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CLIMATE CHANGE – RESEARCH AND TECHNOLOGY FOR ADAPTATION AND MITIGATION Edited by Juan Blanco and Houshang Kheradmand Climate Change – Research and Technology for Adaptation and Mitigation Edited by Juan Blanco and Houshang Kheradmand Published by InTech Janeza Trdine 9, 51000 Rijeka, Croatia Copyright © 2011 InTech All chapters are Open Access articles distributed under the Creative Commons Non Commercial Share Alike Attribution 3.0 license, which permits to copy, distribute, transmit, and adapt the work in any medium, so long as the original work is properly cited. After this work has been published by InTech, authors have the right to republish it, in whole or part, in any publication of which they are the author, and to make other personal use of the work. Any republication, referencing or personal use of the work must explicitly identify the original source. Statements and opinions expressed in the chapters are these of the individual contributors and not necessarily those of the editors or publisher. No responsibility is accepted for the accuracy of information contained in the published articles. The publisher assumes no responsibility for any damage or injury to persons or property arising out of the use of any materials, instructions, methods or ideas contained in the book. Publishing Process Manager Iva Lipovic Technical Editor Teodora Smiljanic Cover Designer Jan Hyrat Image Copyright Igumnova Irina, 2010. Used under license from Shutterstock.com First published August, 2011 Printed in Croatia A free online edition of this book is available at www.intechopen.com Additional hard copies can be obtained from [email protected] Climate Change – Research and Technology for Adaptation and Mitigation, Edited by Juan Blanco and Houshang Kheradmand p. cm. ISBN 978-953-307-621-8 free online editions of InTech Books and Journals can be found at www.intechopen.com Contents Preface IX Part 1 Predicting and Monitoring the Effects of Climate Change 1 Chapter 1 Dynamical Downscaling of Projected 21st Century Climate for the Carpathian Basin 3 Judit Bartholy, Rita Pongrácz, Ildikó Pieczka and Csaba Torma Chapter 2 An Improved Dynamical Downscaling for the Western United States 23 Jiming Jin, Shih-Yu Wang and Robert R. Gillies Chapter 3 Fuelling Future Emissions – Examining Fossil Fuel Production Outlooks Used in Climate Models 39 Mikael Höök Chapter 4 Linking Climate Change and Forest Ecophysiology to Project Future Trends in Tree Growth: A Review of Forest Models 63 Yueh-Hsin Lo, Juan A. Blanco, J.P. (Hamish) Kimmins, Brad Seely and Clive Welham Chapter 5 Climate Change Detection and Modeling in Hydrology 87 Saeid Eslamian, Kristin L. Gilroy and Richard H. McCuen Chapter 6 Automatic Generation of Land Surface Emissivity Maps 101 Eduardo Caselles, Francisco J. Abad, Enric Valor and Vicente Caselles Chapter 7 Space Technology as the Tool in Climate Change Monitoring System 115 Rustam B. Rustamov, Saida E. Salahova, Sabina N. Hasanova and Maral H. Zeynalova VI Contents Chapter 8 Atmospheric Aerosol Optical Properties and Climate Change in Arid and Semi-Arid Regions 135 Tugjsuren Nasurt Part 2 Reducing Greenhouse Gases Emissions 153 Chapter 9 Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD): Why a Robust and Transparent Monitoring, Reporting and Verification (MRV) System is Mandatory 155 Daniel Plugge, Thomas Baldauf and Michael Köhl Chapter 10 Addressing Carbon Leakage by Border Adjustment Measures 171 Xin Zhou, Takashi Yano and Satoshi Kojima Chapter 11 The Climate Change and the Power Industry 185 Peter Kadar Chapter 12 Alternative Energy: Is a Solution to the Climate Problem? 211 Jesús A. Valero Matas and Juan Romay Coca Chapter 13 Energy Technology Learning - Key to Transform into a Low - Carbon Society 223 Clas-Otto Wene Chapter 14 What is Green Urbanism? Holistic Principles to Transform Cities for Sustainability 243 Steffen Lehmann Part 3 Adapting to the New Climate 267 Chapter 15 Methods of Analysis for a Sustainable Production System 269 M. Otero, A. Pastor, J.M. Portela, J.L. Viguera and M. Huerta Chapter 16 The Infrastructure Imperative of Climate Change: Risk-Based Climate Adaptation of Infrastructure 293 David B. Conner Chapter 17 Mainstreaming Climate Change for Extreme Weather Events & Management of Disasters: An Engineering Challenge 325 M. Monirul Qader Mirza Contents VII Chapter 18 Impacts of Climate Change on the Power Industry and How It is Adapting 345 James S McConnach, Ahmed F Zobaa and David Lapp Chapter 19 Protected Landscapes Amidst the Heat of Climate Change Policy 357 Paul Sinnadurai Chapter 20 Planning for Species Conservation in a Time of Climate Change 379 James E.M. Watson, Molly Cross, Erika Rowland, Liana N. Joseph, Madhu Rao and Anton Seimon Chapter 21 Adaptation of Boreal Field Crop Production to Climate Change 403 Frederick L. Stoddard, Pirjo S. A. Mäkelä and Tuula Puhakainen Chapter 22 Use of Perennial Grass in Grazing Systems of Southern Australia to Adapt to a Changing Climate 431 Zhongnan Nie Chapter 23 Global and Local Effect of Increasing Land Surface Albedo as a Geo-Engineering Adaptation/Mitigation Option: A Study Case of Mediterranean Greenhouse Farming 453 Pablo Campra Chapter 24 Innovations in Agricultural Biotechnology in Response to Climate Change 475 Kathleen L. Hefferon Preface Climate is a fundamental part of the world as we know it. The landscape and everything on it are determined by climate acting over long periods of time (Pittock 2005). Therefore, any change on climate will have effects sooner or later on the world around us. These changes have happened before in the past, and they will likely happen again in the future. Climate variability can be both natural or anthropogenic (Simard and Austin 2010). In either case, the change in the current