Impacts of climate change

2. Consequences of global climate change: The effects of global climate change on places, societies and environmental systems
IB Objectives:
Climate change and the hydrosphere, atmosphere and biosphere, including:

water stored in ice and oceans, and changing sea levels
carbon stored in ice, oceans and the biosphere
incidence and severity of extreme weather events, including drought
spatial changes in biomes, habitats and animal migration patterns
changes to agriculture, including crop yields, limits of cultivation, soil
erosion
Impacts of climate change on people and places, including health hazards, migration and ocean transport routes
Synthesis, evaluation and skills opportunities
The uneven spatial distribution of effects and uncertainty about their timing, scale and impacts for individuals and societies

STARTER:
What is this?
How was this brought about by climate change?
What are the implications of this?

REVEAL TO HELP ANSWER STARTER QUESTION

Watch this video and take notes on the impacts of climate change .
Consider how your findings fit into the following categories:

Water stored in ice and oceans, and changing sea levels
Carbon stored in ice, oceans and the biosphere
Incidence and severity of extreme weather events, including drought
Spatial changes in biomes, habitats and animal migration patterns
Changes to agriculture, including crop yields, limits of cultivation, soil
erosion
Impacts of climate change on people and places, including health hazards, migration and ocean transport routes

Presentation/infographic task

In 2s you will be given one of the following objectives
The impact of global climate change on
•the hydrosphere, including water stored in ice and oceans, changing sea levels
Nick, Ole, Taran

•the global carbon stores: ice, oceans and biosphere
Harish, Stefan and Jake

•weather: incidence and severity of extreme events such as drought, hurricanes, etc.
Tiya, Poppy, Demi

•changing distribution of biomes and other impacts on the biosphere and its non-human inhabitants
Christina and Sana

•agricultural productivity
Victor, Emilo and Tristan

•human health, migration and transport.
Nils and Evelyn

Using the 4 textbooks and resources on the weebly explain the consequences of climate change linked to this objective

Success criteria:
•Include examples of places- Include specific figures/ named examples- how does this vary spatially?
•Explain the processes that cause the changes
•Explain the scale of the effect- local/ global, long/ short term

Create a 10 minute presentation and an infographic for the rest of the class.
Be a good communicator-Think about using effective presentation skills- not too much information on each slide, try and not have to read from the slides, make diagrams clear etc.

presentation_notes.docx
File Size:	2077 kb
File Type:	docx

Download File

1. Climate change & ..... water stored in ice and oceans, and changing sea levels

Arctic Ocean shipping routes 'to open for months'

Ship sets record for earliest crossing of notorious Northwest Passage through Arctic

2. Climate change & ..... carbon stored in ice, oceans and the biosphere

CARBON CYCLE BACKGROUND

Use the evidence below to investigate the impact of climate change on carbon emitted by ice (glaciers), oceans and the biosphere.

GLACIAL RETREAT:

Study: Melting glaciers have big carbon impact

OCEAN ACIDIFICATION

OCEAN ACIDIFICATION NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC

BIOSPHERE (RAINFOREST DESTRUCTION)

Congo basin’s peaty swamps are new front in climate change battle

What Is The Relationship Between Deforestation And Greenhouse Gas Emissions?

3. Climate change & .... incidence and severity of extreme weather events, including drought

Watch the video below (from BBC Newsnight) from September 2017.

Explain what the mechanism is that fuels further hurricane development in the Atlantic Ocean and how climate change may contribute to an acceleration in this process.
What are the counter arguments to this claim?

Watch the series of short videos below (note that LIC / MIC / HIC impact) and outline how climate change may be attributed to an increase in severity and number of droughts around the world.

You should also refer to this current map that shows global distribution of severity of drought events.

So what does climate science tell us about the links between climate change and extreme weather and what impact is this likely to have on future events? Is science making progress on the attribution of any one extreme event to climate change?

Here is some of what we know:
Heat waves: It is no surprise that warming in the atmosphere leads to heat waves, or periods of very hot weather lasting days to weeks. In recent years, the frequency of heat waves has been increasing in many parts of the world, and the risk associated with extreme heat increases with further warming.

