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Amazon Basin climate under global warming: the role of the sea surface temperature
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The Hadley Centre coupled climate–carbon cycle model (HadCM3LC) predicts loss of the Amazon
rainforest in response to future anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. In this study, the
atmospheric component of HadCM3LC is used to assess the role of simulated changes in midtwenty-first
century sea surface temperature (SST) in Amazon Basin climate change. When the full HadCM3LC SST anomalies (SSTAs) are used, the atmosphere model reproduces the Amazon Basin climate change exhibited by HadCM3LC, including much of the reduction in Amazon Basin rainfall. This rainfall change is shown to be the combined effect of SSTAs in both thetropical Atlantic and the Pacific, with roughly equal contributions from each basin. The greatest rainfall reduction occurs from May to October, outside of the mature South American monsoon (SAM) season. This dry season response is the combined effect of a more rapid warming of the tropical North Atlantic relative to the south, and warm SSTAs in the tropical east Pacific. Conversely,
a weak enhancement of mature SAM season rainfall in response to Atlantic SST change is suppressed
by the atmospheric response to Pacific SST. This net wet season response is sufficient to prevent dry
season soil moisture deficits from being recharged through the SAM season, leading to a perennial
soil moisture reduction and an associated 30% reduction in annual Amazon Basin net primary
productivity (NPP). A further 23% NPP reduction occurs in response to a 3.58C warmer air
temperature associated with a global mean SST warming.
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An Uncertain Future for Soil Carbon
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Predictions of how rapidly the large amounts of carbon stored as soil organic matter will respond to warming
are highly uncertain (1). Organic matter plays a key role in determining the physical and chemical properties of soils and is a major reservoir for plant nutrients. Understanding how fast organic matter in soils can be built up and lost is thus critical not just for its net effect on the atmospheric CO2 concentration but for
sustaining other soil functions, such as soil fertility, on which societies and ecosystems rely. Recent analytic advances are rapidly improving our understanding of the complex and interacting factors that control the age
and form of organic matter in soils, but the processes that destabilize organic matter in response to disturbances (such as warming or land use change) are poorly understood
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Approaching the Limits: A book review in Science
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Excerpts: "In Harvesting the Biosphere, Vaclav Smil traces the historical development of human consumption of biological resources and evaluates whether we could be approaching important global limits. Smil (an economist at the University of Manitoba) has written several books on global energy and other resource issues; here, he focuses on human consumption of the plant and animal life and whether current trends are sustainable." And "Full of recent references and statistics, Harvesting the Biosphere adds to the growing chorus of warnings about the current trajectory of human activity on a finite planet, of which climate change is only one dimension. One can quibble with some assumptions or tweak Smil’s calculations, but the bottom line will not change, only the time it may take humanity to reach a crisis point. Systems ecology teaches that the human population and consumption trajectories need a stronger feedback control than currently exists. Either we are smart enough to craft that feedback mechanism ourselves, or the Earth system will ultimately provide it."
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Arba Minch University
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Arba Minch University is based in South-West Ethiopia. The University was initially founded as the Arba Minch Water Technology Institute (AWTI) and it was officially inaugurated as a full -fledged university in June 2004. Arba Minch University is currently working as one of National Research Universities and has more than 36,000 registered students in regular, evening, weekend and distance programs in first, second and third degree.
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Article: Racial Equity in the Farm Bill
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Article describing the barriers for farmers of color as related to the Farm Bill and other policies
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Background on equity and inclusion
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Beneficial Biofuels—The Food, Energy, and Environment Trilemma
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Exploiting multiple feedstocks, under new policies and accounting rules, to balance biofuel production, food security, and greenhouse-gas reduction.
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Black Urban Growers
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Black Urban Growers (BUGs) is committed to building networks and community support for growers in both urban and rural settings. Through education and advocacy around food and farm issues, we nurture collective Black leadership to support Black agrarianism and reimagine Black futures. Based in New York City, BUGs reach is national through its annual conference.
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Tribal and community-based organizations
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Black Urban Growers (BUGs)
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Black Urban Growers (BUGs) is committed to building networks and community support for growers in both urban and rural settings. Through education and advocacy around food and farm issues, we nurture collective Black leadership to support Black agrarianism and reimagine Black futures. Based in New York City, BUGs reach is national through its annual conference.
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California State University Agricultural Research Institute
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The Agricultural Research Institute (ARI) exemplifies the mission of the California State University system by working for California and its citizens through partnerships across the agricultural industry and beyond. Through the colleges of agriculture on four CSU campuses and allied disciplines across the CSU, the ARI conducts applied research to ensure the sustainability of California agriculture.
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Can a collapse of global civilization be avoided?
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Environmental problems have contributed to numerous collapses of civilizations in the past. ... But today, for the first time, humanity’s global civilization—the worldwide,increasingly interconnected, highly technological society in which we all are to one degree or another, embedded—is threatened with collapse by an array of
environmental problems. Humankind finds itself engaged in what Prince Charles described as ‘an act of suicide on a grand scale’ [4], facing what the UK’s Chief Scientific Advisor John Beddington called a ‘perfect storm’ of environmental problems [5]. The most serious of these problems show signsof rapidly escalating severity, especially climate disruption.
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