Climate change impacts on global agriculture

Based on predicted changes in the magnitude and distribution of global precipitation, temperature and river flow under the IPCC SRES A1B and A2 scenarios, this study assesses the potential impacts of climate change and CO₂ fertilization on global agriculture. The analysis uses the new version of the GTAP-W model, which distinguishes between rainfed and irrigated agriculture and implements water as an explicit factor of production for irrigated agriculture. Future climate change is likely to modify regional water endowments and soil moisture. As a consequence, the distribution of harvested land will change, modifying production and international trade patterns. The results suggest that a partial analysis of the main factors through which climate change will affect agricultural productivity provide a false appreciation of the nature of changes likely to occur. Our results show that global food production, welfare and GDP fall in the two time periods and SRES scenarios. Higher food prices are expected. No matter which SRES scenario is preferred, we find that the expected losses in welfare are significant. These losses are slightly larger under the SRES A2 scenario for the 2020s and under the SRES A1B scenario for the 2050s. The results show that national welfare is influenced both by regional climate change and climate-induced changes in competitiveness.     

气候变化与海洋生态系统：影响、适应和脆弱性——IPCC AR6 WGⅡ报告之解读

IPCC第六次评估报告(AR6)第二工作组报告第三章开展了气候变化对海洋的影响和风险,以及生态系统及其服务功能、脆弱性和适应评估。AR6明确指出,人为气候变化已经并将继续显著地改变全球和区域海洋的气候影响驱动因子,包括海温升高、海平面上升、海洋酸化和缺氧,以及营养盐浓度变化等海洋物理和化学因子。例如,20世纪80年代以来全球海洋热浪发生的频率已增加了1倍,到21世纪末期可能增加4～8倍。气候影响驱动因子的变化已经对海洋和海岸带生态系统造成了广泛而深远的影响:1)海洋变暖使得海洋物种自1950年代以来以(59.2±15.5) km/(10 a)的速率向极地方向迁移,导致热带海域生物量减少,中纬度海区热带化,极地和亚极地海区浮游植物生长期提前;2)频繁发生的海洋热浪事件已经接近甚至超过了某些海洋生物的耐受极限或其气候临界点,如暖水珊瑚的大规模白化、死亡,海草和大型海藻的大面积消失;3)海洋变暖、缺氧和酸化使得河口区生物群落结构改变,赤潮等有害藻华事件频发,近海和大洋浮游植物生物量和初级生产力下降;4)海平面上升导致海岸带红树林、盐沼和海草床等生态系统的退化;5)未来全球海洋生态系统面临的风险将不断加剧,尤其是在热带和北冰洋海区。其中,当全球升温1.5℃时(最快到21世纪40年代,SSP5-8.5情景),暖水珊瑚礁预计将减少70％～90％;当升温2℃时,几乎所有的(>99％)暖水珊瑚礁将会消失。目前人类社会采取的一些措施(如建立海洋保护区和红树林生态修复)已越来越不能应对日益增长的气候风险,迫切需要发展变革性的行动措施,推动海洋生态系统恢复力的发展,并需尽快采取强有力的减排措施以减缓全球变暖的影响。     

Climate change: impacts on electricity markets in Western Europe

This paper studies some impacts of climate change on electricity markets, focusing on three climate effects. First, demand for electricity is affected because of changes in the temperature. Second, changes in precipitation and temperature have impact on supply of hydro electric production through a shift in the inflow of water. Third, plant efficiency for thermal generation will decrease because the temperature of water used to cool equipment increases. To find the magnitude of these partial effects, as well as the overall effects, on Western European energy markets, we use the multi-market equilibrium model LIBEMOD. We find that each of the three partial effects changes the average electricity producer price by less than 2%, while the net effect is an increase of only 1%. The partial effects on total electricity supply are small, and the net effect is a decrease of 4%. The greatest effects are found for Nordic countries with a large market share for reservoir hydro. In these countries, annual production of electricity increases by 8%, reflecting more inflow of water, while net exports doubles. In addition, because of lower inflow in summer and higher in winter, the reservoir filling needed to transfer water from summer to winter is drastically reduced in the Nordic countries.     

