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

2. Most of this material drawn from IPCC REPORTS I’ve saved a copy at my web site … www.ldeo.columbia.edu/users/menke/data/ipcc/index.html You should read the technical summaries … at least !

4. 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

5. Current Temperature Distribution

6. Note that 5 deg C is one color band

12. Impact 1 – Spread of Malaria

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

14. At what temperatures is malaria present hard to control ?

15. Impact 2 – Reduction in Arctic Ecosystems

16. Tundra

17. What temperature Boundary controls The southern extent Of Tundra ?

18. Impact 3 – Reduction in River Runoff

19. 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

20. 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

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

22. 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

23. 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