page_title: Caribbean
section_title: Climate change
hierarchical_section_title: Caribbean / Climate / Climate change
caption_attribution_description: This file was first taken by (and then released to wikipedia by) kayokayo.
context_page_description: The Caribbean is a region of the Americas that consists of the Caribbean Sea, its islands and the surrounding coasts. The region is southeast of the Gulf of Mexico and the North American mainland, east of Central America, and north of South America.
  Situated largely on the Caribbean Plate, the region has more than 700 islands, islets, reefs and cays. Island arcs delineate the eastern and northern edges of the Caribbean Sea: the Greater Antilles on the north and the Lesser Antilles on the south and east. They form the West Indies with the nearby Lucayan Archipelago, which are sometimes considered to be a part of the Caribbean despite not bordering the Caribbean Sea. On the mainland, Belize, Nicaragua, the Caribbean region of Colombia, Cozumel, the Yucatán Peninsula, Margarita Island, and The Guianas are often included due to their political and cultural ties with the region.
  A mostly tropical geography, the climates are greatly shaped by sea temperatures and precipitation, with the hurricane season regularly leading to natural disasters.
context_section_description: Anthropogenic climate change is caused by the rapid increase of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere principally from burning fossil fuels, converting forestland to pasture and monoculture cropland, with the greatest contributions happening in the period since the Industrial Revolution. Climate change could pose major risks to the islands in the Caribbean. The main environmental changes expected to affect the Caribbean are a rise in sea level, stronger hurricanes, longer dry seasons and shorter wet seasons. 
  
  As a result, climate change is expected to lead to changes in the economy, environment and population of the Caribbean.
  Aruba: Latitude 12°N
  Puerto Rico: Latitude 18°N
  Cuba: at Latitude 22°N
caption: A view of Nevis island from the southeastern peninsula of Saint Kitts
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