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NASA NTRS2008

Space-based Ornithology-Studying Bird Migration and Environmental Change in North America

Natural fluctuations in the availability of critical stopover sites coupled with anthropogenic destruction of wetlands, land-use change, and anticipated losses due to climate change present migratory birds with a formidable challenge. We have developed an individual-based, spatially explicit bird migration model that simulates the migration routes, timing and energy budgets of individual birds under dynamic weather and land surface conditions. Our model incorporates biophysical constraints, individual bird energy status, bird behavior, and flight aerodynamics. We model the speed, direction, and timing of individual birds moving through a user specified Lagrangian grid. The model incorporates environmental properties including wind speed and direction, topography, dynamic hydrologic properties of the landscape, and environmental suitability. The model is driven by important variables estimated from satellite observations of the land surface, by data assimilation products from weather and climate models, and biological field data. We illustrate the use of the model to study the impact of both short- and long-term environmental variatios, e.g. climate, drought, anthropogenic, on migration timing (phenology), spatial pattern, and fitness (survival and reproductive success). We present several theoretical simulations of the spring migration of Pectoral Sandpiper (Calidris melanotos) in North America with emphasis on the Central flyway from the Gulf of Mexico to Alaska.

Smith, James↗

NASA NTRS2008

The US CLIVAR Working Group on Drought: A Multi-Model Assessment of the Impact of SST Anomalies on Regional Drought

The US CLIVAR working group on drought recently initiated a series of global climate model simulations forced with idealized SST anomaly patterns, designed to address a number of uncertainties regarding the impact of SST forcing and the role of land-atmosphere feedbacks on regional drought. Specific questions that the runs are designed to address include: What are mechanisms that maintain drought across the seasonal cycle and from one year to the next. What is the role of the land? What is the role of the different ocean basins, including the impact of EL Nino/Southern Oscillation (ENSO), the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), the Atlantic Multi-decadal Oscillation (AMO), and warming trends in the global oceans? The runs were done with several global atmospheric models including NASA/NSIPP-1, NCEP/GFS, GFDL/AM2, and NCAR CCM3 and CAM3. In addition, runs were done with the NCEP CFS (coupled atmosphere-ocean) model by employing a novel adjustment technique to nudge the coupled model towards the imposed SST forcing patterns. This talk provides an overview of the experiments and some initial results.

Schubert, Siegfried↗

NASA NTRS2009

An Assessment of the Potential Predictability of Interannual and Decadal Variability Based on Climate Model Simulations with Specified SST

Schubert, Siegfried↗

NASA NTRS2010

An Assessment of the Potential Predictability of Drought Over the United States Based on Climate Model Simulations with Specified SST

The USCLIV AR working group on drought recently initiated a series of global climate model simulations forced with idealized SST anomaly patterns, designed to address a number of uncertainties regarding the impact of SST forcing and the role of land-atmosphere feedbacks on regional drought. The runs were done with several global atmospheric models including NASA/NSIPP-l, NCEP/GFS, GFDLlAM2, and NCAR CCM3 and CAM3.5. Specific questions that the runs are designed to address include: What are mechanisms that maintain drought across the seasonal cycle and from one year to the next. To what extent can droughts develop independently of ocean variability due to year-to-year memory that may be inherent to the land. What is the role of the different ocean basins? Here we focus on the potential predictability of drought conditions over the United States. Specific issues addressed include the seasonality and regionality of the signal-to-noise ratios associated with Pacific and Atlantic SST forcing, and the sensitivity of the results to the climatological stationary waves simulated by the different AGCMs.

