The World in 2050_ Four Forces Shaping Civilization's Northern Future - Laurence C. Smith [159]
314 W. Schlenker, D. B. Lobell, “Robust negative impacts of climate change on African agriculture,” Environmental Research Letters 5 (2009), DOI:10.1088/1748-9326/5/1/014010.
315 D. S. Battisti, R. L. Naylor, “Historical Warnings of Future Food Insecurity with Unprecedented Seasonal Heat,” Science 323 (2009): 240-244.
316 The experiment assumed a doubling of atmospheric CO2. R. M. Adams et al., “Global Climate Change and U.S. Agriculture,” Nature 345 (1990): 219-224.
317 E.g., J. E. Olesen, M. Bindi, “Consequences of Climate Change for European Agricultural Productivity, Land Use and Policy,” European Journal of Agronomy 16 (2002): 239-262. G. Maracchi, O. Sirotenko, and M. Bindi, “Impacts of Present and Future Climate Variability on Agriculture and Forestry in the Temperate Regions: Europe,” Climatic Change 70 (2005): 117-135; N. Dronin, A. Kirilenko, “Climate Change and Food Stress in Russia: What If the Market Transforms as It Did during the Past Century?” Climatic Change 86 (2008): 123-150.
318 There’s more to it than just temperature and rain. A key issue is the so-called CO2 fertilization effect. Plants like CO2, so having more of it in the air tends to increase crop yields. Most agro-climate models build in a hefty benefit for this, based on early greenhouse experiments using enclosed chambers. This enables the models to offset a large share of the damages of summer heat and drought, owing to the anticipated fertilizing benefit from elevated CO2 levels. However, more realistic experiments staged outdoors, using blowers over actual farm fields, show a much lower fertilization benefit. This suggests that the models may be seriously underestimating the negative impacts of climate change to world food production. S. P. Long et al., “Food for Thought: Lower-than-Expected Crop Yield Stimulation with Rising CO2 Concentrations,” Science 312 (2006): 1918-1921.
319 For example, crop declines from a doubling of extreme weather events by the 2020s. J. Alcamo et al., “A New Assessment of Climate Change Impacts on Food Production Shortfalls and Water Availability in Russia,” Global Environmental Change 17 (2007): 429-444.
320 For example, Russia’s West Siberian, East Siberian, Northwestern, Northern, and Far East regions are all forecast to experience increased cereal and potato productivity by the 2020s, but its Central, Central Chernozem, North Caucasian, Volga-Vyatka, and Volga regions are projected to decline. A. P. Kirilenko et al., “Modeling the Impact of Climate Changes on Agriculture in Russia,” Doklady Earth Sciences 397, no. 5 (2004): 682-685 (translated from Russian).
321 T. Parfitt, “Russia’s Polar Hero,” Science 324, no. 5933 (2009): 1382-1384. See also “Artur Chilingarov: Russia’s Arctic Explorer,” The Moscow News, July 17, 2008.
322 Tom Casey, a U.S. State Department spokesman, said, “I’m not sure whether they put a metal flag, a rubber flag, or a bedsheet on the ocean floor. Either way, it doesn’t have any legal standing.” “Russian Subs Seek Glory at North Pole,” USA Today, August 2, 2007. See also “Russia Plants Flag on North Pole Seabed,” The Guardian UK; “Russia Plants Flag under N Pole,” BBC News; “Russia Plants Underwater Flag at North Pole,” The New York Times; “Russia to Claim Energy Wealth beneath Arctic Ocean,” Pravda; and many others (all August 2, 2007).
323 ArcticNet is a Canadian government-funded research consortium that coordinates big projects in the Arctic, including the CCGS Amundsen expedition, http://www.arcticnet.ulaval.ca/.
324 The 2007-09 International Polar Year (IPY, www.ipy.org) was an international science program focused on the Arctic and Antarctic that lasted from March 2007 to March 2009. More than two hundred projects, sixty countries, and thousands of scientists participated in IPY. It was actually the fourth such Polar Year, following earlier ones in 1882-83, 1932-33, and 1957-58.
325 2007 was the astonishing record year in which nearly