Question

How are changes in climate and the hydrological cycle affecting the environment and your future?

Answer 1

http://legacy.mos.org/oceans/planet/change.html
I need to write a paragraph using this website

Answer 2

@Mr.Z Could you help me out?

Answer 3

There are physical limits and balances within the atmosphere that are governed by factors such as temperature, pressure, presence of water vapour &c. As the atmosphere and oceans warm up water more readily evapourates, this enters the atmosphere and ultimately falls as precipitation – rain where it’s warm and snow where it’s cold.

There is a non-linear relationship between the temperature of the atmosphere and the amount of water vapour it can contain before it reaches it’s limit (saturation vapour point or pressure). Once the limit is reached the excess water vapour is precipitated out.

Effectively this means that whilst the amount of evapouration has increased by about 10%, this additional burden is not supported by the atmosphere and therefore is dissipates out. With faster evapouration there is increased precipitation and globally there has been a 10% increase in the amount of snow and rainfall. This isn’t an even distribution across the planet, some places have seen increases far in excess of 10% and some places have seen a decrease in precipitation.

The most obvious result of this accelerated cycle is that flood events are far more common than they used to be. This graphic shows that since 1950 there has been an approx sixfold increase in the number of flood events:
http://maps.grida.no/go/graphic/number-o...

Flooding not only destroys homes and property but it destroys crops, contaminates fresh water supplies, spreads contaminants and disease, destroys environments and ecosystems etc. The effects of a serious flood can be felt for many years after the waters have receded; one example being that there are still six million people who are homeless following the flooding in Pakistan last year.


I hoped this helped