Schubert, Siegfried↗

NASA NTRS2020

Mapping Temperate Forest Phenology Using Tower, UAV, and Ground-Based Sensors

Phenology is a distinct marker of the impacts of climate change on ecosystems. Accordingly, monitoring the spatiotemporal patterns of vegetation phenology is important to understand the changing Earth system. A wide range of sensors have been used to monitor vegetation phenology, including digital cameras with different viewing geometries mounted on various types of platforms. Sensor perspective, view-angle, and resolution can potentially impact estimates of phenology. We compared three different methods of remotely sensing vegetation phenology—an unoccupied aerial vehicle (UAV)-based, downward-facing RGB camera, a below-canopy, upward-facing hemispherical camera with blue (B), green (G), and near-infrared (NIR) bands, and a tower-based RGB PhenoCam, positioned at an oblique angle to the canopy—to estimate spring phenological transition towards canopy closure in a mixed-species temperate forest in central Virginia, USA. Our study had two objectives: (1) to compare the above- and below-canopy inference of canopy greenness (using green chromatic coordinate and normalized difference vegetation index) and canopy structural attributes (leaf area and gap fraction) by matching below-canopy hemispherical photos with high spatial resolution (0.03 m) UAV imagery, to find the appropriate spatial coverage and resolution for comparison; (2) to compare how UAV, ground-based, and tower-based imagery performed in estimating the timing of the spring phenological transition. We found that a spatial buffer of 20 m radius for UAV imagery is most closely comparable to below-canopy imagery in this system. Sensors and platforms agree within +/− 5 days of when canopy greenness stabilizes from the spring phenophase into the growing season. We show that pairing UAV imagery with tower-based observation platforms and plot-based observations for phenological studies (e.g., long-term monitoring, existing research networks, and permanent plots) has the potential to scale plot-based forest structural measures via UAV imagery, constrain uncertainty estimates around phenophases, and more robustly assess site heterogeneity.

Jeff W. Atkins↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Climate Anomalies Correlation with Population Trends of the Eastern Towhee in the Mid-Eastern U.S.

The species of sparrow identified by foraging under dense thickets, the Eastern Towhee (Pipilo erythrophthalmus) resides in the Eastern United States, some populations either permanently living in the southeastern US or migratory populations living in the North. The mostly migratory Eastern Towhee has been experiencing population changes since the 1980s in the Eastern Seaboard. This species is increasing during the winter and decreasing during the summer, which is their breeding season. The Christmas Bird Count shows that in the winter, the Eastern Towhee populations have been increasing in their northern wintering range by 0.2625% in Maryland, 0.056% in West Virginia, 0.133% in New Jersey, 0.049% in Virginia, and 0.224% in Delaware from 1984-2019. The Breeding Bird Survey Data shows that in the summer, the Eastern Towhee populations have been declining in the Eastern United States by -4.0635% in Maryland, -3.073% in West Virginia, -15.0722% in New Jersey, -3.9375% in Virginia, and -6.3735% in Delaware from 1984-2015. The average climate anomalies in June range from -0.108 to 0.3705 degrees Celsius while the average climate anomalies in January range from 0.1395 to 0.5014 degrees Celsius. The Eastern Towhee are moving northward towards their northern wintering range during the winter and we explore the hypothesis of northward range shift in association with climate change. Our research displays how the behavior patterns of species are varying due to this stressor and how to better conserve species like the Eastern Towhee.

Mahlet Mesfin↗

NASA NTRS2011

Climate Change Impacts on North Dakota: Agriculture and Hydrology

North Dakota is one of the principal producers of agricultural commodities in the USA, including over half of the total spring wheat production. While the region includes some of the best agricultural lands in the world, the steep temperature and precipitation gradients also make it one of the most sensitive to climate change. Over the 20th century, both the temperature and the pattern of precipitation in the state have changed; one of the most dramatic examples of the consequences of this change is the Devils Lake flooding. In two studies, we estimated the climate change impacts on crop yields and on the hydrology of the Devils Lake basin. The projections of six GCMs, driven by three SRES scenarios were statistically downscaled for multiple locations throughout the state, for the 2020s, 2050s, and 2080s climate. Averaged over all GCMs, there is a small increase in precipitation, by 0.6 - 1.1% in 2020s, 3.1 - 3.5% in 2050s, and 3.0 - 7.6% in 2080s. This change in precipitation varies with the seasons, with cold seasons becoming wetter and warm seasons not changing.

FROM↗

NASA NTRS2024

How Can Future Climate Change Affect the Corn Production System in Nebraska, USA?

