What Is Known About Climate Change and Its Effects on Biodiversity

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What Is Known About Climate Change and Its
Effects on Biodiversity?

• Bill Moomaw
• Tufts University
• October 4, 2003
• Providence, RI

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The Earths Climate System

• Light from the Sun is absorbed by land and water,
  and is converted to heat.
• Some heat is emitted back into space as radiant
  heat, just as heat is radiated from hot pavement
  on a July day.
• Some of this radiant heat is absorbed by water
  vapor and clouds, carbon dioxide, methane,
  nitrous oxide and other trace atmospheric gases.
  These gases act like the glass windows in a car
  creating the hot car effect.

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The one constant of climate has been change by
natural forces.What is new is that human
activities are altering the composition of the
atmosphere, the face of the land, and the climate
system.
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What natural forces affect the climate system?

• Natural fluctuations in the suns intensity
• The complex motion of the earth around the sun
• Volcanic eruptions
• Changes in ocean currents
• Shorter-term cycles like El Nino

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What human activities are affecting climate?

• Carbon dioxide from fossil fuels release about 6
  billion tons of carbon each year to the
  atmosphere
• Atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations have
  increased by nearly 32
• Methane from agriculture, livestock, landfills
  and industry have increased by 133
• Nitrous oxide from agriculture and industry has
  increased by 15
• Change in land use and land cover release 1
  billion tons of carbon plus other gases

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What is the evidence for human caused climate
change?

• Direct measurement of changes in atmospheric
  composition
• Direct measurement of temperatures
• Direct measurement of precipitation and other
  climate indicators
• Direct measurement of shifts in species
• Paleoclimate records
• Climate model verification
• Testing models with other planetary climates

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Paleoclimate and other bio- and geological data

• Tree rings, coral reefs and lake and ocean
  sediments reveal climate and other changes in the
  past
• Fossil air from deep ice cores that go back
  420,000 years
• Isotope data from ice cores demonstrate past
  temperature changes

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Looking to the Future

• What will happen to concentrations of climate
  altering gases such as carbon dioxide if we fail
  to act?
• What will happen to planetary temperatures if we
  fail to act?

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The Climate of Maine could be like that of New
Jersey by 2050 and like that of North Carolina by
2100
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What are the impacts of climate change?

• Increased temperatures and heat stress
• (14, 500 heat deaths in France summer 2003)
• Altered precipitation patterns (More rain and
  drought)
• Decreased snow and ice cover,and melting glaciers
  and permafrost
• Rising sea level (already 4 - 8 in last
  century, potential for many feet of rise)
• More intense smog, and less visibility

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What are the impacts of climate change?

• Death of coral reefs
• Increased forest and plant pests and diseases
• Decreased agricultural and forest productivity in
  many regions with some increases in others
• Potential irreversible catastrophic changes such
  as shifts in ocean currents and major losses of
  species

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Lag Times
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Facts about carbon dioxide and fossil fuel energy

• The US with 4.6 of the worlds population
  produces 25 of the worlds climate altering
  gases
• The US with 288 million people annually releases
  as much carbon dioxide as do the 2600 million
  residents of 151 developing countries combined.
• US per capita emissions are double those of
  Europe or Japan, and five times the global
  average.

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Who is working to make reductions?

• 186 nations including the US have ratified the UN
  Framework Convention on Climate Change.
• Over 100 nations have ratified the Kyoto Protocol
  including all of western Europe and Japan,China
  and many other developing nations. The US has
  announced its withdrawal from this treaty.
• The Kyoto Protocol commits all nations to
  specific actions including emission reductions by
  most industrial countries.
• Once Russia ratifies, the Kyoto Protocol will
  enter into force.

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The Goal of the Convention on Climate Change

• Article 2
• The ultimate objective of this Convention and
  any related legal instruments is to achieve
  stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in
  the atmosphere at a level that would prevent
  dangerous anthropogenic interference with the
  climate system.
• Such a level should be achieved within a
  time-frame sufficient to allow ecosystems to
  adapt naturally to climate change, to ensure that
  food production is not threatened and to enable
  economic development to proceed in a sustainable
  manner.

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Need a Long Term Goal to Set Short Term Priorities

• To keep climate altering gases from increasing at
  projected rates, and then decrease them requires
  cuts in emissions over the 21st century of 75-85
  as called for the Governors and Premiers.
  European governments are acting too
• To restructure our energy system to that degree
  requires that each new building, or power plant
  that is built today must meet new standards of
  efficiency.
• Each vehicle, computer or appliance must be
  significantly more efficient than the one it
  replaces.

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Important Climate Websites

• Environmental Protection Agency
• http//www.epa.gov/globalwarming
• Oak Ridge National Laboratory http//cdiac.esd.orn
  l.gov
• Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
• http//www.ipcc.ch/
• Tufts University http//www.tufts.edu/tci
• Clean Air Cool Planet
• http//www.cleanair-coolplanet.org/