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Solve Climate By 2030, Jessica L. Schedlbauer, Paul Morgan

Sustainability Research & Practice Seminar Presentations

No abstract provided.

Predicting The Influence Of Climate On Grassland Area Burned In Xilingol, China With Dynamic Simulations Of Autoregressive Distributed Lag Models, Ali Hassan Shabbir, Jiquan Zhang, James D. Johnston, Samuel Asumadu Sarkodie, James A. Lutz, Xingpeng Liu

Wildland Resources Faculty Publications

The influence of climate change on wildland fire has received considerable attention, but few studies have examined the potential effects of climate variability on grassland area burned within the extensive steppe land of Eurasia. We used a novel statistical approach borrowed from the social science literature—dynamic simulations of autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) models—to explore the relationship between temperature, relative humidity, precipitation, wind speed, sunlight, and carbon emissions on grassland area burned in Xilingol, a large grassland-dominated landscape of Inner Mongolia in northern China. We used an ARDL model to describe the influence of these variables on observed area burned between …

Natural Gas Infrastructure: Locking In Emissions?, Sam Kalen, Shi-Ling Hsu

Scholarly Publications

No abstract provided.

Assessment Of The Impact Of Climate Change On Land Use In The Emirate Of Abu Dhabi - An Environmental And Socio-Economic Perspective, Latifa Saeed Al Blooshi

Dissertations

This dissertation focuses on the impact of climate change on land use in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi – UAE. Climate change is a significant challenge resulting from natural and anthropogenic causes. Land use can stimulate changes in communities under climate change. The main objective of this dissertation is to assess the impact of climate change from an environmental and socio-economic perspective. In 2001, coastal sabkhas, mixed class and urbanized areas experienced an increase in temperature by (0.67, 1.14 and 1.16°C) respectively. In cities, urban areas are warmer than neighbouring rural areas. Unexpectedly, urbanization in desert areas in UAE led …

Assessment Of The Environmental And Economic Impacts Of Fossil Fuel Subsidies, Evan Cobey

Undergraduate Theses and Capstone Projects

Renewable sources of energy remove dependence on fossil fuels. When renewable sources are adopted, they reduce damage to the environment from burning fossil fuels. Currently, fossil fuels are cheaper to produce, causing renewable energy to be used less. In the United States, fossil fuels receive heavy subsidies, keeping renewable energy in the periphery. This research explores the environmental and economic effects of subsidizing fossil fuels. Findings include that governments and citizens lose money when fossil fuels are subsidized. While subsidization initially makes them cheaper, they create expenses that are not factored into original costs, such as damage to human health …

The Ingredients Of Scientific Illiteracy, Marghuerite Crowell

Georgia College Student Research Events

As technology and medicine flourish in 21st century America through science, so does fear and opposition. This fear and opposition stems from the lack of an individuals understanding or education in the scientific field; simply called “Scientific Illiteracy”. Pressing issues involved with scientific illiteracy include vaccination, climate change, and evolution. Through extensive research in reading scientific papers, political pieces, statistics, and referencing other’s expertise, the culprits of this phenomenon prove to surpass just a lack of scientific education. Scientific Illiteracy forms from people’s religion, politics, core beliefs, and emotions. “Anti-vaxxers” lack of education of the chemical makeup of vaccines, prompts …

Relationship Between Rainfall And Annual Forage Biomass To Build A Forage-Balance Guarantee System In Brazilian Semiarid, Ana Clara Rodrigues Cavalcante, Rodrigo Gregório Da Silva, Magno José Duarte Cândido, Jay Peter Angerer

IGC Proceedings (1977-2023)

Semiarid regions around the world are characterized by elevated annual evapotranspiration and irregular rainfalls (Creswell and Martin, 1998), resulting in a negative water balance in most part of the year. The high rainfall variability associated to a high pressure on natural resources generated a scenario of degradation, which is worrying for the future of many rangelands. In this sense, it is urgent to understand the processes involved in the sustainability of vulnerable ecosystems to keep them productive and profitable. Among the rural activities in the semiarid regions, the raising of livestock has been contributed to become the farms viable. To …