The increasing temperatures and changing precipitation patterns have affected both crop yields and water requirements challenging agricultural systems in sustaining high crop yields and ensuring water and food security. In the present study, we evaluated the impact of climate change on the corn production under irrigated and rainfed cropping systems in Nebraska considering four climate zones until 2100 as a case study for the US Corn Belt. Additionally, suggests ways to reduce the impact of climate change on corn yield and water resources. Five global circulation model datasets from the sixth phase of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP6) interconnected to Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs), were selected. Three future periods: near (2020–2039), mid (2040–2069), and far future (2070–2100) under SSP226, SSP370, and SSP585 scenarios were used to predict the climate changes, crop cycle length, crop yield, and crop water requirement. Additionally, we input annual CO2 concentration scenarios for each SSP scenario to model changes from 2015 to 2100 using the CERES-Maize model. Temperatures are forecasted to rise, precipitation to decline, and crop cycle length to decrease, particularly for SSP370 (up to 49% yield decrease) and SSP585 (up to 67% yield decrease) by 2070–2100. Yields are expected to decline across all scenarios and periods for irrigated and rainfed fields due to the reduction in crop cycle length. Crop water demand is projected to increase, with rainfed systems facing heightened impact due to reduced precipitation. Addressing climate change in Nebraska requires actions like developing new corn varieties to longer the crop season, transitioning to efficient irrigation systems, improving irrigation management for water and food security, and reducing the risk of conflicts over its use. These results open possibilities for discussion about the actions that can be taken to cope with climate change and guarantee water and food security in the US Corn Belt.

CMIP6↗

NASA NTRS2004

Discoveries about Tropospheric Ozone Pollution from Satellite and Soundings

We have been producing near-red time tropospheric ozone satellite maps from the TOMS (Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer) sensor since 1997. Maps for 1996-2000 for the operational Earth-Probe instrument are at: . Pollution in the tropics is influenced by biomass burning and by transport patterns that favor recirculation and in other cases reflect climate variability like the El-Nino-Southern Oscillation [Thompson et al., 2001]. The satellite view of chemical-dynamical interactions in tropospheric ozone is not adequate to capture vertical gradients in pollution. Thus, in 1998, NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center and a team of international sponsors established the SHADOZ (Southern Hemisphere ADditional OZonesondes) project to address the gap in tropical ozone soundings. SHADOZ augments launches and provides a public archive of ozonesonde data from twelve tropical stations at http://croc.gsfc.nasa.gov/shadoz. Further insights into the role of chemical and dynamical influences have emerged from the first 4-5 years of SHADOZ data (more than 2000 ozone profiles). Highly variable tropospheric ozone and a zonal wave-one pattern in tropospheric ozone suggest that dynamics is as important as pollution in determining tropical ozone distributions.

Thompson, Anne M.↗

NASA NTRS2019

Assessment of Precipitation Anomalies in California Using TRMM and MERRA Data

After more than a decade of moderate seasonal deviations from the expected climate, it is easy to forget that California is actually prone to instabilities in precipitation patterns that occur on various scales. Using modern satellite and reanalysis data we reassess certain aspects of the precipitation climate in California from the past three decades. California has a well-pronounced rain season that peaks in December-February. However, the 95% confidence interval around the climatological precipitation during these months imply that deviations on the order of 60% of the expected amounts are very likely during the most important period of the rain season. While these positive and negative anomalies alternate almost every year and tend to cancel each other, severe multi-year declines of precipitation in California seem to appear on decadal scales. The 1986-1994 decline of precipitation was similar to the current one that started in 2011, and is apparent in the reanalysis data. In terms of accumulated deficits of precipitation, that episode was no less severe than the current one. While El NiÃ±o (the warm phase of the El NiÃ±o Southern Oscillation, ENSO) is frequently cited as the natural forcing expected to bring a relief, our assessment is that ENSO has been driving at best only 6% of precipitation variability in California in the past three decades. It means El NiÃ±o needs to be stronger and longer, in order to have a higher likelihood of a positive impact, and the current one does not match these criteria. Using fractional risk analysis of precipitation populations during normal and dry periods, we show that the likelihood of losing the most intensive precipitation events drastically increases during the multi-year drying events. Since storms delivering up to 50% of precipitation in California are driven by atmospheric rivers making landfall, thus the importance of their suppression and blockage by persistent ridges of atmospheric pressure in the northeast Pacific.

Savtchenko, Andrey K.↗

NASA NTRS1995

Thermal remote sensing of surface soil water content with partial vegetation cover for incorporation into climate models

This study outlines a method for the estimation of regional patterns of surface moisture availability (M(sub 0)) and fractional vegetation (Fr) in the presence of spatially variable vegetation cover. The method requires relating variations in satellite-derived (NOAA, Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR)) surface radiant temperature to a vegetation index (computed from satellite visible and near-infrared data) while coupling this association to an inverse modeling scheme. More than merely furnishing surface soil moisture values, the method constitues a new conceptual and practical approach for combining thermal infrared and vegetation index measurements for incorporating the derived values of M(sub 0) into hydrologic and atmospheric prediction models. Application of the technique is demonstrated for a region in and around the city of Newcastle upon Tyne situated in the northeast of England. A regional estimate of M(sub 0) is derived and is probabbly good for fractional vegetation cover up to 80% before errors in the estimated soil water content become unacceptably large. Moreover, a normalization scheme is suggested from which a nomogram, `universal triangle,' is constructed and is seen to fit the observed data well. The universal triangle also simplifies the inclusion of remotely derived M(sub 0) in hydrology and meteorological models and is perhaps a practicable step toward integrating derived data from satellite measurements in weather forecasting.