climate will have impacts on the biogeophysical system of the Earth. As all human activities are built on this system, our society will be impacted as well. As a consequence, climate change is increasingly becoming one of the most important issues, generating discussions in economy, science, politics, etc. There is no discrepancy among scientists that climate change is real and it has the potential to change our environment (Oreskes and Conway 2010), but uncertainty exists about the magnitude and speed at which it will unfold (Moss et al. 2010). The most discussed effect of global warming is the increase of temperatures, although this increase will not be homogeneous through the seasons, with the winters expected to warm up significantly more than the summers. In addition, changes in precipitation are also expected that could lead to increase or decrease of rainfall, snowfall and other water-related events. Finally, a change in the frequency and intensity of storm events could be possible, although this is probably the most uncertain of the effects of global warming. These uncertainties highlight the need for more research on how global events have effects at regional and local scales, but they also indicated the need for the society at large to assume a risk-free approach to avoid the worse effects of climate change in our socio-economical and ecological systems (IPCC 2007). Humans have been dealing with risk-related activities for a long time. For example, when buying a car or home insurance, the discussion is not about whether the adverse effects will happen or not, but on how to reduce its effects and recover from if they happen. In many countries having car insurance is compulsory to drive a car, even if only a small percentage of drivers suffer car accidents compared to the total number of cars. In addition, the most risky manoeuvres (i.e. excessive speed, not stopping on red light, etc.) are banned to reduce the risks of accidents. Similarly, developing policies and practices that reduce and minimize the risks and effects of climate change is needed, even if the worse situations will never happen. If not, we will be in the equivalent of driving without insurance and without respecting the signals. All policies and practices for economic, industrial and natural resource management need X Preface to be founded on sound scientific foundations. This volume offers an interdisciplinary view of the current issues related to climate change adaptation and mitigation, and provides a glimpse of the state-of-the-art research carried out around the world to inform scientists, policymakers and other stakeholders. When planning how to reduce the threat of global warming and how to adapt to it, a very important piece of information is how intense the change will be. That implies estimating the trends of future concentrations of greenhouse gasses, and the potential future changes in temperature, precipitation, storm events and other climatic variables. These predictions are important not only to estimate the magnitude of the changes, but also to determine the uncertainty surrounding them. In the first section of this book different tools to estimate the future consequences of future climate change are presented. An important issue is to provide meaningful estimations of change at scales that can be used for management and policymaking. In the first two chapters of this section, Bartholy et al. and Jin et al. describe two methodologies to dynamically downscale climate projections applied in the Carpathian Basin and the USA, respectively. Then, Höök provides a critical review of the future scenarios of greenhouse gas emissions. Models are also needed to predict the cascade of effects caused by changes in climate. Lo et al. review the available ecophysiological models that can simulate the effects of climate on forests, whereas Eslamian et al. describe the statistical methodology to detect and model climate change effects in hydrology. Caselles et al. introduces a new algorithm to automatically generate land surface emissivity maps, and Rustamov et al. explain how space technology can be used to monitor the speed and extension of the changes caused by climate change. This section ends with the work by Nasurt, who describes the importance of taking aerosols into account when estimating the changes in the atmosphere, especially in arid regions. One of the aspects of climate change that most coverage has received in the news is the reduction of greenhouse emissions. Reducing these emissions will slow down the speed of climate change and hopefully keep it under some levels considered as acceptable. However, the reduction in emissions will be achieved only if profound changes in our social, economic and industrials systems are achieved. The second section of this book explores some of the research done on this topic. Plugge et al. describe why a strong monitoring system is needed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from deforestation. Zhou et al. discuss how a more accurate accountability of emissions related to international trade is needed. Kadar describes the links between power generation and greenhouse emissions, whereas Valero-Matas and Romay explore the feasibility of using alternative energy to reduce emission without reducing power generation. Wene reviews the importance of the process of technology learning in achieving a low-carbon economy, and Lhemann provides principles to create a greener urbanism. Although all the efforts in reducing greenhouse emissions are worthwhile and need to be increased to avoid reaching potentially catastrophic concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, the reality is that an increase in the global temperatures of some short is inevitable. Therefore, managers and policymakers should recognize this