2° is too much! Evidence and Implications of Dangerous Climate Change in the Arctic
Organization: WWF
Type: Policy
The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, signed by nearly 200 countries (including the United States) after the Rio Earth Summit in 1992, sets the policy framework for international efforts to tackle the climate problem. Its guiding principle is to avoid "dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system." The scientific community has pursued this goal by examining "dangerous climate change" from the perspective of catastrophic events (Hansen 2004), national sovereignty (Barnett & Adger 2003), and changes to ecosystems (O'Neill & Oppenheimer 2002). It remains, however, a crucial task for policymakers to agree on the level of warming that can be called dangerous.
In the Arctic, even a slight shift in temperature, pushing averages to above freezing, can bring about rapid and dramatic changes in an ecosystem that is defined by being frozen. Various threshold levels of global warming (1.5°, 2°, 3°, 4°C) have been used in studies of what constitutes dangerous climate change. And some governments and non-governmental organizations, including WWF, have supported restricting the global mean temperature increase to less than 2°C above pre-industrial levels. In order to understand some of the regional implications of dangerous climate change, we have assembled a series of papers in this report to examine the biophysical changes in the Arctic associated with a global temperature increase of 2°C above pre-industrial levels.
The rise in temperature will not be evenly distributed in time and space, even within the Arctic. Rather, global warming will vary substantially from one geographical area to another, as well as from season to season. In the first study of this report, Professor Mark New from Oxford University examines the extent of climate change in the Arctic, specifically temperature and precipitation changes, associated with a global mean temperature change of 2°C. His projections are based on four estimates of future emissions and incorporate results from six major global climate models used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. They show that warming in the Arctic is two to three times greater than the global average.
Dr. Jed Kaplan, from the European Commission's Joint Research Centre, demonstrates in the second paper that some tundra vegetation types will probably disappear in a 2°C global warming scenario. In the Arctic, temperature-sensitive plant species may be lost because they are unable to keep up with the changing climate by migrating quickly to suitable habitats. Changes in sea ice will affect habitats in marine systems as well. In the report's third paper, Dr. Josefino Comiso at NASA analyses satellite records in his study of the impact on Arctic sea ice of 2°C in global warming. Perennial sea ice is now melting at a rate of nearly 10% a decade. If current trends continue, polar bears and other species that require a stable ice platform for survival could become extinct by the end of the century. Projected changes such as these present serious challenges to the health and food security of indigenous peoples and could result in the demise of some cultures. In the last paper of the report, Sheila Watt-Cloutier and advisers at the Inuit Circumpolar Conference discuss the policy responses needed to avoid a social and ecological catastrophe.
In the Arctic, even a slight shift in temperature, pushing averages to above freezing, can bring about rapid and dramatic changes in an ecosystem that is defined by being frozen. Various threshold levels of global warming (1.5°, 2°, 3°, 4°C) have been used in studies of what constitutes dangerous climate change. And some governments and non-governmental organizations, including WWF, have supported restricting the global mean temperature increase to less than 2°C above pre-industrial levels. In order to understand some of the regional implications of dangerous climate change, we have assembled a series of papers in this report to examine the biophysical changes in the Arctic associated with a global temperature increase of 2°C above pre-industrial levels.
The rise in temperature will not be evenly distributed in time and space, even within the Arctic. Rather, global warming will vary substantially from one geographical area to another, as well as from season to season. In the first study of this report, Professor Mark New from Oxford University examines the extent of climate change in the Arctic, specifically temperature and precipitation changes, associated with a global mean temperature change of 2°C. His projections are based on four estimates of future emissions and incorporate results from six major global climate models used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. They show that warming in the Arctic is two to three times greater than the global average.
Dr. Jed Kaplan, from the European Commission's Joint Research Centre, demonstrates in the second paper that some tundra vegetation types will probably disappear in a 2°C global warming scenario. In the Arctic, temperature-sensitive plant species may be lost because they are unable to keep up with the changing climate by migrating quickly to suitable habitats. Changes in sea ice will affect habitats in marine systems as well. In the report's third paper, Dr. Josefino Comiso at NASA analyses satellite records in his study of the impact on Arctic sea ice of 2°C in global warming. Perennial sea ice is now melting at a rate of nearly 10% a decade. If current trends continue, polar bears and other species that require a stable ice platform for survival could become extinct by the end of the century. Projected changes such as these present serious challenges to the health and food security of indigenous peoples and could result in the demise of some cultures. In the last paper of the report, Sheila Watt-Cloutier and advisers at the Inuit Circumpolar Conference discuss the policy responses needed to avoid a social and ecological catastrophe.
Submitted by: WConnect Admin (June 09, 2009)
Last Reviewed by: WConnect Admin (July 03, 2009)
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