PASADENA, Calif. – By 2100, global climate change will modify plant communities covering almost half of Earth's land surface and will drive the conversion of nearly 40 percent of land-based ecosystems from one major ecological community type – such as forest, grassland or tundra – toward another, according to a new NASA and university computer modeling study.
Researchers from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, Calif., investigated how Earth's plant life is likely to react over the next three centuries as Earth's climate changes in response to rising levels of human-produced greenhouse gases. Study results are published in the journal Climatic Change.
The model projections paint a portrait of increasing ecological change and stress in Earth's biosphere, with many plant and animal species facing increasing competition for survival, as well as significant species turnover, as some species invade areas occupied by other species. Most of Earth's land that is not covered by ice or desert is projected to undergo at least a 30 percent change in plant cover – changes that will require humans and animals to adapt and often relocate.
In addition to altering plant communities, the study predicts climate change will disrupt the ecological balance between interdependent and often endangered plant and animal species, reduce biodiversity and adversely affect Earth's water, energy, carbon and other element cycles.
"For more than 25 years, scientists have warned of the dangers of human-induced climate change," said Jon Bergengren, a scientist who led the study while a postdoctoral scholar at Caltech. "Our study introduces a new view of climate change, exploring the ecological implications of a few degrees of global warming. While warnings of melting glaciers, rising sea levels and other environmental changes are illustrative and important, ultimately, it's the ecological consequences that matter most."
When faced with climate change, plant species often must "migrate" over multiple generations, as they can only survive, compete and reproduce within the range of climates to which they are evolutionarily and physiologically adapted. While Earth's plants and animals have evolved to migrate in response to seasonal environmental changes and to even larger transitions, such as the end of the last ice age, they often are not equipped to keep up with the rapidity of modern climate changes that are currently taking place. Human activities, such as agriculture and urbanization, are increasingly destroying Earth's natural habitats, and frequently block plants and animals from successfully migrating.
To study the sensitivity of Earth's ecological systems to climate change, the scientists used a computer model that predicts the type of plant community that is uniquely adapted to any climate on Earth. This model was used to simulate the future state of Earth's natural vegetation in harmony with climate projections from 10 different global climate simulations. These simulations are based on the intermediate greenhouse gas scenario in the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fourth Assessment Report. That scenario assumes greenhouse gas levels will double by 2100 and then level off. The U.N. report's climate simulations predict a warmer and wetter Earth, with global temperature increases of 3.6 to 7.2 degrees Fahrenheit (2 to 4 degrees Celsius) by 2100, about the same warming that occurred following the Last Glacial Maximum almost 20,000 years ago, except about 100 times faster. Under the scenario, some regions become wetter because of enhanced evaporation, while others become drier due to changes in atmospheric circulation.
The researchers found a shift of biomes, or major ecological community types, toward Earth's poles – most dramatically in temperate grasslands and boreal forests – and toward higher elevations. Ecologically sensitive "hotspots" – areas projected to undergo the greatest degree of species turnover – that were identified by the study include regions in the Himalayas and the Tibetan Plateau, eastern equatorial Africa, Madagascar, the Mediterranean region, southern South America, and North America's Great Lakes and Great Plains areas. The largest areas of ecological sensitivity and biome changes predicted for this century are, not surprisingly, found in areas with the most dramatic climate change: in the Northern Hemisphere high latitudes, particularly along the northern and southern boundaries of boreal forests.
"Our study developed a simple, consistent and quantitative way to characterize the impacts of climate change on ecosystems, while assessing and comparing the implications of climate model projections," said JPL co-author Duane Waliser. "This new tool enables scientists to explore and understand interrelationships between Earth's ecosystems and climate and to identify regions projected to have the greatest degree of ecological sensitivity."
"In this study, we have developed and applied two new ecological sensitivity metrics – analogs of climate sensitivity – to investigate the potential degree of plant community changes over the next three centuries," said Bergengren. "The surprising degree of ecological sensitivity of Earth's ecosystems predicted by our research highlights the global imperative to accelerate progress toward preserving biodiversity by stabilizing Earth's climate."
JPL is managed for NASA by the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.
http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/climate20111214.html
NASA - Climate Change May Bring Big Ecosystem Changes
Canada puts climate plans in jeopardy
Canada’s decision to pull out of the Kyoto Protocol could put last-minute climate change agreements made at the weekend in jeopardy, it has been reported.
