What are the potential impacts of global warming and a changing climate?
Our health, agriculture, water resources, forests, wildlife and coastal areas are vulnerable to global warming and the climatic changes it will bring. The IPCC concluded that ‘climate change is likely to have wide-ranging and mostly adverse impacts on human health, with significant loss of life.’ A few degrees of warming increases the chances of more frequent and severe heat waves, which can cause more heat-related death and illness. Greater heat can also mean worsened air pollution, as well as damaged crops and depleted water resources. Warming is likely to allow tropical diseases, such as malaria, to spread northward in some areas of the world. It will also intensify the Earth’s hydrological cycle. This means that both evaporation and precipitation will increase. Some areas will receive more rain, while other areas will be drier. At the same time, extreme events like floods and droughts are likely to become more frequent. Warming will cause glaciers to melt and oceans to expand. The
