Predicted Human Demographic Changes as a Result of the Icecaps Melting - Essay Example

Human Demographic Changes as a Result of the Ice Caps Melting Global warming is causing the ice caps tomelt in addition to many other climatic changes which will cause catastrophic consequences not only to people and property but to the health of the global economy as a whole. Entire sections of various countries will be forced to abandon their homes and businesses. The process will be a slow and torturous one. The greenhouse effect is a term that describes an increase of the average global temperature and is often associated with global warming which is the subject of great debate and concern worldwide. Studies have demonstrated that the past decade has been the warmest on record. At first thought, especially during the cold winter months, a little warming wouldn’t seem to be such a bad thing. Several varieties of fruits and vegetables could be produced in northern climates that today only grow in warmer regions. Warmer seas are likely to be attractive to more species of fish to the colder habitats as well. This is not to mention additional tourist currency to what would be the warm, sandy beaches of Canada or England. However, this happy scenario will not be the case as the earth continues to warm. A chain of events will cause England to experience another ice age. The melting ice caps will combine with other sources to pour fresh water into the oceans. This will end the oceanic cycle that currently warms Northern Europe. This discussion explains the greenhouse effect and the various ways it will impact human demographic changes. Of course, global warming will affect many different aspects of human life in ways that is only open to speculation. The rising seas and melting ice caps are just one of the factors in a complicated equation. Essentially, the greenhouse effect functions in the following manner. When sunlight pierces the atmosphere and hits the earth’s surface, not all of the sun’s solar energy is absorbed. Approximately a third of it is reflected back into space. Specific atmospheric gases serve in much the same way as does the glass of a greenhouse, thus the terminology. These gases allow sunlight to penetrate then trap some of the solar energy which heats the earth (Breuer, 1980). It is a delicate balance and because these greenhouse gases have been artificially augmented by man-made sources, more build up in the atmosphere has occurred thus trapping more of the sun’s energy and reflecting less back in to space. This occurrence is causing the earth to warm. If the balance between the CO2 levels in the ocean and atmosphere is disturbed by interjecting increasing amounts of CO2, the oceans would continually absorb higher concentrations than it does naturally. The subsequent warming ocean waters are less effective in their ability to absorb CO2 and when the oceans can no longer keep pace with the intrusion of this naturally equalized cycle then more CO2 will remain in the atmosphere. Increasing the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is expected to result in a warming of the Earth’s surface accelerating the greenhouse effect (Miller, 1990, p. 498). Carbon Dioxide (CO2) is the most prevalent of the greenhouse gases. Trees absorb CO2 and when they die, CO2 is restored to the atmosphere. The clearing of forests by mass burning, which is happening at a phenomenal rate in the tropical rain forests, is decreasing the amount of CO2 that is absorbed and increasing the amount that is added to the atmosphere. CO2 supplies about half of the total gases that create the greenhouse effect (Breuer, 1980). Although deforestation is contributing heavily to the excess of CO2 in the atmosphere, a larger portion is caused by the burning of fossil fuels such as oil and coal. Fossil fuels are burned by factories, vehicles and electricity-producing power plants to name a few sources. The vast majority of this excessive fuel consumption and its poisonous, pollutant and greenhouse-enhancing byproducts are located in the U.S., Europe and Russia (Breuer, 1980). Other greenhouse gases include methane, which is released when vegetation is burned during land clearing, during oil exploration activities and the coal-mining process; chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), which is the substance that cools refrigerators and provides the propulsion in aerosol cans and nitrous oxide (N2O) which is the lesser cause of CO2 (Breuer, 1980). It is generated from both man-made and natural processes. It is estimated that man-made influences represents about half of the CO2 output. The rising levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere are becoming increasingly disconcerting. “The concentrations of CO2 in the air around 1860 before the effects of industrialization were felt, is assumed to have been about 290 parts per million (ppm). In the hundred years and more since then, the concentration has increased by about 10 percent.” (Breuer, 1980, p. 67). Eighty percent of the world’s population accounts for just 35 percent of CO2 emissions while the United States and Soviet Union combined are responsible for generating half. Worldwide, “carbon dioxide emissions are increasing by four percent a year.” (Miller, 1990, p. 450). Motor vehicles are a major cause of air pollution as is fuel burned for the heating of homes and powering industry along with the toxins emitted from stacks at coal-burning power plants. “Vehicles produce high levels of carbon monoxides (CO) and a major source of hydrocarbons (HC) and nitrogen oxides (NOx), whereas, fuel