Aff Ocean Remote

Planet Debate 2014 Ocean Remote Sensing Aff
Oceans Topic
1
Plan ..................................................................................................................................................... 2
Contention I Climate Change ................................................................................................. 3
Contention II Smart Power .................................................................................................. 10
Topicality Ocean Exploration ............................................................................................. 14
FYI How Ocean Satellite Monitoring Occurs ................................................................. 15
Solvency Satellite Solvency ................................................................................................. 16
Solvency General Adaptation ............................................................................................. 17
Solvency Information Critical to Adaptation ................................................................ 18
Solvency Need to Monitor Ecosystems ........................................................................... 24
Solvency US Climate Leadership ....................................................................................... 25
Solvency Plan Advocacy ....................................................................................................... 26
Solvency A2: OCEAN Monitoring Not Key ..................................................................... 28
Solvency -- Information Solves ............................................................................................. 29
Solvency More Information Key ........................................................................................ 32
Solvency Federal Government Solves .............................................................................. 33
Solvency Adaptation Solvency .............................................................................................. 34
---Solves Biodiversity ................................................................................................................ 37
---Solves Ecosystems ................................................................................................................. 38
---Solves Oceans .......................................................................................................................... 39
---Solves Disasters ...................................................................................................................... 40
---Solves Disease ......................................................................................................................... 42
---Solves Sea Levels.................................................................................................................... 45
---Solves Agriculture ................................................................................................................. 46
AT: Tea Party ................................................................................................................................ 48
AT: Not Enough ........................................................................................................................... 50
AT: Emissions Cuts Key ............................................................................................................ 51
AT: Adaptation Fails .................................................................................................................. 53
AT: Adaptation Bad .................................................................................................................... 55
AT: Too Slow ................................................................................................................................ 57
AT: Poor People ........................................................................................................................... 58
AT: Poor Wont Do It ................................................................................................................. 59
Climate Change Ocean Acidification ................................................................................ 60
Climate Change - -Climate Change Killing the Ocean.................................................... 62
Climate Change -- Inevitable .................................................................................................. 64
Climate Change Anthropogenic ......................................................................................... 68
Climate change heading to 6deg ....................................................................................... 73
Add-On -- Economy.................................................................................................................... 75
More Resources ........................................................................................................................... 82
Add-On Coastal Zone Management .................................................................................. 83
Add-On Marine Protected Areas ....................................................................................... 87
Add-on General Environment. ........................................................................................... 92
Add-On Oil Spills ..................................................................................................................... 94
Oceans Topic
2
Plan

The United States federal government should provide adequate support for ocean
exploration through earth observation satellites.
Oceans Topic
3
Contention I Climate Change
Climate change is already being felt and some of the impacts could be
irreversible. Knowledge is needed to take appropriate action to avoid the
impacts.

The Guardian, March 28, 2014,
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/mar/28/ipcc-report-climate-
change-report-human-natural-systems

