Abstract

Climate change due to anthropogenically-generated greenhouse gases and aerosols has been recognized as a serious threat to the earth’s ecosystems and its inhabitants, and the dangers associated with climate change will increase in severity in coming decades in the absence of measures to curb the ... Show moreClimate change due to anthropogenically-generated greenhouse gases and aerosols has been recognized as a serious threat to the earth’s ecosystems and its inhabitants, and the dangers associated with climate change will increase in severity in coming decades in the absence of measures to curb the production of the responsible pollutants (e.g., carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide). Numerous scientific articles and peer-reviewed reports have demonstrated the current and potential future effects of the climate change that result from these increased greenhouse gas emissions (e.g., Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), 2007a). Among the resource sectors that received early attention regarding possible climate change effects has been agriculture (e.g., Rosenzweig, 1985; Liverman et al., 1986), and it has continued to receive considerable attention since that early research. Work in this area has become more sophisticated over time and is now connected explicitly to estimates of economics in the agricultural sector (Mearns et al., 2003; Reilly, 2010) and risk of hunger (Parry et al., 2005). As is the case with many impact areas, studies of possible adaptation to climate change have come to the fore and become increasingly important (Smit and Skinner, 2002; Challinor et al., 2007; Easterling et al., 2007; Easterling, 2010), and this is particularly striking for agriculture where studies of adaptation to climate change appeared early in the history of climate change research (for a review of earlier work see Easterling, 1996). The importance of adaptation studies has also put more emphasis on the need for more detailed information regarding future regional climate change. This chapter presents what we know about the current climate change, what is projected to occur in the future, the uncertainties of these projections, the methods for increasing the spatial resolution of projections of future climate, and how these estimates of climate change have been used in determining the potential effects on agriculture. Show less