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Maize Suitability in the Lowlands of Lesotho
The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) defined that the suitability is a function of crop climate requirements and land characteristics and it is a measure of how will the qualities of land unit matches the requirements of a particular form of land use. The aim of this research is to improve maize production in the lowlands of Lesotho, this is one of the agro-ecological zones with the most arable land and good soils so it is best to determine the suitability of each crop across this region. This will be achieved by quantitatively and qualitatively looking at the climate conditions require ...
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Projections of air pollutant emissions and its impacts on regional air quality in China in 2020
Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics (ACP), Vol. 11. N° 7. Xing J.; Wang S.X.; Chatani S.; et al. - Copernicus GmbH, 2011Anthropogenic emissions of air pollutants in China influence not only local and regional environments but also the global atmospheric environment; therefore, it is important to understand how China's air pollutant emissions will change and how they will affect regional air quality in the future. Emission scenarios in 2020 were projected using forecasts of energy consumption and emission control strategies based on emissions in 2005, and on recent development plans for key industries in China. We developed four emission scenarios: REF[0] (current control legislations and implementation status), ...
Vol. 369. N° 1934 - 2011 - 'Four degrees and beyond: the potential for a global temperature increase of four degrees and its implications'
is an issue of Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences. The Royal Society, 2011
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Agriculture and food systems in sub-Saharan Africa in a 4°C+ world
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences, Vol. 369. N° 1934. Thornton Philip K.; Jones Peter G.; Ericksen Polly J.; et al. - The Royal Society, 2011Agricultural development in sub-Saharan Africa faces daunting challenges, which climate change and increasing climate variability will compound in vulnerable areas. The impacts of a changing climate on agricultural production in a world that warms by 4°C or more are likely to be severe in places. The livelihoods of many croppers and livestock keepers in Africa are associated with diversity of options. The changes in crop and livestock production that are likely to result in a 4°C+ world will diminish the options available to most smallholders. In such a world, current crop and livestock variet ...
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Beyond ‘dangerous’ climate change: emission scenarios for a new world
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences, Vol. 369. N° 1934. Anderson Kevin; Bows Alice - The Royal Society, 2011The Copenhagen Accord reiterates the international community’s commitment to ‘hold the increase in global temperature below 2 degrees Celsius’. Yet its preferred focus on global emission peak dates and longer-term reduction targets, without recourse to cumulative emission budgets, belies seriously the scale and scope of mitigation necessary to meet such a commitment. Moreover, the pivotal importance of emissions from non-Annex 1 nations in shaping available space for Annex 1 emission pathways received, and continues to receive, little attention. Building on previous studies, this paper uses a ...
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Changes in the potential distribution of humid tropical forests on a warmer planet
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences, Vol. 369. N° 1934. Zelazowski Przemyslaw; Malhi Yadvinder; Huntingford Chris; et al. - The Royal Society, 2011The future of tropical forests has become one of the iconic issues in climate-change science. A number of studies that have explored this subject have tended to focus on the output from one or a few climate models, which work at low spatial resolution, whereas society and conservation-relevant assessment of potential impacts requires a finer scale. This study focuses on the role of climate on the current and future distribution of humid tropical forests (HTFs). We first characterize their contemporary climatological niche using annual rainfall and maximum climatological water stress, which als ...
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Climate-induced population displacements in a 4°C+ world
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences, Vol. 369. N° 1934. Gemenne François - The Royal Society, 2011Massive population displacements are now regularly presented as one of the most dramatic possible consequences of climate change. Current forecasts and projections show that regions that would be affected by such population movements are low-lying islands, coastal and deltaic regions, as well as sub-Saharan Africa. Such estimates, however, are usually based on a 2°C temperature rise. In the event of a 4°C+ warming, not only is it likely that climate-induced population movements will be more considerable, but also their patterns could be significantly different, as people might react differentl ...
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Cumulative carbon emissions, emissions floors and short-term rates of warming: implications for policy
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences, Vol. 369. N° 1934. Bowerman Niel H.A.; Frame David J.; Huntingford Chris; et al. - The Royal Society, 2011A number of recent studies have found a strong link between peak human-induced global warming and cumulative carbon emissions from the start of the industrial revolution, while the link to emissions over shorter periods or in the years 2020 or 2050 is generally weaker. However, cumulative targets appear to conflict with the concept of a ‘floor’ in emissions caused by sectors such as food production. Here, we show that the introduction of emissions floors does not reduce the importance of cumulative emissions, but may make some warming targets unachievable. For pathways that give a most likely ...