Climate change has already left its mark "on all continents and across the
oceans", damaging food crops, spreading disease, and melting glaciers,
according to the leaked text of a blockbuster UN climate science report due out on
Monday. Government officials and scientists are gathered in Yokohama this week to
wrangle over every line of a summary of the report before the final wording is
released on Monday the first update in seven years. Nearly 500 people must sign
off on the exact wording of the summary, including the 66 expert authors, 271
officials from 115 countries, and 57 observers. But governments have already
signed off on the critical finding that climate change is already having an
effect, and that even a small amount of warming in the future could lead to
"abrupt and irreversible changes", according to documents seen by the Guardian.
"In recent decades, changes in climate have caused impacts on natural and human
systems on all continents and across the oceans," the final report from the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change will say. Some parts of the world
could soon be at a tipping point. For others, that tipping point has already arrived.
"Both warm water coral reef and Arctic ecosystems are already experiencing
irreversible regime shifts," the approved version of the report will say.
This will be the second of three reports on the causes, consequences of and
solutions to climate change, drawing on researchers from around the world.
The first report, released last September in Stockholm, found humans were the
"dominant cause" of climate change, and warned that much of the world's fossil fuel
reserves would have to stay in the ground to avoid catastrophic climate change.
This report will, for the first time, look at the effects of climate change as a series of
risks with those risks multiplying as temperatures warm.
The thinking behind the decision was to encourage governments to prepare
for the full range of potential consequences under climate change.
It's much more about what are the smart things to do then what do we know
with absolute certainty," said Chris Field, one of the co-chairs overseeing the
report. "If we want to take a smart approach to the future, we need to consider a full
range of possible outcomes and that means not only the more likely outcomes, but
also outcomes for truly catastrophic impacts, even if those are lower probability," he
said. The gravest of those risks was to people in low-lying coastal areas and on small
islands, because of storm surges, coastal flooding and sea-level rise.
Oceans Topic
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But people living in large urban areas would also be at risk from inland flooding that
wipes out homes and businesses, water treatment centres and power plants, as well
as from extreme heatwaves. Food production was also at risk, the report said, from
drought, flooding, and changing rainfall patterns. Crop yields could decline by 2%
a decade over the rest of the century. Fisheries will also be affected, with ocean
chemistry thrown off balance by climate change. Some fish in the tropics could
become extinct. Other species, especially in northern latitudes, are on the move.
Drought could put safe drinking water in short supply. Storms could wipe out
electricity stations, and damage other infrastructure, the report is expected to
say. Those risks will not be borne equally, according to draft versions of the report
circulated before the meeting. The poor, the young and the elderly in all countries
will all be more vulnerable to climate risks. Climate change will slow down
economic growth, and create new "poverty traps". Some areas of the world will also
be more vulnerable such as south Asia and south-east Asia. The biggest potential
risk, however, was of a number of those scenarios unfolding at the same time,
leading to conflicts and wars, or turning regional problem into a global crisis,
said Saleemul Haq, a senior fellow of the International Institute for Environment
and Development and one of the authors of the report. "The really scary impacts are
when things start getting together globally," he said. "If you have a crisis in two or
three places around the world, suddenly it's not a local crisis. It is a global crisis, and
the repercussions of things going bad in several different places are very severe."
There was controversy in the run-up to the report's release when one of the 70
authors of a draft said he had pulled out of the writing team because it was
"alarmist" about the threat. Prof Richard Tol, an economist at Sussex University, said
he disagreed with some findings of the summary. But British officials branded his
assessment of the economic costs of climate change as "deeply misleading".
The report argues that the likelihood and potential consequences of many of these
risks could be lowered if ambitious action is taken to reduce the greenhouse gas
emissions that cause climate change. It also finds that governments if they act now
can help protect populations from those risks. But the report also acknowledges
that a certain amount of warming is already locked in, and that in some
instances there is no way to escape the effects of climate change. The 2007
report on the effects of climate change contained an error that damaged the
credibility of the UN climate panel, the erroneous claim that Himalayan glaciers
could melt away by 2035. This year's report will be subject to far more rigorous
scrutiny, scientists said. It will also benefit from an explosion of scientific research.
The number of scientific publications on the impacts of climate change doubled
between 2005 and 2010, the report will say. Researchers said they also hoped to
bring a fresh take on the issue. They said they hoped the reframing of the issue as a
series of risks would help governments respond more rapidly to climate change.
"Previously the IPCC was accused of being very conservative," said Gary Yohe,
professor of economics and environmental studies at Wesleyan University, one of
the authors of the report. "This allows them to be less conservative without being
open to criticism that they are just trying to scare people to death."
Oceans Topic
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Adaptation is critical to avoid the impacts

