Climate Change and Its Impact on Diversity

Climate in a narrow sense is usually defined as the “average weather” or more rigorously as the statistical description in terms of the mean and variability of relevant quantities over a period of a time ranging from months to thousands or millions of years. The classical period is 30 years, as defined by WMO. These relevant quantities are most often surface variables such as temperature, precipitation, and wind. Climate in a wider sense is the state including a statistical description of the climate system. Weather is a set of all the phenomena occurring in a given atmosphere at a given time. Weather refers to current activity, and not long-term atmospheric activities. A weather station is a facility with instruments and equipment to make observations of atmospheric conditions in order to provide information to make weather forecast and to study the weather and climate.

Weather is a set of all the phenomena occurring in a given atmosphere at a given time. Weather refers to current activity, and not long-term atmospheric activities. A weather station is a facility with instruments and equipment to make observations of atmospheric conditions in order to provide information to make weather forecast and to study the weather and climate. The United Nations Frame work Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), in its Article 1, defines “climate change” as: “a change of climate which is attributed directly or indirectly to human activity that alters the composition of the global atmosphere and which is in addition to natural climate variability observed over comparable time periods.” The UNFCCC thus makes a distinction between “climate change” attributable to human activities altering the atmospheric composition, and “climate variability” attributable to natural causes.

~Continued studies and observations document the past and current changes in climate.
~Expressed as a global average, surface temperatures have increased by about 0.74°C over the past hundred years between 1906 and 2005. An increase of 0.35°C occurred in the global average temperature from the 1910s to the 1940s, followed by a slight cooling (0.1°C), and then a rapid warming (0.55°C) up to the end of 2006 . The warmest years of the series are 1998 and 2005 and 11 of the 12 warmest years have occurred in the last 12 years (1995 to 2006).
~Tide gauge show that global sea level rose between 0.1 and 0.2 meters during the 20th century.
~Satellite data show that there are very likely to have been decreases of about 10% in the extent of snow cover since the late 1960s
~There has been a widespread retreat of mountain glaciers in the 20th century
~The global average temperature in 1901-2000 increased by 0.60C, which was greater than in any other century during the past 1000 years (IPCC, 2001a).
~Increased temperatures reduce the snow-to-rain ratio causing decreased glacier accumulation and reduced surface albedo resulting in accelerated glacier melt (Ageta et el., 2001).
~Seasonal hydrology, marginal agriculture and low income levels are more sensitive to climate change (IPCC, 2001b).
~Increased glacier melt in the Himalayas may cause serious floods in the hills and plains (IPCC, 2000 b).
~The impacts of climate change will be the highest for the least developed countries (DFID, 2004).
~Solar Energy enters into the earth in the form of visible light.
~30% of it is scattered back to space
~Remaining 70% reaches to the earth surface through the atmosphere
~Part of the energy radiates back into the space in the form of infra red radiation
~GHG block the escape of infra red radiation causing climate change effect
~Energy (fuel combustion and fugitive emissions from fuels)
~Industrial processes (mineral, chemical, metal production etc.)
~Solvent and other products
~Agriculture (rice cultivation, irrigation, manure management etc.)
~Wastes (disposal, incineration etc.)
~“It is likely that there has been significant anthropogenic warming over the past 50 years” (IPCC, 2007).

— Increasing likelihoods of floods, landslides and droughts
— Reduced river discharge during low flow for hydropower generation and irrigation.
— Widening gap between water demand and water availability
— Forced migration and loss of biodiversity and fertile land due to extreme events.
— Expansion of glacial lakes, which might be exploded resulting GLOF [Glacier lake out-burst flood], posing a great threat to the downstream population.

-Likelihood of water pollution and probabilities of increased rate of water-borne diseases.
-Extinction of endangered species and loss of flora and fauna.
-Affects the eco – system resulting in serious hamper to the various factors co- related with it.