Climate change impacts on Namibia's natural resources and economy

Climate change is likely to exacerbate the dry conditions already experienced in southern Africa. When rainfall does come, it is likely to be in bursts of greater intensity, leading to erosion and flood damage. However, these predictions have had very little influence on policy in southern African countries. Computable general equilibrium (CGE) model simulations for Namibia indicate that over 20 years, annual losses to the Namibian economy could be up to 5% of GDP, due to the impact that climate change will have on its natural resources alone. This will affect the poorest people the most, with resulting constraints on employment opportunities and declining wages, especially for unskilled labour in rural areas. Namibia must take steps to ensure that all its policies and activities are ‘climate proofed’ and that it has a strategy to deal with displaced farmers and farm workers. The need to mainstream climate change into policies and planning is clear, and it is the responsibility of industrialized nations, who have largely created the problem of climate change, to help Namibia and other vulnerable countries cope with climate change impacts and plan for a climate-constrained future.     

Climate change impacts on Laurentian Great Lakes levels

Scenarios of water supplies reflecting CO₂-induced climatic change are used to determine potential impacts on levels of the Laurentian Great Lakes and likely water management policy implications. The water supplies are based on conceptual models that link climate change scenarios from general circulation models to estimates of basin runoff, overlake precipitation, and lake evaporation. The water supply components are used in conjunction with operational regulation plans and hydraulic routing models of outlet and connecting channel flows to estimate water levels on Lakes Superior, Michigan, Huron, St. Clair, Erie, and Ontario. Three steady-state climate change scenarios, corresponding to modeling a doubling of atmospheric CO₂, are compared to a steady-state simulation obtained with historical data representing an unchanged atmosphere. One transient climate change scenario, representing a modeled transition from present conditions to doubled CO₂ concentrations, is compared to a transient simulation with historical data. The environmental, socioeconomic, and policy implications of the climate change effects modeled herein suggest that new paradigms in water management will be required to address the prospective increased allocation conflicts between users of the Great Lakes.GLERL Contribution No. 645.     

Climate change and international tourism: A simulation study

The literature on tourism and climate change lacks an analysis of the global changes in tourism demand. Here, a simulation model of international tourism is presented that fills that gap. The current pattern of international tourist flows is modelled using 1995 data on departures and arrivals for 207 countries. Using this basic model the impact on arrivals and departures through changes in population, per capita income and climate change are analysed. In the medium to long term, tourism will grow, however, the change from climate change is smaller than from population and income changes.     

Climate change,intergenerational equity and international law: An introductory note

The change in the Earth's climate caused by the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere may be the most important environmental legacy that we leave to our descendants.Global change raises difficult issues of equity between our generation and future generations, and between different communities within future generations. International law is accustomed to addressing the effects of intentional environmental change on people who are already alive. It needs to be augmented by principles of intergenerational equity. We have certain obligations to future generations to pass on a planet in no worse condition than we received it and to give them equitable access to its resources.This requires a global strategy for climate change which will prevent excessively rapid climate change, prevent or mitigate the damage caused by climate change, and help countries to adapt to climate change. We need to avoid imposing major costs on future generations for our own benefit.To implement this strategy will require enforceable norms of behavior, which should be embodied in a Declaration of Planetary Rights and Obligations to Future Generations, and implemented in appropriate treaties and national and local legislation. Agreements should be drafted in such a way that they can incorporate increases in scientific understanding, for example by the creation of scientific advisory committees.     

