Climate Change, Disaster and Adaptations: Human Responses to Ecological Changes

Abstract

The impact of climate change is recorded in sea level rise, ocean acidification, coral bleaching, glacier reduction on a shorter time scale as well as an increase of earth’s surface temperature (i.e. global warming) in geological landforms, in ocean sediments and ice cores globally on a longer time scales. Although both natural processes such as change in solar radiation and sunspot activities are most likely to cause climate change, anthropogenic emissions are linked with the recent climate change such as cloud burst and abrupt change in rainfall pattern etc. In the current scenario, the ecosystem is degrading at a faster rate which has led to extreme events like flood, forest fires and drought. In addition, climate change is also linked with other problems such as epidemic, vegetation and habitat losses, some of these can result in a disaster. These disasters can significantly impair the economic growth of the county. Among the entire mammals, only humans have colonised all over the earth. They adapt in such a way that they can survive in extreme climates of geographical poles, arid desert, high altitudes of mountains and remote islands of the Pacific. Most of the time, humans such as sea nomads adapt to the changes occurring in their environment by changing their genetic adaptation to climate change. However, humans sometimes can’t adapt to the changing environment, and they migrate to a suitable place. The observed genetic makeup in modern Indo-Aryans also supports the above hypothesis that climate change caused human migration during and after the collapse of the Indus Valley Civilisation. The literature clearly shows that the main reasons behind the migration are natural disaster, lack of natural resources and poor economic condition. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022.