Review of the Draft Fourth National Climate Assessment

Review of the Draft Fourth National Climate Assessment PDF Author: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309471699
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 207

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Book Description
Climate change poses many challenges that affect society and the natural world. With these challenges, however, come opportunities to respond. By taking steps to adapt to and mitigate climate change, the risks to society and the impacts of continued climate change can be lessened. The National Climate Assessment, coordinated by the U.S. Global Change Research Program, is a mandated report intended to inform response decisions. Required to be developed every four years, these reports provide the most comprehensive and up-to-date evaluation of climate change impacts available for the United States, making them a unique and important climate change document. The draft Fourth National Climate Assessment (NCA4) report reviewed here addresses a wide range of topics of high importance to the United States and society more broadly, extending from human health and community well-being, to the built environment, to businesses and economies, to ecosystems and natural resources. This report evaluates the draft NCA4 to determine if it meets the requirements of the federal mandate, whether it provides accurate information grounded in the scientific literature, and whether it effectively communicates climate science, impacts, and responses for general audiences including the public, decision makers, and other stakeholders.

Review of the Draft Fourth National Climate Assessment

Review of the Draft Fourth National Climate Assessment PDF Author: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309471699
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 207

Get Book Here

Book Description
Climate change poses many challenges that affect society and the natural world. With these challenges, however, come opportunities to respond. By taking steps to adapt to and mitigate climate change, the risks to society and the impacts of continued climate change can be lessened. The National Climate Assessment, coordinated by the U.S. Global Change Research Program, is a mandated report intended to inform response decisions. Required to be developed every four years, these reports provide the most comprehensive and up-to-date evaluation of climate change impacts available for the United States, making them a unique and important climate change document. The draft Fourth National Climate Assessment (NCA4) report reviewed here addresses a wide range of topics of high importance to the United States and society more broadly, extending from human health and community well-being, to the built environment, to businesses and economies, to ecosystems and natural resources. This report evaluates the draft NCA4 to determine if it meets the requirements of the federal mandate, whether it provides accurate information grounded in the scientific literature, and whether it effectively communicates climate science, impacts, and responses for general audiences including the public, decision makers, and other stakeholders.

Assessing the Impacts of Climate Change on Natural Resource Systems

Assessing the Impacts of Climate Change on Natural Resource Systems PDF Author: Kenneth D. Frederick
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9401102074
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 221

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Book Description
This volume characterizes the current state of natural science and socioeconomic modeling of the impacts of climate change and current climate variability on forests, grasslands, and water. It identifies what can be done currently with impact assessments and suggests how to undertake such assessments. Impediments to linking biophysical and socioeconomic models into integrated assessments for policy purposes are identified, and recommendations for future research activities to improve the state of the art and remove these impediments to model integration are provided. This book is for natural and social scientists with an interest in the impacts of climate change on terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems and their socioeconomic impacts, and policy makers interested in understanding the status of current assessment capabilities and in identifying priority areas for future research.

Assessing Impacts of Climate Change on Forests

Assessing Impacts of Climate Change on Forests PDF Author: Virginia H. Dale
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 49

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Book Description


Climate Change and United States Forests

Climate Change and United States Forests PDF Author: Peterson David L.
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9400775156
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 289

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Book Description
This volume offers a scientific assessment of the effects of climatic variability and change on forest resources in the United States. Derived from a report that provides technical input to the 2013 U.S. Global Change Research Program National Climate Assessment, the book serves as a framework for managing U.S. forest resources in the context of climate change. The authors focus on topics having the greatest potential to alter the structure and function of forest ecosystems, and therefore ecosystem services, by the end of the 21st century. Part I provides an environmental context for assessing the effects of climate change on forest resources, summarizing changes in environmental stressors, followed by state-of-science projections for future climatic conditions relevant to forest ecosystems. Part II offers a wide-ranging assessment of vulnerability of forest ecosystems and ecosystem services to climate change. The authors anticipate that altered disturbance regimes and stressors will have the biggest effects on forest ecosystems, causing long-term changes in forest conditions. Part III outlines responses to climate change, summarizing current status and trends in forest carbon, effects of carbon management, and carbon mitigation strategies. Adaptation strategies and a proposed framework for risk assessment, including case studies, provide a structured approach for projecting and responding to future changes in resource conditions and ecosystem services. Part IV describes how sustainable forest management, which guides activities on most public and private lands in the United States, can provide an overarching structure for mitigating and adapting to climate change.

