Regional Impacts - Climate Resilient Agriculture for Ensuring Food Security - page 90

5

Regional Impacts

Abstract
Regional effects of global warming are long-term signifi cant changes in
the expected patterns of average weather of a specifi c 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. The changes in climate are not expected to be uniform across
the earth, when the global temperature changes. 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 generalized 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.
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 fl ows in the atmosphere. The coast can also be considered
a region and will suffer severe impacts from sea-level rise.

Keywords
Regional impacts • Global warming • Greenhouse gases • Adaptation •
Vulnerability • Sustainability