ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the more important of the extensive list of impacts on the world's environment. The intergovernmental panel on climate change 4 contains some regional climate predictions; however, the models used for the projections have wider margins of error than the general predictions included in this discussion. By combining local rates of relative sea level change for a specific area based on observations with projections of global sea level rise, coastal managers and engineers should begin to analyze and plan for the impacts of sea level rise for long-range planning." Global warming is expanding arid areas of the Earth Warming at the equator drives a climate system called the Hadley Cell. The areas covered by droughts have increased in various parts of the world. The regions where they have occurred seem to be determined largely by changes in sea surface temperatures, especially in the tropics, and through changes in the atmospheric circulation and precipitation.
