In this lesson, we'll take a step back and look at what our increased emissions mean both for the climate and for extreme weather events.
By the end of this lesson, you should be able to:
This lesson will take us one week to complete. Please refer to the corresponding module in Canvas for specific assignments, deliverables, and due dates.
If you have questions, please feel free to post them to the "Ask a question about the lesson?" discussion forum in Canvas. While you are there, feel free to post your own responses if you, too, are able to help a classmate.
We've briefly looked at extreme weather events already in the context of human health implications. But their impacts reach beyond just those felt by us. For a better understanding of the impact of extreme weather events, please read (assigned, required reading) the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions section on Extreme Weather and Climate Change [1]. They summarize these topics better than I can, so I'll save you my attempts at paraphrasing.
Learn more about the links between climate change and:
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.
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.