Climate change impacts: accounting for the human response

The assessment of potential impacts of climate change is progressing from taxonomies and enumeration of the magnitude of potential direct effects on individuals, societies, species, and ecosystems according to a limited number of metrics toward a more integrated approach that also encompasses the vast range of human response to experience and risk. Recent advances are both conceptual and methodological, and include analysis of some consequences of climate change that were heretofore intractable. In this article, I review a selection of these developments and represent them through a handful of illustrative cases. A key characteristic of the emerging areas of interest is a focus on understanding how human responses to direct impacts of climate change may cause important indirect and sometimes distant impacts. This realization underscores the need to develop integrated approaches for assessing and modeling impacts in an evolving socioeconomic and policy context.     

Climate change in the Tahoe basin: regional trends, impacts and drivers

The purpose of this study was to quantify the decadal-scale time trends in air temperature, precipitation phase and intensity, spring snowmelt timing, and lake temperature in the Tahoe basin, and to relate the trends to large-scale regional climatic trends in the western USA. Temperature data for six long-term weather stations in the Tahoe region were analyzed for trends in annual and monthly means of maximum and minimum daily temperature. Precipitation data at Tahoe City were analyzed for trends in phase (rain versus snow), decadal standard deviation, and intensity of rainfall. Daily streamflow data for nine gaging stations in and around the Tahoe basin were examined for trends in snowmelt timing, by two methods, and an existing record for the temperature of Lake Tahoe was updated. The results for the Tahoe basin, which contrast somewhat with the surrounding region, indicate strong upward trends in air temperature, a shift from snow to rain, a shift in snowmelt timing to earlier dates, increased rainfall intensity, increased interannual variability, and continued increase in the temperature of Lake Tahoe. Two hypotheses are suggested that may explain why the basin could be warming faster than surrounding regions. Continued warming in the Tahoe basin has important implications for efforts to manage biodiversity and maintain clarity of the lake.     

气候变化国家评估报告(Ⅱ):气候变化的影响与适应

Significant and various impacts of climate change have been observed in China, showing both positive and adverse effects, dominantly the latter, in different sectors and regions. It is very likely that future climate change would cause significant adverse impacts on the ecosystems, agriculture, water resources, and coastal zones in China. Adoption of adaptive measures to climate change can alleviate the adverse impact, therefore such measures should be incorporated into the medium-and long-term national economic and social development plans. Because China has done relatively limited research on impact assessment and our understanding of climate change is incomplete, the current impact assessment methodologies used and results obtained contain many uncertainties. To reduce the uncertainties and develop effective and practical climate change adaptive measures in China, it is necessary to emphasize regional case studies on adaptive measures, enlarge the scope of climate change research, and strengthen the assessment of the impacts resulted from extreme weather/climate events.     

Climate change impacts on wildfires in a Mediterranean environment

We analyse the observed climate-driven changes in summer wildfires and their future evolution in a typical Mediterranean environment (NE Spain). By analysing observed climate and fire data from 1970 to 2007, we estimate the response of fire number (NF) and burned area (BA) to climate trends, disentangling the drivers responsible for long-term and interannual changes by means of a parsimonious Multi Linear Regression model (MLR). In the last forty years, the observed NF trend was negative. Here we show that, if improvements in fire management were not taken into account, the warming climate forcing alone would have led to a positive trend in NF. On the other hand, for BA, higher fuel flammability is counterbalanced by the indirect climate effects on fuel structure (i.e. less favourable conditions for fine-fuel availability and fuel connectivity), leading to a slightly negative trend. Driving the fire model with A1B climate change scenarios based on a set of Regional Climate Models from the ENSEMBLES project indicates that increasing temperatures promote a positive trend in NF if no further improvements in fire management are introduced.     

