Peer Reviewed Sources

Melillo, Jerry M., A. David McGuire, David W. Kicklighter, Berrien Moore III, Charles J. Vorosmarty, and Annette L. Schloss. "Global climate change and terrestrial net primary production." Nature 363 (1993): 234-40.

This article showed a lot of facts about how the climate change will affect the growth of plants. I think that this source will be helpful in determining what will happen in the senior project. Below were the most helpful facts from the article that I believe that I can use. The summary of the information is the following: climate change will affect the weather which in turn will affect the NPP of the plants, it is predicted that there will be varied affects throughout the plant’s regions.

Quotes:

“Most climate models predict that the buildup of these gases is likely to lead to surface air temperature rises of 1.5 C to 4.5 C and changes in precipitation and cloud patterns over the next century.”

“It is of fundamental importance to humans because the largest portion of our food supply is from productivity of plant life on land, as is wood for construction and fuel.”

“…climate changes are predicted to vary from place to place...”

“… process-based models describe how important ecosystem processes such as photosynthesis, respiration, decomposition and nutrient cycling interact to affect the net primary production (NPP).”

“Among studies that have provided adequate water and nutrients to experimental plants, the range in the response of plant growth to doubled CO2 is between 24% and 50%.”

“The source for the global data sets on climate (air temperature, precipitation and cloudiness), elevation and soil texture are described elsewhere; the climate data represents long-term averages.”

“Hydrological inputs for TEM were determined with a water balance model that uses the climate, elevation, soils and vegetation data.”

“Over half of the global annual NPP occurs in the tropics between the latitudes of 22.5 S and 22.5 N. Most of this productivity is attributable to tropical evergreen forest which accounts for 35.9% of the net exchange of CO2 between terrestrial vegetation and the atmosphere, although it covers only 13.7% of the terrestrial land surface.”

“… least productive vegetation types include polar desert, tundra, and desert, which collectively account for 3.0% of terrestrial NPP and cover 16.7% of the terrestrial land area.”

“…among vegetation types and range from no increase for some northern ecosystems to increases of 50%...”

“…tropical evergreen forest may decrease PAR enough to decrease NPP. The largest NPP decrease for tropical… predicts the largest increase in mean annual cloudiness (9.8%).”

“…contemporary climate at 312.5 p.p.m.v. CO2, the global responses to changes in both CO2 and climate do not vary substantially among the GCM climates with increases ranging between 20% and 26.1%.”

“…predicts a decrease of 7% in annual precipitation for temperate mixed forest in the region…”

Rosenzweig, Cynthia, and Martin L. Parry. "Potential impact of climate change on world food supply." Nature 367 (1994): 133-38.

This article discussed how the climate change would affect the world’s food supply. It stated that overall, developed countries would see an increase and benefit from the climate change, while undeveloped won’t. It also discussed the regions of the world that would benefit which is at higher latitudes while the lower latitudes would be affecting negatively. I think that this article definitely was very useful and has many facts that I hope to implement in my senior project.

Quotes:

“…doubling of the atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration will lead to only a small decrease in global crop production.”

“…the important role of international trade in the adjustment of the world food system to climate change-induced changes in crop yields.”

“…world food trade model to simulate the economic consequences of these potential changes in crop yields… estimate changes in world food prices and in the number of people at risk of hunger in developing countries.”

“…appears to be a large disparity in agricultural vulnerability to climate change between developed and developing countries.”

“…crop growth and water use have been shown to benefit from increase levels of CO2… these conditions are assumed to occur in 2060… which the simulated climate had warmed to the effective doubled CO2 level of ~4 C by 2060.”

“When climate change is considered without direct CO2 effects on crop growth and water use, averaged national crop yields declined everywhere, although reductions were less at middle and high latitudes… simulations with direct CO2 effects, yields were positive at middle and high latitudes, and negative at low latitudes…”

“Food availability, in turn, depends on income and price levels.”

“The largest negative changes occur in developing regions, though the extent of decreased productions varies greatly by country depending on the projected climate. By contrast, in developed countries, production is estimated to increase…”

“Climate change scenarios near the high end of the IPCC range of doubled-CO2 warming exerted a slight-to-moderate negative effect on simulated world cereal production, even when the beneficial direct effects of CO2, farm-level adaptations and future technological yield improvements were taken into account…”

“…production in the developed world benefited from climate change, production in developing nations declined.”

“Thus, while come countries in the temperate zones may reap some benefit from climate change, many countries in the tropical and subtropical zones appear more vulnerable to the potential impacts of global warming…”

Nate Lewis Lecture Reflection

I find it intriguing that currently the world is consuming around 13 TW of energy. Honestly, I still find it hard to imagine how much fuel we must burn and consume to produce that much energy. Of the world’s 13 TW, the United State’s consumes 3 TW of energy. According to Nate Lewis, if the humans want to put a dent in the carbon emissions into the atmosphere by 2050 we will need 10-13% carbon free emissions energy sources. Right now, fossil fuels are cheaper than alternative energies and until renewable resources become cheaper or there is some type of “game changer”, Nate Lewis suspects that there will not be a change for the major energy dependence (E.g. fossil fuels). Although this seems negative, I would have to agree with what Nate Lewis has to say on this subject. I feel that now-a-days, there are a lot of businesses that put profit before the big picture and want the cheapest route to get the most profit. Therefore, fossil fuels are there most convenient choice. Though this should actually be taken on a different perspective, if businesses and citizens were to invest in sustainable resources, things will eventually change. Though this change would have to take place worldwide, it seems like it might not happen right away. But steps are being taken in many countries around the world which is good, though the problem Nate Lewis highlighted was that we will need to produce a lot more energy as the Earth’s population continues to increase exponentially. After listening to this presentation, I also realized that each energy source is probably not a solution for the entire world except for solar energy. Problem is there isn’t a technology that we currently have that is cost effective so that everyone can get it. Once that happens, it will be possible for solar energy to be used across the world.

