Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
activities, energy options and impact assessments.
Policies need to be put in place to mitigate the
worst effects of global warming. Some of these are
highlighted in Box 2.3. There is, unfortunately, no
sign as yet that most nations of the world will show
sufficient resolve or ability to reduce greenhouse
gas emissions in the near future. One of the most
difficult aspects of global warming is estimating its
regional climatic impact (Houghton 1997) and the
downstream effect on water and food supplies. The
estimated impact may be complicated by other
events such as the 1997 ENSO anomaly, which
reversed rainfall patterns over wide areas of the
tropics. The link between global warming and an
enhanced ENSO event is even less easy to establish
and is 'not intuitively obvious' (Meehl and
Branstator 1992). It is a warning that not only are
there many 'actors' on the climate scene but there
are also many and possibly unforeseen ways in
which the climate system may respond in terms of
positive and negative feedbacks. It is hoped that the
increasing sophistication of climate models will be
a valuable tool in unravelling the global climate
system and its response to forcing through global
warming. This scientific advance needs to be
matched by the better understanding of economic,
social and political responsibilities in the
stewardship of finite global resources.
There are other specialised texts on related
aspects, such as that by Pirazzoli, P.A. (1996)
Sea
Level Changes: The Last 20,000 Years.
For modelling, see McGuffie, K. and A.
Henderson-Sellers (1997)
A Climate Modelling
Primer,
2nd edn, with CD-ROM.
Articles may be found in such journals as
Global
Environmental Change, Climate Change, Ambio, Earth
Surface Processes and Landforms,
with more specialist
notes in
Nature
and
Science
. Updates on global
warming occur regularly in
Progress in Physical
Geography
.
Web sites in the UK include the following
(note: these are subject to change):
Climatic Research Unit at the University of
East Anglia—Tiempo Climate Cyberlibrary:
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/tiempo/
The Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and
Research. UK Meteorological Office, http://
www.meto.govt.uk/sec5/sec5pg1.html (see
'Global Warming Gallery')
Web sites elsewhere in the world include (links
to other sites usually listed):
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
(IPCC): http: //www.ipcc.ch/
Official web site of the Climate Change
Secretariat: http: //www.unep.ch/iucc/
US Environmental Protection Agency: http: //
www.epa.gov/globalwarming/
Articles, news, etc. (US): http: //www.law.pace.edu/
env/energy/globalwarming.html
Planetvision: http: //www.envirolink.org/orgs/edf/
Virtual Museum on Global Warming (US): http: /
/www.edf.org/pubs/Brochures/GlobalWarming/
GUIDE TO FURTHER READING
The detailed reports of the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) provide the
findings of a broad consensus of scientists relating
to global warming and are listed in the References
section. Houghton (1997) has provided a clearly
written summary accompanied By notes of the
background and results from 1990 to 1997 of the
IPCC, of which he has been the chairman. The
next IPCC report is due in 2000.
The following topics
inter alia
provide a more
general survey: Bernard, H.W. (1993)
Global
Warming Unchecked.
Indiana University Press;
Schneider, S.H. (1990)
Global Warming: Are We
Entering the Greenhouse Century?
REFERENCES
Arrhenius, G. (1997) Carbon dioxide warming of the early
Earth,
Ambio
26, 12-16.
Barnett, T.P. (1988) Global sea level change. In NCPO,
Climate Variations over the Past Century and the Greenhouse
Effect
. A report based on the First Climate Trends
Workshop, 7-9 September 1988, Washington DC,
National Climate Program Office/ NOAA, Rockville,
Maryland.