Gillies, Robert R.↗

NASA NTRS2016

The Mexican Drought Atlas: Tree-Ring Reconstructions of the Soil Moisture Balance During the Late Pre-Hispanic, Colonial, and Modern Eras

Mexico has suffered a long history and prehistory of severe sustained drought. Drought over Mexico is modulated by ocean-atmospheric variability in the Atlantic and Pacific, raising the possibility for long-range seasonal climate forecasting, which could help mediate the economic and social impacts of future dry spells. The instrumental record of Mexican climate is very limited before 1920, but tree-ring chronologies developed from old-growth forests in Mexico can provide an excellent proxy representation of the spatial pattern and intensity of past moisture regimes useful for the analysis of climate dynamics and climate impacts. The Mexican Drought Atlas (MXDA) has been developed from an extensive network of 252 climate sensitive tree-ring chronologies in and near Mexico. The MXDA reconstructions extend from 1400 CE-2012 and were calibrated with the instrumental summer (JJA) self-calibrating Palmer Drought Severity Index (scPDSI) on a 0.5deg latitude/longitude grid extending over land areas from 14 to 34degN and 75-120degW using Ensemble Point-by-Point Regression (EPPR) for the 1944-1984 period. The grid point reconstructions were validated for the period 1920-1943 against instrumental gridded scPDSI values based on the fewer weather station observations available during that interval. The MXDA provides a new spatial perspective on the historical impacts of moisture extremes over Mexico during the past 600-years, including the Aztec Drought of One Rabbit in 1454, the drought of El Ano de Hambre in 1785-1786, and the drought that preceded the Mexican Revolution of 1909-1910. The El Nino/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is the most important ocean-atmospheric forcing of moisture variability detected with the MXDA. In fact, the reconstructions suggest that the strongest central equatorial Pacific sea surface temperature (SST) teleconnection to the soil moisture balance over North America may reside in northern Mexico. This ENSO signal has stronger and more time-stable correlations than computed for either the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation or Pacific Decadal Oscillation. The extended Multivariate ENSO Index is most highly correlated with reconstructed scPDSI over northern Mexico, where warm events favor moist conditions during the winter, spring, and early summer. This ENSO teleconnection to northern Mexico has been strong over the past 150 years, but it has been comparatively weak and non-stationary in the MXDA over central and southern Mexico where eastern tropical Pacific and Caribbean/tropical Atlantic SSTs seem to be more important. The ENSO teleconnection to northern Mexico is weaker in the available instrumental PDSI, but analyses based on the millennium climate simulations with the Community Earth System Model suggest that the moisture balance during the winter, spring, and early summer over northern Mexico may indeed be particularly sensitive to ENSO forcing. Nationwide drought is predicted to become more common with anthropogenic climate change, but the MXDA reconstructions indicate that intense "All Mexico" droughts have been rare over the past 600 years and their frequency does not appear to have increased substantially in recent decades.

El Nino↗

NASA NTRS2014

Stationary Planetary Waves in Northern Late Winter: MRO/MARCI Observations and Mars Climate Model Simulations

Mars reveals similar, yet also rather different, atmospheric circulation patterns compared to those on Earth. In both atmospheres, solar differential heating drives global Hadley circulation cells. However during solstice on Mars, its Hadley cells are hemispherically asymmetric: an intense, deep, cross-hemisphere single cell dominates with rising motion in the summer hemisphere and sinking motion in the winter hemisphere. Both planets also exhibit thermally indirect (i.e., eddy-driven) Ferrel circulation cells in middle and high latitudes. In addition, Earth and Mars exhibit distinctive large-scale orography and, in a broadly defined context, continentality. For Mars’ northern midlatitudes, Tharsis in the western hemisphere, and Arabia Terra and Elysium in the eastern hemisphere, are the primary large-scale topographic features. In the southern-midlatitudes, Tharsis and Argyre in the western hemisphere, and Hellas in the eastern hemisphere are the key topographic features which can influence large-scale circulation patterns. Such underlying orographic complexes not only cause significant latitudinal excursions of the seasonal mean westerly circumnavigating polar vortex but also significantly modulate the intensity and preferred geographic regions of traveling baroclinic weather systems.