Now another important topic was how energy relates to economic, national and environmental security of the world and its nations. Right now, it seems to me that a lot of governments care more about economic and national security before they worry about the environmental safety. It seems like they look for the quickest, cheapest form of energy to get products made and sold. Giving the environmental security little thought until a problem becomes persistent, for example when issues arise with the nation’s people from the factories. I think that when trying to decide something is sustainable for a nation, many things need to be factored in and knowing which would be a better fit for the environments in that country. Overall, this lecture was very thought provoking and it has made me realize that there is a lot more factors to consider when choosing an energy source than I had originally thought.

Senior Project Research Part II

So far, I have stuck with the idea of water and its quality in the next 100 years. Through this research, I have been able to find information on climate change and how it affects water. So I think that I can unravel new interesting facts about it. For me, the big idea that stands out to me right now is that water affects many things. After all, without water many animals would be in big trouble. I am considering after reading through all of my research, that I would be interested in a senior project related to climate change, water, food and the human population.

“Climate change will affect water resources through its impact on the quantity, variability, timing, form, and intensity of precipitation.” I found that this was true with most of the information I found in my research. I feel like using the statistics I found about the rainfall and temperature rise predictions of the future from climate change models, could be used to make an interesting vision of the future. Then combine that with food and human population, to get an extremely complicated cause and effect problem. Though I feel that my ideas are continuing to come together, I don’t know where to go with all the information and where to go more specific. Right now, I am trying to figure out what aspect of the correlations between climate change, water, food and the human population would be, or is it as specific as it can get?

Overall, my plan for senior project would be to have how climate change affects the water. Then I would have a sort of cause and effect discussion of how the water then affects the environments and the ability to grow food which they effects the human population and its carrying capacity. After the discussion, I would have a piece where it discusses how the future will look and if possible explain for different major parts of the world. I was wondering if that would seem too large of a scope, or should the idea of what the future will look like be focused to one region of the world?

Annotated Bibliography Part II

"Water Resources | Climate Change - Health and Environmental Effects | U.S. EPA." U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Web. 11 Feb. 2010. .

This was an introduction to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) water resources articles and it touched on water, climate change and how it could affect people. This article also had references to other places from the cite that would have more detailed information, I think this was beneficial because it was an overview of the information making it easy to determine if some of it would be helpful for further research for senior project. It also discussed how evaluating information is extremely difficult due to the challenge of water availability, quality and stream flow are sensitive to temperature changes. It also stated that water resources are heavily managed in the U.S. but there are still areas where it is scarce.

Quotes:

“All regions of the world show an overall net negative impact of climate change on water resources and freshwater ecosystems…”

“The future effects of climate change on water resources in the U.S. and other parts of the world will depend on trends in both climatic and non-climatic factors.”

Adams, Richard M., and Dannele E. Peck. "Choices Article - Effects of Climate Change on Water Resources." Welcome to Choices Magazine Online! Web. 11 Feb. 2010. .

Overall, this article was about climate change and the effects it will have on water. Water is very important to life which means that there are many things that it affects as illustrated in the article when it talked about: agriculture, economy, affect the cost of energy, biosphere and politics all over the world. This article discusses that the heat increases will most likely cause lots of problems especially on agriculture causing many droughts and wildfires could become even more devastating. At the end, there are strategies that are briefly discussed that could be used to help with the issues that were highlighted in the article; a few of the ideas were: “… revising water storage and relwase programs for resercoirs, adopting crops and cropping practices that are robust over a wider spectrum of water availability…”

Quotes:

“Climate change will affect water resources through its impact on the quantity, variability, timing, form, and intensity of precipitation.”

“Models of climate change (GCMs) predict the U.S. annual-mean temperatures to generally rise by 2degrees Celsius to 3 degrees Celsius over the next 100 years, with greater increases in the northern regions (5 degrees Celsius), and northern Alaska (10 degrees Celsius).”

“Despite predictions of increased precipitation in most regions, net decreases in water availability are expected in those areas, due to offsetting increases in evaporation.”

“Water shortages will cause the price of water to rise…”

“… important effect of the water resource impacts discussed… is the potential for more frequent and intense interstate and international water allocation conflicts.”

Ludi, Eva. "Climate change, water and food security." ODI: Overseas Development Institute(2009): 1-8.

Overall, this article discussed the affects of climate change on food and water. It also discussed many facts and statistics about Africa and their problems now and projected estimates of the future. There are also graphs that could come in handy when talking about and finding more about which areas of the world are being affected with water deficiencies and which are suffering severely. This article also discusses strategies to combat limited water situation, as well as conclusions about what should be done.

Quotes:

“The impacts of climate change- sea level rise, droughts, heat waves, floods and rainfall variation- could, by 2080, push another 600 million people into malnutrition and increase the number of people facing water scarcity by 1.8 billion.”

“Food security is defined as a ‘situation […] when all people, at all times, have physical, social and economic access to insuffiecent, safe, and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life.’ ”

“In addition to farming areas, many of the world’s rangelands are in semi-arid areas and susceptible to water deficits; any further in water resources will greatly impact carrying capacity.”

“Modification of irrigation techniques, including amount, time or technology (e.g. drip irrigation systems)”

“Climate change and increased water demand for agriculture in future decades is anticipated to be an added challenge to trans-boundary framework agreements, increasing the potential for conflict.”