Transcript Climate affairs ppt for iafs 3000

Climate affairs ppt for iafs 3000
Part 1
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Climate Affairs:
“Usable Science” for Society?
Michael H. Glantz
Consortium for Capacity
Building
INSTAAR, Univ. of Colorado
Boulder, Colorado
15 January 2009
ccb.colorado.edu
www.fragilecologies.com
The Climate century ?
All eyes are on the atmosphere
Aspects of Climate
(what is missing in the graphic?)
• Climate variability
• Climate fluctuations
• Climate change
•
“Deep” climate
change
• Extreme events
• Seasonality
Perceptions of Climate
• Climate as a resource
• Climate as a hazard
• Climate as a constraint
Every society
climate has a mix
of all three, but the
proportions vary
from one country
to the next and one
decade to the next.
…as a hazard
• This is the way that we tend to view climate
• Its anomalies can often lead to death and
destruction
• There is also a misery factor (lost photos, having
to live in a gym for weeks, loss of pets, heirloom
losses, etc
• Governments most concerned about climate as a
hazard.
• Governments have responsibility for early
warnings.
… as a resource
• Adequate and reliable precipitation,
temperature, seasonality
• It provides for adequate food production and
water resources in a region
• Experience from similar ecosystems
• Reliable forecasts on all time scales
• The careful use of climate information can
make a hostile climate less so
… as a boundary constraint
• In the early 1900s climate was viewed as a constraint
• Personally
• Nationally
• Hot and tropical climates, it was argued, made the
people lazy and unproductive in a workplace, whereas
seasonal climates of the Northern Hemisphere were
invigorating to people and nations
• This view was challenged as racist but was more or less
in place until the mid 1970s!!
• Global warming will change present constraints while
creating new ones
El Niño Process
http://video.aol.com/vid
eo-detail/chris-farley-elnino/1340308260
El Niño as a Hazard-Spawner
• El Niño is a hazard-spawner
– It is associated with droughts, floods, fires, and disease
outbreaks worldwide
• La Niña is also a spawner of natural hazards
El Niño comes of age
(October 1997)
Fostering Climate Affairs
(why now?)
• Climate issues:
– Increasingly important to
governments, corporations,
foundations and the public,
• Perceptions:
– Climate anomalies are becoming
more frequent, more costly and
more deadly
• Global warming:
– Looming in the 21st century
The “Affairs” template
• Affairs: business, matters, activities
• Business affairs, international affairs, rural affairs,
veteran affairs, etc.
• Here, I use the “Affairs” concept as a
multidisciplinary catch-all phrase, a check list
of sorts
• The central aspects include:
• Science, impacts on ecosystems, impacts on societies,
politics, policy & law, economics, ethics & equity
• Water affairs, desert affairs, coastal urban affairs, etc.
Global warming and extreme weather
Climate-sensitive sectors
•
Food production
• Crops
• Fish
• Livestock
•
Water resources
• Quantity
• Quality
•
•
•
•
•
Energy
Public health & safety
Economy
Environment
Other
Daily burden to fetch water and firewood
Africa –water gatherers
India – firewood gatherers
What citizens should know
• Climate science
• Society’s impacts on climate
• Climate impacts
• On ecosystems
• On societies
• Climate policy & law
• Climate politics
• Climate economics
• Climate ethics & equity
How scientists see the climate system
US Global Change Research Program, 2000
Climate Science
• Understand the
climate system
• Understand its
components
• Society is a
component
IIASA
Time Series for
El Niño (red) and La Niña (blue)
Before 1976 more blue than red; after 1976 more red than blue.
Red : El Nino
Blue: La Nina
Media Headlines Worldwide:
El Niño 1997-98
Climate Impacts
• On land and sea
• On societies
• Rich and Poor
• Developed and Developing
• North & South
• Human impacts on the atmosphere
• Heat island effect
• Greenhouse gas emissions
• Methods to separate natural from societal
impacts
Extremes occur often on globe in any given year
Climate change
More extremes, more frequency, more intensity, new locations
Hurricane Katrina
(August 29, 2005)
Venezuelan Mud slides
December 1999