Climate Change Due To Global Warming

The Impact of Climate Change on Natural Disasters
	Climate change may not be responsible for the recent skyrocketing cost of natural disasters, but it is very likely that it will impact future catastrophes. Climate models provide a glimpse of the future, and while they do not agree on all of the details, most models predict a few general trends. First, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, an increase of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere will probably boost temperatures over most land surfaces, though the exact change will vary regionally. More uncertain—but possible—outcomes of an increase in global temperatures include increased risk of drought and increased intensity of storms, including tropical cyclones with higher wind speeds, a wetter Asian monsoon, and, possibly, more intense mid-latitude storms. (For more information, see Global Warming: Potential Effects of Global Warming)
	Global warming could affect storm formation by decreasing the temperature difference between the poles and the equator. That temperature difference fuels the mid-latitude storms affect the Earth’s most populated regions. Warmer temperatures could increase the amount of water vapor that enters the atmosphere. The result is a hotter, more humid environment. At the equator, where conditions are already hot and humid, the change isn’t expected to be large. At the poles, however, the air is cold and dry; a little extra heat and water vapor could raise temperatures greatly. As a result, global warming may cause the temperature difference between the poles and the equator to decrease. and as the difference decreases, so should the number of storms, says George Tselioudis, a research scientist at NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) and Columbia University. But even as a warming climate might decrease the overall number of storms that form, it could increase the number of intense storms. As temperatures continue to rise, more and more water vapor could evaporate into the atmosphere, and water vapor is the fuel for storms. “If we are creating an atmosphere more loaded with humidity, any storm that does develop has greater potential to develop into an intense storm,” says Tselioudis. http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/RisingCost/rising_cost5.php