Download or read book Managing Water Resources in the West Under Conditions of Climate Uncertainty written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 1991-02-01 with total page 359 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The question of whether the earth's climate is changing in some significant human-induced way remains a matter of much debate. But the fact that climate is variable over time is well known. These two elements of climatic uncertainty affect water resources planning and management in the American West. Managing Water Resources in the West Under Conditions of Climate Uncertainty examines the scientific basis for predictions of climate change, the implications of climate uncertainty for water resources management, and the management options available for responding to climate variability and potential climate change.

Download or read book Climate Stabilization Targets written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2011-02-11 with total page 298 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Emissions of carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels have ushered in a new epoch where human activities will largely determine the evolution of Earth's climate. Because carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is long lived, it can effectively lock the Earth and future generations into a range of impacts, some of which could become very severe. Emissions reductions decisions made today matter in determining impacts experienced not just over the next few decades, but in the coming centuries and millennia. According to Climate Stabilization Targets: Emissions, Concentrations, and Impacts Over Decades to Millennia, important policy decisions can be informed by recent advances in climate science that quantify the relationships between increases in carbon dioxide and global warming, related climate changes, and resulting impacts, such as changes in streamflow, wildfires, crop productivity, extreme hot summers, and sea level rise. One way to inform these choices is to consider the projected climate changes and impacts that would occur if greenhouse gases in the atmosphere were stabilized at a particular concentration level. The book quantifies the outcomes of different stabilization targets for greenhouse gas concentrations using analyses and information drawn from the scientific literature. Although it does not recommend or justify any particular stabilization target, it does provide important scientific insights about the relationships among emissions, greenhouse gas concentrations, temperatures, and impacts. Climate Stabilization Targets emphasizes the importance of 21st century choices regarding long-term climate stabilization. It is a useful resource for scientists, educators and policy makers, among others.

Download or read book Climate Intervention written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2015-06-17 with total page 235 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The signals are everywhere that our planet is experiencing significant climate change. It is clear that we need to reduce the emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases from our atmosphere if we want to avoid greatly increased risk of damage from climate change. Aggressively pursuing a program of emissions abatement or mitigation will show results over a timescale of many decades. How do we actively remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to make a bigger difference more quickly? As one of a two-book report, this volume of Climate Intervention discusses CDR, the carbon dioxide removal of greenhouse gas emissions from the atmosphere and sequestration of it in perpetuity. Climate Intervention: Carbon Dioxide Removal and Reliable Sequestration introduces possible CDR approaches and then discusses them in depth. Land management practices, such as low-till agriculture, reforestation and afforestation, ocean iron fertilization, and land-and-ocean-based accelerated weathering, could amplify the rates of processes that are already occurring as part of the natural carbon cycle. Other CDR approaches, such as bioenergy with carbon capture and sequestration, direct air capture and sequestration, and traditional carbon capture and sequestration, seek to capture CO2 from the atmosphere and dispose of it by pumping it underground at high pressure. This book looks at the pros and cons of these options and estimates possible rates of removal and total amounts that might be removed via these methods. With whatever portfolio of technologies the transition is achieved, eliminating the carbon dioxide emissions from the global energy and transportation systems will pose an enormous technical, economic, and social challenge that will likely take decades of concerted effort to achieve. Climate Intervention: Carbon Dioxide Removal and Reliable Sequestration will help to better understand the potential cost and performance of CDR strategies to inform debate and decision making as we work to stabilize and reduce atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide.

Download or read book The Carbon Cycle written by T. M. L. Wigley and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2005-08-22 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Reducing carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions is imperative to stabilizing our future climate. Our ability to reduce these emissions combined with an understanding of how much fossil-fuel-derived CO2 the oceans and plants can absorb is central to mitigating climate change. In The Carbon Cycle, leading scientists examine how atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations have changed in the past and how this may affect the concentrations in the future. They look at the carbon budget and the "missing sink" for carbon dioxide. They offer approaches to modeling the carbon cycle, providing mathematical tools for predicting future levels of carbon dioxide. This comprehensive text incorporates findings from the recent IPCC reports. New insights, and a convergence of ideas and views across several disciplines make this book an important contribution to the global change literature.

