How to conduct assessment for the impact of climate change on ecosystems?

Ecosystems, both natural and managed, exert a strong influence on climate and air quality as sources and sinks of pollutants, reactive gases, greenhouse gases, and aerosols and due to physical properties that affect heat fluxes and water fluxes (precipitation). Ecosystems can affect climate in the following ways: warming (as sources of greenhouse gases, for instance, or forests with lower albedo than bare snow); cooling (as sinks of greenhouse gas, sources of some aerosol that reflect solar radiation, and evapotranspiration, for example); and by altering water redistribution/recycling and regional rainfall patterns (through evapotranspiration, for instance, or cloud condensation nuclei). Changes in drivers that indirectly affect biodiversity, such as population, technology, and lifestyle, can lead to changes in drivers directly affecting biodiversity, such as the catch of fish or the application of fertilizers. These result in changes to ecosystems and the services they provide, thereby affecting human well-being. These interactions can take place at more than one scale and can cross scales. For example, an international demand for timber may lead to a regional loss of forest cover, which increases flood magnitude along a local stretch of a river. Similarly, the interactions can take place across different time scales. Different strategies and interventions can be applied at many points in this framework to enhance human well-being and conserve ecosystems. Changes in ecosystems have made a large contribution to historical changes in radiative forcing from 1750 to the present mainly due to deforestation, fertilizer use, and agricultural practices. Ecosystem changes account for about 1030% of the radiative forcing of CO 2 since 1750 and a large proportion of the radiative forcing due to CH4 and N2O. Ecosystems are currently a net sink for CO 2 and tropospheric ozone, while they remain a net source of CH4 and N2O. Future management of ecosystems has the potential to modify concentrations of a number of greenhouse gases, although this potential is likely to be small in comparison to IPCC scenarios of fossil fuel emissions over the next century (high certainty). Ecosystems influence the main anthropogenic greenhouse gases as follows: Carbon dioxide: About 40% of the historical emissions (over the last two centuries), and about 20% of current CO2 emissions (in the 1990s), originated from changes in land use and land management, primarily deforestation. Terrestrial ecosystems were a sink for about a third of cumulative historical emissions and a third of total emissions in the 1990s (energy plus land use). The sink may be explained partially by afforestation, reforestation, and forest management in North America, Europe, China, and other regions and partially by the fertilizing effects of N deposition and increasing atmospheric CO2. Terrestrial ecosystems were on average a net source of CO2 during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and became a net sink sometime around the middle of the last century (high certainty). The net impact of ocean biology changes on global CO2 fluxes is unknown. Methane: Natural processes in wetland ecosystems account for about 2530% of current methane emissions, and about 30% of emissions are due to agriculture (ruminant animals and rice paddies). Nitrous oxide: Ecosystem sources account for about 90% of current N2O emissions, with 35% of emissions from agricultural systems, primarily driven by fertilizer use. Tropospheric ozone: Dry deposition in ecosystems accounts for about half the tropospheric ozone sink. Several gases emitted by ecosystems, primarily due to biomass burning, act as precursors for tropospheric ozone formation (NOX, volatile organic compounds, CO, CH4). The net global effect of ecosystems is as a sink for tropospheric O3. During much of the past century, most cropping systems have undergone a steady net loss of soil organic matter. However, with the steady increase in crop yields, which increases crop biomass and the amount of residue returned to the soil, and with the adoption of conservation tillage and no-till cropping systems, net carbon sequestration is estimated to occur in the maize-soybean systems of

North America and in some continuous irrigated lowland rice systems. Agriculture accounts for 44% of anthropogenic methane emissions and about 70% of anthropogenic nitrous oxide gases, mainly from the conversion of new land to agriculture and nitrogen fertilizer use. Terrestrial and marine plants fix atmospheric CO2 and return it via respiration. In the ocean, some of the carbon sinks in the form of dead organisms, particles, and dissolved organic carbon, a small amount of which remains in sediments; the rest is respired at depth and eventually recirculated to the surface (the biological pump). The biological pump acts as a net sink for CO2 by increasing its concentration at depth, where it is isolated from the atmosphere for decades to centuries, causing the concentrationof CO2 in the atmosphere to be about 200 parts per million lower than it would be in the absence of life. On the land large amounts of carbon fixed by plants are stored in soil organic matter. Land cover changes since 1750 have increased the reflectivity to solar radiation (albedo) of the land surface (medium certainty), partially offsetting the warming effect of associated CO2 emissions.Deforestation and desertification in the tropics and sub-tropics leads to a reduction in regional rainfall (high certainty). Biophysical effects need to be accounted for in the assessment of options for climate change mitigation. For example, the warming effect of reforestation in seasonally snow-covered regions due to albedo decrease is likely to exceed the cooling effect of additional carbon storage in biomass. Biophysical effects of ecosystem changes on regional climate patterns depend on geographical location and season. With high certainty: Deforestation in seasonally snow-covered regions leads to regional cooling of the land surface during the snow season due to increase in surface albedo, and it leads to warming during the summer due to reduction in evapotranspiration. Large-scale tropical deforestation (hundreds of square kilometers) reduces regional rainfall, primarily due to decreased evapotranspiration. Desertification in the tropics and sub-tropics leads to decrease in regional precipitation due to reduced evapotranspiration and increased surface albedo. Scenarios The future contribution of terrestrial ecosystems to the regulation of climate is uncertain. Currently, the biosphere is a net sink of carbon, absorbing about 12 gigatons of carbon per year, or approximately 20% of fossil fuel emissions. It is very likely that the future of this service will be greatly affected by expected land use change. In addition, a higher atmospheric CO2 concentration is expected to enhance net productivity, but this does not necessarily lead to an increase in the carbon sink. The limited understanding of soil respiration processes generates uncertainty about the future of the carbon sink. There is medium certainty that climate change will increase terrestrial fluxes of CO2 and CH4 in some regions (such as in Arctic tundras). U.N. Framework The ultimate goal of UNFCCC is stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the Convention on Climate atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with Change and Kyoto the climate system. The Kyoto Protocol contains binding limits on greenhouse gas Protocol emissions on industrial countries that agreed to reduce their emissions by an average of about 5% between 2008 and 2012 relative to the levels emitted in 1990. Reductions in net significant reductions in net greenhouse gas emissions are technically feasible, in many greenhouse gas cases at little or no cost to society. Emissions Land use and land Afforestation, reforestation, improved management of forests, croplands, and range cover change lands, and agroforestry provide opportunities to increase carbon uptake, and slowing deforestation reduces emissions. Market mechanisms The Kyoto Protocol mechanisms, in combination with national and regional ones, can and incentives reduce the costs of mitigation for industrial countries. In addition, countries can reduce net

costs of emissions abatement by taxing emissions (or auctioning permits) and using the revenues to cut distortion taxes on labor and capital. In the near term, project based trading can facilitate the transfer of climate-friendly technologies to developing countries. Adaptation. Some climate change is inevitable, and ecosystems and human societies will need to adapt to new conditions. Human populations will face the risk of damage from climate change, some of which may be countered with current coping systems; others may need radically new behaviors. Climate change needs to be factored into current development plans.