Climate & Climate-related Creeping Environmental Problems:

Rates and Processes

Mickey GlantzDirector, CCB

INSTAAR, University of Colorado

12 February 2009

What I mean by Climate

• Climate variability• Seasonal to inter-annual

• Climate fluctuations• Decade scale

• Climate change • “Deep” climate change

– New global climate state

• Extreme meteorological events• Seasonality

Reminder

Climate science & education includes:

• Understanding the Climate System

• Understanding its components

• Accepting society as a component• Along with…

ocean, atmosphere, vegetation, ice, etc.

Reminder

Perceptions of Climate

• Climate as a hazard• Climate as a resource• Climate as a constraint

In every society climate is a mix of all three, but the proportions vary from one country to the next and one decade to the next.

Reminder

Three key issues• The identification of climate-related creeping environmental

problems; devise ways to identify thresholds of major change before they are crossed

• The growing need to cope with instability as well as seeking to forecast the causes of instability in ecosystems and societies

• The future for many places under “business as usual scenarios” is already present but in other locations on the globe, or had taken place at other times.

• Learn from them.

The Earth’s Problem Climates ( G. Trewartha, 1960)

Trewartha wrote that…

“A methodical description of all the earth’s climates is

not attempted, for many areas are climatically so normal or usual that they require little comment in a book which professes to emphasize the exceptional”

Concerns about the notion of “problem climates”

•Is such a statement still valid, given what we have learned about climate since 1960?

•Are there really areas on the globe that could be viewed as “climatically so normal or usual that they require little comment?”

•Are there exceptional “problem climates?”

•Should we also be asking questions about societies’ role in the existence of problem climates?

Problem Societies

Dust storms on the Texas-New Mexico border, 1977

Egypt-Israel border

CEPs in a particular ecotype: the Drylands

• Overgrazing• Wood cutting• Salinization• Groundwater changes• Population increases• Using increasingly marginal land• Pesticide use• Need for more water to flush soils• Use of lands increasingly marginal for agriculture• Soil fertility

Mangrove destruction for shrimp farming in Guatemala (2001)

Demise of the Aral Sea, Central Asia (1960-present)

The Aral Sea Basin,

a multi-stressed environment

•Streamflow diversions•Shortened life expectancy •Hotter summer, colder winter •Upstream-downstream energy for water conflicts•haves and have-nots issues •Declining water quantity •Loss of wildlife and forests •Loss of biological diversity• Rapid sea level drop •Loss of biological productivity

•Pesticide & fertilizer use•Declining water quality•Ethnic conflicts•Contaminated aerosols•Dust storms•Karakum Canal •5 competing nations• Soon to be 6?•Terrorist groups •Dictatorships•Global Warming•Loss of cultural heritage

C02 emissions since 1850

Creeping environmental problems

• Air pollution• Acid Rain, Global

warming• Ozone depletion• Tropical deforestation• Soil erosion• Water quality & quantity• Glacier retreat• Waste disposal/landfills• Nuclear waste• Marine pollution, etc.

Creeping environmental Changes

• Creeping rate of change

– Incremental– Slow onset– Low grade– But … Cumulative

• Major changes apparent only over time

• Demographics are also changing

• Most creeping environmental problems involve human activities

• They are long term, low grade but cumulative– Today is not much worse than yesterday and

tomorrow is likely to be not much worse than today

• No government, rich or poor deals with CEPs efficiently or effectively

Where do they occur?

• In rich as well as poor countries• In industrial and agrarian societies• On all inhabited continents• Wherever humans and ecosystems

meet• Especially in vulnerable or fragile

ecosystems

Some CEP examples

• Aral Sea

• Lake Victoria Basin

• Galapagos Islands

• Brazilian Amazon

• CO2 in the atmosphere

A Societal Perspective

High rates Cause alarm

Slow rates Generate laissez-faire attitude

Rates and Processes are often as important as the Magnitude of change

Why focus on Creeping Environmental Problems?

• To reduce scientific and policy uncertainty about rates and processes of change and societal responses to them

• To improve an understanding of rates of change and the processes that drive them

• To underscore the importance of the human aspects of global environmental change

• To generate heightened concern about the societal and political importance of early warning systems

When are rates of change seen as a crisis?

• When there is a ...

– High level of vulnerability

– Low level of societal resilience

– Perceived high stakes at risk

– Perceived threat

– Perceived short time to act

– Concern about impacts reversibility

“Dread Factors” and climate change

• Collapse of West Antarctic Ice Sheet• 2X and 4X CO2 emissions• Ocean Conveyor Belt Switch• 1988 US Midwest hot summer

analogue• Rate of 3ºC/century vs. 0.3ºC/decade• 1980s and 1990s: hottest decades• And now … Abrupt Climate Change

Foreseeability

• "FORESEEABLE RISK, i.e., risks whose consequences aperson of ordinary prudence would reasonably expect might occur…

• In tort law… a party's actions may be deemed negligent only where the injurious consequences of those actions were foreseeable."

• For example, "established by proof that the actor or person of reasonable intelligence and prudence, should reasonably have anticipated danger to others created by his or her negligent act.“

• "Foreseeability encompasses not only that which the defendant foresaw, but that which the defendant ought to have foreseen."

(Gifis, 1991)

Hotspots

• Lots of attention to hotspots

• Hotspots can be found along a continuum, from transformation to firepoint

• Hotspots capture attention but areas of concern (AOCs) are where actions should be taken

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 should be here

This level captures attention

Changes become critical

Problems of Attribution

• For Prediction of cause-effect

• For Societal Responses

– Prevention

– Mitigation (pro-action) – Adaptation (re-action)

Little Agreement on Rates, because ...

• Poor information/data • Honest scientific disagreements• Varying perceptions (by factors of X)• Political Aspects associated with the

various rates (and processes)• See Brian Martin’s “Bias of Science”

on the supersonic transports (SSTs)

Increase in CFCs as … Refrigerant, air

conditioners electronics cleanser Foam blowing agent

Skin cancer fear The Role of the ‘ozone hole’ Montreal Protocol Rapid rate of change in CFC

use

Example #1: Stratospheric ozone depletion

How to define rates of change

How to characterize rates of change

Who is interested in identifying the correct rate?

Who cares about this rate?

Example #2: Tropical Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon

• Caspian Sea Level Changes– 1930s, a 2+ meter decline

began– 1978, a 2+ meter increase

began

• How to attribute causes– Natural?– Anthropogenic

• Why bother to attribute causes?

Example #3: Caspian Basin

Example #4: Galapagos Islands

• Increasing … – Number of illegals settlers

from the mainland (Ecuador)– Overfishing, illegal fishing

methods– Feral animals (cats, dogs,

goats) brought to the islands– Invasive species (chickens,

insects) competing with native species

– Population increase– Tourist numbers increase

(and all that entails)

Example #5: Lake Victoria Basin

• Introduction of the Nile Perch (circa 1960) for export to Europe

• Decrease in native species• Increase in loss of

indigenous fishing sector• Increase in population in

the basin• Increase in deforestation• Increase in water hyacinth

Challenges

• Past lessons of managing drylands need to be applied

• Making “what ought to be” the proper use of drylands “the actual use”

• Convincing governments to consider the limits of exploitation of the natural environment

• Convincing governments to plan beyond their tenure in office

• Convincing governments to put a proper value on nature