Special Article

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CLIMATE CHANGE AND ITS IMPACT ON

GEOGRAPHICAL FEATURES
Climate is defined as long-term averages and variations in weather measured over a period of several decades.
The Earths climate system includes the land surface, atmosphere, oceans, and ice. Many aspects of the global
climate are changing rapidly, and the primary drivers of that change are human being. Evidence for changes
in the climate system abounds, from the top of the atmosphere to the depths of the oceans

Notes

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SC

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In recent decades, changes in climate have caused impacts on natural and human systems on all continents and
across the oceans.

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Impacts on Landforms
1.

Water Bodies: With respect to Changing rain, snow and runoff

Climate change will have an impact on the predictability and variability in the availability of water and also
increase in frequencies of droughts and floods. Worst sufferers would be farmers of the rainfed agriculture,
which covers 60% of all cultivated land in the country. Irrigated areas in large river basins and deltas can also
be at risk because of a combination of factors, such as reduced runoff, salinity, increasing floods, sea level rise,
urban and industrial pollution.

2.

Mountains and land degradation:

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All these in one or the other way will affect the land to maintain the level of agricultural productivity and farm
output; cause loss of biodiversity and the reduction in the natural ability of ecosystems to recover. Areas
projected to experience lower precipitation will need to improve water management system and water storage
capacity that can enhance crop productivity. While large irrigation schemes will need to adapt to changes in
water supply regimes, small-scale irrigation schemes will need field-based water control measures.

SC

In the context of climate change, significant perturbations can be expected to natural ecosystem of and these
will have negative influence on the mountain ecosystem. It will impact in two way. Firstly, Global climate
change will change and impact the Hydrology over the Mountain System. Around 50% of the worlds River
source are originating from Mountain system. Any shifts in temperature and precipitation will have significant
impacts on water over Mountain and whole ecosystem and secondly, Physical activity like Erosion in mountain
system due to rain, Ice and wind will impact the landforms.

3.

Soil:

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Due to frequent droughts and floods the land will get degraded. Degraded land may lost its organic matter and
soil structure which holds water less effectively, impeding growth. Moreover, reduced infiltration of water will
also occur. As a consequence less water will reach underground aquifers and water reaching rivers will do via
overland flows rather than via an array of slower sub-surface routes. Overland flows are quick, and waters
will be concentrated into this route reaching rivers more rapidly and as a single input.

Soil moisture is projected to decline with higher temperatures and attendant increases in the potential for
Evaporation. Soil Chemistry may get changed due to climate change. Biological activity get reduced which
makes infertile soil.
4.

Glacial Melt:

Glacier is melting due to rise in Global Average Temperature. Over the period 1992 to 2011, the Greenland
and Antarctic ice sheets have been losing mass, likely at a larger rate over 2002 to 2011.
If the earth keeps warming at the current rate, Himalayan glaciers are likely to disappear altogether in 25 years.
In the absence of glaciers, rivers in the Indo-Gangetic plain will become much more seasonal, threatening the
rabi crop as well as domestic and industrial water supplies in the non-monsoon months. In addition, more
precipitation will fall as rain rather than snow and the greater water run-offs will increase flooding.

Notes

Up to half of the glacier decline is thought to have occurred as a result of upper atmospheric heating from
the black carbon particles in the South Asian brown cloud. In addition, deposits of these soot particles in snow
and ice accelerates melting.

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Impacts on Ocean
1.

Sea Level Change:

It has been estimated that a rise of 10 degrees Celsius in ocean temperature would lead to a sea level rise of
10 meters globally. In addition, any atmospheric warming would have led to the melting of ice sheets increasing
the volume of water in the oceans. With the melting of the ice sheets, weight on the continents beneath would
have been released. This too would have resulted in localized sea-level change as the land rebounded with the
removal of ice. Sea level changes have been in excess of 200 meters throughout the past 100 Ma. In fact it
has been determined that sea levels have risen 150 meters since the last glacial maximum 18,000 years ago.
Over the period 1901 to 2010, global mean sea level rose by 0.19 m. In the longer term, sea level rise, extreme
storm surge events, and high tides will affect coastal facilities and infrastructure on which many energy
systems, markets, and consumers depend.
Ocean Acidification:

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2.

Rising ocean acidification and changing carbonate chemistry will have negative consequences for the marine
ecosystems. Since the beginning of the industrial era, oceanic uptake of CO2 has resulted in acidification of
the ocean; the pH of ocean surface water has decreased by 0.1, corresponding to a 26% increase in acidity,
measured as hydrogen ion concentration.