A late decision was agreed on the extension of the Kyoto Protocol and framework for a new climate treaty, at a summit in the South African city of Durban, on Sunday. Canada’s subsequent announcement that it has withdrawn from the 1997 protocol, just hours after the Durban agreement was reached, has been met with criticism.
Protocol aims
The Kyoto Protocol is aimed at fighting global warming and, through the agreement, countries such as China and India take voluntary, but non-binding steps to reduce their carbon emissions. Peter Kent, Canada’s minister of the environment, announced earlier this week, however, that the protocol ‘does not represent a way forward’ and that the country has exercised its legal right to withdraw.
A spokesman for France’s foreign ministry called the move ‘bad news for the fight against climate change,’ while a Chinese spokesman for foreign ministry said that Canada’s decision was ‘regrettable and flies in the face of the efforts of the international community.’ An Indian official added that the withdrawal could jeopardise any gains made at the conference.
Church
Speaking after the climate change talks in Durban, Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga of Tegucigalpa, Honduras, who was present at the UN-sponsored summit, said that climate change is a faith issue because it deals with God’s creation and with poverty.
The Honduran cardinal, president of Caritas Internationalis, a confederation of 165 national Catholic charities, said that, at a time when so many people in the world are starving, it was important for Caritas to be in Durban ‘because one of the causes of starvation is climate change and, especially, irresponsible attitudes towards creation.’
“For the Catholic Church, climate change is not only a matter of thermometers or scientific analysis, we are talking about human beings and the sufferings of human beings,” Cardinal Rodriguez said. “Catholics need to know that climate change is real and it is a problem that must be faced. The way people treat the environment must change quickly, not after all the consequences and tragedies that will come. It is a faith issue because, from the very beginning of the Bible, you see how creation was entrusted to human beings for their administration, not for their exploitation.”
SCIAF reaction
While the Durban conference did not lead to a strong, legally binding commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions within a specific time frame, it did lead to international promises to continue working towards that goal.
However the Scottish Catholic International Aid Fund said that ‘insufficient progress in Durban is likely to cost many lives in developing countries.’
“While some positive progress has been made towards agreeing a global legal framework, the major industrialised countries have failed yet again to agree to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions in line with what scientists believe is necessary to avoid dangerous climate change,” Lexi Barnett, SCIAF’s campaigns officer said.
http://www.sconews.co.uk/news/14902/canada-puts-climate-plans-in-jeopardy/
Climate change has spurred food prices: Study
Climate change cut global wheat and corn output by more than 3% over the past three decades compared to growth projections without a rise in temperatures, a study found on Friday. The impacts translated into up to 20% higher average commodity prices, before accounting for other factors, according to the paper published in the journal Science.
Crop yields rose over the period as a result of improvements in practices and plant breeding, and the isolated, negative impact of climate change was equivalent to about one tenth of those advances.
But that varied widely between countries with Russia, Turkey and Mexico more affected for wheat, for example.
The isolated impact of climate change on wheat and corn was a warning of the future food supply and price impact from an expected acceleration in warming, the paper said.
"Climate changes are already exerting a considerable drag on yield growth," said the study, entitled Climate Trends and Global Crop Production Since 1980.
The authors used crop yield models with and without changes in temperature and rainfall to show global falls in wheat output of 5.5% and 3.8% for corn as a result of climate change from 1980-2008.
That was equivalent to the entire annual corn crop of Mexico, or the wheat crop of France, the European Union's biggest producer, it said.
Nationally, among the worst affected was Russia, with a nearly 15% cull in wheat, while the United States was unaffected.
For soybeans and rice, climate change winners and losers balanced each other out. For example, rice gained in cooler, higher latitude countries.
CO2
The paper, written by scientists from US institutions including Stanford University and Columbia University, noted that adaptation responses, such as advances in crop breeding, could soften the blow of future warming.
"Without successful adaptation, and given the persistent rise in demand for maize and wheat, the sizable yield setback from climate change is likely incurring large economic and health costs," it said.
The study did not account for the impact of higher atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide (CO2), the main manmade greenhouse gas which is also a raw ingredient of, and so spurs, crop growth - called CO2 fertilisation.