Tackling Regional Climate Change Impacts And Food Security Issues: A Critical Analysis Across Asean, Pif, And Saarc, Md. Saidul Islam, Edson Kieu

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Climate change and food security issues are multi-faceted and transcend across national boundaries. Therefore, this paper begins with the premise that regional organizations are optimally positioned to address climate change and food security issues while actively engaging global partners to slow down or reverse current trajectories. However, the potential of regional organizations to play a central role in mitigating these vital concerns has not been realized. In this paper, we focus on three regional organizations—the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF), and the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) and set out to investigate …

North Atlantic Hurricane Winds In Warmer Than Normal Seas, Jill C. Trepanier

Faculty Publications

Tropical cyclones devastate coastlines around the world. The United States and surrounding areas experienced catastrophic extreme events in recent hurricane seasons. Understanding extreme hurricanes and how they change in a warming ocean environment is of the utmost importance. This study makes use of the historical, positive relationship between average summer sea surface temperatures (SSTs) and maximum hurricane wind speeds across the North Atlantic Basin from 1854-2018. Geographically weighted regression shows how the relationship between hurricane winds and SSTs varies across space. Each localized slope is used to increase historical wind speeds to represent winds in a three-degree Celsius warmer-than-average sea …

Global Pattern And Change Of Cropland Soil Organic Carbon During 1901-2010: Roles Of Climate, Atmospheric Chemistry, Land Use And Management, Wei Ren, Kamaljit Banger, Bo Tao, Jia Yang, Yawen Huang, Hanqin Tian

Plant and Soil Sciences Faculty Publications

Soil organic carbon (SOC) in croplands is a key property of soil quality for ensuring food security and agricultural sustainability, and also plays a central role in the global carbon (C) budget. When managed sustainably, soils may play a critical role in mitigating climate change by sequestering C and decreasing greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere. However, the magnitude and spatio-temporal patterns of global cropland SOC are far from well constrained due to high land surface heterogeneity, complicated mechanisms, and multiple influencing factors. Here, we use a process-based agroecosystem model (DLEM-Ag) in combination with diverse spatially-explicit gridded environmental data to …

Planet At Risk From Grazing Animals?, Albrecht F. Glatzle

IGC Proceedings (1977-2023)

The famous FAO report “Livestock’s Long Shadow” (Steinfeld et. al. 2006) and hundreds of subsequent publications blamed domestic livestock, in general, and grassland-based production systems in the (sub) tropics, in particular, of causing serious environmental hazards such as climate change, claiming that 18% of anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are from livestock, more than from the transport sector. Few reviews challenged this claim, and those that did received little attention from the media. Pitseky et al. (2009) revealed the double standard applied by the FAO in this matter. Whereas for livestock products a full life cycle assessment for …

Crop Production Simulation And Analysis Of Climate Scenarios Based On The Apsim Model For The Long Term Run Of The Western Loess Plateau, Xuan Yang, Yuying Shen

IGC Proceedings (1977-2023)

The APSIM model is an effective tool for making decisions on agricultural management. The model can simulate the biophysical process in farming systems, particularly economic and ecological features of the systems under climatic risk (Keating et al. 1998). The APSIM model has previously been used in the Loess Plateau (Tan, 2007; Chen et al. 2008). Based on climate data from the Loess Plateau from 1961-2010, we simulated three commonly grown crops, wheat, maize and lucerne. Additionally, by applying three climate change scenarios, we attempted to determine the production risk in the future, and gain an understanding of the …

Identifying Target Traits For Forage Grass Breeding Under A Changing Climate In Norway Using The Basgra Model, Mats Höglind, Tomas Persson, Marcel Van Oijen

IGC Proceedings (1977-2023)

Grass-based dairy and livestock production constitutes the most important agricultural sector in Norway in economic terms, and 60% of the agricultural land in Norway is used for grass production. Climate change may have consider-able impact on the survival and productivity of grasslands, with consequences for the local supply of forage to live-stock, farmers’ income and the supply of dairy- and livestock-based food products to the global market. Farmers can adapt to climate change by choosing different grass species or cultivars or by changing management practices such as the timing and frequency of harvests. Plant breeders select new cultivars of grasses …

