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2 Domains of Human Vulnerability and Global-Scale Processes
Pages 13-28

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From page 13...
... to some environmental change, it is valuable to examine the link between a climate-relevant global process and the critical systems upon which humans depend, specifically the domains of human vulnerability, in order to better understand indicators of environmental sustainability. Identifying the Earth observing systems that would be appropriate for monitoring environmental change and, ultimately, environmental sustainability could be an endless task.
From page 14...
... This coupling of modern agriculture's technological dependency with the nature of the agricultural species makes the response of agricultural systems to climate change extremely complex to interpret. Additionally the market-driven economic drivers of global commodities markets and agricultural policy restrictions on crop overproduction also complicate the interpretation of vulnerabilities.
From page 15...
... Additionally, human activity indirectly impacts marine ecosystems. Conversion of wetlands and estuaries to agriculture and urban areas, river channels, and dams and levees reduces the availability of critical nursery grounds, and hydroelectric facilities can impede the migration of anadromous fish.
From page 16...
... Ocean acidification, caused by increased CO2, will have implications for marine calcifers, which provide habitat for marine fish and organisms and form the base of the marine food chain. Thus, the interactions between large-scale and regional-scale climate processes and between the natural and the human environments lead to a complex set of interacting issues.
From page 17...
... Increased atmospheric temperatures or dust or soot in the snow can lead to a similar result, with runoff starting a few weeks earlier and before downstream evaporative demand requires additional water. Glacier loss removes a critical summer water source (Figure 2-3)
From page 18...
... . Possible metrics that can be used to indicate the environmental sustainability of coastal environments include river flow, ice sheet and glacier mass changes, local precipitation trends, hurricane frequency and location, and sea level rise.
From page 19...
... Alterations to the water cycle are increasing and are frequently observed on larger scales. Growing nutrient loadings in a given drainage basin typically results in coastal hypoxia (Figure 2-6; Dozier et al., 2009)
From page 20...
... Anticipating and predicting water issues means that future scenarios that fall outside of historical experience must be considered, along with the consequences of specific decisions in a complex coupled human-environment system. Identifying and monitoring metrics that can be used to indicate the environmental sustainability of water will require not only the biophysical elements of the water cycle but also relevant information about human interactions and feedbacks.
From page 21...
... For example, changes in natural disasters such as hurricanes, floods, and droughts will potentially disrupt a wide range of energy system operations, including transmission lines, oil and gas platforms, ports, refineries, wind farms, and solar installations.
From page 22...
... As a result, natural disasters are sensitive (albeit noisy) indicators of environmental sustainability.
From page 23...
... . Climate drives large, regional fire through antecedent wet periods that create substantial herbaceous fuels or drought and warming that extend conducive fire weather (Bowman et al., 2009)
From page 24...
... . Furthermore, sea level rise combined with higher temperatures in many coastal regions will create new reservoirs of warm, brackish, stagnant water, ideal for breeding mosquitoes that can transmit malaria, dengue fever, and many other tropical mosquito-borne diseases (Craig, 2010)
From page 25...
... EARTH SYSTEM LINKAGES TO GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE AND ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY A broad array of indicators, based on a great diversity of measurements, could provide advance warning of the impacts of global climate change. But because it is both uneconomical and fundamentally impossible to measure everything, it is important to develop priorities -- to identify some select, finite suite of indicators that, taken together, provide a generally accurate and informative basis for anticipating problems.
From page 26...
... . The increase in ocean acidity is corrosive to marine shells and organisms, such as corals, foraminifera, coccolithophores, and pteropods, that provide habitat for marine fish and organisms and form the base of the marine food chain.
From page 27...
... will be required to monitor the large-scale patterns and dynamics of ocean circulation, heat content, primary productivity, carbon absorption, and other variables. Process studies will be needed to ascertain the ecosystem response to ocean acidification, which will vary considerably from system to system.
From page 28...
... Ocean circulation and changes in the atmospheric circulation drive the change in the type (temperature) of the water that reaches ice shelves resulting in land ice loss leading to sea level rise and eventually coastal inundation/erosion.


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