combustion in stationary sources is the dominant source of sulfur dioxide (SO2)” (Breuer, 1980, p. 70). The effects of melting snow caps and the resulting rise of sea levels have been well documented. Other effects are known but not as universally. A reduction of snow cover in addition to lake and sea ice will have dire consequences for locations at higher latitudes and lower elevations, especially in the winter and spring months. At increased temperatures, the atmospheric water vapor and resulting precipitation will be proportionately higher (Wunderlich & Kohler, 2001). Cloud compositions will change which will amplify the greenhouse effect. The increased levels of precipitation because of the warming at the polar regions will increase the effect. Shifting vegetation patterns, types and regional variations, will cause major human adaptations, the degree to which is open to speculation. The elevated evaporation rate will hasten the drying effect of soil subsequent to rainfall which will result in drier conditions in many regions. Places that presently suffer through periodic drought conditions in the warmer months will be hardest hit. The more rapid water recycling rate will result in heavier rainfall amounts and the number of extreme rainfall events. Higher rainfall rates will cause increased tropical storm intensity in addition to the warmer temperatures. Hurricanes may be even more frequent and intense than presently predicted. As horrific as this near-future scenario is, it remains the land masses that will suffer the greatest changes as a result of the greenhouse effect. “Temperatures are expected to increase more rapidly over land compared to oceans because of the ocean’s higher heat capacity and because it can transfer more of the trapped heat to the atmosphere by evaporation. Over land, the warming has been and is expected to continue to be larger during nighttime than during daytime” (Wunderlich & Kohler, 2001). In the movie An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore systematically describes the perils to civilization potentially caused by global warming. “The recent surge in land-based ice melting is alarming because of the implications for global sea levels. Land-based ice is ice propped up above sea level. If it melts, the runoff increases sea levels, if a big chunk of land ice were to melt, world sea levels could rise by up to 20 feet” (“An Inconvenient Truth” 2006). Gore displays a series of maps simulating the effect such a sea level rise on coastal cities in several low-lying regions of the world. Sea levels would rise by another 20 feet if a chunk of Greenland melted. If sea levels rose by 20 to 40 feet, rain patterns would radically change and flooding would inundate many regions while others experienced droughts on an unprecedented scale. With Katrina’s devastating effects on the Gulf Coast fresh in our memories, Gore notes that we’ve seen the effects of 200,000 refugees and to then imagine the effects of a hundred million (“An Inconvenient Truth” 2006). “Global warming is evidenced by the well-documented melting of glaciers along with thermal expansion of the oceans, which have contributed to an increase in sea level over the past century of about six inches” (Trenberth 1997). Gore then demonstrates that rising water levels and the massive human misery it would cause is not the worst effect of melting ice. As Greenland melts, cold water mixes into the warm Gulf Stream currents in the Atlantic which acts to keep Europe warmer than other regions of similar latitude. If this warmer current turns cold, as it would if half of Greenland melted, a present-day ice age would envelope all of Europe. “Rising temperatures also give rise to more violent storms by increasing evaporation from the seas” (“An Inconvenient Truth” 2006). The horrific events involving southern sections of Louisiana and Mississippi in 2005 when rising ocean levels destroyed property and displaced thousands of citizens will repeat on a global scale if predictions of future climate change and ensuing sea-level rise are accurate. Scientists universally forecast that global warming will melt glaciers causing a rise of sea-levels which will hasten erosion resulting in the loss of vast areas of land. The change will bring about elevated storm surges thereby increasing the areas affected by flooding from heavy rain which introduces even more coastal lands to erosion and permits ocean water to infiltrate into rivers upstream of communities that they once served. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the seas surrounding the United States will rise by about 20 inches by the year 2100 and anywhere from six to 38 inches in other regions of the world. The seas are currently rising along the Atlantic coast of the United States by a tenth of an inch per year and about half that amount on the Pacific coast. Scientists warn that the consequences will be catastrophic if the current trend continues and estimate that a one-foot rise in sea level could wear away up to 200 feet of the Eastern coastline, 400 feet on the West coast and several miles into Louisiana. A 20-inch sea-level rise could abolish up to 40 percent of U.S. coastal wetlands, a three-foot rise would submerge an area the size of Massachusetts. Of course the rise in sea level would displace an untold number of people all along all coasts in all parts of the world. “Environmental degradation may produce vast numbers of ‘environmental refugees.’” (Homer-Dixon, 1991). Since before the beginning of time, coastal lands have been exposed to erosion from movements of the waves but the eroded