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Four degrees and beyond: the potential for a global temperature increase of four degrees and its implications
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences, Vol. 369. N° 1934. New Mark; Liverman Diana; Schroder Heike; et al. - The Royal Society, 2011The 1992 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change commits signatories to preventing ‘dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system’, leaving unspecified the level of global warming that is dangerous. In the late 1990s, a limit of 2°C global warming above preindustrial temperature was proposed as a ‘guard rail’ below which most of the dangerous climate impacts could be avoided. The 2009 Copenhagen Accord recognized the scientific view ‘that the increase in global temperature should be below 2 degrees Celsius’ despite growing views that this might be too high. At the same time, t ...
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Regional temperature and precipitation changes under high-end (≥4°C) global warming
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences, Vol. 369. N° 1934. Sanderson M.G.; Hemming D.L.; Betts R.A. - The Royal Society, 2011Climate models vary widely in their projections of both global mean temperature rise and regional climate changes, but are there any systematic differences in regional changes associated with different levels of global climate sensitivity? This paper examines model projections of climate change over the twenty-first century from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fourth Assessment Report which used the A2 scenario from the IPCC Special Report on Emissions Scenarios, assessing whether different regional responses can be seen in models categorized as ‘high-end’ (those projecting 4°C o ...
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Rethinking adaptation for a 4°C world
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences, Vol. 369. N° 1934. Smith Mark Stafford; Horrocks Lisa; Harvey Alex; et al. - The Royal Society, 2011With weakening prospects of prompt mitigation, it is increasingly likely that the world will experience 4°C and more of global warming. In such a world, adaptation decisions that have long lead times or that have implications playing out over many decades become more uncertain and complex. Adapting to global warming of 4°C cannot be seen as a mere extrapolation of adaptation to 2°C; it will be a more substantial, continuous and transformative process. However, a variety of psychological, social and institutional barriers to adaptation are exacerbated by uncertainty and long timeframes, with th ...
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Sea-level rise and its possible impacts given a ‘beyond 4°C world’ in the twenty-first century
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences, Vol. 369. N° 1934. Nicholls Robert J.; Marinova Natasha; Lowe Jason A.; et al. - The Royal Society, 2011The range of future climate-induced sea-level rise remains highly uncertain with continued concern that large increases in the twenty-first century cannot be ruled out. The biggest source of uncertainty is the response of the large ice sheets of Greenland and west Antarctica. Based on our analysis, a pragmatic estimate of sea-level rise by 2100, for a temperature rise of 4°C or more over the same time frame, is between 0.5 m and 2 m—the probability of rises at the high end is judged to be very low, but of unquantifiable probability. However, if realized, an indicative analysis shows that the i ...
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The role of interactions in a world implementing adaptation and mitigation solutions to climate change
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences, Vol. 369. N° 1934. Warren Rachel - The Royal Society, 2011The papers in this volume discuss projections of climate change impacts upon humans and ecosystems under a global mean temperature rise of 4°C above preindustrial levels. Like most studies, they are mainly single-sector or single-region-based assessments. Even the multi-sector or multi-region approaches generally consider impacts in sectors and regions independently, ignoring interactions. Extreme weather and adaptation processes are often poorly represented and losses of ecosystem services induced by climate change or human adaptation are generally omitted. This paper addresses this gap by re ...
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Water availability in +2°C and +4°C worlds
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences, Vol. 369. N° 1934. Fung Fai; Lopez Ana; New Mark - The Royal Society, 2011While the parties to the UNFCCC agreed in the December 2009 Copenhagen Accord that a 2°C global warming over pre-industrial levels should be avoided, current commitments on greenhouse gas emissions reductions from these same parties will lead to a 50 : 50 chance of warming greater than 3.5°C. Here, we evaluate the differences in impacts and adaptation issues for water resources in worlds corresponding to the policy objective (+2°C) and possible reality (+4°C). We simulate the differences in impacts on surface run-off and water resource availability using a global hydrological model driven by e ...
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When could global warming reach 4°C?
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences, Vol. 369. N° 1934. Betts Richard A.; Collins Matthew; Hemming Deborah L.; et al. - The Royal Society, 2011The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) assessed a range of scenarios of future greenhouse-gas emissions without policies to specifically reduce emissions, and concluded that these would lead to an increase in global mean temperatures of between 1.6°C and 6.9°C by the end of the twenty-first century, relative to pre-industrial. While much political attention is focused on the potential for global warming of 2°C relative to pre-industrial, the AR4 projections clearly suggest that much greater levels of warming are possible by the end of the twenty-fir ...
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