Assessing Impacts of Climate Change on Forests

Assessing Impacts of Climate Change on Forests PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 49

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Book Description
Models that address the impacts to forests of climate change are reviewed by four levels of biological organization: global, regional or landscape, community, and tree. The models are compared as to their ability to assess changes in greenhouse gas flux, land use, maps of forest type or species composition, forest resource productivity, forest health, biodiversity, and wildlife habitat. No one model can address all of these impacts, but landscape transition models and regional vegetation and land-use models consider the largest number of impacts. Developing landscape vegetation dynamics models of functional groups is suggested as a means to integrate the theory of both landscape ecology and individual tree responses to climate change. Risk assessment methodologies can be adapted to deal with the impacts of climate change at various spatial and temporal scales. Four areas of research development are identified: (1) linking socioeconomic and ecologic models, (2) interfacing forest models at different scales, (3) obtaining data on susceptibility of trees and forest to changes in climate and disturbance regimes, and (4) relating information from different scales.

Adaptation of forests and people to climate change

Adaptation of forests and people to climate change PDF Author: Risto Seppälä
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Climatic changes
Languages : en
Pages : 226

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Book Description


Climate change vulnerability assessment of forests and forest-dependent people

Climate change vulnerability assessment of forests and forest-dependent people PDF Author: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
Publisher: Food & Agriculture Org.
ISBN: 9251319812
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 101

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Book Description
Negative impacts of climate change on forests threaten the delivery of crucial wood and non-wood goods and environmental services on which an estimated 1.6 billion people fully or partly depend. Assessment of the vulnerability of forests and forest-dependent people to climate change is a necessary first step for identifying the risks and the most vulnerable areas and people, and for developing measures for adaptation and targeting them for specific contexts. This publication provides practical technical guidance for forest vulnerability assessment in the context of climate change. It describes the elements that should be considered for different time horizons and outlines a structured approach for conducting these assessments. The framework will guide practitioners in conducting a step-by-step analysis and will facilitate the choice and use of appropriate tools and methods. Background information is provided separately in text boxes, to assist readers with differing amounts of experience in forestry, climate change and assessment practices. The publication will provide useful support to any vulnerability assessment with a forest- and tree-related component.

The Impact of Climate Change on America's Forests

The Impact of Climate Change on America's Forests PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Climatic changes
Languages : en
Pages : 140

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Book Description
Abstract: "This report documents trends and impacts of climate change on America's forests as required by the Renewable Resources Planning Act of 1974. Recent research on the impact of climate and elevated atmospheric carbon dioxide on plant productivity is synthesized. Modeling analyses explore the potential impact of climate changes on forests, wood products, and carbon in the United States."

The Regional Impacts of Climate Change

The Regional Impacts of Climate Change PDF Author: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Working Group II.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521634557
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 532

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Book Description
Cambridge, UK : Cambridge University Press, 1998.

The Impact of Climate Change on America's Forests: a Technical Document Supporting the 2000 USDA Forest Service RPA Assessment

The Impact of Climate Change on America's Forests: a Technical Document Supporting the 2000 USDA Forest Service RPA Assessment PDF Author: U.s. Department of Agriculture
Publisher: Createspace Independent Pub
ISBN: 9781480145993
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 136

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Book Description
The increasing concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide has raised concern about the vulnerability of forests to potential changes in climate and climate variability. These concerns have prompted governments around the world to commission technical assessments on the impact of climate change on the environment and the economy. Based on the current scientific information within these assessments, governments have initiated negotiations on policy action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to address the vulnerabilities of the ecological, economic, and social systems to climate change. Critical to policy formulation is a periodic synthesis of the ever-expanding knowledge on forest ecology, the impact of climate on the forests and of forests on climate, forest management, the socio-economic value of trees and forests, and the role of forests in the global carbon cycle. The Forest Service conducts periodic assessments of the condition of forest and rangeland resources under the authority of the Renewable Resources Planning Act (RPA). The structure of these periodic assessments allows for the synthesis and integration of the current state of scientific knowledge. As part of the RPA process, this report synthesizes current information that assesses the impact of climate change on US forests. Six policy questions critical to understanding the impact of global climate change on current and future trends form the basis for this report. The first chapter describes mandates and structures of synthesizing scientific information on the forest sector, describes current understandings of the global climate, and closes with policy questions addressed in this assessment. The next chapters address the six policy questions of: what are the likely effects of increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide and prospective climate changes on ecosystem productivity, as measured by changes in net primary productivity?, to what geographic extent will potential ecosystem types change or move across the US, as measured in composition and boundary changes?, what changes in forest productivity will occur as measured by changes in volume, growth and biomass?, what are the potential impacts on the forest sector under climate change, as measured by employment and timber prices?, when forest policy questions for the RPA Assessment, such as reduced NFS harvest, are examined with and without climate change, do the forest sector impacts differ greatly in magnitude or kind?, and what are the opportunities and costs of emissions mitigation using forest ecosystem management and forest product technologies?