An abrupt climate change scenario and its implications for United States national security
Author:
Publisher: DIANE Publishing
Published:
Total Pages: 22
ISBN-13: 142898268X
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An Abrupt Climate Change Scenario and Its Implications for United States National Security
Author:
Publisher:
Published: 2003
Total Pages: 23
ISBN-13:
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThe purpose of this report is to imagine the unthinkable to push the boundaries of current research on climate change so we may better understand the potential implications on United States national security. We have interviewed leading climate change scientists, conducted additional research, and reviewed several iterations of the scenario with these experts. The scientists support this project, but caution that the scenario depicted is extreme in two fundamental ways. First, they suggest the occurrences we outline would most likely happen in a few regions, rather than on globally. Second, they say the magnitude of the event may be considerably smaller. We have created a climate change scenario that although not the most likely, is plausible, and would challenge United States national security in ways that should be considered immediately.
Climate and Social Stress
Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
Published: 2013-02-14
Total Pages: 253
ISBN-13: 0309278562
DOWNLOAD EBOOKClimate change can reasonably be expected to increase the frequency and intensity of a variety of potentially disruptive environmental events-slowly at first, but then more quickly. It is prudent to expect to be surprised by the way in which these events may cascade, or have far-reaching effects. During the coming decade, certain climate-related events will produce consequences that exceed the capacity of the affected societies or global systems to manage; these may have global security implications. Although focused on events outside the United States, Climate and Social Stress: Implications for Security Analysis recommends a range of research and policy actions to create a whole-of-government approach to increasing understanding of complex and contingent connections between climate and security, and to inform choices about adapting to and reducing vulnerability to climate change.
Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States
Author: U.S. Global Change Research Program
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 2009-08-24
Total Pages: 193
ISBN-13: 0521144078
DOWNLOAD EBOOKSummarizes the science of climate change and impacts on the United States, for the public and policymakers.
Climatic Cataclysm
Author: Kurt M. Campbell
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Published: 2009-10-01
Total Pages: 255
ISBN-13: 0815701551
DOWNLOAD EBOOKGlobal climate change poses not only environmental hazards but profound risks to planetary peace and stability as well. Climatic Cataclysm gathers experts on climate science, oceanography, history, political science, foreign policy, and national security to take the measure of these risks. The contributors have developed three scenarios of what the future may hold. The expected scenario relies on current scientific models to project the effects of climate change over the next 30 years. The severe scenario, which posits a much stronger climate response to current levels of carbon loading, foresees profound and potentially destabilizing global effects over the next generation or more. Finally, the catastrophic scenario is characterized by a devastating "tipping point" in the climate system, perhaps 50 or 100 years hence. In this future world, the land-based polar ice sheets have disappeared, global sea levels have risen dramatically, and the existing natural order has been destroyed beyond repair. The contributors analyze the security implications of these scenarios, which at a minimum include increased disease proliferation; tensions caused by large-scale migration; and conflict sparked by resource scarcity, particularly in Africa. They consider what we can learn from the experience of early civilizations confronted with natural disaster, and they ask what the three largest emitters of greenhouse gases—the United States, the European Union, and China—can do to reduce and manage future risks. In the coming decade, the United States faces an ominous set of foreign policy and national security challenges. Global climate change will not only complicate these tasks, but as this sobering study reveals, it may also create new challenges that dwarf those of today. Contributors include Leon Fuerth (George Washington University), Jay Gulledge (Pew Center on Global Climate Change), Alexander T. J. Lennon (Center for Strategic and International Studies), J.R. McNeil
Global Warming Could Have a Chilling Effect on the Military
Author: Richard F. Pittenger
Publisher:
Published: 2003
Total Pages: 16
ISBN-13:
DOWNLOAD EBOOKMost debates and studies addressing potential climate change have focused on the buildup of industrial greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and a gradual increase in global temperatures. But this "slow ramp" climate change scenario ignores recent and rapidly advancing evidence that Earth's climate repeatedly has become much colder, warmer, wetter, or drier-in time spans as short as three to 10 years. Earth's climate system appears to have sensitive thresholds, the crossing of which shifts the system into different modes of operation and triggers rapid, non-linear, and not necessarily global changes. This new paradigm of abrupt climate change does not appear to be on the radar screens of military planners, who treat climate change as a long term, low-level threat, with mostly sociological, not national security, implications. But intense and abrupt climate changes could escalate environmental issues into unanticipated security threats, and could compromise an unprepared military. The global ocean circulation system, often called the Ocean Conveyor, can change rapidly and shift the distribution patterns of heat and rainfall over large areas of the globe. The North Atlantic region is particularly vulnerable to abrupt regional coolings linked to ocean circulation changes. Global warming and ocean circulation changes also threaten the Arctic Ocean's sea ice cover. Beyond the abrupt climatic impacts, fundamental changes in ocean circulation also have immediate naval implications. Recent evidence suggests that the oceans already may be experiencing large-scale changes that could affect Earth's climate. Military planners should begin to consider potential abrupt climate change scenarios and their impacts on national defense.
