Click here to go to my home page.



Introduction


Global climate change has created a trend of more extreme weather and precipitation events, as Pope Franciscus states:
"The climate is a common good, belonging to all and meant for all. At the global level, it is a complex system linked to many of the essential conditions for human life. A very solid scientific consensus indicates that we are presently witnessing a disturbing warming of the climatic system. In recent decades this warming has been accompanied by a constant rise in the sea level and, it would appear, by an increase of extreme weather events, even if a scientifically determinable cause cannot be assigned to each particular phenomenon (Franciscus 2015).

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change


For the past two decades the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has developed and made assessments on Earth’s changing climate. IPCC assessments are based on climate models, previous publications, and historical observations (IPCC 2014). Different weather situations and have predicted additional risk that could happen with climate change (Figure 1).


Figure 2. Level of Additional Risk Due to Climate Change (IPCC 2014).



Extreme Weather and Human Impacts

These changes in extreme weather are a threat to human health and prosperity (Climate 2015). More frequent and severe weather can have implications on ecosystems and human livelihood (Climate 2015). Extreme weather also plays a role in economic input (Climate 2015). It is estimated that the total United State spends varies up to $485 billion/year (Climate 2015). Below is a video provided by the Center For Atmospheric Research on extreme weather and climate change.





Figure 3. Extremes Overview (Climate 2015).



Extreme Weather Could Become More Common


Warming temperatures will increase kinetic energy within the atmosphere (Miller 2015). This will cause heat waves that will be longer, more intense, and frequent (Miller 2015). This will have effects on crops and human health as stated above. Due to this warming the atmosphere is able to hold more moisture this could cause flooding and heavy snow and rainfall (Miller 2015).
In 2010, conclusions from the World Meteorological Organization suggest that atmospheric warming could lead to fewer but stronger storms, hurricanes and typhoons, this could harm both land people (Miller 2015).



References


Climate, 2015. Current Extreme Weather Climate Change. Retrieved on 28 September, 2015 from https://www.climatecommunication.org/new/features/extreme-weather/overview/.

Franciscus, 2015. Laudato Si‘: On Care For Our Common Home. Retrieved on 31 August 2015 from http://m.vatican.va/content/francescomobile/en/encyclicals/documents/papafrancesco_20150524_enciclica-laudato-si.html. 

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), 2014: Summary for policymakers. In: Climate Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability. Part A: Global and Sectoral Aspects. Contribution of Working Group II to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Field, C.B., V.R. Barros, D.J. Dokken, K.J. Mach, M.D. Mastrandrea, T.E. Bilir, M. Chatterjee, K.L. Ebi, Y.O. Estrada, R.C. Genova, B. Girma, E.S. Kissel, A.N. Levy, S.MacCracken,P.R. Mastrandrea, and L.L. White (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA, pp. 1-32.

Miller,G Tyler and Scott E. Spoolman, 2015. Environmental Science. Cengage Learning. Boston, MA. pp. 412-413