Climate Change Scenarios and Impacts Flashcards
What is climate change?
statistically significant variations of the mean state of the climate or of its variability, typically persisting for decades or longer.
CLIMATE IS ALREADY CHANGING.
Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, as is now evident from several
observations of increases in global average air and oceans temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice, and rising global average sea level.
It is extremely likely that human influence has been the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20° century.
What is the IPCC?
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is the United Nations body for assessing the science related to climate change. The IPCC provides regular assessments of the scientific basis of climate change, its impacts and future risks, and options for adaptation and mitigation.
Created in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the objective of the IPCC is to provide governments at all levels with scientific information that they can use to develop climate policies. IPCC reports are also a key input into international climate change negotiations.
What is the CMCC?
Centro Euro-Mediterraneo sui Cambiamenti Climatici. Its mission is to investigate and model our climate system and its interactions with society to provide reliable, rigorous, and timely scientific results to stimulate sustainable growth, protect the environment and develop science driven adaptation and mitigation policies in a changing climate. To develop foresights and quantitative analysis of our future planet and society.
What were the IPCC TAR Conclusions?
The IPCC TAR (Third Assessment Report 2001) conclusions were that:
There is new and stronger evidence that most of the observed warming over the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations
and
Emissions of CO2 due to fossil fuel burning are virtually certain to be the dominant
influence on the trends in the atmospheric CO2 concentration during the 21st century.
What were the IPCC AR4 conclusions?
Assessment Report 4 in 2007 says that:
Most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid–20th
century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse
gas concentrations
and
Fossil fuel use, agriculture and land use have been the dominant cause of
increases in greenhouse gases over the last 250 years.
What were the IPCC AR5 conclusions?
IPCC AR5 2014:
• Each of the last three decades has been successively warmer at the Earth’s
surface than any preceding decade since 1850.
• CO2 concentrations have increased by 40% since pre-industial times, from fossil
fuel emission and net land use change emissions.
• The Ocean has absorbed about 30% of the emitted anthropogenic carbon
dioxide, causing ocean acidification.
and
• It is extremely likely that human influence has been the dominant cause of the
observed warming since the mid-20° century.
What are emissions scenarios?
Scenarios describe plausible futures as a function of changes in major driving forces such as population growth, economic development or technological change.
Purpose:
• To evaluate future developments under complex and uncertain condition.
• To illustrate insights about future developments (e.g., in technology, agriculture or
ecology).
• To assess the future and provide an opportunity to anticipate undesirable trends and to devise effective responses by modifying current policies and decision-making.