Including that effect would likely see a net benefit from climate change on soybeans and rice since 1980, it said.
Conversely, the paper did not account for extreme heatwaves or rainfall, which means the findings could under-estimate the global warming impact.
The output losses since 1980 translated into 18.9% or 6.4% higher average commodity prices, excluding and including the effect of CO2 fertilisation respectively.
The models were based on actual data which showed rising temperatures across nearly all the world's main growing regions with the exception of the United States, which saw a slight cooling over the period. Rainfall trends were more muted.
Concerns have grown in the past few weeks for the impact of droughts on wheat yields in parts of the United States and Europe.
http://www.euractiv.com/en/cap/climate-change-spurred-food-prices-study-news-504655
Industrialised nations fail to deliver on climate funding for developing world
Only two industrialised nations – Russia and Ukraine – have met the 1 May deadline agreed at last year’s Cancun Climate Change Summit to provide details on short-term funding for developing nations tackling climate change.
And according to Reuters, the letters from Russia and Ukraine to the United Nations climate change framework (UNFCC) say only that neither country believes it is ‘required’ to provide a contribution of the $30 billion ‘fast start’ fund for 2010-2012.
A number of developed nations, including the US, Japan and many EU member states agreed to contribute to the fund – and some financing was provided last year.
While the UN is confident that more updates will follow, according to Reuters, the passing of the 1 May deadline will fuel concerns that industrialised nations will fail to honour their commitment to assist developing countries.
The slow progress on raising the initial $30 billion is a setback to the deal, which ultimately promised $100 billion a year by 2020 to developing nations.
Last month the European Commission said the target of $100 billion a year by 2020 was ‘challenging but feasible’ despite the economic downturn across the region, while Commissioner for Climate Action Connie Hedegaard said the EU was “well on tract to deliver its fast start funding”.
But Commissioner for Economic and Monetary Affairs Olli Rehn said that the financial constraints facing many nations rule out public funding and mean that alternative ‘innovative’ funding mechanisms will have to be found.
http://www.energyefficiencynews.com/i/4075/
Medical Groups Warn Of Climate Change's Potential Impact on Health
Experts from leading U.S. medical groups gathered Thursday to warn of impending dangers to human health if greenhouse gas emissions continue unchecked, speeding climate change.
They believe the federal government, specifically the Environmental Protection Agency, does have the power to curtail such emissions, however.
"The science is unequivocal that global warming is occurring and human activity is the cause of it," Dr. Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association said during a press conference Thursday. "We believe the EPA has the potential to significantly reduce the public health burden of climate change and we are committed to protecting the agency's authority over the full breath of its work."
APHA and other groups worry that if Congress restricts the EPA's authority to regulate greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, health problems will rise.
Last week, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a budget that would cut the EPA's budget by a third, the experts noted. Moreover, a funding resolution passed by the new Republican house would block the agency from enacting a new greenhouse emissions rule, according to speakers at the Thursday press conference.
Not everyone agreed with those experts, however.
Sterling Burnett is a senior fellow at the Dallas-based National Center for Policy Analysis, a nonpartisan, nonprofit think tank focused on free-market approaches to public policy. In an interview, he said the effects of climate change on human health remain in question, as does the wisdom of earmarking EPA funds to fight global warming.
"I don't know if the world is going to be warmer 100 years from now than it is today, but if it is, there are likely to be less deaths from a variety of illnesses overall than more deaths from cardiopulmonary diseases due to the warmth," Burnett said.
Funding the EPA to reduce greenhouse gasses will slow economic growth without improving heath, he added. "If what you are concerned about is public health there are much more efficacious ways of responding to the health threats [of] 100 years from now," he said. "So do we, by making the world poorer in the future, buy the decisions we make now on climate change regulations, do we increase the disease burden overall?"
The experts gathered at Thursday's press conference took a different stance.
The AMA's Benjamin said that climate change is leading to extreme weather events that endanger the elderly and sick. In addition, increased air pollution can increase asthma and other respiratory diseases, he noted. Climate change also increase the prevalence of airborne and water-borne disease.
Benjamin believes that the Clean Air Act, passed in 1970, has already "made significant improvements in the health and well-being of the American public."
