Abrupt Climate Change Inevitable Surprises (2002) / Chapter Skim
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6 Findings and Recommendations
6 Findings and Recommendations
Pages 153-167
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From page 153... ...
Nonetheless, evidence shows that rapid climate changes have affected societies and ecosystems substantially, especially when the changes that brought persistent droughts occurred in regions with human settlements. There is no reason to believe that abrupt climate changes will not occur again.
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From page 154... ...
It is important not to be fatalistic about the threats posed by abrupt climate change. Societies have faced both gradual and abrupt climate changes for millennia and have learned to adapt through various mechanisms, such as moving indoors, developing irrigation for crops, and migrating away from inhospitable regions.
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From page 155... ...
Climate changes are producing conditions outside the range of recent historical experience and observation, and it is unclear how the systems will interact with and react to the coming climatic changes. Data Needed to Better Understand the Mechanisms and Triggers of Abrupt Climate Change It is crucial to be able to recognize present or impending abrupt climate changes quickly.
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From page 156... ...
Basal conditions of the large ice sheets, and thus their potential for crossing thresholds and leading to rapid climate changes, are known at only a handful of points and with less confidence along limited aerogeophysical flight lines; most of the ice-sheet beds are uncharacterized. Processes beneath the floating extensions called ice shelves, where ice-sheet stability meets deepwater formation, are poorly known.
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From page 157... ...
Despite the obvious importance of the hydrological cycle, surprisingly little is known about total groundwater storage and water quality, trends in recharge and discharge, permafrost evolution (including feedbacks on greenhouse gases) , feedbacks related to the generation and persistence of drought, how drought is eventually broken, and related topics.
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From page 158... ...
It will also be important to link monitoring efforts in research institutions with databases at the National Wildlife Health Center of the US Geological Survey, the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. An increased understanding of the important thresholds and nonlinearities in economic and ecological systems will enable better prediction of effects of abrupt climate change.
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From page 159... ...
Developing theoretical and empirical models to understand abrupt cli mate changes and the interaction of such changes with ecological and economic systems has a high priority. Modeling is essential for collaborative research between physical, ecological, and social scientists, and much more effort in the development of accurate models will be necessary to produce a useful understanding of abrupt climate processes.
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From page 160... ...
Long integrations of fully coupled models under various forcings for the past, present, and future will be required to evaluate the models, assess possibilities of future abrupt changes, and provide scenarios of those future changes. The scenarios can be combined with integrated-assessment economic models to improve understanding of the costs for alternative adaptive approaches to climate change with attention to the effects of rising greenhouse-gas concentrations and nonclimatic factors, such as land use changes and urbanization.
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From page 161... ...
A useful target of spatial resolution is 1° of latitude by 1° of longitude, annual or seasonal temporal resolution, and temperature and precipitation as a minimum for climatic variables. Up to now, scenarios at this resolution have been prepared only for gradual climate change; to be useful in developing impact analyses and projections, such high-resolution scenarios will be necessary for a variety of scenarios of abrupt climate change.
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From page 162... ...
Not all paleoclimatic records can be studied in the same detail as those from Greenland, but generation of at least a few similar highly resolved (preferably annually or subannually) reference standards, including a North Atlantic marine record comparable with Greenland records, would be of great value.
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From page 163... ...
The conceptual basis and the application of climatic statistics should be re-examined with an eye to providing realistic estimates of the likelihood of extreme events. The term "climate" implies a relatively persistent set of environmental conditions.
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From page 164... ...
Research should be undertaken to identify "no-regrets" measures to reduce vulnerabilities and increase adaptive capacity at little or no cost. No-regrets measures may include low-cost steps to: slow climate change; improve climate forecasting; slow biodiversity loss; improve water, land, and air quality; and develop institutions that are more robust to major disruptions.
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From page 165... ...
Earlier National Research Council reports have identified policies that would slow climate change with low or even negative costs. For example, the phaseout of chlorofluorocarbons over the last 2 decades and replacement with gases with typically shorter atmospheric lifetimes has reduced the US contribution to global warming while also reducing future health risks posed by ozone depletion (NRC, 1992~.
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From page 166... ...
Because losses from some of these risks are highly skewed, insurance payouts from time to time will be extremely large and will threaten to exhaust the reserves of insurance companies. Through the development of new instruments, such as weather derivatives and catastrophe bonds, markets can accommodate extreme events.
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From page 167... ...
With growing globalization, adverse impacts although likely to vary from region to region because exposure and sensitivity will vary are likely to spill across national boundaries, through human and biotic migration, economic shocks, and political aftershocks. Thus, even though this report focuses primarily on the United States, the issues are global and it will be important to give attention to the issues faced by poorer countries that are likely to be especially vulnerable to the social and economic impacts of abrupt climate change.
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