Global Warming Predicted Effects

1. Global WarmingPredicted Effects Cory Christie Christine Miller Patty Jehling Tom Jakacki

2. Global Warming • This presentation illustrates how global warming and its effects of: • Climate pattern changes • Health • Warming water • Ecosystem disruption, and how these areas effect the following categories: • Wildlife, vegetation, forests, human life, agriculture, and oceans

3. Climate Pattern Changes • Consequence: Warmer temperatures • Average temperatures will rise as well as the frequency of heat waves. • Since 1980, the earth has experienced 19 of its 20 hottest years on record. • Many places in North America had their hottest seasons or days on record in the late 1990s.

4. Climate Pattern Changes contin. • Consequence: Drought and wildfire • Warmer water temperatures increase the probability of drought. Greater evaporation causes the increase of risk of wildfires. • The 1999-2002 national drought was one of the 3 most extensive droughts in the last 40 years. • Dry conditions produces the worst wildfires in 50 years in Florida in 1998.

5. Climate Pattern Changes contin. • Consequence: More intense rainstorms, floods. • Warmer temperatures lead to more intense rainfall. • The series of floods that has hit the U.S. since 1993 racked up over $25 billion dollars in loses. • National annual participation has increased between 5 and 10 percent since the early 20th century.

6. Health Effects • Consequence: Deadly heat waves and the spread of disease. • More frequent and more intense heat waves could result in more hear-related deaths. • In 2003 extreme heat waves caused more then 20,000 deaths in Europe and more then 1,500 deaths in India. • Disease spreading mosquitoes are spreading as climate shifts. • Thirty of the diseases that emerged in the last 20 years may thrive in warmer and wetter weather.

7. Warming Water • Consequence: Melting glaciers, early ice thaw. • Rising global temperature speeds up the melting of glaciers and ice caps. • At the current rate all of the glaciers in Glacier National Park will be gone by 2070.

8. Warming Water contin. • Consequence: Sea level rise. • Current rates of sea level rise are expected to increase, resulting in the loss of the coastal wetlands, and more. • The current pace of sea level rise is 3 time the historical rate and is rising.

9. Ecosystem Disruption • Consequence: ecosystems shifts and species die-off. • The increase in global temperatures is expected to disrupt ecosystems and result in the loss of species diversity. • Over the past 25 years the penguin populations have shrunk by 33%. • In areas of California shoreline sea life is shifting northward probably in response to warming water. • Global warming is likely to spur the disappearance of trout and salmon from as much as 18-38% by 2090.