Climate change impacts on regional rice production in China

Rice (Oryza sativa L.) production is an important contributor to China’s food security. Climate change, and its impact on rice production, presents challenges in meeting China’s future rice production requirements. In this study, we conducted a comprehensive analysis of how rice yield responds to climate change under different scenarios and assessed the associated simulation uncertainties of various regional-scale climate models. Simulation was performed based on a regional calibrated crop model (CERES-Rice) and spatially matched climatic (from 17 global climate models), soil, management, and cultivar parameters. Grain-filling periods for early rice were shortened by 2–7 days in three time slices (2030s, 2050s, and 2070s), whereas grain-filling periods for late rice were shortened by 10–19 days in three time slices. Most of the negative effects of climate change were predicted to affect single-crop rice in central China. Average yields of single-crop rice treated with CO₂ fertiliser in central China were predicted to be reduced by 10, 11, and 11% during the 2030s, 2050s, and 2070s, respectively, compared to the 2000s, if planting dates remained unchanged. If planting dates were optimised, single-crop rice yields were predicted to increase by 3, 7, and 11% during the 2030s, 2050s, and 2070s, respectively. In response to climate changes, early and single-crop rice should be planted earlier, and late rice planting should be delayed. The predicted net effect would be to prolong the grain-filling period and optimise rice yield.     

Climate change perceptions and their individual-level determinants: A cross-European analysis

There is now an extensive literature on the question of how individual-level factors affect climate change perceptions, showing that socio-political variables, notably values, worldviews and political orientation, are key factors alongside demographic variables. Yet little is known about cross-national differences in these effects, as most studies have been conducted in a single or small number of countries and cross-study comparisons are difficult due to different conceptualisations of key climate change dimensions. Using data from the European Social Survey Round 8 (n = 44,387), we examine how key socio-political and demographic factors are associated with climate change perception across 22 European countries and Israel. We show that human values and political orientation are important predictors of climate change beliefs and concern, as are the demographics of gender, age, and education. Certain associations with climate change perceptions, such as the ones for the self-transcendence versus self-enhancement value dimension, political orientation, and education, are more consistent across countries than for gender and age. However, even if the direction of the associations are to a large extent consistent, the sizes of the effects are not. We demonstrate that the sizes of the effects are generally smaller in Central and Eastern European countries, and that some demographic effects are larger in Northern European as compared to Western European countries. This suggests that findings from one country do not always generalize to other national contexts.     

气候变化国家评估报告（II）：气候变化的影响与适应

已经观测到的气候变化影响是显著的、多方面的。各个领域和地区都存在有利和不利影响,但以不利影响为主,未来的气候变暖将会对中国的生态系统、农业以及水资源等部门和沿海地区产生重大的不利影响。采取适应措施可以减轻气候变化的不利影响,应将适应气候变化的行动逐步纳入国民经济和社会发展的中长期规划中。由于我国科学研究的相对不足和科学认识能力的局限,目前的气候变化影响评估方法和结果还存在很大的不确定性。应当加强区域适应气候变化的案例研究、扩大研究领域、加强极端天气、气候事件影响的研究,以降低影响评估的不确定性,并提出切实可行的适应对策。     

Climate change impacts on ecosystems and the terrestrial carbon sink: a new assessment

Climate output from the UK Hadley Centre's HadCM2 and HadCM3 experiments for the period 1860 to 2100, with IS92a greenhouse gas forcing, together with predicted patterns of N deposition and increasing CO₂, were input (offline) to the dynamic vegetation model, Hybrid v4.1 (Friend et al., 1997; Friend and White, 1999). This model represents biogeochemical, biophysical and biogeographical processes, coupling the carbon, nitrogen and water cycles on a sub-daily timestep, simulating potential vegetation and transient changes in annual growth and competition between eight generalized plant types in response to climate.Global vegetation carbon was predicted to rise from about 600 to 800 PgC (or to 650 PgC for HadCM3) while the soil carbon pool of about 1100 PgC decreased by about 8%. By the 2080s, climate change caused a partial loss of Amazonian rainforest, C₄ grasslands and temperate forest in areas of southern Europe and eastern USA, but an expansion in the boreal forest area. These changes were accompanied by a decrease in net primary productivity (NPP) of vegetation in many tropical areas, southern Europe and eastern USA (in response to warming and a decrease in rainfall), but an increase in NPP of boreal forests. Global NPP increased from 45 to 50 PgC y⁻¹ in the 1990s to about 65 PgC y⁻¹ in the 2080s (about 58 PgC y⁻¹ for HadCM3). Global net ecosystem productivity (NEP) increased from about 1.3 PgC y⁻¹ in the 1990s to about 3.6 PgC y⁻¹ in the 2030s and then declined to zero by 2100 owing to a loss of carbon from declining forests in the tropics and at warm temperate latitudes — despite strengthening of the carbon sink at northern high latitudes. HadCM3 gave a more erratic temporal evolution of NEP than HadCM2, with a dramatic collapse in NEP in the 2050s.     