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As human-induced emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) build up in the atmosphere, excess CO2is dissolving
into the oceans where it reacts with seawater to form carbonic acid, lowering ocean pH levelsand threatens
marine ecosystem.
Threats to coastal communities: Some 40 percent of the worlds population lives within 100 kilometers
ofcoastal ocean.
High tides and storm surges riding on ever-higher seas are more dangerous to people and coastal infrastructure.

Barrier islands, beaches, sand dunes, salt marshes, mangrove stands, and mud and sand flats retreat inland
as sea level rises, unless there are obstructions along the retreat path. If they cannot move, these natural
protections will washed over or drowned.

In these areas, sea-level rise increases erosion of stranded beaches, wetlands, and engineered structures

3.

Loss of Sea Ice:

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Polar sea ice melts each summer and reforms each wintera freeze-thaw cycle that in the Arctic has been
dramatically altered by global warming.The loss of sea ice also exposes Arctic coastal areas to severe erosion
from wind and waves.
4.

Impact on Fisheries and Aquaculture

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Climate change, more particularly harsher weather conditions, will have impact on the quality, productivity,
output and viability of fish and aquaculture enterprises, thereby affecting fishing community. The small-scale
fishers may be faced with greater uncertainty as availability, access, stability and useof aquatic food and
supplies would diminish and work opportunities would dwindle. Aquaculture development opportunities will
increase in particular in tropical and sub-tropical regions. The climate change in warmer regions offers new
opportunities as production in warmer regions will increase because of better growth rates, a longer growing
season and the availability of new fish farming areas where it was once too cold.

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Impacts on Atmosphere
Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, and since the 1950s, many of the observed changes are
unprecedented over decades to millennia. Each of the last three decades has been successively warmer at the
Earths surface than any preceding decade since 1850. The period from 1983 to 2012 was likely the warmest
30-year period of the last 1400 years in the Northern Hemisphere, where such assessment is possible
1.

Global average temperature:

Global average temperature is one of the most-cited indicators of global climate change, and shows an increase
of approximately 1.4F since the early 20th Century.Global surface temperatures have increased about 0.74C
(plus or minus 0.18C) since the late-19th century, and thelinear trendfor the past 50 years of 0.13C (plus
or minus 0.03C) per decade is nearly twice that for the past 100 years. The warming has not been globally
uniform. Some areas have, in fact, cooled slightly over the last century.

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Increasing global temperatures will lead to higher maximum temperatures, more heat waves, and fewer cold
days over most land areas. More severe drought in some areas, combined with other factors, has contributed
to larger and more frequent wildfires.
The concentration of rainfall in a few events will tend to reduce groundwater recharge and accentuate droughts
in water-stressed regions. India is predicted to reach a state of water stress by 2025 in which per capita water
availability falls below 1,000 cubic metres per capita. An increase in cyclone intensity of 10-20% for 2-4
degrees Celsius of warming is predicted for south Asia and adjoining regions. These cyclonic storms will
particularly affect the poor in coastal areas like Orissa and Bengal.
2.

Extreme Weather:

3.

Changing Rainfall Pattern:

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There have been changes in some types of extreme weather events over the last several decades. There have
been regional trends in floods and droughts. Heat waves are periods of abnormally hot weather lasting days
to weeks. Many more high temperature records are being broken as compared to low temperature records over
the past three to four decades another indicator of a warming climate.

GS

Atmospheric water vapor is increasing in the lower atmosphere, because a warmer atmosphere can hold more
water. This is leading to change in rainfall pattern.
Increasing temperatures, and in some areas reduced rainfall, will stress native plant and animal populations and
species, especially in high-elevation ecosystems, with increased exposure to non-native biological invasions and
fire, and with extinctions a likely result. A decline in monsoon rainfall since the 1950s has already been
observed. The frequency of heavy rainfall events has also increased.
4.

Other Climate change Phenomena:

Changes in other climate-relevant indicators such as growing season length have been observed in many areas.
Worldwide, the observed changes in average conditions have been accompanied by increasing trends in extremes
of heat and heavy precipitation events, and decreases in extreme cold. The frequency of El-Nino has increased.

Conclusion
Climate change is already having a significant impact on ecosystems, economies and communities. It has heavy
impact on landform like Land, Water bodies, mountain, Glacier, Ocean and Atmosphere which explained
above.

Notes

The direct fallout of this environmental decline will be borne by the poor and the already deprived. Therefore,
each action in this context must be seen from the perspective of the most underprivileged. The entire global
community has to work towards this issue to mitigate the climate change impact.