Droughts. Hurricanes. Floods. Monsoons. Disappearing coastlines. These are just a few of the weather effects we’re currently experiencing and will see more of in the future, courtesy of global warming. And they aren’t pretty – they lead to destruction, injury and the death of millions of people, not to mention the effects on the earth’s ecosystems. Scientists are noting more weather disturbances than ever, and it’s only going to get worse. Right now, in seven places across the globe, people are already dealing with the frightening effects of global warming, from India to Alaska. It’s a foreboding sign of what may be to come for the entire world as we battle global warming and experience its full effects.
1. Bihar, India
Image via The Bihar Times
Floods are certainly nothing new – but lately they’ve been increasing in intensity and frequency. Bihar, India was swamped by the Kosi river two weeks ago, and nearly half a million people in this eastern state remain stranded, perched on rooftops, surviving off plants and dirty water. The river was swollen by monsoon rains attributed to global warming, and burst an upstream dam in Nepal. Millions are now homeless, scores have died and the death toll is expected to rise due to waterborne illnesses and food riots.
Bihar is one of India’s poorest states, typical of the areas that are expected to be affected the most by global warming-related weather patterns. The crops that residents of the area depend upon have been destroyed by the deluge, and lingering caste discrimination has exacerbated problems with the relief efforts.
2. The North Pole
Image via Mail Online
For the first time in history, the North Pole has become an island. Melting ice has opened up the North-West and North-East passages, to the delight of shipping companies eager to cut thousands of miles off their routes and the chagrin of experts who understand the gravity of the situation. Pictures produced by NASA confirm that Arctic ice is melting at an unprecedented pace.
The Natural Resources Defense Council says, ‘The Arctic is global warming’s canary in the coal mine’. Such rapid melting of ice is already dramatically affecting the ecosystem of the Arctic, and those changes will affect surrounding ecosystems as well in a sort of trickle-down effect. The melting ice is accelerating global warming, causing the earth to absorb more sunlight and get hotter. Land-based ice sheets and melting glaciers contribute to rising sea levels, which are currently threatening coastlines around the world, as you’ll see on the rest of this list.
3. South Australia
Image via BBC News
Australia is currently experiencing its worst drought in 100 years, and the lack of rain has caused once-lush lands to turn into deserts. Farmers are watching their crops dry up in a wide-scale agricultural disaster, and don’t have enough water to sustain their livestock. Lake Albert, in South Australia, has receded so much that vast areas of land once covered by water now resemble a moonscape. The region seems to be on the brink of environmental collapse, with large populations of animals dying or migrating elsewhere.
Worse yet, the drought is taking place in Australia’s main food-growing region, the Murray-Darling basin. Irrigated crops like rice and grapes have been hit the hardest, as well as horticulture: 80% of eucalyptus trees in an area the size of Germany and France combined are brown and dead. Slowly warming temperatures combined with the lack of rainfall are to blame. Climate scientists warn that every rise of 1 degree Celsius reduces river inflows by 15%.
4. The Maldives
Image via Wikimedia Commons
This tiny chain of islands in the Indian Ocean has watched sea levels rise dramatically for years, with the islands growing smaller and smaller. President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom has been entreating other nations for help since 1992, telling the UN, “I stand before you as a representative of an endangered people. We are told that as a result of global warming and sea-level rise, my country, the Maldives, may sometime during the next century, disappear from the face of the Earth.”
Many efforts have been put forth in attempts to save The Republic of Maldives from rising sea levels, including a sea wall on one island, and a new man-made island built to relocate communities to a safer area. But over half of the islands are still eroding at an alarming rate, and Maldivians may see their ocean paradise disappear sooner than anyone thought.
5. The West African Coastline
Image via Yahoo News
A 2,500-mile stretch of the West African coast will be ‘brutally redrawn’ over the next century by rising sea levels caused by global warming, and citizens living in the area are already experiencing negative effects. The countries most threatened by the effects are Gambia, Nigeria, Burkina Faso and Ghana. The coastline of Guinea is expected to disappear altogether, salty sea water threatens intrusion into agricultural land and the region’s income-generating oil fields are extremely vulnerable to flooding.
Increasingly violent tropical storms are contributing to the rising sea levels, as well as the melting of the Greenland ice cap, which covers an area three times the size of Nigeria. Floods will likely occur again and again over the coming decades, displacing millions. Africa is expected to be hardest hit by global warming.
6. Coastal Alaska
Image via USA Today
Escalating erosion, storms and flooding have threatened some Eskimo communities in Alaska so much that villagers are being relocated. Alaska experiences the effects of global warming much more than the rest of the U.S., because it’s in a polar region. Temperatures have been steadily rising since the 1950’s, and as a result permafrost melting has caused the erosion and flooding.
Six remote villages, including the Yupik Eskimo community of 400, have been named as the most vulnerable and are getting millions of dollars of aid from the government in an attempt to protect them in the coming year. Earlier this year, a tiny Inuit village sued some of the world’s largest oil, coal and power producers, saying global warming was threatening the villagers’ existence.
7. Western North America
Image via Wikimedia Commons
Though the effects of global warming may be more dramatic in Alaska than other areas of North America, that doesn’t mean we’ve escaped unharmed thus far. In Canada, high-elevation white bark pine trees that usually have life spans longer than 1,000 years are being killed at a frightening pace by a little beetle that has proliferated due to warmer winters. The pine bark beetle has killed lodgepole pine forests from the British Columbia Coast Range to the Continental Divide, and it’s expected to sweep through the Washington and Oregon Cascades, the Sierras of California and the Rockies.
The white pine is a vital part of the ecosystem in these areas, where ‘tree islands’ slow the melting of snow and hold the soil together on high, windy ridges. Pine seeds are an important food for grizzly bears, and many other species depend upon the trees for survival. The western forests of America could see dramatic, life-altering changes as warming trends continue.
