Impacts & Management of Global Climate Change in Extreme Environments (SL IB Geography)

• Rises in global warming have led to unprecedented levels of melting in cold environments
• Approximately 40% of permafrost areas are at risk of degradation, melting and the development of thermokarst subsidence (see periglacial processes here)
• Very cold areas will remain well below freezing even if they experience a rise in temperature, such as in central Antarctica
• The average air temperature in the Arctic has risen by over 2 °C since 1960, nearly twice as fast as the average global temperature increase
• The extent and thickness of the sea ice have declined, threatening the traditional hunter-gatherer existence of the Inuit 
• Changes in seasonal melt have placed ice-dependent animals at risk
  • The far northern Canadian polar bears are expected to face starvation and reproductive failure by 2100

 Present and Future Impacts of Climate Change

• There may be some advantages of global climate change in cold environments, such as:
  • Rising temperatures increases agricultural output as the length of the growing season increases
    • The extent of cultivable land increases as permafrost levels decrease
  • Forestry, particularly coniferous forestry, may be possible as the treeline extents poleward
  • Tourism may increase in certain areas as they become more accessible
• However, most of these benefits are only short-term and eventually, these environments will become too extreme for people, settlements and economic activities to continue

• By 2050, temperatures in the world’s arid regions could rise by 2 to 5 °C, accelerating and increasing desertification impacts
• Precipitation rates will decrease, moving semi-arid areas into arid regions
• Extreme weather events are likely to become more frequent such as drought
• There will be an increasing pressure on scarce water resources, reduced agricultural production, lower crop yields and increased food insecurity
• Daily tasks will become more difficult to complete due to rising temperatures 
• Increased migration to already overcrowded cities
• Less productive soils will lead to rural areas becoming less viable, forcing more people to migrate further afield
• This adds pressure on other countries to provide food, water and shelter when they themselves may be struggling
• Some may stay and adapt by using soil conservation strategies or changing agricultural practices

• The future for those living in extreme environments depends on the action taken to mitigate and ameliorate climate change
• No one plan or action can solve the issue, and this means there are two possible outcomes:
  • Business as usual
  • Human intervention stops, halts or reverses change
• Strategies in arid regions could include:
  • Improving soil fertility through the careful use of fertilisers
  • Using indigenous plant species that are better suited to extreme conditions
  • Improving irrigation systems and pest control
  • Adopting water and soil conservation techniques

Enabling mitigation

• Communicating and accessing weather and hazard information 
• Creating transport systems that work amid extreme events
• Using banking credit and insurance to spread the risk before, during, and after extreme events
• Diversifying business and personal economic prospects
• Providing basic language and skills to understand risks and change livelihoods
• Providing the freedom to organise, access and voice issues through varied public, private, and civil society organisations
• Combining social and scientific knowledge into planning and learning from experiences. proactively identify hazards, assess risk, and create local responses