USA Today Editorial Board, April 1, 2014,
http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2014/04/01/climate-change-global-
warming-ipcc-editorials-debates/7175157/
As a piece of literature, the latest report from the United Nations' expert organization on climate change is
no John Grisham page-turner. Pulled together by 309 authors and editors from 70 countries, the document
released this week brings to mind the saying about a camel being a horse designed by committee. Despite
the turgid prose, excessive acronyms and bewildering flow charts, the report from the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change makes an important contribution, most notably with its new emphasis on
adaptation.
Three key takeaways:
Global warming is here, now and, yes, global. The list of horribles likely to occur if
greenhouse gas emissions go unchecked is already familiar to anyone who has
been paying attention. Rising sea levels. Displacement. Disease. Food
shortages. Violent confrontations over resources.
What the report also makes clear, however, is that the threat isn't just distant and theoretical. "The effects
of climate change are already occurring on all continents and across the oceans," a summary states.
"They are occurring from the tropics to the poles, from small islands to large continents, and from the
wealthiest countries to the poorest." In the USA, these effects include more intense heat waves and
droughts, shrinking snowpack in the Western mountains, and melting glaciers and eroding shorelines in
Alaska. A global problem requires a global response. Yes, as the world's second leading emitter of carbon
dioxide (5.2 billion metric tons in 2012), the United States should play more of a leadership role in curbing
greenhouse gas emissions. The Obama administration is taking worthwhile steps to limit carbon dioxide
emissions from coal plants and methane emissions from natural gas production. Better still, though
politically difficult, would be a tax or other mechanism that puts a price on carbon pollution. U.S. actions
will mean little, however, if developing nations, particularly China, don't also move to curb their emissions.
China (9.9 billion metric tons in 2012) passed the U.S. in 2006 as the world's top emitter of CO2 and
continues to build coal plants at an alarming rate At the U.N. this fall, nations are supposed to offer a mix
of commitments to cut carbon pollution and provide funds to help poor nations cope with climate change.
That's to be followed by a summit in Lima, Peru, to draft a final treaty and a signing ceremony next year in
Paris. If the latest U.N. report prods policymakers to reach a deal after years of inconclusive talks, it will
have served an important purpose. All is not lost. Even if world leaders manage to agree on new
emission limits, the treaty wouldn't kick in until 2020, and a certain amount of warming is already
"baked in" for decades to come. That makes adapting to a warmer world an important part of the
response, and here the outlook is less gloomy than the scary predictions suggest. Humans, it turns
out, are pretty good at adapting to changing circumstances. People already know how to build dikes
and seawalls. Technology can help identify threats. Research and development might produce cleaner
energy to replace fossil fuels. Geo-engineering might be able to trim the amount of warming. Advances in
agriculture can protect crop yields. Sophisticated risk management practices can be applied to a
changing climate.
Oceans Topic
6

Ocean remote sensing critical to understand weather climate patterns that will
enable civilizations to adapt to climate change or face extinction

NASA Science, no date, NASA Oceanography, http://science.nasa.gov/earth-
science/oceanography/

Part of NASA's mission is to develop an understanding of the total Earth system and
the effects of natural and human-induced changes on the global environment. Our
oceans play a major role in influencing changes in the world's climate and
weather. Collecting and analyzing long-term ocean data from satellites is a
relatively new field of exploration. The analysis of remotely-sensed ocean data
makes it possible to understand the ocean in new and exciting ways. Prior to
satellite data, most of what we have learned about the oceans had come from
infrequent measurements collected from ships, buoys, and drifters. Ship-based
oceanographers are limited to sampling the ocean in a relatively small area
with often a great deal of difficulty. Data from ships, buoys, and drifters are
not sufficient to characterize the conditions of the spatially diverse of the
ocean. The advent of ocean-observing satellites has launched a new era of marine
discovery. Remotely sensed satellite data and modeling techniques enable the
global mapping of seasonal changes in ocean surface topography, currents,
waves, winds, phytoplankton content, sea-ice extent, rainfall, sunlight
reaching the sea, and sea surface temperature. Studying these patterns at a
global scale help forecast and mitigate the disastrous effects of floods and
drought. Images generated by ocean observing satellite missions tell us volumes
about the most fundamental climate changes. During the last decade, forecasting
models have benefited from satellite data as they have improved the ability to
predict events such as El Nio and other global and regional climate cycles. These
models will become more sophisticated as scientists and forecasters further develop
the ability to simulate certain ocean phenomena and thus better predict when they
will occur. Using remote sensing data and computer models, scientists can now
investigate how the oceans affect the evolution of weather, hurricanes, and
climate. Oceans control the Earth's weather as they heat and cool, humidify
and dry the air and control wind speed and direction. And the weather
determines not just what you'll wear to work in the week ahead--but also
whether the wheat crop in Nebraska will get enough rain to mature, whether
the snow pack in the Sierras will be thick enough to water southern California,
whether the hurricane season in the Atlantic will be mellow or brutal,
whether eastern Pacific fisheries will be decimated by El Nio. Long-term
weather patterns influence water supply, food supply, trade shipments, and
property values. They can even foster the growth of civilizations, or kill them
off. You can't escape the weather, or even change it--but being able to predict
its caprice makes its impact manageable. And only by understanding the
dynamics of the oceans can we begin to do this.

