PrintThe Weather, The Climate, It's All Affected
This week, we took a quick look from 30,000 feet at the expected impacts on our weather and climate as a result of anthropogenic forcing of the climate system. We've seen that both our day-to-day weather patterns and our overall climate conditions both will continue to change as a result of human activity. Understanding these changes and preparing for them are critical components of building our adaptive capacity. Even if we stop emitting all the CO2 in the world right this minute, we're already committed to some level of continued change. How many of you are optimists? I try to find the good in things, and that goes for climate change impacts, too. However, the vast majority of impacts we can expect are negative. There's not much silver lining to this. We were pretty nicely suited to live in the climatic conditions we've enjoyed for most of human existence, and we're creating changes to that system that are fast (on a geologic time scale at least). We'll need to think strategically about how to maneuver through shifts in agriculturally productive lands, harnessing heavy precipitation events to prevent flooding, protecting vulnerable people from heat stress, and more. We'll look at some of those issues in depth a bit more when we get to Unit 3: Solutions.
Reminder - Complete all of the Lesson 3 tasks!
You have reached the end of Lesson 3! Double-check the lesson assignments in the corresponding lesson module in Canvas to make sure you have completed all of the tasks listed there.