A new study shows how climate change can increase the difference between the richest and poorest nations in the world due to a major shift of natural resources.
Climate change is considered as a crucial factor when it comes to the planet's natural resources, as the effects of warming temperatures can can force fish to migrate towards the planet's northern polar region. Wealthy nations can also prioritize resource management better, that leads to gaining more benefits from climate change management.
According to professor of ecology and evolution, Malin Pinsky, from Rutgers University, new findings reveal how natural resources especially fish are being pushed around by climate change, changing who can have available access to this source.
Researchers revealed how fish and other species of animals, including plants and trees that are essential sources for sustaining human communities are now migrating out of their habitats, moving away from temperate zones, to the direction of polar regions since temperatures are now increasing globally.
Apart from this, researchers also say that "inclusive wealth" that involves a community's capital assets such as natural ones like human health and developed ones such as roads, infrastructures and industries, can change dramatically due to natural assets migrating and reproducing in unpredictable patterns because of climate change.
Scientists were able to arrive at this conclusion when the team utilized data on fish migration and developed a mathematical algorithm. The study then analyzed two hypothetical fishing communities known as Northport and Southport where the team was able to link shifting resources to shifting wealth that are caused by the effects of climate change.
Pinsky says that climate change is often approached as an issue about physics and biology however, humans also react to climate change placing emphasis on how we are not still equipped with enough data and knowledge to fully understand the impacts of climate change, especially on human use of natural resources.
In a separate study, researchers also discovered how climate change is now impacting air travel, revealing that faster jet streams that are caused by global warming related winds can most likely delay international flights that lead to countless hours lost and millions of dollars worth of jet fuel.
According to author of the study, atmospheric scientist Paul Williams from the University of Reading, this is a serious problem for the aviation industry as they now face pressure in reducing environmental impacts to international air travel. This new study now provides new evidence that even aviation is vulnerable to the effects of climate change.
These studies are published in the journals Nature Climate Change and Environmental Research Letters.