New Report on Human Impacts of Climate Change

The National Research Council has issued a report that details by a committee of ecologists and earth scientists that lay out the human impacts of climate in 71 metrics or observations -- such as sea-level rise, seasonal snow cover, and air quality -- that when taken together may give advance warning of climate-related changes and their impacts across a range of both local and global scales.

This report concludes that indicators of environmental sustainability, in a climate change context, can be found at the intersection of how the climate is changing and how those changes will affect five domains of human vulnerability.

These five domains are:

1 Food: Climate change impacts may result in competition for declining food resources
(both fisheries and agriculture) as well as shifting patterns of harvest. This could lead
to food shortages and famines in less developed countries, as well as a variety of
economic ramifications.

2 Water: Climate change stands to affect future water distribution, quantity, and
quality. This could lead to lack of water, water of poor quality, or too much water at
the wrong time in many locations around the globe.

3 Energy: Anthropogenic input of CO2 to the atmosphere is well established as a cause
of climate change. The pressure to “decarbonize” over the next few decades will
inevitably result in new approaches to energy use, which will, in turn, have
potentially unforeseen environmental impacts.

4 Shelter: Humans need shelter as a basic element for quality of life. Natural disasters
such as flood, drought, and wildfire both threaten existing shelter and increase the
need for shelter. Many of these extreme events may be exacerbated by climate
change.

5 Health: A changing climate may affect any health outcome that is influenced by
environmental conditions, such as an increase in mosquito- and water- borne diseases.

You can get the announcement at:
http://www.nationalacademies.org/newsroom/
and the full report (for free) at:
http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=12965