Effects of climate change

Introduction:
Climate change is amongst the most dreaded problems of the new millennium. Bangladesh is a coastal country bounded by Bay of Bengal on its southern part and here natural disasters are an ongoing part of human life. Climate change poses significant risks for Bangladesh, yet the core elements of its vulnerability are primarily contextual. Between 30-70% of the country is normally flooded each year. The huge sediment loads brought by three Himalayan rivers, coupled with a negligible flow gradient add to drainage congestion problems and exacerbate the extent of flooding. The societal exposure to such risks is further enhanced by Bangladeshs very high population and population density. Other factors that put the nation particularly at risk include the high incidence of poverty in the country; limited institutional capacity and financial resources; and poor infrastructure in many parts of the country. Many projected climate change impacts including sea level rise, higher temperatures (mean temperature increases of 1.4C and 2.4C are projected by 2050 and 2100 respectively), enhanced monsoon precipitation and run-off, potentially reduced dry season precipitation, and increase in cyclone intensity would in fact reinforce many of these baseline stresses that already pose a serious impediment to the economic development of Bangladesh. A subjective ranking of key climate change impacts and vulnerabilities for Bangladesh identifies water and coastal resources as being of the highest priority in terms of certainty, urgency, and severity of impact, as well as the importance of the resources being affected. Bangladesh receives around one billion dollars of Official Development Assistance (ODA) annually. Analysis of donor portfolios in Bangladesh using the OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) -World Bank Creditor Reporting System (CRS) database reveals that between 22-53% of development assistance (by aid amount) or 22-37% of donor projects (by number) are in sectors potentially affected by climatic risks. Donor country strategies and project documents generally lack explicit attention to climate change. Likewise, there is no national policy in place yet to comprehensively address climate change risks. So, a number of adaptations that climate change might necessitate are indeed already underway in Bangladesh, particularly since the mid-1990s, as part of regular development activity through several government-donor partnerships. A wide array of river dredging projects have been completed to reduce siltation and facilitate better drainage at times of flooding as well as to boost dry season flows to critical areas such as the Sundarbans. However there are remains an ongoing challenge with regard to their durability and sustainability. Monitoring and maintenance in turn requires continued government and donor interest as well as participation
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Effects of climate change

of the local population far beyond the original lifetime of the project. There are also some examples of development policies and priorities in Bangladesh that might potentially conflict with climate change responses. In particular, policies to encourage tourism and build tourism infrastructure in vulnerable areas of the coastal zone, particularly the Khulna region, might need to take into account the projected impacts of climate change to reduce the risk of maladaptation. Meanwhile, plans to encourage ecotourism in the fragile Sundarbans might risk adding one more stress to a fragile ecosystem that will likely be critically impacted by sea level rise and salinity concerns.

What is climate change?

Climate includes patterns of temperature, precipitation, humidity, wind and seasons. "Climate change" affects more than just a change in the weather; it refers to seasonal changes over a long period of time. These climate patterns play a fundamental role in shaping natural ecosystems, and the human economies and cultures that depend on them. As many systems are tied to climate, a change in climate can affect many related aspects of lives of plant and animals, food production, availability and use of water, and health risks. Climate change also affect historically synchronized pollination of crops, food for migrating birds, breeding of fish, water supplies for drinking and irrigation, forest health, and more. Some short-term climate variation is normal, but longer-term trends now indicate a changing climate. A year or two of an extreme change in temperature or other condition does not mean a climate change trend has been "erased.

Are climate change and global warming the same thing?

Climate change and global warming are not exactly the same thing, but they are closely related, and some people use the terms interchangeably. Global warming causes climates to change. "Global warming" refers to rising global temperatures due to build-up of greenhouse gas in the atmosphere, Climate change is refers to long-term changes in climate, including average temperature and precipitation. Rising of global temperatures in the atmosphere leads to climate changes affecting rainfall patterns, storms and droughts, growing seasons, humidity, and sea level.

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Effects of climate change

Main indicators of climate change:

Figure1: Indicators of climate change

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), there are 7 indicators that would be expected to increase in a warming world and 3 indicators would be expected to decrease. From the above graph, it can be seen that those 7 indicators are the humidity, tropospheric temperature, temperature over oceans, sea surface temperature, sea level, ocean heat content, temperature over land that are indicated with the white colored indicator; and the 3 indicators are the sea level, glaciers, snow cover which are indicated with black indicator. All these are consequences of climate change.