Climagie: A French Inra Project To Adapt The Grasslands To Climate Change, Jean-Louis Durand, Jérome Enjalbert, Laurent Hazard, Isabelle Litrico, Catherine Picon-Cochard, Marie-Pascale Prudhomme, Florence Volaire

IGC Proceedings (1977-2023)

Climate change in France, central and southern Europe is expected to provoke more frequent and more intense summer water deficits, with increased amplitude in temperatures, exposing the same perennial crops to frosts as well as to heat waves and severe droughts. The impacts on sown monospecific grasslands have been assessed using crop models (Durand et al. 2010) but with less accuracy in extreme situations. Since less work has been done on intra-specific genetic variability there is urgent need to investigate both ranges of climate conditions and genetic variability (Poirier et al. 2012). Phenology and plant productivity responses to …

Data Integration And Modelling For The Assessment Of Future Climate Change Impacts On Natural Pasturelands Of The Alps, Camilla Dibari, Giovanni Argenti, Marco Moriondo, Marco Bindi

IGC Proceedings (1977-2023)

Evidence shows that in the last century in the Alps area warming was roughly three times the global average and, according to future projections, this trend is expected to worsen in the next decades. Moreover, the species-rich permanent grasslands characterizing the marginal areas of the Alpine landscape are acknowledged as very sensitive and vulnerable ecosystems to climate change (IPCC 2007). So far several studies have investigated the climate effects only on specific Alpine grassland species at a very small scale, while a comprehensive assessment of the impact of climate change on Alpine mountain grasslands distribution and composition at a territorial …

Climate Changes And Trends In Phenology Of Woody And Herb Plants In Inner Mongolia, 1981–2010, Yurong Wei, Yanfang Cao, Zhicun Wang, Xuebiao Pan

IGC Proceedings (1977-2023)

The phenology of plants is a comprehensive reflection of seasonal climatological and ecological conditions and may be used as an indicator of climate change (Thomas et al. 2000; Volker and Annette 2004; Li et al. 2005). Analysis was made of the dates of sprouting, flowering and defoliating of woody and herb plants observed on 24 Agricultural Meteorological Stations in Inner Mongolia, China from 1980 to 2010. To assess the potential future change data was analysed for the 2011 to 2050 period using the England Hadley Climate Centre scenario (Wei et al. 2012).

Precipitation Pattern Change Influence On Vegetation Of Xilingol Grassland In Inner Mongolia, China, Wulanbter, Yurong Wei, Pengtao Liu, Xirong Jiang

IGC Proceedings (1977-2023)

The Xilingol grassland covers the region bounded by 41’09”–45’31” N and 111’14”–118’25” E. It is representative of a typical steppe in northern China, with the major native grass species present being Aneurolepidium chinense and Stipa spp. However these grasslands have become increasingly degraded due to desertification and/or the impacts of human activities resulting in the previous climax plant community becoming substantially altered.

In the Xilingol League most weather station started observations around 1960 (earliest 1952), however, grassland phenology and biomass measurement only started in 1980. The growing season runs from the 1st May to the 30th September. Between 1961-2010, the …

Assessing Resilience Of Pasture Production To Climatic Changes, Brendan R. Cullen, Richard P. Rawnsley, Richard J. Eckard

IGC Proceedings (1977-2023)

Increasing temperatures and atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO₂) concentrations, together with changes to rainfall patterns, will influence seasonal pasture production; however climate change projections for south eastern Australia are uncertain (CSIRO and BoM 2007). Despite this, climate change impact assessments generally rely on specific climate projections, but in this study an alternative approach was developed to test the resilience of production to incremental changes in climate.

Impacts Of Projected Climate Change On Pasture Growth And Safe Carrying Capacities For Three Extensive Grazing Land Regions In Northern Australia, Giselle L. Whish, Robyn A. Cowley, Lester I. Pahl, Joe C. Scanlan, Neil D. Macleod

IGC Proceedings (1977-2023)

The northern beef industry is a major component of the regional economies of Queensland, Northern Territory and northern Western Australia, and has contributed an estimated $5 billion to Australia’s economy in 2009-10. Projected climate change will have an adverse impact on Australia’s agricultural production (McKeon et al. 2008) with an expected 3.5% decline in beef production in northern Australia by 2030 (Heyhoe et al. 2008). The GRASP pasture production model (McKeon et al. 2000) has been used to evaluate impacts of climate change in Australia’s rangelands (Crimp et al. 2002, McKeon et al. 2008), with …