Oceans Topic
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A better understanding of climate change is necessary to adaptation

EMU Stat, no date,
http://www.eumetsat.int/website/home/AboutUs/WhatWeDo/MonitoringClimate
/index.html
A better understanding of climate change and its impact is necessary for governments and decision
makers to define and implement appropriate mitigation and adaptation policies, including investment
policies for large infrastructure with long lifecycles. This requires the development of science-based
climate services, in synergy with weather services, within the Global Framework for Climate Services
(GFSC) recently established by the World Meteorological Organisation. Climate services are based on
the combination of long series of well calibrated observations, numerical models capable of
delivering climate prediction at seasonal to decadal scales and projections at longer scales (in
response to emission scenarios), and socio-economic data. The related requirements for observations of
Essential Climate Variables (ECV) are established and maintained by the Global Climate Observing
System (GCOS) programme. With more than 30 years of consistent data, meteorological satellites are
an invaluable asset for climate monitoring and understanding of our changing climate, and their role
will grow increasingly important with the next generations of systems. However, exploiting this
potential requires dedicated international efforts for recalibrating and reprocessing data, extracting climate
records, and making them available to downstream applications and scientists. Each instrument or satellite
has its own characteristic such as sensitivity to Earth signals, evolution of performance over time, or orbit
stability. In addition, calibration and processing algorithms are continuously improved over the course of a
mission. Therefore, a simple concatenation of data in time would show jumps when a satellite is changed or
artificial trends for some satellites in a series, and would not be useful for climate analysis. The figure at
left shows the differences (in Kelvin) between clear sky infrared Brightness Temperatures from successive
Meteosat satellites and those calculated from night-time radiosonde data available each month. Re-
calibration and cross-calibration are an essential prerequisite to arrive at homogenous time series of
measurements across successive satellites that are useable for climate studies. After re-calibration and
cross-calibration it is possible and necessary to reprocess data into basic physical measurements (radiances,
reflectances, etc.) to produce long series known as Fundamental Climate Data Records. These FCDRs form
the raw material for climate analyses, from which geophysical parameters, in particular Essential Climate
Variables, can be reprocessed to form Thematic Climate Data Records (TCDRs), which can then be
validated against independent climate data. These climate records can then be used directly, or assimilated
into the best available numerical prediction models used in 'reanalysis' mode to produce consistent climate
records of a broader range of variables.
Ocean science research critical to effective climate change adaptation

Sea Technology, January 2013, The National Ocean Policy Fosters Collaboration for
Healthier Oceans, Mineta, Norman Y. Co-Chair, Joint Ocean Commission Initiative;
Vice Chair, Hill & Knowlton Inc.; Former U.S. Transportation, Commerce Secretary,
p. 54

The Policy The National Ocean Policy calls for management of our oceans to be
grounded in stakeholder input and improved interagency coordination for better
use of public resources, strengthening of the economy, improving ocean health and
reinvigorating coastal communities. Strong science and research are critical to
advance our understanding of the oceans' role in major public policy
Oceans Topic
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challenges, including climate change mitigation and adaptation measures,
evaluating and preparing for renewable energy opportunities in coastal waters, and
contributing to the science and technology base that is central to the nation's
economy.
US must invest in satellite data to monitor climate change

