These are just a few temperature effects facts to start us off with. Here are a few future effects that we will go into more detail about.
Damage to human health.
Severe stress on forests, wetlands, and other natural habitats.
Dislocation of agriculture and commerce.
E.xpansion of the earth's deserts
Melting of polar ice caps and consequent rise in the sea level
The first effect, human health, is based upon all the other devastating effects. All animals have a limiting factor. The limiting factor, if changed even the slightest, means the end to that particular species in the habitat where the limiting factor has changed. Quite often, the limiting factor is heat. For humans, if we were even an foot closer to the sun, it could mean the end of our race. Although the effects of global Warming will not necessarily kill humans or other species, the change in heat can effect our health in many other ways. For instance, bacteria in heat is more prone to reproduce, so our drinking water could become more contaminated, therefore increasing the risk that we would drink contaminated water. There are many other situations just like that which could arise from global warming.
Another effect is the severe stress on other many different environments, like wetlands, forests etc. With the increased temperature in the atmosphere from global warming, more water will be evaporated into water vapor, an unusable form of water. This would mean less water for animals, vegetation, and all living organisms. With less water, wetlands could dry up, and the species inhabiting the wetlands, with no water to help keep them alive, would become extinct.
The dislocation of agriculture and commerce is very bad for the United States, and very good for places like Russia. When the atmosphere begins to get too hot the soil dries up and is unable to produce the many products the United States exports and sells to its own inhabitants. If this happens, exports would slow way down creating a panic, and all our importees would scramble for the world's food-importing countries, causing food prices to shoot up. This almost happened in 1988 when the Midwest had a drought due to a lack of rain and increase in heat, and could not produce the corn and wheat they usually do(corn and wheat depend heavily on rain and melting snow). If another drought like that happened again, its very possible the world would panic. But other traditionally colder countries who experienced the increase in temperature would greatly benefit by being able to grow products that normally would not grow in those areas due to a cold temperature. These countries would not be able to make up for the lack of production in the United States, though.
There are a few places on Earth that, with an increase in temperature, would become deserts. This slight change would be devastating to the people inhabiting these places. Although quite hot already, slightly more fertile and wet land would easily lose its very little moisture from an increased atmosphere temperature. The people and animals living in these places depend on the little water they have available, and would either die or have to migrate when the area turned to desert. Global Warming's effects can claim lives and homes in many different ways.
The melting of polar ice caps and the consequent rise in sea level is one of the most devastating effects global warming could cause. If the polar ice caps melted just one inch, they would flood coastal cities. Since 1990 sea level has risen four to six inches. It is predicted that by the middle of next century the sea could have risen three feet, which would mean the flooding of cities like New York, London, etc. Thousands of people and animals would lose there homes, and the United States, and many other parts of the world, already have overcrowding problems. Many of the United States' most productive cities are coastal cities. There destruction could begin the demise of our civilization.
As you can see, global warming has many devastating effects, and possibly even more that we cannot conceive of until they actually happen. Read on to see how the world is trying to prevent continuation of global warming!
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