What is affected by global warming?

Answer 1

Potentially every living thing can be affected by global climate change. Warmer oceans means different current patterns, which means altered rainfall patterns on the continents. Vegetation will move in response to changing precipitation patterns. Animals will move to follow the vegetation.

Some plant and animal communities could face extinction. Alpine plant and animal communities are one example; they are specially adapted to live in high, cold environments that are prohibitive for other plants and animals, but warmer average temperatures mean longer growing seasons and more ground gained by the plants that need longer growing seasons. A change in habitat means the animals that live there will face growing competition from other animals and will either have to adapt, move, or die.

Changing vegetation and rainfall affect human civilization as well, because we, too, are part of the natural world no matter if we overlook that fact. Changing climate means changing crop availability. Potentially, formerly arable land could become desert, setting off starvation. Also, mountains that store 80% of the world's fresh water in the form of snow and ice, could become dry, and drinking water would not be available to everyone downstream from the mountains.

Also, warming would cause the ice caps to melt and flood the oceans, raising the sea level dramatically. Because many major cities worldwide are built next to the ocean, billions of people could be affected.

"When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe." John Muir
Nature, us and more