Climate Change
U.K Climate Change and its Effects The threat of climate change will have impact in the following areas of life in the British Isles: • Sea level rises • Flooding • Ocean currents • Health • Agricultural • Wildlife However there may be new opportunities offered by a warmer climate. However, the overall effect of climate change for the world is NEGATIVE. Rising Sea Levels Sea level will rise by between 10cms and 90cms this century depending on how we reduce CO2 emissions. The coastline of Britain could change dramatically. Low lying areas could be invaded by the sea e.g. East Anglia Ocean Currents The Gulf Stream brings warmth to the UK and north-west Europe and is the reason we have mild winters. The average annual temperature of north-west Europe is about 9C above the average for our latitude. If greenhouse gas emissions continue to increase, the temperature and density of the sea water in the North Atlantic will change with dramatic consequences. The gulf stream may stop or be greatly reduced. This would mean that less heat is brought to north-west Europe - harsher winters and mild summers. Flooding The UK has experienced devastating floods throughout the last five years, which have affected thousands of people and caused millions of pounds worth of damage. Last Summer's floods shocked the country - Large town were cut off or under
Why did so many people die in the 2010 Haiti earthquake?
On the 12th January 2010, a tragic 7.0 magnitude quake on the Richter scale struck near Port au Prince in Haiti. This devastating earthquake was caused by a conservative plate boundary which had not caused an earthquake for 200years. 3,500,000 people were affected by the quake, 220,000 were estimated to have died, and over 300,000 people were injured. Over 188,383 houses were badly damaged 105,000 were destroyed by the earthquake (293,383 in total) and 1.5m people became homeless. After the quake there were 19 million cubic metres of rubble and debris in Port au Prince which was enough to fill a line of shipping containers stretching end to end from London to Beirut (The capital of Lebanon). Furthermore, 4,000 schools were damaged or destroyed and 60% of Government and administrative buildings, 80% of schools in Port-au-Prince and 60% of schools in the South and West Departments were destroyed or damaged. The impact of this was one of the most devastating anyone had ever witnessed. However, why did San Francisco earthquake (Loma Prieta) in 1980 which was magnitude of 6.9 in the Richter scale only cause 69 deaths compared to the death toll of 220,000 in Haiti? The area with the most damage, Port-au-Prince, was built on loose sedimentary rock, which amplifies the seismic waves and intensifies them. We can see how much extra damage the loose sediment does as houses that were