sediments have been re-deposited. Shores change in shape but do not vanish altogether much the same as inland areas which are also susceptible to erosion; the land is deposited elsewhere but not lost. A gradual rise in sea level this past century has pushed the tide-line further inland, submerging coastal lands and causing progressive erosion. The tidal wetlands and beaches gradually migrate inland as assorted plant life grows upon newly formed beaches creating a new contracted shoreline. The extent of coastal change is determined by the topography of the land close to the shore. If there is a sudden change in elevation between the shore and the inlands, such as in coastal Louisiana, tidal wetlands will be lost. “The tide comes and goes like clockwork, but if we continue to watch and wait, our coastal regions will face more erosion damage than we can repair, and the sea’s gentle image might be changed in the eyes of those affected” (Spyres, 2001). The rise in sea level will drive South Americans inland further depleting greater regions of the Amazon Rain Forest. In Africa, the Sahara Desert will expand forcing current inhabitants of areas surrounding the Desert southward while the Delta region of Egypt will also be abandoned. Fishermen of Southeast Asia and the entire eastern pacific Asian will abandon fishing areas for already overpopulated and under-resourced inland cities. Billions will be negatively affected. Studies in the UK have found that warming could increase rainfall by more than 20 percent during the winter by the 2080’s and decrease it by the same amount during summer months in the southern half of that country. This would cause severe droughts in some regions but areas such as East Anglia, a very low-lying region on the east coast of England, could very well be under water altogether. Migration strategies of those millions of persons now occupying coastal regions and others affected by changing vegetation patterns is highly speculative outside of the fact that those living by the seas must migrate inland. However, by reviewing relatively recent examples of mass human migrations, it becomes evident that many peripheral elements are involved. It’s not simply a matter of those with beach property having to move inland, a common misconception of the potential problems. Many instances of great population movements have occurred during the past 60 years due to the exhaustion of resources in areas experiencing accelerated birth rates, depreciated agricultural conditions and erratic climatic changes. The lack of adequate amounts of food and housing as well as religious, political or ethnic conflicts have forced millions to migrate elsewhere causing indirect and devastating effects to the regions they inhabit. Desperate people flooding into another populated area quickly deplete the resources of that region causing a catastrophic domino effect throughout the rest of the world. A five inch rise in sea level resulting from would force millions in India alone to migrate northward to regions that are hardly able to absorb an avalanche of humanity in this magnitude. Recent history has demonstrated that the spread of disease is always a byproduct of mass migrations. “Migrants carry the diseases of their place of origin to their destinations and, once there, they may be susceptible to diseases that they had not previously experienced. Often they live outside the established social system and may not have access to adequate health-care services” (Homer-Dixon, 1991). It is vitally important that the people of the world realize that we have set in motion an experiment on planet Earth which we cannot simply turn off because we finally realized the dire consequences. If we injure the planet in this selfish, cataclysmic method, we kill future generations of humankind. Agriculture activity, land masses and the very air we breathe will suffer a radical change from the effects of global warming, but to what degree? No one knows. The projected rate of climate change is very alarming to many scientists but not as much to politicians as this topic isn’t as high on the political agenda as some others. It seems to me that the world leaders have no sense of urgency about them regarding global warming. They place great importance on the popular items of the day such as education, crime, economics and war so as to be reelected but if they don’t address this issue, there will be nothing to politicize in the future as we will have no future. The demographic changes of the human population depend on any one of several disastrous scenarios, none can be accurately predicted. What is known is these changes will not be pleasant and all will be affected. Works Cited Gore, Al. “An Inconvenient Truth” Lawrence Bender Productions. (2006). Breuer, Georg. Air in Danger: Ecological Perspectives of the Atmosphere. New York: Cambridge University Press. (1980). Homer-Dixon, Thomas. “Environmental changes as causes of acute conflict. International. Security” (Fall, 1991). pp. 76-116 Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press Journals. Retrieved February 15, 2008 from Miller, G. Tyler. Living in the Environment: An Introduction to Environmental Science. Belmont: Wadsworth. (1990). Spyres, Julie. “The Rising Tide: Global Warming Accelerates Coastal Erosion.” Erosion Control. Santa Barbara, CA: Forester Communications. (2001). Trenberth, Kevin E. “Global Warming: It’s Happening.” National Center for Atmospheric Research. (1997). Wunderlich, Gooloo S.; Kohler, Peter O. Improving the Quality of Long-Term Care. The National Academies Press (2001). p.18. Read More