Impact On Grassland Biomass From Climate Warming And Drying, Suying Li, Li Yang

IGC Proceedings (1977-2023)

It is becoming increasingly urgent to assess the impact of climate change on grassland biomass due to the important role these grasslands play in animal production. The typical steppe in Xilinhot of Inner Mongolia is the most representative vegetation types in the temperate grasslands of the northern China. One means to determine climate change is using the Aridity index (AI, also referred to as the dry degree of climate in this article) that is based on both temperature and precipitation (Arora 2002; Bannayan et al.. 2010; Nastos et al. 2012). The objective of this paper was to indicate how …

Future Climate Change Impacts On Pasture Biomass In Mongolia, Erdenetsetseg Baasandai, Erdenetuya Magsar

IGC Proceedings (1977-2023)

The main objective of this study is to estimate pasture biomass changes in Mongolia using the simulation model CENTURY. For the study framework we used the fenced pasture biomass data from 1960’s to 2008, over 60 meteorological stations and simulation data of the carbon, nitrogen, aboveground and belowground biomass, potential evapotranspiration, evaporation, transpiration and precipitation data across these grasslands. The simulated climatic and other parameters were estimated meteorological station based and their differences between 2 time periods were calculated. With purpose to make comparison of the present situation to the future situation used Climate Change Scenarios under A2, A1B and …

Comparative Analysis Of Climate Change Adaptation Options Across The Southern Australian Livestock Industry, Afshin Ghahramani, Andrew D. Moore

IGC Proceedings (1977-2023)

Climate change is predicted to have a substantial negative effect on the productivity of grasslands across southern Australia (Moore and Ghahramani 2013). We used the GRAZPLAN biophysical simulation models to assess several possible grassland management and animal genetic improvement adaptations under SRES A2 climate change scenario. Simulations spanned the five dimensions of geography, time, global circulation models, enterprise, and adaptations. Impact of climate change was predicted to reduce profitability of livestock industry by 46%, 58%, and 72% at 2030, 2050 and 2070, respectively. Increasing soil fertility could return the average profitability of five livestock enterprises to its historical level at …

Modelling Adaptation And Mitigation Strategies For Southern Livestock Industries Of Australia, Richard J. Eckard, Richard P. Rawnsley, Brendan R. Cullen, Matthew Bell, Karen Christie

IGC Proceedings (1977-2023)

Climate change will impact on the Australian grazing industries both through mitigation policies and the impact of warmer temperatures, increased atmospheric CO₂ and changed rainfall patterns (Cullen et al. 2009; Eckard et al. 2010). Mechanistic models are useful tools to inform our understanding of the complex interactions between future climates and the soil, plant, animal and management in livestock production systems.

This paper summarises the results of a number of whole farm systems modelling studies investigating likely impacts of climate change, adaptation options and emissions implications for livestock production in southern Australia.

Challenges And Opportunities For Improving Eco-Efficiency Of Tropical Forage-Based Systems To Mitigate Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Michael Peters, Mario Herrero, Myles Fish, Karl-Heinz Erb, Idupulapati M. Rao, Guntur V. Subbarao, Aracely Castro, Jacobo Arango, Julian Chará, Enrique Murgueitio, Rein Van Der Hoek, Peter Läderach, Glenn Hyman, Jeimar Tapasco, Bernardo Strassburg, Birthe K. Paul, Alvaro Rincón, Rainer Schultze-Kraft, Steve Fonte, Timothy Searchinger

IGC Proceedings (1977-2023)

Forage-based livestock production plays a key role in national and regional economies, for food security and poverty alleviation. Livestock production is also considered as a major contributor to agricultural GHG emissions, however. While demand for livestock products is predicted to continue to increase, there is political and societal pressure both to reduce environmental impacts and to convert some of the pasture area to alternative uses such as crop production and environmental conservation. Thus it is essential to develop approaches for sustainable intensification of livestock systems to mitigate GHG emissions, addressing biophysical, socioeconomic and policy challenges. This paper highlights the potential …

