Impacts of Climate Change🔗
Climate impacts refer to the effects of changes in the Earth’s climate on people, economies, ecosystems, and infrastructure. These include reduced crop yields, more deaths due to extreme heat, and lower economic growth. Impacts may be caused directly by temperature increase, or by associated drivers such as CO2 concentration and sea level rise.
Index of Impacts in En-ROADS🔗
Atmosphere🔗
Health and Economy🔗
- Air Pollution from Energy — PM2.5 Emissions
- Air Pollution from Energy by Source — PM2.5
- Decrease in Crop Yield from Warming
- Frequency of Extreme Heat
- Additional Deaths from Extreme Heat
- Global GDP Loss
Oceans🔗
- Sea Level Rise
- Sea Level Rise—Flood Risk Map
- Population Exposed to Sea Level Rise
- Ocean Acidification
- Probability of Ice-free Arctic Summer
- Loss in Ocean Life from Warming
Nature🔗
- Ecosystem Shifts from Warming
- Arid Land Expansion from Warming
- Species Losing More than 50% of Climatic Range
- Extinction Risk of Endemic Animal Species
Big Messages🔗
- Climate impacts can highlight the importance of even a small change in temperature. Many impacts don't increase steadily as temperatures rise. Instead, they can become much worse very quickly.
- Mitigation brings immediate co-benefits, which are apparent by comparing the impact in 2030 or 2040 in the Baseline vs. the Current Scenario.
Key Dynamics🔗
Temperature: Most impacts are the result of global temperature increase or its consequences. Sea level rise, for example, is driven by a combination of melting ice and thermal expansion. Warmer oceans cause tropical cyclones to intensify in strength more quickly than in the past. Biodiversity declines when changing weather patterns and increasing heat cause ecosystems to shift or destabilize, altering species’ habitats.
CO2 concentration: Ocean acidification, for example, is driven by an increase in the atmospheric concentration of CO2. The oceans absorb about 30% of the CO2 released into the atmosphere. Once dissolved in water, the CO2 increases the acidity of the water through a series of chemical reactions. One important result is that less calcium carbonate is available, making it difficult for marine species to build seashells and coral skeletons.
Air pollution: Air pollution from energy is the result of particulate matter emissions from burning coal, oil, and natural gas. Transforming the energy system to use renewables and other sources of clean energy will immediately improve air quality.
Facilitation Tips🔗
- Highlight climate impacts throughout an En-ROADS workshop: at the beginning, to motivate action; after creating a scenario of climate success, to illustrate the improvements; and to emphasize the need for adaptation and resilience, even in a successful scenario.
- Maps, like those showing sea level rise, help people connect global changes to their local areas.
Equity Considerations🔗
- Climate change disproportionately affects marginalized and vulnerable populations, including low-income communities, racial minorities, the elderly, and people with disabilities. For example, many elderly people are more vulnerable to heatwaves and extreme weather events due to chronic health conditions, reduced ability to regulate body temperature, and socioeconomic factors such as limited financial resources and a higher likelihood of living alone.
- Low-income communities often lack the resources to adapt or recover from climate impacts such as weather disasters, crop failures, or rising sea levels.
Videos🔗
Model Structure🔗
Many of the climate impacts in En-ROADS are derived from research studies that have connected specific impacts to different global temperature scenarios. For more information on the climate impact and the study it is based on, view the graph description by clicking on the gray arrow on the top left of the graph title. Details on modeling are included in the En-ROADS Technical Reference.
FAQs🔗
Economic impact of climate change
Crop yield
Sea level rise
- What does the “Land at risk” (dark blue) area in sea level rise (SLR) maps represent?
- What does the “Land saved by actions” (green) area in sea level rise (SLR) maps represent?
- Why do the sea level rise (SLR) maps show so much “Land at risk” (blue) in 2030?
- I think the 2030 sea level rise (SLR) maps for my region are unreliable. Does this mean the longer-term maps are wrong?
- What does the Long-term Equilibrium sea level rise (SLR) map mean?
- Where can I find out more information about the sea level rise (SLR) maps?
Other
Please visit support.climateinteractive.org for additional inquiries and support.