How will Climate Change in the future? J.SRINIVAS AN Contd...

How will Climate Change in the

future?J.SRINIVAS

AN

Contd ...

Source: National Center for Atmospheric Research

The planet is committed toa warming over the next 50 years regardless of political decisions

Adaptation Necessary

Mitigation Possible

Global mean sea level changes

From Anthes et al(2005)

Future

CO2

720 ppm

20-km modelFuture - Present

Note the change over the southwestern

coasts

Rajendran &Kitoh, 2005

ABRUPT CLIMATE CHANGE

Tipping elements Processes, particularly sensitive to climate change

Arctic sea ice meltingArctic sea ice melting

Deep water Deep water formationformation

Antarctic ozone holeAntarctic ozone holeWest Antarctic West Antarctic ice sheetice sheet

Amazon Amazon vegetationvegetation

Marine Marine carbon cyclecarbon cycle

Indian Indian monsoonmonsoonSaharaSahara

El NiñoEl NiñoSouthern OscillationSouthern Oscillation

HimalayaHimalayasnow coversnow cover

Methane Methane outgasingoutgasing

Arctic ozoneArctic ozone depletiondepletion

Greenland Greenland ice sheetice sheet

Transition in Monsoon occurs within 25 years!Burns et al. (2003) Science 301: 1365-1367

Socotra Island (12°30’ N 54°E) Indian Ocean cave stalagmite proxy for monsoonal precipitation

Greenland ice core proxy for local temperature

The Himalayan Dilemma: Reconciling Development and Conservation by Ives and Messerli 1989

“The impacts of climate change are superimposed on a variety of other environmental and social stresses, many already recognized as severe”

Global Warming is a symptom of a much larger problem

The degradation of the quality of air,water and soil

Among the 15 most polluted cities in the world 12 are in Asia

Air Pollution

In 2007 , Miller et al. found that an increased relative risk of 1.76 for death from cardiovascular disease for every increase of 10 μg per cubic meter in the mean concentration of particles below 2.5 micron

Vitousek (1994)

Robert Diaz, Virginia Institute of Marine Science

From NASA GRACE Satellite: Aug 2002 to Oct 2008

Loss of 100 Km3 of ground water in

6 years!

Global warming is the mother of all environmental scares

Global warming dwarfs all the environmental and safety scares of our time put together. Warming,……. is capable of realizing the environmentalist’s dream of an egalitarian society based on rejection of economic growth in favor of a smaller population’s eating lower on the food chain, consuming a lot less, and sharing a much lower level of resources much more equally

Aaron Wildavsky

Deutsches Museum (2003)

Solar thermal power plantSolar thermal power plant

Courtesy: Han Jiangong Beijing SUNDA Solar Technology Co

Deutsches Museum (2003)

Offshore windpark Middelgrunden off the Offshore windpark Middelgrunden off the Danish island Lolland Danish island Lolland

Thank You

I am ready for a barrage of questions!