Abrupt Impacts of Climate Change
Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
Published: 2013-12-31
Total Pages: 281
ISBN-13: 0309287766
DOWNLOAD EBOOKClimate is changing, forced out of the range of the past million years by levels of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases not seen in the Earth's atmosphere for a very, very long time. Lacking action by the world's nations, it is clear that the planet will be warmer, sea level will rise, and patterns of rainfall will change. But the future is also partly uncertain-there is considerable uncertainty about how we will arrive at that different climate. Will the changes be gradual, allowing natural systems and societal infrastructure to adjust in a timely fashion? Or will some of the changes be more abrupt, crossing some threshold or "tipping point" to change so fast that the time between when a problem is recognized and when action is required shrinks to the point where orderly adaptation is not possible? Abrupt Impacts of Climate Change is an updated look at the issue of abrupt climate change and its potential impacts. This study differs from previous treatments of abrupt changes by focusing on abrupt climate changes and also abrupt climate impacts that have the potential to severely affect the physical climate system, natural systems, or human systems, often affecting multiple interconnected areas of concern. The primary timescale of concern is years to decades. A key characteristic of these changes is that they can come faster than expected, planned, or budgeted for, forcing more reactive, rather than proactive, modes of behavior. Abrupt Impacts of Climate Change summarizes the state of our knowledge about potential abrupt changes and abrupt climate impacts and categorizes changes that are already occurring, have a high probability of occurrence, or are unlikely to occur. Because of the substantial risks to society and nature posed by abrupt changes, this report recommends the development of an Abrupt Change Early Warning System that would allow for the prediction and possible mitigation of such changes before their societal impacts are severe. Identifying key vulnerabilities can help guide efforts to increase resiliency and avoid large damages from abrupt change in the climate system, or in abrupt impacts of gradual changes in the climate system, and facilitate more informed decisions on the proper balance between mitigation and adaptation. Although there is still much to learn about abrupt climate change and abrupt climate impacts, to willfully ignore the threat of abrupt change could lead to more costs, loss of life, suffering, and environmental degradation. Abrupt Impacts of Climate Change makes the case that the time is here to be serious about the threat of tipping points so as to better anticipate and prepare ourselves for the inevitable surprises.
The Two-Mile Time Machine
Author: Richard B. Alley
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Published: 2014-10-26
Total Pages: 246
ISBN-13: 1400852242
DOWNLOAD EBOOKIn the 1990s Richard B. Alley and his colleagues made headlines with the discovery that the last ice age came to an abrupt end over a period of only three years. In The Two-Mile Time Machine, Alley tells the fascinating history of global climate changes as revealed by reading the annual rings of ice from cores drilled in Greenland. He explains that humans have experienced an unusually temperate climate compared to the wild fluctuations that characterized most of prehistory. He warns that our comfortable environment could come to an end in a matter of years and tells us what we need to know in order to understand and perhaps overcome climate changes in the future. In a new preface, the author weighs in on whether our understanding of global climate change has altered in the years since the book was first published, what the latest research tells us, and what he is working on next.
The Environment-Conflict Nexus
Author: Francis Galgano
Publisher: Springer
Published: 2018-07-15
Total Pages: 187
ISBN-13: 3319909754
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThe aim of this book is to demonstrate how environmental factors have caused an evolution in the landscape of national security since the end of the Cold War. Through relevant case studies, the scope of the problem on the national security landscape due to environmental stressors is illuminated, examined, and synthesized with climate-related data. Human variables such as governance, GDP, and vulnerability are taken into account, and are compared against environmental factors to more accurately determine the causative agents of regional conflicts which threaten national security. These case studies comprise the majority of the text, and they show how individual conflicts are uniquely influenced by environmental stress with variations from situation to situation. This book will be of interest to government and military professionals, and may serve as a resource for college courses in the areas of military geography, international affairs, and sustainability studies.
Advancing the Science of Climate Change
Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
Published: 2011-01-10
Total Pages: 526
ISBN-13: 0309145880
DOWNLOAD EBOOKClimate change is occurring, is caused largely by human activities, and poses significant risks for-and in many cases is already affecting-a broad range of human and natural systems. The compelling case for these conclusions is provided in Advancing the Science of Climate Change, part of a congressionally requested suite of studies known as America's Climate Choices. While noting that there is always more to learn and that the scientific process is never closed, the book shows that hypotheses about climate change are supported by multiple lines of evidence and have stood firm in the face of serious debate and careful evaluation of alternative explanations. As decision makers respond to these risks, the nation's scientific enterprise can contribute through research that improves understanding of the causes and consequences of climate change and also is useful to decision makers at the local, regional, national, and international levels. The book identifies decisions being made in 12 sectors, ranging from agriculture to transportation, to identify decisions being made in response to climate change. Advancing the Science of Climate Change calls for a single federal entity or program to coordinate a national, multidisciplinary research effort aimed at improving both understanding and responses to climate change. Seven cross-cutting research themes are identified to support this scientific enterprise. In addition, leaders of federal climate research should redouble efforts to deploy a comprehensive climate observing system, improve climate models and other analytical tools, invest in human capital, and improve linkages between research and decisions by forming partnerships with action-oriented programs.
