Climate change and adaptation and mitigation - Essay Example

s of carbon dioxide have increased from a pre- industrial value of 278 to 385 parts per million in 2008, and the average global temperatures rose by 0.74 degree Celsius. In line with scientists, this is the fastest and largest warming trend they have been able to distinguish in history. With the increase in temperatures, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change shows that the rate of recurrence of severe events such as those of heat values, drought and heavy rainfall will increase, negatively affecting agriculture, forests, bio diversity, water resources, industry, human health and settlements.

Higher temperatures are predicted to raise sea level (Karling, 2001). This will be an outcome of thermal expansion of oceans and melting of mountain glaciers and ice caps together with portions of green land and Antarctic ice sheets (Hardy, 2003). In addition, amplified concentration of atmosphere carbon dioxide is causing oceans to become more acidic threatening viability of aquatic life. This concentration will not fully disperse for thousands of years. The need for action progressively grows more urgent.

Basic hypothesis, climate model simulation and empirical evidence all approve that warmer climates, due to water vapor that increases result in more intense precipitation events even when the total annual precipitation reduces to some extent, and with predictions for even stronger events when the general precipitation amounts increase. The warmer climate thus increases risks of both drought and floods but at different places and times. For example, the summer of 2002 in Europe brought prevalent floods, however, later in 2003 heat waves and, drought followed which created a historic record.

The distribution and programming of floods and droughts is most intensely affected by the sequence of El Niño events, principally in the tropics and over considerable mid-latitudes of Pacific-rim countries (Hardy, 2003). Adaptation to climate change is a reaction