Also speaking at Thursday's press conference was Dr. Cecil Wilson, president of the American Medical Association (AMA). He said he believes that extreme weather conditions are behind dangerous travel conditions in winter and extended heat waves in summer, which have increased in the past two decades.
"Approximately 133 million Americans are living with a chronic condition, such as heart disease or diabetes, which are aggravated by heat waves, increasing the risk for serious complications and death," Wilson said.
In the United States, these severe extended heat waves are causing unnecessary deaths, added Kristie L. Ebi, lead author for the human health chapter of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's Fourth Assessment Report. The panel, which receives funding from the federal government, issues reports on climate change around the world.
"No one should die in a heat wave," Ebi said.
Climate change has caused other worrying trends, the experts said, including worrying changes in insect migration. "Many states are facing increases in insect-borne illnesses," Wilson pointed out. "For example dengue fever, a condition that has rarely been seen in this country, has appeared in Florida."
Lyme disease has also increased tenfold in the past 10 years, Wilson added.
And the increase in greenhouse gases has increased air pollution, he said. "Over the past three decades, poor air quality has extended the allergy and asthma season, in this country, by about 20 days. Asthma rates have doubled and other respiratory diseases are also on the rise."
Dr. Perry Sheffield, deputy director of the Pediatric Environmental Health Specialty Unit for EPA Region 2, and an assistant professor in the department of pediatrics and the department of preventive medicine at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City, noted that reducing air pollution can have immediate health benefits.
"When air pollution was reduced during the Atlanta Olympics in 1996, asthma attacks among children dropped by 44 percent," she said during the press conference.
Burnett agreed that the burden of asthma has increased in the United States, but he doesn't think it has anything to do with climate change or greenhouse gases.
"It's not clear to me that you are going to get it from a warmer world," he said.
http://www.businessweek.com/lifestyle/content/healthday/650289.html
Inspector general backs NOAA in climate-change dispute
A review of e-mail exchanges between federal scientists and British academics embroiled in a politically charged dispute over climate change found no misconduct at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, according to a report just released by the Commerce Department's inspector general.
"We did not find any evidence that NOAA inappropriately manipulated data ... or failed to adhere to appropriate peer review procedures," wrote Inspector General Todd Zinser in a letter and report sent Feb. 18 to Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., who had requested the review.
In addition, the report "found no evidence to suggest that NOAA was noncompliant" with the 2001 Information Quality Act, or the 1999 Shelby Amendment requirements for Freedom of Information Act release of documents on scientific deliberations.
In May 2010, Inhofe asked the Commerce IG to examine issues surrounding the Internet posting of e-mail exchanges taken from the Climatic Research Unit of the University of East Anglia in the United Kingdom in a 2009 computer hacking incident.
The senator also sought a rationale for a statement that NOAA Administrator Jane Lubchenco made in 2009 testimony to a House committee that the e-mails from Britain "really do nothing to undermine the very strong scientific consensus and the independent scientific analyses of thousands of scientists around the world that tell us that the Earth is warming and that the warming is largely a result of human activities."
The IG reviewed 1,073 e-mails, 289 of which involved NOAA employees, spanning 13 years, and interviewed Lubchenco and the scientists involved with eight of the e-mails. The IG's staff also addressed an e-mail involving the award of a NOAA contract to the British climate research center and a joke e-mail containing a photographic image of Inhofe stranded on a polar ice cap and depicted as a marooned character from the 1960s Gilligan's Island television show. The report recommended NOAA improve its responsiveness to FOIA requests and said the federal scientist involved in the joke image was disciplined.
An Inhofe spokesman on the Environment and Public Works Committee, where he is ranking member, said: "Sen. Inhofe believes the IG conducted a thorough and balanced investigation. He is very interested in following up on several issues identified in the report, including one in which a senior NOAA employee possibly thwarted the release of important federal scientific information for the public to assess and analyze. This is no doubt a serious matter that, along with other issues identified by the IG, deserves further investigation."
Managers at NOAA welcomed the report as "the latest independent analysis to clear climate scientists of allegations of mishandling of climate information," said Mary Glackin, the agency's deputy undersecretary for operations. "None of the investigations have found any evidence to question the ethics of our scientists, or raise doubts about NOAA's understanding of climate change science."
