Solving Environmental Problems through Engineering

Climate Change: What happens as global temperatures rise.

For years, it was called Global Warming, and the average temperatures recorded across the globe have increased. But this does not play out the same in every community, in every ecosystem. Warming water and warming land result in different weather patterns, different microclimates, and changing habitats for local organisms. It makes sense that the term has morphed to Climate Change. It is important to sort out the difference between weather and climate for students, as they can be confusing terms. Weather refers to a meteorological event that occurs at a specific time and place. Climate describes what the weather is like over an extended period of time in a specific region. This subject heading on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration website sums it up nicely: “What’s the Difference Between Weather and Climate? Climate is what you expect, weather is what you get.”²³ Both are changing.

The Climate is changing, and so is the weather.

A recent report from IPCC, the Summary Report for Policymakers on Climate Change and Land focuses on slow climate change processes ranging from increased desertification in Sub Saharan Africa, parts of East and Central Asia and Australia to contraction of polar climate zones with accompanying sea level rise and coastal erosion impacting other areas.²⁴ The Fourth Assessment Report lists impacts for individual regions in the United States. The Southwestern part of the United States has seen an increase in wild fires at the same time it is facing water shortages, both due to drought and exacerbated by increased development across the region.²⁵ The Northeastern part of the United States is seeing increased flooding. These floods are caused by intense storms. The rapid rate of precipitation can cause stream, river and coastal flooding contributing to temporary or permanent displacement.²⁶ While drought is also listed as a potential consequence of climate change for the Northeast, it is the heavy rain events that will likely be the most devastating.

The organization World Weather Attribution publishes assessments of weather events from across the globe determining the probability that the event had an increased likelihood or severity due to climate change. The goal of the organization is to identify “a human fingerprint on individual extreme weather events” or “probabilistic extreme event attribution.”²⁷ Wildfires in Australia are normal occurrences, but was the 2019 season worse due to climate change? The assessment from WWA was yes.²⁸ A glance at the WWA website shows that they categorize weather events not just by heat waves and wildfires, but also by drought, extreme rainfall, cold spells, and storms, including hail, snow, thunder, etc. In 2019 the following occurred: extensive Australian bushfires, unusual southern European cold snaps, unusual northern European heat waves. Texas received extreme rainfall. These all produced assessments from WWA that climate change had definitely increased the likelihood and the intensity of the event.²⁹ The climate changes in small increments, weather events capture our attention for their severity and destruction.