Impacts of Climate Change and their mitigation Bill Menke October 6, 2005

Most of this material drawn from IPCC REPORTS I’ve saved a copy at my web site … You should read the technical summaries … at least !

Note that global temperature is predicted to increase by as much as little as 1 deg C or as much as 5 deg C in the next century with most models in the 2-4 deg C range

Current Temperature Distribution

Note that 5 deg C is one color band

Impact 1 – Spread of Malaria

India – deaths in 1947: 800,1000 deaths in 1986: 1000

At what temperatures is malaria present hard to control ?

Impact 2 – Reduction in Arctic Ecosystems

Tundra

What temperature Boundary controls The southern extent Of Tundra ?

Impact 3 – Reduction in River Runoff

Hydrologic Cycle: Note land precipitation of 108,000 km 3 And that 58% evaporates, with the rest, 46,000 km 3, flowing in rivers. But only about 5000 km 3 are usable for agriculture

Typical land, about 1 meter (40”) of precipitation, 42% (17”) is runoff Now increase temperature 3 deg C (5.3 F), runoff decreases to 14.5”, a drop of 15 percent 3 deg C

Model that takes into account overall climate changes also Predicts regions (e.g. in red) where runoff is down by 15%

Food From Water Caloric need: 2000 kCal per person per day Grain: 4000 kCal per kg 6 Billion People on earth Water needed to grow that grain: 1 m 3 per kg Putting it all together, agriculture requires 1100 km 3 of water per year as long as we’re all vegetarians

So to feed a world of vegetarians requires about 1/5 of the available runoff a 15% drop in runoff is a very big deal