Hollingsworth, J. L.↗

NASA NTRS2004

Discoveries about Tropospheric Ozone Pollution from Satellite and Sounding

We have been producing near-real time tropospheric ozone satellite maps from the TOMS (Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer) sensor since 1997. This is most readily done for the tropics, where the stratospheric and tropospheric ozone column amounts can be discriminated readily. Maps for 1996-2000 for the operational Earth-Probe instrument reside at: chttp://www.atmos.umd.edu/-trope>. Pollution in the tropics is influenced by biomass burning and by transport patterns that favor recirculation and in other cases reflect climate variability like the El-Nino-Southern Oscillation [Thompson et al., 2001]. Time permitting, examples of mid-latitude, intercontinental transport of ozone pollution sensed by TOMS will be shown. The satellite view of chemical-dynamical interactions in tropospheric ozone is not adequate to capture vertical variability. Thus, in 1998, NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center and a team of international sponsors established the SHADOZ (Southern Hemisphere ADditional OZonesondes) project to address the gap in tropical ozone soundings. SHADOZ augments launches and provides a public archive of ozonesonde data from twelve tropical stations at http://croc.gsfc.nasa.gov/shadoz. Further insights into the role of chemical and dynamical influences have emerged from the first 4-5 years of SHADOZ data (less than 2000 ozone profiles): (a) highly variable tropospheric ozone; (b) a zonal wave-one pattern in tropospheric column ozone; (c) convective variability affects tropospheric ozone over the Indian and Pacific Ocean; (d) a "tropical Atlantic Paradox" appears in December-January-February.

Thompson, Anne M.↗

NASA NTRS2015

Sensitivity of Water Scarcity Events to ENSO-Driven Climate Variability at the Global Scale

Globally, freshwater shortage is one of the most dangerous risks for society. Changing hydro-climatic and socioeconomic conditions have aggravated water scarcity over the past decades. A wide range of studies show that water scarcity will intensify in the future, as a result of both increased consumptive water use and, in some regions, climate change. Although it is well-known that El Niño- Southern Oscillation (ENSO) affects patterns of precipitation and drought at global and regional scales, little attention has yet been paid to the impacts of climate variability on water scarcity conditions, despite its importance for adaptation planning. Therefore, we present the first global-scale sensitivity assessment of water scarcity to ENSO, the most dominant signal of climate variability. We show that over the time period 1961-2010, both water availability and water scarcity conditions are significantly correlated with ENSO-driven climate variability over a large proportion of the global land area (> 28.1 %); an area inhabited by more than 31.4% of the global population. We also found, however, that climate variability alone is often not enough to trigger the actual incidence of water scarcity events. The sensitivity of a region to water scarcity events, expressed in terms of land area or population exposed, is determined by both hydro-climatic and socioeconomic conditions. Currently, the population actually impacted by water scarcity events consists of 39.6% (CTA: consumption-to-availability ratio) and 41.1% (WCI: water crowding index) of the global population, whilst only 11.4% (CTA) and 15.9% (WCI) of the global population is at the same time living in areas sensitive to ENSO-driven climate variability. These results are contrasted, however, by differences in growth rates found under changing socioeconomic conditions, which are relatively high in regions exposed to water scarcity events. Given the correlations found between ENSO and water availability and scarcity conditions, and the relative developments of water scarcity impacts under changing socioeconomic conditions, we suggest that there is potential for ENSO-based adaptation and risk reduction that could be facilitated by more research on this emerging topic.

risk↗

NASA NTRS2001

Southern Ocean Climate and Sea Ice Anomalies Associated with the Southern Oscillation

