There has been an increasing consensus that global warming occurs and that it is caused mostly due to the increase of the green house gasses emission that linked with human activities. The impacts of this global warming are not merely on the climate pattern, it will and it has been impacting the world’s ecosystems (Pachauri, 2007). Climate change disaster and the loss of biological diversity has been subject of considerable public concern.
Climate change can be driven by some factors: solar radiation, the Earth’s orbit and green house gases. The last factor is likely to become the main cause of global climate change. Green house effect refers to heat effect that felt due the entrapped sunlight by layer formed in the atmosphere from the accumulation of some gases such as carbon dioxide and methane. This layer has the nature of a glass-house-like effects which blocked some of the heat from the sunlight to leave the Earth’s atmosphere. This layer is important to keep the Earth warm because without it Earth will be as cold as the other planet in the galaxy. However, when concentration of the green house gases is become overwhelming, the layer becomes thicker and the amount of the heat that trapped is increasing hence making the Earth’s temperature to rise and global warming begin. The change of temperature, even only 1° C can change the world’s climate pattern.
The green house gases or GHG can come from nature activity such as volcanic eruption and lightning. However the major contribution of this GHG comes from human activities which can be in a form of the use of extensive fossil fuels, aerosols, changing land use and deforestation. Carbon dioxide is a major component of the GHG. The burning of tropical rain forest has contributed to the 20% increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere (Houghton, 1991). Heavy concentration of carbon dioxide can also come from a volcanic eruption. There are many parallel situations in the world where volcanic activity has become a major disturbance such as Hawaii, Mount St Helens, Krakatau and New Zealand (Hobbs, 2007). In the early 19th century the legendary eruption of Krakatau in Sunda Strait had caused catastrophic destruction, covering the air with heavy concentration of volcanic ash cloud that contains carbon dioxide across the continent (Thornton, 1996; Dale et al., 2005).
There has been a significance correlation between the increases of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere with the rising of the Earth’s temperature. Data from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (2007), revealed that in the year of 2005 the atmosphere’s CO2 concentration was 379ppm³, rising as much as 135% from the last more than a hundred years ago in the 1850 where the CO2 level was 280ppm³. In these intervals, IPCC noted that there has also been an increase of 1° C in temperature and it is projected to continue to rise until 5° C in the year of 2100 if the current condition continues.
The green house gases or GHG can come from nature activity such as volcanic eruption and lightning. However the major contribution of this GHG comes from human activities which can be in a form of the use of extensive fossil fuels, aerosols, changing land use and deforestation. Carbon dioxide is a major component of the GHG. The burning of tropical rain forest has contributed to the 20% increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere (Houghton, 1991). Heavy concentration of carbon dioxide can also come from a volcanic eruption. There are many parallel situations in the world where volcanic activity has become a major disturbance such as Hawaii, Mount St Helens, Krakatau and New Zealand (Hobbs, 2007). In the early 19th century the legendary eruption of Krakatau in Sunda Strait had caused catastrophic destruction, covering the air with heavy concentration of volcanic ash cloud that contains carbon dioxide across the continent (Thornton, 1996; Dale et al., 2005).
There has been a significance correlation between the increases of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere with the rising of the Earth’s temperature. Data from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (2007), revealed that in the year of 2005 the atmosphere’s CO2 concentration was 379ppm³, rising as much as 135% from the last more than a hundred years ago in the 1850 where the CO2 level was 280ppm³. In these intervals, IPCC noted that there has also been an increase of 1° C in temperature and it is projected to continue to rise until 5° C in the year of 2100 if the current condition continues.
The rising temperatures have been impacting our ecosystems. It has caused the rising of the sea water level globally, decreasing the amount of ice and snow in the poles and causing heavy precipitation and extreme drought in other parts of the world (Pachauri, 2007). IPCC also has projecting the ‘next big things’ to hit our ecosystems due to this climate change. In the year 2020, Africa will go through an era where water stress will be at a worrying level. By the year 2050 Asia will also have the same problem with Africa where the supply of fresh water will decrease and follow by the increase of sea water flood risk especially in the heavily populated coastal and delta areas. This actually has been happening in Indonesia and other countries in Asia, so it seems that the disaster will come earlier than we might have predicted. As for the Small Island Developing States or SIDS they will face the threat of conversion to ‘water grave’ among other impacts if the rising sea level keep continue in the future.
Since the last decade, biodiversity has become one of the watchwords in environmental community in the world (Jutro, 1991). Biological diversity is a term to refers to the “variability among living organism from all resources including inter alia, terrestrial, marine and other aquatic ecosystems and the ecological complexes of which they are part; this include diversity within species, between species and of ecosystems” (Convention on Biological Diversity, 1992). Millennium Ecosystem Assessment warns that global climate change will likely become the major driver of the loss of biodiversity in the end of the century. Even today climate change has brought serious impacts to biodiversity by causing habitat shifting, change in life cycle and the development of a new functional life traits and species extinction (CBD, 2007).
We have the luxury of looking at the past by studying paleontology fossils, pollens, tree life circle and historical documents and records to obtain information of how plants and animals abundance and distribution patterns across the globe. It is apparent that these patterns are greatly driven by the world’s climate patterns. Paleobiology study revealed that plants and animals are very sensitive to changes in climate (Davis, 1989). When the regional climate does not supportive then the life forms will disappear or colonizing other places where the climate is much more supportive and that is when habitat shifting happens. Changes in life cycles can be observed on the changes of flowering periods of many flowering plants in the world. If these changing in climatic patterns are so rapid and overwhelming it would be very hard for biota to adapt and species extinction will likely to occur, hence the world’s biological, habitat and ecosystems diversity, species and genetic diversity will be decreasing dramatically (Jutro, 1991).
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