Projected Increase Of The East Asian Summer Monsoon (Meiyu) In Taiwan By Climate Models With Variable Performance, Yu-Shiang Tung, Shih-Yu (Simon) Wang, Jung-Lien Chu, Chi-Hua Wu, Yung-Ming Chen, Chao-Tzuen Cheng, Lee-Yaw Lin

Plants, Soils, and Climate Faculty Publications

The active phase of the East Asian summer monsoon (EASM) in Taiwan during May and June, known as Meiyu, produces substantial precipitation for water uses in all sectors of society. Following a companion study that analysed the historical increase in the Meiyu precipitation, the present study conducted model evaluation and diagnosis based on the EASM lifecycle over Taiwan. Higher and lower skill groups were identified from 17 Couple Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5) models, with five models in each group. Despite the difference in model performance, both groups projected a substantial increase in the Meiyu precipitation over Taiwan. …

Climate Change Perceptions, Data, And Adaptation In The Garhwal Himalayas Of India, Rutherford V. Platt, Monica V. Ogra, Natalie A. Kisak, Upma Manral, Ruchi Badola

Environmental Studies Faculty Publications

Himalayan communities that depend on rain-fed agriculture are disproportionately vulnerable to climate change. In this study, we compare local perceptions of climate change from a household survey (n = 251) to climate data obtained from the Global Land Data Assimilation System (GLDAS 2.1) and MODIS Terra Snow Cover data product datasets. The study is situated in and around the Kedarnath Wildlife Sanctuary, which is located within the Garhwal Himalayas in the Indian state of Uttarakhand. We found that a large majority of respondents perceive that rainfall is increasing and that snowfall is decreasing, while a smaller majority perceives an …

Urgent Need For Coral Demography In A World Where Corals Are Disappearing, Peter J. Edmunds, Bernhard Riegl

Marine & Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles

Coral reefs have long attracted attention because of their biological and economic importance, but this interest now has turned to examining the possibility of functional extirpation. Widespread declines in coral abundances have fueled the shift in motivation for studying reefs and catalyzed the proliferation of monitoring to record the changes underway. Despite appreciation of monitoring as a scientific endeavor, its primary use has continued to be the quantification of cover of coral, macroalgae, and a few other space holders. The limitations of coral cover in evaluating the consequences of changing coral abundance were highlighted decades ago. Yet neglect of the …

Cooperative Extension And Sustainability Outreach: Programmatic Successes, Administrative Support, And Areas For Improvement, Roslynn Brain Mccann, Mark Apel, Clark Dove, Ramona Madhosingh-Hector, Jennison Kipp Searcy, David Kay

Extension Research

According to the 2018 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, without urgent global changes, climate catastrophe caused by warming of greater than 1.5°C will occur by 2030, endangering the planet's capacity to sustain human populations and livelihoods. The National Network for Sustainable Living Education administered a national survey in January 2017 to assess how well-positioned Extension is to address sustainability in the communities the organization serves. Educators from 40 states responded, and 1,395 usable surveys were received. Survey results will help Extension employees discover opportunities for innovation and relevancy in their programming.

Perspectives Of Global Warming, Diomaris Padilla Dr.

Open Educational Resources

This course is designed to foster an interest in global environmental issues by informing the student of both the anthropogenic and natural causes for climate change. While focusing on the scientific aspects of climate change, a broader study will include issues pertaining to global policy and economics in order to engage the student in public policy debates.

Reduced And Earlier Snowmelt Runoff Impacts Traditional Irrigation Systems, Yining Bai, Alexander Fernald, Vincent Tidwell, Thushara Gunda

Journal of Contemporary Water Research and Education

Seasonal runoff from montane uplands is crucial for plant growth in agricultural communities of northern New Mexico. These communities typically employ traditional irrigation systems, called acequias, which rely mainly upon spring snowmelt runoff for irrigation. The trend of the past few decades is an increase in temperature, reduced snow pack, and earlier runoff from snowmelt across much of the western United States. In order to predict the potential impacts of changes in future climate a system dynamics model was constructed to simulate the surface water supplies in a montane upland watershed of a small irrigated community in northern New Mexico …