Download or read book Assessment of Approaches to Updating the Social Cost of Carbon written by National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2016-03-26 with total page 73 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The social cost of carbon (SCC) for a given year is an estimate, in dollars, of the present discounted value of the damage caused by a 1-metric ton increase in CO2 emissions into the atmosphere in that year; or equivalently, the benefits of reducing CO2 emissions by the same amount in that given year. The SCC is intended to provide a comprehensive measure of the monetized value of the net damages from global climate change from an additional unit of CO2, including, but not limited to, changes in net agricultural productivity, energy use, human health effects, and property damages from increased flood risk. Federal agencies use the SCC to value the CO2 emissions impacts of various policies including emission and fuel economy standards for vehicles, regulations of industrial air pollutants from industrial manufacturing, emission standards for power plants and solid waste incineration, and appliance energy efficiency standards. There are significant challenges to estimating a dollar value that reflects all the physical, human, ecological, and economic impacts of climate change. Recognizing that the models and scientific data underlying the SCC estimates evolve and improve over time, the federal government made a commitment to provide regular updates to the estimates. To assist with future revisions of the SCC, the Interagency Working Group on the Social Cost of Carbon (IWG) requested the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine complete a study that assessed the merits and challenges of a limited near-term update to the SCC and of a comprehensive update of the SCC to ensure that the estimates reflect the best available science. This interim report focuses on near-term updates to the SCC estimates.

Download or read book Climate Change Science written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2001-06-28 with total page 41 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The warming of the Earth has been the subject of intense debate and concern for many scientists, policy-makers, and citizens for at least the past decade. Climate Change Science: An Analysis of Some Key Questions, a new report by a committee of the National Research Council, characterizes the global warming trend over the last 100 years, and examines what may be in store for the 21st century and the extent to which warming may be attributable to human activity.

Download or read book Climate Change 2014 written by Groupe d'experts intergouvernemental sur l'évolution du climat and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page 151 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Scientific and Technical Aerospace Reports written by and published by . This book was released on 1992 with total page 1572 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Projecting the Climatic Effects of Increasing Carbon Dioxide written by Michael C. MacCracken and published by . This book was released on 1985 with total page 412 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Valuing Climate Damages written by National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2017-06-23 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The social cost of carbon (SC-CO2) is an economic metric intended to provide a comprehensive estimate of the net damages - that is, the monetized value of the net impacts, both negative and positive - from the global climate change that results from a small (1-metric ton) increase in carbon-dioxide (CO2) emissions. Under Executive Orders regarding regulatory impact analysis and as required by a court ruling, the U.S. government has since 2008 used estimates of the SC-CO2 in federal rulemakings to value the costs and benefits associated with changes in CO2 emissions. In 2010, the Interagency Working Group on the Social Cost of Greenhouse Gases (IWG) developed a methodology for estimating the SC-CO2 across a range of assumptions about future socioeconomic and physical earth systems. Valuing Climate Changes examines potential approaches, along with their relative merits and challenges, for a comprehensive update to the current methodology. This publication also recommends near- and longer-term research priorities to ensure that the SC- CO2 estimates reflect the best available science.

Download or read book Climate and Social Stress written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2013-02-14 with total page 253 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Climate change can reasonably be expected to increase the frequency and intensity of a variety of potentially disruptive environmental events-slowly at first, but then more quickly. It is prudent to expect to be surprised by the way in which these events may cascade, or have far-reaching effects. During the coming decade, certain climate-related events will produce consequences that exceed the capacity of the affected societies or global systems to manage; these may have global security implications. Although focused on events outside the United States, Climate and Social Stress: Implications for Security Analysis recommends a range of research and policy actions to create a whole-of-government approach to increasing understanding of complex and contingent connections between climate and security, and to inform choices about adapting to and reducing vulnerability to climate change.

Download or read book Climate Intervention written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2015-06-23 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The growing problem of changing environmental conditions caused by climate destabilization is well recognized as one of the defining issues of our time. The root problem is greenhouse gas emissions, and the fundamental solution is curbing those emissions. Climate geoengineering has often been considered to be a "last-ditch" response to climate change, to be used only if climate change damage should produce extreme hardship. Although the likelihood of eventually needing to resort to these efforts grows with every year of inaction on emissions control, there is a lack of information on these ways of potentially intervening in the climate system. As one of a two-book report, this volume of Climate Intervention discusses albedo modification - changing the fraction of incoming solar radiation that reaches the surface. This approach would deliberately modify the energy budget of Earth to produce a cooling designed to compensate for some of the effects of warming associated with greenhouse gas increases. The prospect of large-scale albedo modification raises political and governance issues at national and global levels, as well as ethical concerns. Climate Intervention: Reflecting Sunlight to Cool Earth discusses some of the social, political, and legal issues surrounding these proposed techniques. It is far easier to modify Earth's albedo than to determine whether it should be done or what the consequences might be of such an action. One serious concern is that such an action could be unilaterally undertaken by a small nation or smaller entity for its own benefit without international sanction and regardless of international consequences. Transparency in discussing this subject is critical. In the spirit of that transparency, Climate Intervention: Reflecting Sunlight to Cool Earth was based on peer-reviewed literature and the judgments of the authoring committee; no new research was done as part of this study and all data and information used are from entirely open sources. By helping to bring light to this topic area, this book will help leaders to be far more knowledgeable about the consequences of albedo modification approaches before they face a decision whether or not to use them.

