1. Lecture 14 Land Use Change and Climate

6. From the National Bureau of Economic Research report (2008)

8. Zhang & Cai (2010), Climate change impacts on global agriculture land availability Arable land change (+/- %) Africa (- 1-18%) South America (- 1-21%) Europe (- 11-17%) India (- 2-4%) Russia (+37-67%) China (+22-36%) US (+4-17%)

9. Source: Zhang & Cai (2010), Env. Res. Letters

11. Figure 3. Changes of humidity index under A1B-RMSEMM (a) and B1-SAM (b).

14. “we have been altering climate by land use and land cover change since humans began large-scale alterations of the land surface.” Pielke Sr. et al. (2005) Suggested IPCC FAR include LCLUC and appropriates scales.

17. Since the beginning of the industrial era, humans have released 270e+09 tonnes of carbon from FF burning and 136e+09 tonnes from clearing of natural vegetation (Bolin et al., in IPCC, 2000)

18. Mitigation Strategy Issues Permanence Saturation Verifiability

19. Permanence Emission reductions in the energy section can be regarded as permanent. For LCLUC there is a possibility that any accumulated carbon might be released: –Change in land ownership –Public Policy –Commitment to stewardship –Natural disturbance –Climate Feedbacks or induced changes In fact, increased C stocks could increase the vulnerability of subsequent release > e.g. fire

20. It can be seen that converting the power plant back from a carbon-neutral fuel to coal (scenario 2, solid blue line) does not lead to a loss of the carbon emissions saved during the first 20 years. Permanent savings are achieved, as indicated by the difference between lines 1 and 2. However, when carbon is accumulated in trees as an offset for emissions from the coal plant, and then lost (scenario 4, dashed brown line), the cumulative path of emissions leads back to that of the coal plant without afforestation (i.e., there is no difference between lines 1 and 4 after year 20)

31. Readings Roger A. Pielke Sr. (2005): Land Use and Climate Change Fearnside (2008): The roles and movements of actors in the deforestation of Brazilian Amazonia.