Why is climate change a concern?

All over the world, people are taking action because climate change has serious impacts, locally and globally. For example, in 2007, scientists from the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predicted that warming oceans and melting glaciers causing the rise of sea level to 7-23 inches due to global warming and climate change by the year 2100. Worldwide, densely populated coastal communities and infrastructure that supports them would be affected (such as city buildings and homes, roads, ports and wastewater treatment plants).

Other effects are also serious. In some places, floods and/or drought could become more frequent and more severe. Even seemingly less dramatic local changes in temperature,
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Effects of climate change

precipitation and soil moisture could severely impact many things important to human life and all life around us, including:

natural ecosystems agriculture and food supplies human health forestry water resources and availability energy use transportation

Causes of climate change:

The two gases that are contributing most significantly to the change of climate are water vapor and carbon dioxide. Methane, nitrous oxide, ozone and sulfur hexafluoride are also greenhouse gases but make a smaller contribution to the greenhouse effect because their concentrations are so low. Another reason that has also contributed more for changing climate is the industrial revolution. Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, human activities have caused an increase in several greenhouse gases; most notably carbon dioxide which is causing global warming. Over the past two centuries the concentration of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere has increased about 30 percent, from a pre-industrial level of about 270 parts per million to a current level of 384 parts per million. Carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere are already higher today than at any time in the past 150,000 years. And if the consumption of fossil fuels such as coal and oil continues into the next century at projected rates, the carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere would reach the 600-700 parts per million ranges by 2100. The contribution of another greenhouse gas such as methane in the atmosphere has doubled since pre-industrial times. Other greenhouse chemicals, such as chlorofluorocarbons, per fluorocarbons, and hydro fluorocarbons, are synthetic and have only appeared in the atmosphere since the Industrial Revolution. Many greenhouse substances, including methane and the halogen-containing compounds, contribute many times more pound-for-pound to the greenhouse effect than carbon dioxide. However, the sheer volume of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere compared to these other
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Effects of climate change

trace gases means that carbon dioxide is still by far the largest contributor to anthropogenic greenhouse warming. Additionally, while some greenhouse gases have a half-life of several decades, the half-life of carbon dioxide is on the order of a century. Most of the carbon dioxide we release today will still stay in the atmosphere in 2075 and even 2100. Other than the greenhouse effect, many forces are contributing to change the patterns of climate. Evidence says that human influence is changing the climate of this planet. Many of the world's leading scientists argue that the warming experienced in the 20th century is at least partially anthropogenic in origin. In addition, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has concluded, "The balance of evidence suggests that there is a discernible human influence on global climate."

Global Temperature Trends:

NASA's Goddard Institute of Space Studies (GISS) tracks atmospheric global temperature climate trends as part of its long term climate assessment efforts. Temperature changes by location, day of year and time of day. To provide meaningful year to year comparisons, climatologists calculate the global mean annual land and ocean temperature. To facilitate assessments of long term trends, climatologists compare the mean for a base period with the annual mean. Differences between the annual mean and baseline mean are called anomalies. GISS uses the 1951 - 1980 period for their baseline period. They use the difference between the annual mean and the baseline mean to determine the global temperature anomaly for the year.

Figure 2: Global temperature trends This graph shows the annual global temperature anomalies for the period 1880 2006 whereas GISS uses 1951-1980 periods mean to establish the baseline. In the 1880 - 1935
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Effects of climate change

periods, the temperature anomaly was consistently negative. In contrast, the 1980 - 2005 periods has had a consistently positive temperature anomaly. The 1917 temperature anomaly (-0.47 degree Celsius) was the lowest year on record. Since 1917, global temperature has warmed, with the most recent years showing the highest anomalies of (+0.4/ 0.6 degree Celsius) in the past 120 years.

NASA Finds 2011 Ninth Warmest Year on Record:

According to NASA scientists 2011 was the ninth warmest year since the year 1880. The finding continues a trend in which nine of the 10 warmest years in the modern meteorological record have occurred since the year 2000. NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York, monitors global surface temperatures on an ongoing basis. They release an updated analysis that shows temperatures around the globe. They compared the average global temperature of the year 2011 with the average global temperature of the mid-20th century. The comparison shows how Earth continues to experience warmer temperatures than several decades ago. The average temperature around the globe in 2011 was 0.92F (0.51C) warmer than the mid-20th century baseline.

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