Policy Implications of Greenhouse Warming Mitigation, Adaptation, and the Science Base (1992) / Chapter Skim
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5 Adaptation
5 Adaptation
Pages 36-47
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From page 36... ...
There are five alternative human responses: (1) modify the hazard, as by channeling rivers that are prone to flooding; (2)
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From page 37... ...
Major breakthroughs like irrigation usually consist of innovations in social organization and financing as well as new machinery. Many past innovations in hardware and software have helped people adapt themselves and their activities to climate and variable weather.
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From page 38... ...
The assessment here is an initial appraisal of impacts and adaptive capabilities of affected human and natural systems in the United States; additional effort is necessary for a more complete understanding of these issues. CO2 Fertilization of Green Plants An increasing atmospheric concentration of CO2 would increase agricultural production by enhancing the use of sunlight and slowing transpiration in some plants.
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From page 39... ...
But farming has always been sensitive to the weather, and experience suggests that farmers adapt quickly, especially in comparison to the rate at which greenhouse warming would occur. Countries like the United States, which encompass many climate zones and have active and aggressive agricultural research and development, would probably be able to adapt their farming to climatic changes deriving from greenhouse warming.
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From page 40... ...
Wetlands have persisted in the past despite slowly changing sea levels. Greenhouse warming could induce sea level rise, however, faster than new wetlands could form.
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From page 41... ...
Settlements and Coastal Structures Direct climatic changes of greatest importance to human settlements are changes in the extremes and seasonal averages of temperature, and in the geographic and seasonal distributions of rainfall. Although these direct climatic changes may be important, the secondary effects of greenhouse warming on the levels of water bodies are much more important.
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From page 42... ...
Migration Historical evidence suggests that migration over long distances, such as occurred in the United States during the Dust Bowl period, is not an automatic response to climate change. Migrations typically follow established routes and cover relatively short distances.
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From page 43... ...
Since even future global averages are uncertain, we will not soon know what these four regional indices will indicate and therefore will not be able to predict local impacts and to design specific adaptations. Nonetheless, monitoring the local climate, including the water in streams and seasonal events, is crucial over time and will eventually lay the foundation for designing and selecting these specific adaptations.
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From page 44... ...
ADAPTING TO CLIMATE CHANGE Just as strategic planning requires ranking greenhouse warming with all the other changes ahead, it also demands sorting human activities and nature into classes of sensitivity and adaptability to greenhouse warming alone. Then the more sensitive and serious consequences of greenhouse warming can be ranked within the whole spectrum of changes, and adaptational responses can be decided accordingly.
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From page 45... ...
For the gradual changes assumed in this study, the Adaptation Panel believes these classifications are justified for the United States and similar nations. ration and evaporation would.
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From page 46... ...
What is likely are changes in the composition of ecological communities in favor of those species that are able to move rapidly and far and the disappearance of some species that move slowly. Marine plants and animals inhabiting intertidal regions of rocky shores undoubtedly would be affected by rising sea level.
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From page 47... ...
People in the United States likely will have no more difficulty adapting to such future changes than to the most severe conditions in the past, such as the Dust Bowl.* Other countries may have more difficulty, especially poor countries or those with fewer climate zones.
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