Storms and flooding: We also know that warming leads to higher sea levels, which in turn increases the risk of storm surge, contributing to the damage brought by hurricanes. Climate change also warms oceans, adding energy that can fuel coastal storms. Compounding this, a warmer atmosphere can hold more moisture, so there can be more moisture for storm systems, resulting in heavier rainfall. The U.S. National Climate Assessment finds that there has been a substantial increase – in intensity, frequency, and duration as well as the number of strongest (Category 4 and 5) storms – in Atlantic Ocean hurricanes since the early 1980s, linked in part to higher sea surface temperatures. By late this century, models on average project a slight decrease in the number of tropical cyclones each year, but an increase in the number of the strongest (Category 4 and 5) hurricanes and greater rainfall rates in hurricanes (increases of about 20 percent averaged near the center of hurricanes).

Fires: We know that higher temperatures lead to increased rates of evaporation, leading to rapid drying of soils. This can not only contribute to drought conditions but can stoke forest fires. The U.S. National Climate Assessment finds that in the western forests, large and intense fires are projected to occur more frequently, with large and longer wildfires given higher temperatures and earlier spring snowmelt.These trends in extreme weather events are accompanied by longer-term changes as well, including surface and ocean temperature increase over recent decades, snow and ice cover decrease and sea level rise.

Source: http://www.wri.org/blog/2017/09/extreme-weather-whats-climate-change-got-do-it

4. Climate Change & ...spatial changes in biomes, habitats and animal migration patterns

Spatial Changes in Biomes
A changing global climate threatens species and ecosystems. The distribution of species is largely determined by climate, as is the distribution of ecosystems and plant vegetation zones (biomes). Climate change may simply shift these distributions, but often, barriers and human presence will provide no opportunity for distributional shifts. For these reasons, some species and ecosystems are likely to be eliminated by climate change.

If significant climate change occur many natural populations of wild organisms will be unable to exist within their natural ranges. Changes in temperature and precipitation, and resultant changes in vegetation and habitat, are likely to seriously affect the suitability of the locales where species are presently found. Thus, climate change is an additional factor threatening the survival of species

Climate changes are happening very fast, within decades, and organisms change slowly, over many generations through evolutionary adaptation. All they can do to adapt to fast change is to move. Their moves are:

towards the poles where it is cooler;
higher up mountains where it is cooler;
towards the equator where it is wetter

Source - Mr G Science - http://www.mrgscience.com/ess-topic-24-biomes-zonation-and-succession.html

Tundra Turning Green
Using this printed article and this follow up too, highlight the major links to climate change and look for any further synthesis opportunities as well as links to the Sustainable Development Goals.

Further Reading Required? - This is a good Guardian Online article to start your search from.

Spatial Changes in Habitats

Using the graphic above (Europe centred) (and the Guardian Online article in the last task and this excellent Guardian article too), conduct some further research into specific changing habitats brought about by climate change.

Migratory Patterns of Animals

The amazing maps in the site below were compiled by cartographer and analyst Dan Majka who brought this data to life in a series of maps that show what corridors mammals, amphibians, and other animals will use as they move to new habitats under projected climate change. Inspired by wind maps of the United States, and using code from Earth global wind map, adapted by Chris Helm, Majka’s dynamic map allows scientists and the public to see the continent-wide impact of climate change on animals and visualize corridors they will need to move.

You can see the full site by clicking here.

Describe the movements on either of the two maps above and try to use prior knowledge to explain that movement in particular thinking about where the largest corridors of movement seem to be concentrated, the general direction of movement and linking in to the map showing shifting biomes above.

Biodiversity and Climate Change from CBD on Vimeo.

5. Global Climate Change & ... changes to agriculture, including crop yields, limits of cultivation, soil erosion

Changes to agriculture
Study this article and watch the video about the growing wine market in England! Highlight the links that exist between climate change and a potential future booming British wine market!

Soil erosion

Watch the video below and make notes on how atmospheric carbon can be transferred back into the soil (flux).
Now study this website for information about the '4 pour 1000' French government initiative.