Climate Variability and the Global Harvest Impacts of El Niño and Other Oscillations on Agro-Ecosystems

by Rosenzweig, Cynthia; Hillel, Daniel

• ISBN13: 9780195137637
• ISBN10: 0195137639
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2008-01-07
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

The Earth's climate is constantly changing. Some of the changes are progressive, while others fluctuate at various time scales. The El Niño-la Niña cycle is one such fluctuation that recurs every few years and has far-reaching impacts. It generally appears at least once per decade, but this may vary with our changing climate. The exact frequency, sequence, duration and intensity of El Niño's manifestations, as well as its effects and geographic distributions, are highly variable. The El Niño-la Niña cycle is particularly challenging to study due to its many interlinked phenomena that occur in various locations around the globe. These worldwide teleconnections are precisely what makes studying El Niño-la Niña so important. Cynthia Rosenzweig and Daniel Hillel describe the current efforts to develop and apply a global-to-regional approach to climate-risk management. They explain how atmospheric and social scientists are cooperating with agricultural practitioners in various regions around the world to determine how farmers may benefit most from new climate predictions. Specifically, the emerging ability to predict the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) cycle offers the potential to transform agricultural planning worldwide. Biophysical scientists are only now beginning to recognize the large-scale, globally distributed impacts of ENSO on the probabilities of seasonal precipitation and temperature regimes. Meanwhile, social scientists have been researching how to disseminate forecasts more effectively within rural communities. Consequently, as the quality of climatic predictions have improved, the dissemination and presentation of forecasts have become more effective as well. This book explores the growing understanding of the interconnectedness of climate predictions and productive agriculture for sustainable development, as well as methods and models used to study this relationship.

Table of Contents

Foreword	p. v
Abbreviations and Acronyms	p. xi
Prologue	p. 3
Climate Variability in the Context of Climate Change: El Nino and Other Oscillations	p. 10
Impacts of El Nino and La Nina Cycles: Systems and Sectors	p. 43
Links to Agroecosystems: Processes and Productivity	p. 66
Recent El Ninos and Their Manifestations: Evolving Understanding	p. 88
Analysis of El Nino Effects: Methods and Models	p. 109
Seasonal Climate Predictions: Farmers, Planners, and Policymakers	p. 128
Regional Activities in a Global Framework: Developing and Developed Countries	p. 158
Climate, Society, and Sustainable Development: Assessing Vulnerability, Building Adaptive Capacity	p. 183
Epilogue	p. 199
Notes	p. 203
References	p. 209
Figure Credits	p. 246
Index	p. 253
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