scholarly journals What climate change means for farmers in Africa: A triptych review Right panel: Climate extremes and society's responses, including mitigation attempts as part of preparedness of African farmers

2014 ◽  
Vol 14 (61) ◽  
pp. 8459-8473
Author(s):  
CJ Stigter ◽  
◽  
E Ofori ◽  

In this paper in three parts, climate change is approached by dealing with the three sides from which the danger comes: (i) global warming, (ii) increasing climate variability, (iii) more (and possibly more severe) meteorological and climatological extreme events. These are the three panels of this triptych review and the right panel on climate extremes and society’s responses, including mitigation attempts as part of preparedness of African farmers, is this part. The occurrence of more (and possibly more severe) extreme meteorological/climatological events, as another likely consequence of climate change, is discussed, reviewing the literature and dealing for Africa with recent droughts and famines. It appears that there is more than sufficient proof that the numbers of disasters have risen globally, and on average at an increasing rate, over the last half a century, with more evidence in the later decades. Extreme hazards have a shorter recurrence time but whether they also have become more severe cannot be easily determined. This is due to developments in observations, populations and vulnerabilities and lack of developments in climate models. Only for increased temperature related disasters, severity has clearly become larger. However, recent more realistic calculations appear to suggest that there has been little change in drought over the past 60 years. In physical terms, there is also little or no evidence of increased severity of floods over the past century. Increasing farmer preparedness will be an important part of better responses to these conditions. The traditional response farming as to droughts, floods (annual recession and recurrent occasional ones), strong winds and other serious disasters should be among starting points. At the end of this paper, the contributions that tropical agriculture can make to reduce greenhouse gases (GHGs) in win-win situations are also dealt with. Soil carbon sequestration has a higher mitigation potential than emission reductions in African agriculture, although both may be important. These are best achieved under management systems with higher carbon density, as well as improved soil conservation. Agroforestry, assisted natural regeneration, forest rehabilitation, forest gardens, and improved forest fallow projects should all be eligible under the Clean Development Mechanism. Throughout the paper text boxes are used that illustrate local conditions that must be taken into account to understand the impacts/consequences of climate change for African farmers and how they may cope with them.

2018 ◽  
Vol 115 (34) ◽  
pp. 8597-8602 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kelly J. Iknayan ◽  
Steven R. Beissinger

Climate change has caused deserts, already defined by climatic extremes, to warm and dry more rapidly than other ecoregions in the contiguous United States over the last 50 years. Desert birds persist near the edge of their physiological limits, and climate change could cause lethal dehydration and hyperthermia, leading to decline or extirpation of some species. We evaluated how desert birds have responded to climate and habitat change by resurveying historic sites throughout the Mojave Desert that were originally surveyed for avian diversity during the early 20th century by Joseph Grinnell and colleagues. We found strong evidence of an avian community in collapse. Sites lost on average 43% of their species, and occupancy probability declined significantly for 39 of 135 breeding birds. The common raven was the only native species to substantially increase across survey sites. Climate change, particularly decline in precipitation, was the most important driver of site-level persistence, while habitat change had a secondary influence. Habitat preference and diet were the two most important species traits associated with occupancy change. The presence of surface water reduced the loss of site-level richness, creating refugia. The collapse of the avian community over the past century may indicate a larger imbalance in the Mojave and provide an early warning of future ecosystem disintegration, given climate models unanimously predict an increasingly dry and hot future.


Author(s):  
Partha Sarathi Datta

In many parts of the world, freshwater crisis is largely due to increasing water consumption and pollution by rapidly growing population and aspirations for economic development, but, ascribed usually to the climate. However, limited understanding and knowledge gaps in the factors controlling climate and uncertainties in the climate models are unable to assess the probable impacts on water availability in tropical regions. In this context, review of ensemble models on δ18O and δD in rainfall and groundwater, 3H- and 14C- ages of groundwater and 14C- age of lakes sediments helped to reconstruct palaeoclimate and long-term recharge in the North-west India; and predict future groundwater challenge. The annual mean temperature trend indicates both warming/cooling in different parts of India in the past and during 1901–2010. Neither the GCMs (Global Climate Models) nor the observational record indicates any significant change/increase in temperature and rainfall over the last century, and climate change during the last 1200 yrs BP. In much of the North-West region, deep groundwater renewal occurred from past humid climate, and shallow groundwater renewal from limited modern recharge over the past decades. To make water management to be more responsive to climate change, the gaps in the science of climate change need to be bridged.