Download or read book Abrupt Climate Change written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2002-04-23 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The climate record for the past 100,000 years clearly indicates that the climate system has undergone periodic-and often extreme-shifts, sometimes in as little as a decade or less. The causes of abrupt climate changes have not been clearly established, but the triggering of events is likely to be the result of multiple natural processes. Abrupt climate changes of the magnitude seen in the past would have far-reaching implications for human society and ecosystems, including major impacts on energy consumption and water supply demands. Could such a change happen again? Are human activities exacerbating the likelihood of abrupt climate change? What are the potential societal consequences of such a change? Abrupt Climate Change: Inevitable Surprises looks at the current scientific evidence and theoretical understanding to describe what is currently known about abrupt climate change, including patterns and magnitudes, mechanisms, and probability of occurrence. It identifies critical knowledge gaps concerning the potential for future abrupt changes, including those aspects of change most important to society and economies, and outlines a research strategy to close those gaps. Based on the best and most current research available, this book surveys the history of climate change and makes a series of specific recommendations for the future.

Download or read book Surface Temperature Reconstructions for the Last 2 000 Years written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2007-01-05 with total page 160 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In response to a request from Congress, Surface Temperature Reconstructions for the Last 2,000 Years assesses the state of scientific efforts to reconstruct surface temperature records for Earth during approximately the last 2,000 years and the implications of these efforts for our understanding of global climate change. Because widespread, reliable temperature records are available only for the last 150 years, scientists estimate temperatures in the more distant past by analyzing "proxy evidence," which includes tree rings, corals, ocean and lake sediments, cave deposits, ice cores, boreholes, and glaciers. Starting in the late 1990s, scientists began using sophisticated methods to combine proxy evidence from many different locations in an effort to estimate surface temperature changes during the last few hundred to few thousand years. This book is an important resource in helping to understand the intricacies of global climate change.

Download or read book Ocean Biogeochemical Dynamics written by Jorge L. Sarmiento and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2006-06-09 with total page 526 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ocean Biogeochemical Dynamics provides a broad theoretical framework upon which graduate students and upper-level undergraduates can formulate an understanding of the processes that control the mean concentration and distribution of biologically utilized elements and compounds in the ocean. Though it is written as a textbook, it will also be of interest to more advanced scientists as a wide-ranging synthesis of our present understanding of ocean biogeochemical processes. The first two chapters of the book provide an introductory overview of biogeochemical and physical oceanography. The next four chapters concentrate on processes at the air-sea interface, the production of organic matter in the upper ocean, the remineralization of organic matter in the water column, and the processing of organic matter in the sediments. The focus of these chapters is on analyzing the cycles of organic carbon, oxygen, and nutrients. The next three chapters round out the authors' coverage of ocean biogeochemical cycles with discussions of silica, dissolved inorganic carbon and alkalinity, and CaCO3. The final chapter discusses applications of ocean biogeochemistry to our understanding of the role of the ocean carbon cycle in interannual to decadal variability, paleoclimatology, and the anthropogenic carbon budget. The problem sets included at the end of each chapter encourage students to ask critical questions in this exciting new field. While much of the approach is mathematical, the math is at a level that should be accessible to students with a year or two of college level mathematics and/or physics.

Download or read book Ocean Biogeochemistry written by Michael J.R. Fasham and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Oceans account for 50% of the anthropogenic CO2 released into the atmosphere. During the past 15 years an international programme, the Joint Global Ocean Flux Study (JGOFS), has been studying the ocean carbon cycle to quantify and model the biological and physical processes whereby CO2 is pumped from the ocean's surface to the depths of the ocean, where it can remain for hundreds of years. This project is one of the largest multi-disciplinary studies of the oceans ever carried out and this book synthesises the results. It covers all aspects of the topic ranging from air-sea exchange with CO2, the role of physical mixing, the uptake of CO2 by marine algae, the fluxes of carbon and nitrogen through the marine food chain to the subsequent export of carbon to the depths of the ocean. Special emphasis is laid on predicting future climatic change.

Download or read book What the Living Do written by Maggie Dwyer and published by FriesenPress. This book was released on 2018-09-27 with total page 317 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Until the age of twelve, Georgia Lee Kay-Stern believed she was Jewish — the story of her Cree birth family had been kept secret. Now she’s living on her own and attending first year university, and with her adoptive parents on sabbatical in Costa Rica, the old questions are back. What does it mean to be Native? How could her life have been different? As Winnipeg is threatened by the flood of the century, Georgia Lee’s brutal murder sparks a tense cultural clash. Two families wish to claim her for burial. But Georgia Lee never figured out where she belonged, and now other people have to decide for her.