James Lewis, CSIS, 2010, Earth Observation for Climate Change: A Report of the CSIS
Technology and Public Policy Program,
http://csis.org/files/publication/100608_Lewis_EarthObservation_WEB.pdf
If we accept that climate change poses serious risks to regional stability, national security, and
economic health, the United States needs to reconsider its funding priorities for civil space.
Earth observation is crucial for national security and the economy; manned spaceflight
programs provide prestige. The United States must make climate-monitoring satellites its
priority for funding if it is serious about managing climate change. In practical terms, this
means a reduction in the spending on human spaceflight in order to fund a sustained program of
satellite-building to create a robust climate monitoring space system. This is, of course, not an
all-or-nothing issue. The United States can fund a range of space programs, manned and
unmanned, for exploration and for Earth sciences. It is a question of priorities. Our
recommendation is that the funding given to Earth observation should increase, as it is more
important now for the national interest to monitor and manage climate change, even if that
means a slower pace for other programs, such as manned spaceflight, until a robust Earth
observation system has been put in orbit.
Enhanced data collection critical to US global influence on climate change
Having the right data is only part of the challenge. The usefulness of that data depends on
the strength of climate models and computing capabilities and our ability to make this
information available to decision-makers and user communities in a useful form. In the United
States, these functions could be provided by a strengthened and reorganized interagency climate
information structure bolstered by the creation of a National Climate Service, which could
aggregate and analyze climate data in ways tailored to support management, policymaking, and
the information needs of a broad-based user community. There is also an opportunity for the
United States to lead an international effort that takes the many existing collaboration
structuressuch as the Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS) and the
Global Climate Observation System (GCOS)and operationalizes them. The Global
Framework for Climate Services being advocated by the World Meteorological Organization
could provide the platform to make climate data more accessible to policymakers. The United
States is the nation that is most active in space and the nation with the greatest need to
demonstrate responsible leadership. A willingness to cooperate and share will help build
Americas global influence. Operationalizing science to manage climate change, building
the capacity to acquire the needed information and share it with a wide range of users, and
bolstering these capabilities at the international level as a part of a productive engagement
strategy in what has so far been a contentious road to international agreement should all be
goals for the United States both to address climate change, contribute to solving a global
Oceans Topic
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problem, and rebuild U.S. leadership. To this end, our recommendations are as follows: The
U.S. approach to climate change policy should be shaped by the need to inform decision makers
and planners in both government and the private sector by providing understandable metrics and
analyses of the effectiveness of and compliance with mitigation programs and adaption plans. The
customers for this should include federal agencies, state and local governments, private sector
users, and other nations. To better serve the national interest, the United States should
increase its Earth observation capabilitiesespecially space-based sensors for carbon
monitoringto improve our ability to understand the carbon cycle and to inform any future
international agreement. This means that until these capabilities are adequate for monitoring
climate change, investment in Earth observation satellites should take precedence over
other space programs. Increased spending on Earth observation satellites specifically designed
for climate change should be maintained until the current capability shortfall is eliminated. The
United States should accelerate the creation of a National Climate Service to improve climate
information management and decision-making. In a related effort, the United States should
support the World Meteorological Organization in its efforts to create a World Climate Service
for similar reasons. The United States should complement its national effort by supporting
and expanding multilateral efforts to coordinate Earth observation for climate change,
building on existing international efforts such as the GCOS. This could entail coordinated
investment in space and subsidies for ground facilities in developing countries, recognizing that
the United States, the European Union, Japan, and Canada will bear the largest share of the cost at
this time.

Oceans Topic
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Contention II Smart Power

Building a knowledge infrastructure to address climate change is critical to
developing US smart power

John Hamre, President & CEO of CSIS, 2010, Earth Observation for Climate
Change: A Report of the CSIS Technology and Public Policy Program,
The 2008 CSIS report, CSIS Commission on Smart Power: A Smarter, More
Secure America, called for the United States to find ways for investing in the
global good. The report highlighted five critical areas for engagement,
including technology and innovation. It singled out climate change as an issue
that required American leadership to help establish global consensus and
develop innovative solutions to manage a new and complex global challenge.
Climate change is a global challenge, but it is also an opportunity for the
United States to build its global leadership. Now is the time for the current
administration to build up the knowledge infrastructure for climate change. It
will clearly take a team effort to coordinate resources, streamline decision-making,
and disseminate information, perhaps as part of a new National Climate Service, to
start now to build this critical knowledge infrastructure. Without the knowledge this
infrastructure would establish and a realistic process to manage it, we will be sailing
in uncharted waters with rumored and uncertain landmarks.

