Monitoring Climate Change Impacts Metrics at the Intersection of the Human and Earth Systems (2010) / Chapter Skim
Currently Skimming:
1 Introduction
1 Introduction
Pages 5-12
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From page 5... ...
: The ability of an environmental system to maintain processes, functions, biodiversity, and productivity. This is particularly relevant in a changing climate and under additional influences resulting from the possible implementation of strategies to mitigate and/or adapt to climate change.
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Prominent scientists were granted security clearances to participate in a review of national security systems, data, and archives with the objective of identifying scientifically relevant materials. Through analyses of classified data and systems, the scientists worked with the intelligence community and the White House on several emerging environmental issues, including global climate change.
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The utility of the fiducials project rested on the premise that certain locations around the world could serve as "pulse points" that, when monitored with detailed capability, could provide early warning of environmental stresses. The program was conceived as the nation's intelligence community began to weigh the national security implications of climate change and to take steps to apply its unique monitoring capabilities to further the understanding of climate change.
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THE COMMITTEE'S CHALLENGE Many organizations have proposed potential climate change indicators. Examples include the Global Climate Observing System's Essential Climate Variables,2 the 2 See http://www.wmo.ch/pages/prog/gcos/index.php?
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But traditional climate change indicators are typically selected to tell us how the climate is changing and provide relatively little insight into the human dimensions of climate change. However, in this report, the committee identifies climate change metrics, that, when taken together, might provide advance warning of climate-related changes and their impacts on environmental sustainability.
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Many options exist to conserve or enhance specific ecosystem services in ways that reduce negative trade-offs or that provide positive synergies with other ecosystem services" (MEA, 2005)
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The committee sorted through the many possible indicators of climate change and identified metrics within key sectors that may give advance warning of climate-related changes and their impacts. The overarching aim was to provide a conceptual foundation for the selected observations that integrate across a wide range of both local- and globalscale observing systems in order to deliver useful information.
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