Agriculture, Risk and Climate Change

• Main Authors: Andy Jarvis, Myles Fisher, Peter Jones, Simon Cook, Luigi Guarino
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Osborn; permafrost
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.505.7756; http://www.cgiar.org/www-archive/www.cgiar.org/pdf/2006_Jarvis and others-Ag_Risk_ClimateChange_2006_FINAL.pdf

Climate modelers have been warning for a decade about the extent and seriousness of global climate change, brought about by increasing greenhouse gas emissions over the past century. Some skeptics have questioned the validity of the assumptions underpinning these models, but climatologists have adjusted the models only to conclude that climate change may be greater in magnitude than previously expected. Most recently, inclusion into the models of methane emissions from melting permafrost is shown to bring about a positive feedback in the earth’s climate system (Semiletov et al 2004). Recent models with strong carbon cycle feedback have predicted average temperature increases of 6-7oC, up from previous estimates of 3-4oC, (Jones et al 2003). Today, many skeptics have been silenced by climate data showing the past decade to have been the warmest in recorded history, and according to other sources the warmest in the last 1,000 years (Osborn and Briffa 2005). There is now less skepticism over the reality of climate change and more discussion on how it will impact the earth’s systems and the world’s population, and what can be done about it. The term “global warming, ” popularized by the world’s media looking for a