Impacts of Climate Change on Wildlife

Climate change, also called global warming refers to a long-term change in the earth's climate. It is happening due to an excessive rise in average surface temperature on Earth. Human activities such as burning fossil fuels and farming are the main reason behind the cause of climate change. Burning fossils fuels emits carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas which produces greenhouse effect.

The greenhouse effect makes the earth warmer. The earth is suffering countless impacts of changing the climate. Ice is melting worldwide, especially at the Earth’s poles. Global sea levels are rising 0.13 inches (3.2 millimeters) a year, and the rise is occurring at a faster rate in recent years. The increasing global climate changes bring several other impacts on agriculture, livestock production, economy, and livelihood. Besides above, rising temperatures are mainly affecting wildlife and their habitats on our planet.

Human-caused climate change cannot escape glorious wildlife from our planet. Increasing climate change has begun to affect wildlife across the globe in a rigorous way. They bring many threats like habitat destruction, overexploitation, and diseases to wildlife. As a consequence, abundant animal species are on the brink of extinction and some already vanish from the earth.

The endangered Bramble Cay melomys is a small rodent that lives on a tiny island in the eastern Torres Strait. These species are not sighted from its known location from past many years. Expert believed that they might have vanished-out from the planet due to increasing climate change. However, this is only one example from several others. Columbia Spotted Frogs are the most endangered species of frog among reptile group, American Pika that closely resembles like rabbit is now most threatened and Adélie Penguin, mostly found in Antarctica is under several threats because of globally rising temperature.