection of resources and
reports on how climate change is affecting the insurance industry,
and what the industry can do to prevent and prepare for climate
change, from researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
  Storm World: Hurricanes, Politics, and the Battle Over Global Warming ,
journalist Chris Mooney’s look inside the scientific community’s
investigation of the effects of climate change on hurricanes.

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