2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 166-173
Author(s):  
Talgat Basarbaevich Mamirov

The paper is devoted to preliminary data from a study of the Vavilino 1 site in Western Kazakhstan. The monument was first opened by N.M. Malov in 1986, later he picked artifacts from the surface in 1988. In 1991 N.L. Morgunova carried out excavations on the site, which showed the importance of this monument study to understand the Neolithic Volga-Ural interfluve. The monument is located on the right bank of the Derkul River and is currently classified as an emergency. In 2018, employees of the Institute of Archeology named after A.Kh. Margulan in the framework of the Stone Age study in Western Kazakhstan started to work on the monuments of Yeshkitau, Derkul 1 and Vavilino 1. At the Vavilino 1 site a small excavation area - 16 square meters was made, more than a thousand stone artifacts were received; fragments of ceramics and bone remains of animals were poorly diagnosed. Excavations have shown the presence of a 15-20 cm thick cultural layer belonging to the Neolithic time. The upper layer of the monument with a capacity of up to 30 cm was destroyed by anthropogenic activities in the past century. The material from the cultural layer is not numerous; tip scrapers, fragments of plates with retouching, geometrical microliths, prismatic nucleus for plates, etc. are typologically distinguished.


Author(s):  
Pietro Croce ◽  
Paolo Formichi ◽  
Filippo Landi ◽  
Francesca Marsili

<p>As consequence of global warming extreme weather events might become more frequent and severe across the globe. The evaluation of the impact of climate change on extremes is then a crucial issue for the resilience of infrastructures and buildings and is a key challenge for adaptation planning. In this paper, a suitable procedure for the estimation of future trends of climatic actions is presented starting from the output of regional climate models and taking into account the uncertainty in the model itself. In particular, the influence of climate change on ground snow loads is discussed in detail and the typical uncertainty range is determined applying an innovative algorithm for weather generation. Considering different greenhouse gasses emission scenarios, some results are presented for the Italian Mediterranean region proving the ability of the method to define factors of change for climate extremes also allowing a sound estimate of the uncertainty range associated with different models.</p>


Author(s):  
Anne Billson

This chapter introduces the Swedish vampire film, Låt den rätte komma (Let the Right One In), which not only stands out from contemporary vampire films, but ranks among the very best vampire movies of the past century. The chapter mentions director Tomas Alfredson and screenwriter John Ajvide Lindqvist, who adapted Låt den rätte komma from his own novel of the same name. It also mentions a song by the lugubrious British rock singer-songwriter Morrissey as Lindqvist's inspiration for the title of his novel 'Let the Right One Slip In'. It recounts Let the Right One In's world premiere on 26 January 2008 at the Göteborg International Film Festival in Sweden and screening at other festivals in Europe, North America, Australia and South Korea. The chapter explains why Let the Right One In stands head and shoulders above other recent horror movies like Twilight from 2008.


Author(s):  
Lane Kenworthy

Abstract: The lesson of the past one hundred years is that as the United States gets richer, we are willing to spend more in order to safeguard against loss and enhance fairness. Advances in social policy come only intermittently, but they do come. And when they come, they usually last. The expansion of public insurance that has occurred over the past century is what we should expect for the future. I consider an array of potential obstacles, including Americans’ dislike of big government, Democrats’ centrism, Democrats’ electoral struggles, the shift to the right in the balance of organized interest group strength, the structure of America’s political system, racial and ethnic diversity, slowing economic growth, and more. None of these is likely to derail America’s slow but steady movement toward an expanded government role in improving economic security, enhancing opportunity, and ensuring decent and rising living standards for all.


2006 ◽  
Vol 19 (20) ◽  
pp. 5058-5077 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gabriele C. Hegerl ◽  
Thomas R. Karl ◽  
Myles Allen ◽  
Nathaniel L. Bindoff ◽  
Nathan Gillett ◽  
...  

Abstract A significant influence of anthropogenic forcing has been detected in global- and continental-scale surface temperature, temperature of the free atmosphere, and global ocean heat uptake. This paper reviews outstanding issues in the detection of climate change and attribution to causes. The detection of changes in variables other than temperature, on regional scales and in climate extremes, is important for evaluating model simulations of changes in societally relevant scales and variables. For example, sea level pressure changes are detectable but are significantly stronger in observations than the changes simulated in climate models, raising questions about simulated changes in climate dynamics. Application of detection and attribution methods to ocean data focusing not only on heat storage but also on the penetration of the anthropogenic signal into the ocean interior, and its effect on global water masses, helps to increase confidence in simulated large-scale changes in the ocean. To evaluate climate change signals with smaller spatial and temporal scales, improved and more densely sampled data are needed in both the atmosphere and ocean. Also, the problem of how model-simulated climate extremes can be compared to station-based observations needs to be addressed.


2017 ◽  
Vol 112 (03) ◽  
pp. 595 ◽  
Author(s):  
Priyanka Agnihotri ◽  
Tariq Husain ◽  
Pramod Arvind Shirke ◽  
Om Prakash Sidhu ◽  
Harsh Singh ◽  
...  

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