She also defended the handling of the FOIA requests. "The NOAA scientists responded in good faith to the FOIA requests based on their understanding of the request and in accordance with the legal guidance provided in 2007," Glackin said. "NOAA's policies, practices, and the integrity and commitment of our scientists have resulted in NOAA's climate records being the gold standard that our nation and the world has come to rely on for authoritative information about the climate."
David Doniger, director of the climate change center at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said the report "should put the issue to rest. It's time for the climate-change deniers to pull their heads out of the sand."
http://www.govexec.com/story_page.cfm?articleid=47194&oref=todaysnews
Risk management in the era of unpredictability
Urbanisation, climate change and globalisation are leading to more and bigger catastrophes.
THE floods that ravaged Queensland and Victoria are a warning for businesses to overhaul their risk-management strategies. They are events that tell us we are now in a very different world.
How different? Erwann Michel-Kerjan, managing director of the Wharton Business School's Risk Centre in the US and chairman of the OECD secretary-general's advisory board on financial management of catastrophes, says that in the 21st century there has not been a six-month period without a major crisis that simultaneously affected several countries or industry sectors. We are seeing more and bigger catastrophes created by increasing urbanisation, climate change and globalisation. The world has become an interdependent village.
Examples include September 11, hurricane Katrina and the global financial crisis. The floods in Australia and Brazil are more of the same. Also, more crises, natural or otherwise, seem to be interconnected. Accounting firm Andersen was destroyed by Enron's accounting tricks. The world's biggest insurer, American International Group, nearly collapsed because of a 377-person London unit, run with almost complete autonomy from the parent company. Wall Street has plunged to its lowest in six months with anti-government riots in Egypt.
Advertisement: Story continues below It's fair to say that the floods did not figure highly in risk-management strategies. Woolworths has cut its net profit growth guidance to a range of 5-8 per cent, from 8-11 per cent, partly due to uncertainties presented by the floods. Virgin Blue announced a $40 million hit because of floods and fragile consumer sentiment. Treasurer Wayne Swan says the floods will have a ''dramatic'' effect on the budget and IBISWorld has downgraded Australia's GDP forecast from 2.9 per cent to 2.6 per cent.
We now see forecasts of a worldwide impact on the supply and prices of commodities such as cotton, wheat, sugar and other foodstuffs, and coal, which will in turn put pressure on utilities reliant on coal-based energy generation.
Climate specialists say global warming has contributed to the disaster, with record ocean temperatures around Australia and, from July to October, record rainfall and humidity.
Alarmingly, the climatic variability is coming at a time when fuel and food prices are soaring.
The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation's food price index reached a record high at the end of last year, topping levels from the food crisis in 2008. The floods will only add to this.
Grain shortages will send food prices soaring, spreading hunger and destroying governments. The coup in Tunisia started with food riots. The food crisis also shows the lines of connection holding a globalised economy together. The greater interdependencies mean that disasters and crises will affect many more people. They are no longer local accidents. Multinational
co-ordination will become more critical. The attempt to create a global solution for climate change is just the start.
Some commentators describe the floods and La Nina as a ''black swan'', the kind of low-probability event like natural disasters, pandemics and terrorists slamming planes into buildings, described by Nicholas Taleb, events that no one predicted. That is not strictly true, though. In Australia, floods, droughts and bushfires are hardly unpredictable. They are part of the natural system.
Still, like the black swan, the floods created by La Nina show us the world has changed. Classic risk-management strategies are out of whack with the new order and the interconnectedness of the global economy. The conventional risk-management approach lists possible events and determines the probability of their occurring based on experience. You measure the costs and benefits of specific risk-protection measures and implement these measures for each risk. The problem is that it assumes risks are local and routine and fails to take into account the impact they may have on different organisations and states. It does not factor in the impact of the growing number of unlikely but potentially devastating events. It is an outdated approach that robs organisations of their agility.
Clearly, these sorts of events are impossible to predict. So, how should organisations respond? It is a subject that should be reviewed by boards regularly. Companies should have scenario-mapping teams that report to the board and work with suppliers and customers to identify potential threats. Twenty-first century risk management is not about predicting the future. It is about systems and relationships that create an organisation agile enough to respond when disaster strikes. As it will.
http://www.smh.com.au/business/risk-management-in-the-era-of-unpredictability-20110131-1ab88.html