Climate change impacts on sugarcane attainable yield in southern Brazil

This study evaluated the effects of climate change on sugarcane yield, water use efficiency, and irrigation needs in southern Brazil, based on downscaled outputs of two general circulation models (PRECIS and CSIRO) and a sugarcane growth model. For three harvest cycles every year, the DSSAT/CANEGRO model was used to simulate the baseline and four future climate scenarios for stalk yield for the 2050s. The model was calibrated for the main cultivar currently grown in Brazil based on five field experiments under several soil and climate conditions. The sensitivity of simulated stalk fresh mass (SFM) to air temperature, CO₂ concentration [CO₂] and rainfall was also analyzed. Simulated SFM responses to [CO₂], air temperature and rainfall variations were consistent with the literature. There were increases in simulated SFM and water usage efficiency (WUE) for all scenarios. On average, for the current sugarcane area in the State of São Paulo, SFM would increase 24 % and WUE 34 % for rainfed sugarcane. The WUE rise is relevant because of the current concern about water supply in southern Brazil. Considering the current technological improvement rate, projected yields for 2050 ranged from 96 to 129 t?ha^?1, which are respectively 15 and 59 % higher than the current state average yield.     

Climate change impacts on the energy system: a review of trends and gaps

Major transformation of the global energy system is required for climate change mitigation. However, energy demand patterns and supply systems are themselves subject to climate change impacts. These impacts will variously help and hinder mitigation and adaptation efforts, so it is vital they are well understood and incorporated into models used to study energy system decarbonisation pathways. To assess the current state of understanding of this topic and identify research priorities, this paper critically reviews the literature on the impacts of climate change on the energy supply system, summarising the regional coverage of studies, trends in their results and sources of disagreement. We then examine the ways in which these impacts have been represented in integrated assessment models of the electricity or energy system.Studies tend to agree broadly on impacts for wind, solar and thermal power stations. Projections for impacts on hydropower and bioenergy resources are more varied. Key uncertainties and gaps remain due to the variation between climate projections, modelling limitations and the regional bias of research interests. Priorities for future research include the following: further regional impact studies for developing countries; studies examining impacts of the changing variability of renewable resources, extreme weather events and combined hazards; inclusion of multiple climate feedback mechanisms in IAMs, accounting for adaptation options and climate model uncertainty.     

Climate change and coastal flooding in Metro Boston: impacts and adaptation strategies

Sea level rise (SLR) due to climate change will increase storm surge height along the 825 km long coastline of Metro Boston, USA. Land at risk consists of urban waterfront with piers and armoring, residential areas with and without seawalls and revetments, and undeveloped land with either rock coasts or gently sloping beachfront and low-lying coastal marshes. Risk-based analysis shows that the cumulative 100 year economic impacts on developed areas from increased storm surge flooding depend heavily upon the adaptation response, location, and estimated sea level rise. Generally it is found that it is advantageous to use expensive structural protection in areas that are highly developed and less structural approaches such as floodproofing and limiting or removing development in less developed or environmentally sensitive areas.