The anomalies in the climate and sea ice cover of the Southern Ocean and their relationships with the Southern Oscillation (SO) are investigated using a 17-year of data set from 1982 through 1998. We correlate the polar climate anomalies with the Southern Oscillation index (SOI) and examine the composites of these anomalies under the positive (SOI > 0), neutral (0 > SOI > -1), and negative (SOI < -1) phases of SOL The climate data set consists of sea-level pressure, wind, surface air temperature, and sea surface temperature fields, while the sea ice data set describes its extent, concentration, motion, and surface temperature. The analysis depicts, for the first time, the spatial variability in the relationship of the above variables and the SOL The strongest correlation between the SOI and the polar climate anomalies are found in the Bellingshausen, Amundsen and Ross sea sectors. The composite fields reveal anomalies that are organized in distinct large-scale spatial patterns with opposing polarities at the two extremes of SOI, and suggest oscillating climate anomalies that are closely linked to the SO. Within these sectors, positive (negative) phases of the SOI are generally associated with lower (higher) sea-level pressure, cooler (warmer) surface air temperature, and cooler (warmer) sea surface temperature in these sectors. Associations between these climate anomalies and the behavior of the Antarctic sea ice cover are clearly evident. Recent anomalies in the sea ice cover that are apparently associated with the SOI include: the record decrease in the sea ice extent in the Bellingshausen Sea from mid- 1988 through early 199 1; the relationship between Ross Sea SST and ENSO signal, and reduced sea ice concentration in the Ross Sea; and, the shortening of the ice season in the eastern Ross Sea, Amundsen Sea, far western Weddell Sea, and the lengthening of the ice season in the western Ross Sea, Bellingshausen Sea and central Weddell Sea gyre over the period 1988-1994. Four ENSO episodes over the last 17 years contributed to a negative mean in the SOI (-0.5). In each of these episodes, significant retreats in the Bellingshausen/Amundsen Sea were observed providing direct confirmation of the impact of SO on the Antarctic sea ice cover.

Kwok, R.↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Evaluation of Extreme Soil Moisture Patterns over the Sahel during the 2020 Growing Season

The African Sahel is an ecologically and climatically sensitive region, and thus is a valuable test case for examination of climate extremes. Above-average rainfall during the 2020 growing season (June-October) led to flooding in the West, Central and East Sahel, with implications for infrastructure, agriculture and disease outbreaks. In this study, we evaluate soil moisture patterns in the region during 2020 to assess and quantify the extremeness of the event. The primary tool is the NASA Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) Level 4 surface soil moisture data. Daily, monthly, and seasonal anomalies are computed relative to SMAP’s long-term mean (2015-2021). Additional comparisons are made with longer-time-series data sets, including surface soil moisture from NASA’s Modern-Era Retrospective analysis for Research and Applications, Version 2(MERRA-2; 1981-present) and precipitation from the African Rainfall Climatology, Version 2 (ARC2; 1983-present).Possible drivers of the extreme wet event are examined, including potential links to the concurrent 2020-21 La Niña event. Finally, we explore the connections between the extreme soil moisture and vector-borne disease outbreaks in the region in2020, namely, Rift Valley Fever in Mauritania and Chikungunya in Chad.

Soil Moisture↗

NASA NTRS2018

Climate Change Impacts on Agriculture: Challenges, Opportunities, and AgMIP Frameworks for Foresight

Agricultural systems are currently undergoing rapid shifts owing to socioeconomic development, technological change, population growth, economic opportunity, evolving demand for commodities, and the need for sustainability amid global environmental change. It is not sufficient to maintain current harvest levels; rather, there is a need to rapidly increase production in light of a population growing to nearly 10 billion by mid-century and to more than 11 billion by 2100 (FAO, 2016; UN, 2016; Popkin et al., 2012). Current and future agricultural systems are additionally burdened by human-caused climate change, the result of accumulating greenhouse gas and aerosol emissions, ecological destruction, and land use changes that have altered the chemical composition of Earth’s atmosphere and trapped energy in the Earth system (IPCC, 2013; Porter et al., 2014). This increased energy has already raised average surface temperatures by approximately 1 degree Centigrade (GISTEMP Team, 2017; Hansen et al., 2010), leading early on to the term “global warming,” but this phenomenon is now more accurately referred to as “climate change” because it also modifies atmospheric circulation, adjusts regional and seasonal precipitation patterns, and shifts the distribution and characteristics of extreme events (Bindoff et al., 2013; Collins et al., 2013). Food and health systems face increasing risk owing to progressive climate change now manifesting itself as more frequent, severe extreme weather events—heat waves, droughts, and floods (IPCC, 2013). Often without warning, weather-related shocks can have catastrophic and reverberating impacts on the increasingly exposed global food system—through production, processing, distribution, retail, disposal, and waste. Simultaneously, malnutrition and ill health are arising from lack of access to nutritious food, exacerbated in crises such as food price spikes or shortages. For some countries, particularly import-dependent low-income countries, weather shocks and price spikes can lead to social unrest, famine, and migration.

Ruane, Alex C.↗