{"476661":{"#nid":"476661","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Some Climate Change Impacts May Appear Sooner than Expected","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EFor the 70,000 residents of the Marshall Islands, global climate change isn\u2019t a theoretical concern with far-off potential consequences. The island nation is nowhere more than six feet above the Pacific Ocean, and because sea levels are already rising, the nation\u2019s leaders have made plans to move to higher ground in the Fiji Islands.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ESome impacts of global climate change will appear much sooner than others \u2013 with only moderate increases in global temperature. While rising sea levels may one day threaten the commuter tunnels and subway lines of New York City, it will have effects much sooner in other parts of the world. Rising temperatures may one day make parts of the globe uninhabitable, but far lower temperatures may have already begun to decimate coral reefs. Agriculture may also begin to feel the effects well before temperatures rise more than a few degrees globally.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EOnly immediate and aggressive efforts to mitigate the effects of climate change can head off these accelerating near-term impacts, argues a commentary paper published this week in the journal \u003Cem\u003ENature Geoscience\u003C\/em\u003E. As more impacts occur, the incentives for addressing the causes of climate change will themselves change, the paper\u2019s authors warn.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cOur argument is that if you want to do something, you\u2019d better do something now because over time, you are going to lose the ability to have an impact,\u201d said \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.econ.gatech.edu\/people\/person\/32fc7dd7-7afd-5548-940f-a4f99768cdaa\u0022\u003EJuan Moreno-Cruz\u003C\/a\u003E, an assistant professor in Georgia Tech\u2019s \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.econ.gatech.edu\/\u0022\u003ESchool of Economics\u003C\/a\u003E and one of the paper\u2019s five co-authors. \u201cIf we delay action on climate change, the likelihood of doing something will be reduced because the damages will be accelerating. The incentives to address it are going to disappear as more damage occurs.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EClimate impacts are often assumed to increase steadily with global temperature increases, but that\u2019s not true for all impacts. The scaling of many climate change impacts with temperature may have a nonlinear sigmoidal pattern, with a dramatic initial impact followed by a leveling off as warming continues, says the paper, which was co-authored by Katharine Ricke and Ken Caldeira at the Carnegie Institution for Science at Stanford, and Jacob Schewe and Anders Levermann at the Pottsdam Institute of Climate Impact Research.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAt relatively low levels of warming, for instance, rising sea level will impact low-lying nations such as the Marshall Islands and Bangladesh. Relatively modest water temperature increases may kill corals, while a relatively low temperature rise may affect agriculture in equatorial areas, the paper notes.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EOnce significant portions of the Marshall Islands or Bangladesh are destroyed by rising seas, the rate of damage will reach an inflection point, continuing at a decreasing rate so that further temperature increases have little additional effect. The authors call that \u201csaturation\u201d \u2013 a point at which most of the harm has already been sustained. The paper, authored by a team of climate scientists, economists and oceanographic experts, was intended to add this notion to the global climate policy discussion.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cOnce the Marshall Islands are uninhabitable, there is not more damage that can be done there,\u201d Moreno-Cruz said. \u201cFor them to benefit, we should have had a climate agreement a long time ago. Once that level of saturation has been reached, they will not have an incentive to participate because they won\u2019t have anything more to lose.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EFor sectors or countries where climate impacts come early and then begin to saturate, there may be two sets of optimum cost-benefit policies \u2013 at different levels of mitigation with different environmental and cultural preservation resulting, the paper notes. For these sectors, there may be strong incentives to limit emissions at low levels of warming before the bulk of the impacts occur.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAnd for certain levels of impact, humans may be able to adjust. For instance, New York City may be able to build walls to keep out the rising Atlantic Ocean, and some coastal communities may be able to move to higher ground. In some parts of the world, wealthy people will simply be able to install air conditioning to address rising temperatures.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EOnce those investments have been made, however, those who have protected themselves will have less incentive to address the causes of climate change because they will have already made an investment, Moreno-Cruz said. For each of these impacts, there will be an optimal point of investing to protect existing capital. To find this optimal amount of protection, \u201cwe need to look at climate change impacts not as a total amount, but a rate,\u201d Moreno-Cruz said. \u201cEverything changes at a particular pace. We need to understand those rates, not levels and overall amounts, because that\u2019s how climate change impacts are working.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAs an economist, Moreno-Cruz is interested in the policy implications of these accelerating impacts. He is working with other scientists to develop a better understanding of the economic issues involved in climate change impacts.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cWe have a relatively small window of opportunity in terms of economic incentives underlying the climate science,\u201d Moreno-Cruz said. \u201cOnce we pass a certain threshold, we won\u2019t be able to go back because we will lose the incentives to do so. We think it is time to re-think this problem from the ground up, and this paper is our effort to begin that.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EResearch News\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EGeorgia Institute of Technology\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003E177 North Avenue\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EAtlanta, Georgia 30332-0181 USA\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EMedia Relations Contact:\u003C\/strong\u003E John Toon (404-894-6986) (\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:jtoon@gatech.edu\u0022\u003Ejtoon@gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E).\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EWriter\u003C\/strong\u003E: John Toon\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003ESome impacts of global climate change will appear much sooner than others \u2013 with only moderate increases in global temperature. To avoid those impacts, action must be taken soon, says a team of researchers publishing a commentary paper in the journal \u003Cem\u003ENature Geoscience.\u003C\/em\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Some impacts of global climate change will appear much sooner than others."}],"uid":"27303","created_gmt":"2015-12-07 13:59:04","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:20:12","author":"John Toon","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2015-12-07T00:00:00-05:00","iso_date":"2015-12-07T00:00:00-05:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"476651":{"id":"476651","type":"image","title":"Buildings in Marshall Islands","body":null,"created":"1449525600","gmt_created":"2015-12-07 22:00:00","changed":"1475895227","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:53:47","alt":"Buildings in Marshall Islands","file":{"fid":"99299","name":"building_in_majuro_marshall_islands.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/building_in_majuro_marshall_islands.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/building_in_majuro_marshall_islands.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":1816571,"path_740":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/building_in_majuro_marshall_islands.jpg?itok=CtJVlPET"}},"476641":{"id":"476641","type":"image","title":"Rising Sea Level - Marshall Islands","body":null,"created":"1449525600","gmt_created":"2015-12-07 22:00:00","changed":"1475895227","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:53:47","alt":"Rising Sea Level - Marshall Islands","file":{"fid":"99298","name":"rising.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/rising_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/rising_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":1463678,"path_740":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/rising_0.jpg?itok=BpgjvUR5"}}},"media_ids":["476651","476641"],"groups":[{"id":"1188","name":"Research Horizons"}],"categories":[{"id":"154","name":"Environment"},{"id":"135","name":"Research"}],"keywords":[{"id":"831","name":"climate change"},{"id":"602","name":"economics"},{"id":"107601","name":"Juan Moreno-Cruz"},{"id":"167037","name":"school of economics"},{"id":"168986","name":"sea level rise"}],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"39531","name":"Energy and Sustainable Infrastructure"}],"news_room_topics":[{"id":"71911","name":"Earth and Environment"}],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EJohn Toon\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EResearch News\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:jtoon@gatech.edu\u0022\u003Ejtoon@gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E(404) 894-6986\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["jtoon@gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}