* The Chacaltaya glacier, found in the snow-covered peaks over La Paz, Bolivia, is more than 18,000 years old. The glacier's meltwater is a source of water for people living in the La Paz area. In just the past 20 years, the glacier has shrunk by 80 percent. With temperatures in the area expected to rise, it could disappear completely. (From Newsweek's "100 Places to Remember Before They Disappear")
* The County Meath region yields Ireland's richest bounty of potatoes; the average resident there eats about 190 pounds of potatoes a year. Average summer temperatures in the area are rising, and droughts are forecast for the next few decades--all of which could lessen the potato's reign as a commercially viable crop.
* The Kakadu wetlands in Australia are home to more than 60 species of water birds--including honeyeaters, lorikeets, and other nectar-eating birds--who live in the region's paperbark forests among the flood plains. Rising seas are pushing saltwater into the interior, damaging the forests of Kakadu and potentially turning much of the fertile wetlands into salty mudlands.
* Traces of early human settlement are still found in the arctic wilderness of Pauline Cove, on Herschel Island, Canada, just off the mainland and close to Alaska. The island is covered in permafrost, but rare arctic flowers and plants grow along the top layers of permafrost in summer. Rising temperatures and melting ice would result in less protection for the island from coastal storms and erosion.
* In Zackenberg, Greenland, the musk ox feeds on the sparse vegetation that grows in the summer, when the temperature tends to peak at about 50 degrees Fahrenheit. In winter, when the temperature can plunge to -31 degrees Fahrenheit, the musk ox will use its hooves to scrape through the snow and get at food. Higher precipitation and temperature fluctuations are creating havoc for the musk ox's winter-forage routine, threatening its survival.