Some of the following have been suggested as possible consequences (impacts) of

Question

Some of the following have been suggested as possible consequences (impacts) of climate change within the United States: increased heat stress, reduced streamflow, increased forest fires, increased crop productivity, rising sea level, greater hurricane intensity, and expanded geographic ranges of insects. explain in terms of (1) their likely geographic extent (they will impact all of the country, or they will impact only some areas of the country and you will state which areas are impacted), (2) one likely impact on human life and/or human health, and (3) one potential economic impact.

Explanation / Answer

Because of global warming, there has been concern in the United States and internationally, that the country should reduce total greenhouse gas which is relatively high per capita.In 2012, the United States experienced its warmest year on record. As of 2012, the thirteen warmest years for the entire planet have all occurred since 1998, transcending those from 1880.

From 1950 to 2009, the American government's surface temperature record shows an increase by 1 °F (0.56 °C), approximately. Global warming[clarification needed] has caused many changes in the U.S. According to a 2009 statement by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), trends include lake and river ice melting earlier in the spring, plants blooming earlier, multiple animal species shifting their habitat ranges northward, and reductions in the size of glaciers.

Predicting future climate changes are fraught with difficulty. Some research has warned against possible problems due to American climate changes such as the spread of invasive species and possibilities of floods as well as droughts. Changes in climate in the regions of the United States appear significant. Drought conditions appear to be worsening in the southwest while improving in the northeast for example.

President Barack Obama committed in the December 2009 Copenhagen Climate Change Summit to reduce carbon dioxide emissions in the range of 17% below 2005 levels by 2020, 42% below 2005 levels by 2030, and 83% below 2005 levels by 2050. In an address towards the U.S. Congress in June 2013, Obama detailed a specific action plan to achieve the 17% carbon emissions cut from 2005 by 2020. He included such measures as shifting from coal-based power generation to solar and natural gas production.Climate change is seen as a national security threat to the United States.In 2015, according to The New York Times and others, oil companies knew that burning oil and gas could cause global warming since the 1970s but, nonetheless, funded deniers for year.2016 was an historic year for billion-dollar weather and climate disasters in U.S.

Increases of precipitation in high latitudes and drying of the already semi-arid regions at lower latitudes are projected with increasing global warming, with seasonal changes in several regions expected to be about 5-10% per degree of warming. However, patterns of precipitation change show much larger variability across models than patterns of temperature. The basic large-scale pattern and magnitude of precipitation responses across the tropics, subtropics, and mid-latitude and high-latitude regions can be understood largely as the result of increasing water vapor in the atmosphere.Heat-related illness and deaths occur as a direct result of sustained, elevated levels of extreme temperatures during heat waves, which are projected to increase with increasing temperatures. The frequency and severity of heat waves in Europe and North America are projected to increase under climate change. Under a 2ºC increase in global mean temperature, for example, the average number of days per year with maximum temperatures exceeding 38ºC or 100ºF across much of the south and central United States could increase by a factor of 3 relative to the 1961-1990 average. Under a 3.5ºC increase, the number of days is projected to increase by 5 to nearly 10 times. Some adaptation is inevitable as populations become accustomed to permanently different conditions. However, most research indicates that the public health impacts of climate change are likely to increase with temperature extremes; and new research highlights the potential that heat stress may impose hard limits on the inhabitability of some land areas under global temperature changes on the order of 10ºC or more.Widespread changes in streamflow are expected in a warmer world, with many regions experiencing changes of the order of 5-15% per degree of warming. Streamflow is a key index of the availability of freshwater, a quantity that is essential for human and natural systems. Changes in streamflow depend upon both evaporation (and hence warming) as well as precipitation. In regions where decreases in precipitation are predicted, these decreases usually will be accompanied by larger decreases in streamflow.Areas of the United States that are particularly vulnerable to increases in wildfire extent include the Pacific Northwest and forested regions of the Rockies and the Sierra. Studies are limited in number but suggest that warming of 1ºC (relative to 1950-2003) is expected to produce increases in median area burned by about 200-400%. Some dry grassland and shrub regions (for example, in the southwestern United States) may experience a decrease in wildfires, because warming without increases in precipitation would reduce biomass production and hence limit the availability of fuel. Uncertainties include understanding of local soil moisture changes with global warming. Over time, extensive warming and associated wildfires could exhaust the fuel for fire in some regions, as forests are completely burned.

Warming decreases yields of several crops in major growing regions, with ~5-10% yield loss per ºC of local warming, or about 7-15% per ºC of global warming (see Figure O.5). Crops tend to develop more quickly under warmer temperatures, leading to shorter growing periods and lower yields, and higher temperatures drive faster evaporation of water from soils. Increases in CO2 levels can be beneficial for some crop and forage yields, for example by stimulating photosynthetic rates, but effects are much smaller for crops with a C4 photosynthetic pathway such as maize (corn). These direct effects of increased CO2 compete with yield reductions linked to warming.Global climate change is expected to reduce yields of key food crops in some tropical regions by about 7-15% over about the next 20 years. This can be expected to make it more difficult to keep up with increasing food demand even if continuing advances in technologies and agricultural practices are as effective as in the past.

Depending on socioeconomic development, population growth, and intensity of adaptation, it has been projected that 0.5 m of sea level rise would increase the number of people at risk from coastal flooding each year by between 5 and 200 million; as many as 4 million of these people could be permanently displaced as a result. More than 300 million people currently live in coastal mega-deltas and mega-cities located in coastal zones. The corresponding projections for 1.0 m of sea level rise suggest that the number of people at risk of flooding each year would increase by 10 to 300 million.
Coastal erosion is expected to occur as sea level rises with warming temperatures. Global aggregate estimates suggest that wetland and dry-land worldwide losses would sum to more than 250,000 km2 with 0.5 m of sea level rise; more than 90% of these losses are projected to occur in developing countries.Rising sea levels will impact key coastal marine ecosystems, coral reefs, mangroves, and salt marshes, through inundation and enhanced coastal erosion rates. Regional impacts will be influenced by local vertical land movements and will be exacerbated where the inland migration of ecosystems is limited by coastal development and infrastructure.Averaged over the tropics as a whole, the number of tropical cyclones is expected to decrease slightly or remain essentially unchanged. Models suggest that the average intensity of tropical cyclones (as measured by the wind speed) is likely to increase roughly by 1-4% per degree C global warming, or by 3-12% per degree C for the cube of this wind speed, often taken as a rough measure of the destructive potential of storm winds. For the North Atlantic, the changes in hurricane statistics are more uncertain than the global values, depending in large part on the spatial structure of the warming of the tropical oceans, and not just on the local warming in the Atlantic. Recent models project future changes in the number of Atlantic hurricanes ranging from –25% to +25% per degree C of global warming; thus, the sign of future changes in number of storms is uncertain.At the higher warming scenarios considered in this report, it will be increasingly difficult to generate varieties with a physiology that can withstand extreme heat and drought while still being economically productive. Without adaptation, studies suggest that food prices could more than double if global warming were to be 5ºC. These estimates do not include additional losses due to weeds, insects, and pathogens, changes in water resources available for irrigation, effects of increased flood or drought frequencies, or responses to temperature extremes.

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