Climate-related impactsDoes GCOS have a role?

Michael Glantz

GCOS

13-16 October 2008

Geneva, Switzerland www.fao.org/docrep/ u8480e/U8480E2t.jpg

Global warming’s “Tipping points”

• IPCC 1st to 3rd Assessments

• IPCC 4th Assessment

• Inconvenient Truth

• Nobel Prize

The Spotlight has shifted

• From …

• WG 1 IPCC SCIENCE

•To … •WG 2 IPCC IMPACTS

Problem ClimatesIn “The Earth’s Problem Climates”

Trewartha (1960) wrote that…

“Many areas [of the earth] are climatically sonormal or usual that they require little comment in a book which professes to emphasize theexceptional”

In “Weather and Climate”R.C. Sutcliffe (1960) wrote that…

“No climates are normal”

What about …Climate?

1984

The climate future is arriving earlier than expected

• Some of the changes associated with a warmer climate are appearing faster than expected

– Melting of the Arctic sea ice– Greenland ice sheet melting– Rising sea level– Warm ecosystems moving

upslope– Glaciers melting globally

Melting Glaciers

Columbia Glacier, Alaska

5 Aspects of Climate

• Climate variability

• Climate fluctuations

• Climate change

New global climate state

• Extreme meteorological events

• SEASONALITY

Perceptions of Climate

• Climate as a constraint

• Climate as a hazard

• Climate as a resource

Perceptions of risk(preceptions "R" Us)

• Risk taking

• Risk averse

• Risk making

Source: B. Fischhoff

How are we doing it?Wholesaling and Retailing

climate, water and weather science

• Wholesaling• Broadcasting

– What it is– Why is it useful information– Who should use it?

• Retailing• Tailoring

– How to use it in specific locations, sectors, activities

– Convincing people of it value– Demonstrating its usability

Perception of Climate’s Impacts on Agriculture

weather

Weather

USDA 1984

Reality of Climate’s Impacts on Agriculture

drought

USDA 1984

Commoner’s “4 Laws of Ecology”

1) Everything is connected to everything else.

2) Everything must go somewhere.

3) Nature knows best.

4) There is no such thing as a free lunch.

Could these also be the 4 Laws of Climate ?

Climate Change Impacts on the United States, USGCRP, 2000

“Climate Science”in the 21st Century

• Understand the Climate SystemUnderstand the Climate System

• Understand its componentsUnderstand its components

• Society is a componentSociety is a component

Coping with climate change and its impacts

• Mitigation

• Adaptation

• Prevention

• Bring back prevention

Physical changes are to be expected

Societal changes are also to be expected

EWSs more important than some governments might realize

Shanghai Harborsocietal changes

1987 2004

Photographs taken from same location

Societies are having to adapt to subtle Creeping Environmental Changes

• Urban heat island• Air pollution• Acid rain• Global warming• Ozone depletion• Soil erosion• Deforestation• Mangrove destruction• Desertification• Water quality & quantity• Increasing population• Increasing affluence• Increasing demands for energy

Millennium Ecosystem Assessment

• The equivalent of the IPCC

• Review this document for enhancement of the GCOS mission

What one generation leaves for the next generation

Natural changes; different timescales

Human induced; not all changes are bad

The proverbial 11th hour; little time to act

Too costly, too late. Move on.

Focus here

This level captures attention

Changes become critical

Thresholds of environmental change

Why Care about Hotspots?

• Avoid surprises

• Earliest warning of possible instabilities– Governmental vulnerability– Environmental degradation

• Crossing unforeseen thresholds– Economic progress– Human health and public safety– Food security and insecurity

www.biotech-info.net/ raffensperger/sld007.htm

Precautionary Principle

Late lessons from early warning

European Environment Agency

Words Matter:The concept of climate proofing

• Similar to other idealistic goals, such as• Eradicating poverty

• “No child left behind”

• MDGs by 2015

• Sustainable development

• It is a ‘feel safe’ and ‘feel good’ concept• But… is it realistic? Does it raise ‘false hopes”?

• Toward Climate Proofing is more correct!

Proposed geo-engineering schemes to control climate

After Kellogg & Schneider

REDIRECTING AGULHAS CURRENT

TOWING ICEBERGS

CREATE THERMAL MOUNTAINS

HYDROPOLE

TOW ICEBERGS

Damming the Med

South-North water diversions in China

* And now … aerosol injections to the stratosphere

Christian Kerr, Australian writer (25 May 2005)

• We can't drought proof Australia. What we can do is try to idiot proof public policy – and spend public money in the way that delivers the best possible outcomes.

People and the seasons

• People, societies, and economies are attuned to the normal (expected, not actual) flow of the seasons

• Most people on the globe depend on the normal flow of the seasons for their food supply

Temperature Anomalies (July 2001 compared to July 2003)Deadly Heat Wave in Europe, 2003

2005 was a Busy, Destructive, Deadly & Expensive Hurricane Season

Source: WeatherUnderground.com, December 7, 2005.

2005 set a new record for the number of hurricanes &

tropical storms at 26, breaking the old record set in 1933.

All 21 names were used for the first

time ever, so Greek letters were used for the final 5

storms: Alpha though Epsilon

Global warming and changes in seasonality

• People live by the expected flow of the seasons

• Hunting season, growing season, harvest time, disease outbreaks, rainy season, water season, etc.

• Rainfall timing, intensity, location, extremes are expected to change

• Societal activities that are climate, water and weather dependent will be affected in subtle ways.

Summary thoughts

Plethora of forecasters: too many cooks in the kitchen?

• Many forecast models

• Heavy competition to ‘get it right’ and to be first doing so

• (onset, intensity, duration, impacts)

Integrating knowledge• We must distinguish between

what is interesting and what is essential to know to cope with climate change and its impacts.

• develop methods to link and integrate quantitative and qualitative knowledge, compiled for different time and space scales in different environments.

www.nt.gov.au/.../ bushbook/images/image81.gif

Climate Equity and Ethics• Inter-generational versus intra-

generational equity• Environmental justice

• Downwind• Downstream

• Natural disasters and poverty (the poor tend to live in high risk zones)

• North-South views on climate change• Polluter Pays Principle (except if you

are the polluter!)• Precautionary Principle (“better to be

be safe now than sorry later”)• Nature’s Bank analogy (everyone

knows about banks)

Priority setting

• Governments and institutions must decide about how they are going cope:

• preventive, adaptive, mitigative responses to climate change and its impacts, local to global.

• Not to do this puts responses to climate change and impacts in an “ad hoc” piecemeal modus operandi

cain.ulst.ac.uk/ dd/report10/report10.gif

Why I think time is important to GCOS (and the WMO)

• GCOS has a ‘window of opportunity’

• Focus is shifting from IPCC Assessment for WG1 (Climate Science) to WG2 (Climate Impacts)

• Decision makers want to know about impacts in their jurisdictions

• ‘Ecosystems’ make up the interface between society and the atmosphere (climate)