Climate Change: An Impact on Biodiversity

The present era of industrialization and globalization has added a lot of comfort and luxury to human life but has also led an alarming situation of environmental degradation. Recently, it has been established by the Intergovernmental Penal on Climate Change (IPCC) that the present climate change is mainly due to man-made air pollution which is contributed by the combustion of fossil fuel and biomass during the industrial, vehicular and domestic activities. The pollutants emitted from such activities have both short as well as long term impacts on various atmospheric processes including cloud modification, affecting monsoon and hydrological cycle. The atmosphere of the earth is being polluted with ‘greenhouse gases’ which, in turn affect the climate globally. The dominant greenhouse gases include water vapours, carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide. The increase in the levels of carbon dioxide enhance the atmospheric temperature and ultimately cause global warming which is responsible for rapid melting of glaciers. Climate change is now recognized as one of the greatest environmental threats to biodiversity as a number ofplant and animal species has been extinct and many others are at the verge of extinction. Although, extinction is a natural process, the present elimination of species is due to human induced habitat destruction.