Effects of climate change on biomes in the context of Holdridge life zones

Climate change affects human health in many ways, including an increase in heat-related illnesses and deaths, worsened air quality, the spread of infectious diseases, and health risks associated with extreme weather such as floods and storms. Rising global temperatures and changes in weather patterns are increasing the severity of heat waves and extreme weather events. These events in turn have direct and indirect impacts on human health. For example, when people are exposed to higher temperatures for longer time periods they might experience heat illness and heat-related death.

In addition to direct impacts, climate change and extreme weather events cause changes in biomes. Certain diseases that are carried and spread by living hosts such as mosquitoes and ticks (known as vectors) may become more common in some regions. Affected diseases include dengue fever and malaria. Contracting waterborne diseases such as diarrhoeal disease will also be more likely.

Economic analysis of climate change uses economic tools and models to calculate the scale and distribution of damages caused by climate change. It can also give guidance for the best policies for mitigation and adaptation to climate change from an economic perspective. There are many economic models and frameworks. For example, in a cost–benefit analysis, the trade offs between climate change impacts, adaptation, and mitigation are made explicit. For this kind of analysis, integrated assessment models (IAMs) are useful. Those models link main features of society and economy with the biosphere and atmosphere into one modelling framework.

In general, climate damages increase the more the global surface temperature increases. Many effects of climate change are linked to market transactions and therefore directly affect metrics like GDP or inflation. For instance, climate change can drive inflation in food via heat and droughts, but also drives up overall inflation. There are also non-market impacts which are harder to translate into economic costs. These include the impacts of climate change on human health, biomes and ecosystem services.