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When Climate Turns Nasty, What Are Recent and Future Implications? Ecological and Human Health Review of Climate Change Impacts

Current Climate Change Reports volume 6, pages 55–65 (2020)Cite this article

Abstract

Purpose of Review

The impacts of climate change on biodiversity in the last three decades have increasingly assumed from significant to threatening proportions and this causes major global concerns. This study aims at examining the recent and future impacts of global climate change on both ecological resources and human well-being. This review study is based on the general concept of ecological resilience: that coping with climate change stresses and disturbances depends on social resilience, political and environmental strategies accessible in a community. The study assessed over 300 peer-reviewed publications, both articles and books, which linked climate change impacts on ecosystems to social/health resilience of people in the specific regions. Publications on that were focused on general impacts of climate change on global ecology, ecosystem distribution shifts and phenology change; the ecological and social/health resilience, in the tropic and polar regions, were reviewed.

Recent Findings

The major finding of this study is that there is considerable variation in magnitudes and patterns of responses to climate change in different regions, even with an overall review of scientific studies on the global ecosystem and human health. Despite this, what is obvious is that change in the ecosystem in Polar Regions will continue to have significant impacts on the global environment, flora, fauna and ultimately human well-being.

Summary

There are many uncertainties, though, on the possible effects of climate change ecosystem and soils and their severe biological, social, cultural and economic consequences. Notwithstanding these uncertainties, the impacts of climate change on both ecosystem and human socio-cultural activities are very likely to become even more widespread in the near future.

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Funding

This paper is part of research project, carried out with the aid of a grant from the International Development Research Centre, Ottawa, Canada, and with financial support from the Government of Canada, provided through Global Affairs Canada (GAC), under the framework of the Mathematical Sciences for Climate Change Resilience (MS4CR) program administered by AIMS.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Geography, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria

    Ayansina Ayanlade

  2. Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada

    Consolato M. Sergi

  3. PROMISE Department, University of Palermo, Palermo, Italy

    Paola Di Carlo

  4. African Institute for Science Policy and Innovation, Obafemi Awolowo Univefrsity, Ile-Ife, Nigeria

    Oluwatoyin S. Ayanlade

  5. Department of Political Science, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria

    Damilola T. Agbalajobi

Authors
  1. Ayansina Ayanlade
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  2. Consolato M. Sergi
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  3. Paola Di Carlo
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  4. Oluwatoyin S. Ayanlade
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  5. Damilola T. Agbalajobi
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Contributions

Ayansina Ayanlade, Consolato M. Sergi, and Paola Di Carlo contributed to the study design, methods development, result analysis and writing of the manuscript; OS Ayanlade and DT Agbalajobi contributed in data/literature collection, analysis and to the manuscript preparation and write up.

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Correspondence to Ayansina Ayanlade.

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Ayanlade, A., Sergi, C.M., Di Carlo, P. et al. When Climate Turns Nasty, What Are Recent and Future Implications? Ecological and Human Health Review of Climate Change Impacts. Curr Clim Change Rep 6, 55–65 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40641-020-00158-8

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Keywords

  • Climate change
  • Ecological impacts
  • Social well-being
  • Human health implications