Regional effects of global warming

Regional effects of global warming are long-term significant changes in the expected patterns of average weather of a specific region due to global warming. The world average temperature is rising due to the greenhouse effect caused by increasing levels of greenhouse gases, especially carbon dioxide. When the global temperature changes, the changes in climate are not expected to be uniform across the Earth. In particular, land areas change more quickly than oceans, and northern high latitudes change more quickly than the tropics, and the margins of biome regions change faster than do their cores.

Regional effects of global warming vary in nature. Some are the result of a generalised global change, such as rising temperature, resulting in local effects, such as melting ice. In other cases, a change may be related to a change in a particular ocean current or weather system. In such cases, the regional effect may be disproportionate and will not necessarily follow the global trend. The increasing temperatures from greenhouse gases have been causing sea levels to rise for many years.

There are three major ways in which global warming will make changes to regional climate: melting or forming ice, changing the hydrological cycle (of evaporation and precipitation) and changing currents in the oceans and air flows in the atmosphere. The coast can also be considered a region, and will suffer severe impacts from sea level rise.

Highlights of recent and projected regional impacts are shown below:

According to scholar Tsosie, environmental disparities among disadvantaged communities including poor and racial minorities, extend to global inequalities between the developed and developing countries. For example, according to Barnett, J. and Adger, W.N. the projected damage to small islands and atoll communities will be a consequence of climate change caused by developing countries that will disproportionately affect these developing nations.

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