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Alaska researchers contribute to national climate change report
June 17, 2009Fairbanks, Alaska-Two University of the Alaska Fairbanks researchers are among key contributors to a new national report that details visible effects of climate change in the United States and how today's choices stand to affect the future.
The report, "Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States," is the first to focus on observed and projected climate change and its effects specifically in the United States. UAF scientists A. David McGuire and John Walsh were part of a consortium of experts from 13 U.S. government science agencies, major universities and research institutes that produced the report.
"A key point from the study is that from everything we're seeing in terms of impacts, it's clear that we are committed to more warming," said McGuire, a landscape ecology professor and researcher with the UAF Institute of Arctic Biology.
The report is written in plain language and is intended to better inform policymakers and members of the public. It is not intended to direct policymakers to take any one approach over another, but rather emphasizes that the choices people make now will determine the severity of climate change effects in the future.
"Almost no policy action could be implemented that would mitigate the factors causing the warming fast enough that we wouldn't experience any impacts," said McGuire, who is also an ecologist with the U.S. Geological Survey's Alaska Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit. "It's up to our society to make decisions about the degree of warming and impacts we are willing to deal with."
Over the past 50 years, Alaska has warmed at more than twice the rate of the rest of the United States. Its annual average temperature has increased 3.4°F, while winters have warmed even more, by 6.3°F.
As a result, climate change effects are much more pronounced than in other regions of the United States. The higher temperatures are already causing earlier spring snowmelt, reduced sea ice, widespread glacier retreat, and permafrost warming. These observed changes are consistent with climate model projections of greater warming over Alaska, especially in winter, as compared to the rest of the country.
"Alaska's at the vanguard of climate change and we're seeing the changes here sooner that elsewhere," said Walsh, director of the Center for Global Change and Arctic System Research at UAF's International Arctic Research Center.
An Alaska-region fact sheet produced in conjunction with the report notes that the key issues facing Alaska are:
* Longer summers and higher temperatures are causing drier conditions, even in the absence of strong trends in precipitation.
* Insect outbreaks and wildfires are increasing warming.
* Closed-body lakes in Interior Alaska are declining in area.
* Thawing permafrost damages roads, runways, water and sewer systems, and other infrastructure.
* Coastal storms increase risks to villages and fishing fleets.
* Displacement of marine species will affect key fisheries.
The study also finds that Americans are already being affected by climate change through extreme weather, drought and wildfire and details how the nation's transportation, agriculture, health, water and energy sectors will be affected in the future. It argues that the current trend in emission of greenhouse gas pollution is significantly above the worst-case scenario examined in this report.
University of Alaska Fairbanks
The report is written in plain language and is intended to better inform policymakers and members of the public. It is not intended to direct policymakers to take any one approach over another, but rather emphasizes that the choices people make now will determine the severity of climate change effects in the future.
"Almost no policy action could be implemented that would mitigate the factors causing the warming fast enough that we wouldn't experience any impacts," said McGuire, who is also an ecologist with the U.S. Geological Survey's Alaska Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit. "It's up to our society to make decisions about the degree of warming and impacts we are willing to deal with."
Over the past 50 years, Alaska has warmed at more than twice the rate of the rest of the United States. Its annual average temperature has increased 3.4°F, while winters have warmed even more, by 6.3°F.
As a result, climate change effects are much more pronounced than in other regions of the United States. The higher temperatures are already causing earlier spring snowmelt, reduced sea ice, widespread glacier retreat, and permafrost warming. These observed changes are consistent with climate model projections of greater warming over Alaska, especially in winter, as compared to the rest of the country.
"Alaska's at the vanguard of climate change and we're seeing the changes here sooner that elsewhere," said Walsh, director of the Center for Global Change and Arctic System Research at UAF's International Arctic Research Center.
An Alaska-region fact sheet produced in conjunction with the report notes that the key issues facing Alaska are:
* Longer summers and higher temperatures are causing drier conditions, even in the absence of strong trends in precipitation.
* Insect outbreaks and wildfires are increasing warming.
* Closed-body lakes in Interior Alaska are declining in area.
* Thawing permafrost damages roads, runways, water and sewer systems, and other infrastructure.
* Coastal storms increase risks to villages and fishing fleets.
* Displacement of marine species will affect key fisheries.
The study also finds that Americans are already being affected by climate change through extreme weather, drought and wildfire and details how the nation's transportation, agriculture, health, water and energy sectors will be affected in the future. It argues that the current trend in emission of greenhouse gas pollution is significantly above the worst-case scenario examined in this report.
University of Alaska Fairbanks
Climate Change Current Events and Climate Change News RSSResearchers Hail Innovative Plan to Save Rainforest, Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions
An innovative proposal by the Ecuadorian government to protect an untouched, oil rich region of Amazon rainforest is a precedent-setting and potentially economically viable approach, says a team of environmental researchers from the University of Maryland, the World Resources Institute and Save America's Forests.
Paleoecologists offer new insight into how climate change will affect organisms
An article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science written by a team of ecologists, including Robert Booth, assistant professor of earth and environmental science at Lehigh University, examines some of the potential problems with current prediction methods and calls for the use of a range of approaches when predicting the impact of climate change on organisms.
Report on US-China collaboration on carbon capture and sequestration
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory's Julio Friedmann, in collaboration with the Center for American Progress, the Asia Society Center and with partner Monitor Group, today released the report, "A Roadmap for U.S.-China Collaboration on Carbon Capture and Sequestration."
Study gives clearer picture of how land-use changes affect U.S. climate
Researchers say regional surface temperatures can be affected by land use, suggesting that local and regional strategies, such as creating green spaces and buffer zones in and around urban areas, could be a tool in addressing climate change.
Calm before the spawn: Climate change and coral spawning
What's the point of setting up marine reserves to protect coral reefs from pollution, ship groundings and overfishing if climate change could cause far more damage? A study published this week in London in Proceedings of the Royal Society B provides the answer.
Iron controls patterns of nitrogen fixation in the Atlantic
Scientists including researchers from the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton and the University of Essex have discovered that interactions between iron supply, transported through the atmosphere from deserts, and large-scale oceanic circulation control the availability of a crucial nutrient, nitrogen, in the Atlantic.
Climate variability impacts the deep sea
Deep-sea ecosystems occupying 60% of the Earth's surface could be vulnerable to the effects of global warming warn scientists writing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
North Atlantic Fish Populations Shifting as Ocean Temperatures Warm
About half of 36 fish stocks in the Northwest Atlantic Ocean, many of them commercially valuable species, have been shifting northward over the last four decades, with some stocks nearly disappearing from U.S. waters as they move farther offshore, according to a new study by NOAA researchers.
Robot fish could monitor water quality
Nature inspires technology for an engineer and an ecologist teamed up at Michigan State University. They're developing robots that use advanced materials to swim like fish to probe underwater environments.
Soil moisture and ocean salinity satellite ready for launch
A new European Earth observation satellite will be launched in the early hours of Monday morning (2 November 2009) from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in northern Russia.
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