There are several phenomena that have been proven to be true beyond reasonabe doubts as far as science is concerned even though many are still in denial. One of such phenomena is the fact that the climate of the planet is changing. There are several arguments that have been provided just to prove that climate change and whatever efforts that are being invested to research and mitigate the trend is a ruse and a waste of resources. However, the physical manifestation of the occurrence keeps multiplying.
A few days ago, a piece of news emerged that some of the worlds most popular coastal cities might become totally submerged by the year 2050 due to rising sea levels. The cities to be affected includes Shanghai in China, Kolkata in India, Basraq in Iraq, Alexandria in Egypt, Bangkok in Thailand, and Hanoi in Vietnam.
Why do sea levels keep rising?
Those that are knowledgeable enough might be wondering how climate change relates to rising in the levels of the seas. Every form of rivers eventually find their ways into the seas. Hence, when there is excessive rainfall in a place, the volume of water in the river increases and the volume of water to be discharged into the sea also increases. Eventually, the level of the sea increases.
Excessive or abnormal rainfalls do not just happen. Cloud formation is dependent on temperature. The increase in the emission of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere of the earth is leading more heat radiation being absorbed from the sun, thereby causing an increase the global temperature. The increase in global temperature means that other climatic factors would become erratic and largely unpredictable.
Another major factor that works in synergy with excessive rainfall is the thawing of worlds glacier deposits as a result of the rise in global temperature. Glaciers keep shrinking in size and the resulting water always gets deposited into the seas. An empirical evidence to back this up is in the images below.
The two images were taking at exactly the same spot in the Arctic but 100 years apart. Merely looking at it, one can see the volume of glacier 100 years ago no significantly reduced it has become in this present day. Of course, the water got into the seas. Are you still confused as to why the seas levels are rising?
The image shows how deep global warming has eaten into the worlds glacier deposits. Image sourced from @historical pixels on twitter
Other effects of climate change
The change in climate which is largely driven by global warming and a rise in the temperature of the planet goes beyond the shrinking of glacier, excessive rainfall, or associated rise in the level of the sea with the potential submergence of coastal cities.
Abnormal precipitation means that worlds biodiversity might undergo a major shift. Water is a major limiting factor in virtually all the biomes of the world. Erratic rainfalls means that some regions will experience more than the usual rainfall while some will experience far below the usual. Areas that are not close to being deserts will start becoming deserts while some dry lands will start becoming swamps.
In the same vein, a change in habitats brought about by erratic water availability means that some species of plants and animals that are poorly adapted to the change would gradually go extinct while new ones will emerge. The disappearance of Species that serve important ecological functions for both man and the environment will create a huge problem for humanity.
The effects it would have on microbes means that new pathogens might start emerging either to coexist or in place of the old ones. New diseases will start emerging that might spell doom for the human inhabitants on the planet. In actual fact, we are already witnessing the emergence of new diseases - a good example is the current Covid-19 virus that has been ravaging the entire world for almost 3 years now.
For a world that is already battling with food insufficiency, erratic supply of water to habitats will further deepens the crisis of food production. Scientists would need to keep their hands on deck to get breeds that would be resilient to changes in the climate in order to curtail the situation.
Way forward
The way forward would for everyone to have the consciousness of changing climate in mind and it’s main drivers which include pollution and unsustainable use of natural resources, especially our forests. Low emission or even zero emission lifestyle should be adopted by all.
In addition efforts should be made not just to curtail the current trend of change in the climate, but to reverse it. This is why every government should allocate resources towards this goal. Unfortunately, while several governments are doing this, some are busy calling climate change a rise.