By now everyone has heard the apocalyptic predictions: Sea level rise, killer storms, vanishing coastlines, starvation, societal collapse, etc. There's little doubt that climate change will have a catastrophic impact on the world and the way we live our lives. But it isn't just going to alter our world in big ways. It's already changing our world in little ways, and some of those ways are really bizarre.
By now everyone has heard the apocalyptic predictions: Sea level rise, killer storms, vanishing coastlines, starvation, societal collapse, etc. There's little doubt that climate change will have a catastrophic impact on the world and the way we live our lives. But it isn't just going to alter our world in big ways. It's already changing our world in little ways, and some of those ways are really bizarre.
When you think of Antarctica, plants probably aren't the first things that come to mind. After all, Earth's icy southernmost continent is the largest desert in the world, not only bitterly cold but exceptionally dry; there are places in Antarctica that haven't seen liquid water for millions of years. All the same, Antarctica does have a few unique plant species all of its own, and in recent years, they've been thriving.
You've probably heard of mental illnesses like depression, generalized anxiety disorder, and social anxiety disorder. But have you ever heard of climate anxiety? Also called climate stress or climate distress, climate anxiety is the fear and dread that people experience when they think about climate change and the impending climate crisis (via The Washington Post). For example, if you experience a lot of anxiety when thinking about planning for retirement because you're worried that climate change will have destroyed the world by then, that might be a form of climate anxiety.
Climate change influences everything from the length of U.S. summers to the amount of rain that falls when it storms (via The Washington Post and the EPA). But, did you know that it also impacts the Earth's gravitational pull? This fact was illustrated by a discovery made by the European Space Agency (ESA) in 2014. The discovery was made possible by the fact that satellites can actually provide an image of Earth's gravitational field. In 2009, the ESA launched the Gravity Field and Steady-State Ocean Circulation Explorer (GOCE) satellite to create the most detailed map to date of Earth's gravity. "The colors in the image represent deviations in height (–100 m to +100 m) from an ideal geoid," the ESA explained to Bloomberg. "The blue shades represent low values and the reds/yellows represent high values." (If you're wondering what the ESA means by geoid, it's a global model of mean sea level used to measure elevation, NOAA explained.)
Earth's oceans comprise a dense, delicate ecosystem of interconnected causes and effects. More carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere means more CO2 in the ocean, as the National Ocean Service says, which acidifies the ocean and makes it harder for ocean life to survive — particularly shelled organisms. This and superheated oceans affect everything from the smallest plankton to the largest whale, as the European Commission shows. Overfishing and oceanic waste dumping compound problems. Coral reefs near the surface have been hit the hardest and are dying worldwide, per the UN Environment Programme. But soon, not even the darkest, coldest places of the seas will remain undamaged.
Learn more about the environment and climate that are essential to supporting life on Earth.