Smart power critical to prevent Iranian nuclearization

Lanny Davis, April 11, 2014, Davis served as special counsel to former President
Clinton and is principal in the Washington D.C. law firm of Lanny J. Davis &
Associates, and is Executive Vice President of the strategic communications firm,
Levick, Huffington Post, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lanny-davis/smart-
power-us-strategy-f_b_5120137.html

By the turn of the 21st century, it was clear that a new approach to the use of
American power to protect our national interests and values was necessary.
At the risk of some over-simplification, by the end of former President George W.
Bush's second term, essentially two lines of thinking had emerged. On the
right was a preference for the use of "hard power" -- the use of military force
and intervention to protect U.S. interests. On the left was a growing bias
against military intervention of any kind and in favor of "soft power" --
economic aid and incentives on human rights and democracy. And recently, we
have seen the libertarian right, led by Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), appearing almost
always to oppose both hard military power and soft power of foreign aid and
economic development.
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Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in partnership with her boss, President
Obama, came up with a mix of hard and soft, calling it "smart power," with the
appropriate mix between the two driven by specific facts and circumstances.
"The president-elect and I believe that foreign policy must be based on a marriage of
principles and pragmatism, not rigid ideology," she said at her January 2009
confirmation hearings. "We must use what has been called 'smart power,' the full
range of tools at our disposal -- diplomatic, economic, military, political, legal, and
cultural -- picking the right tool, or combination of tools, for each situation. With
smart power, diplomacy will be the vanguard of our foreign policy."
In a recent op-ed, former Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Hugh Shelton wrote about
Clinton's tough words and attitude concerning Russian President Vladimir Putin's
intentions -- calling him a "KGB agent," defined as someone who "doesn't have a
soul." Shelton also reminded us of Clinton's use of effective diplomacy with Putin,
identifying common interests with an adversary -- incenting Russia to agree to new
United Nations sanctions on Iran, as well as cooperation on anti-terrorist efforts,
including reaching a historic "lethal transit" agreement, which allowed U.S. military
planes to transport lethal materials over Russia to Afghanistan.
Or take Clinton's leadership in supporting and helping the Treasury
Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control to implement tough economic
sanctions against Iran. These policies constitute a good example of "smart
power" in attempting to deter Iran's development of a nuclear weapon while
not eliminating a military option.
"I voted for every sanction that came down the pipe against Iran," she said recently
in a speech to the American Jewish Congress, referring to her years as a senator.
"We went after Iran's oil industry, banks and weapons programs. We enlisted
insurance firms, shipping lines, energy companies, financial institutions, and others
to cut Iran off."
Thanks in large part to her and Obama's leadership, the European Union, the
U.N., and nations around the globe joined in to make the U.S.-initiated
sanctions regime effective. National Public Radio reported that "there's
widespread agreement that sanctions have worked [against Iran], squeezing
Iran financially and bringing its leaders to the negotiating table. Iran's economy
is, by any measure, in terrible shape." Says Barbara Slavin, an Iran analyst for the
Atlantic Council, in the piece, "The cost of living has gone up so fast for Iranians that
they are absolutely stunned, and people are simply not able to maintain the middle-
class lifestyles they are used to."
While Clinton has supported the Obama administration's efforts to negotiate a
pullback from Iran's effort to develop a nuclear weapon, she said in a recent speech
that she remains "skeptical that the Iranians would follow through and deliver. I
have seen their behavior over the years. But this is a development that is worth
testing."
"We want to give space for diplomacy to work," she said (soft power). "If it does not,
then we can always and we will, put on additional sanctions ... and yes, we will
explore every other option. And let's be clear, every other option does remain on the
table." (hard power).
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In short, soft + hard = smart, and it could be one of Clinton's most enduring
doctrines and legacies of her leadership at the State Department in the early
years of the 21st century.

Iranian nuclear proliferation causes a wave of fast prolif in the Middle East, risking
regional war and nuclear terrorism
Noah Feldman, Senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, October 27, 2006 [New York Times,
Nuclear Holocaust: A Risk Too Big Even for Martyrs?]
The anti-Israel statements of the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, coupled with Iran's support for
Hezbollah and Hamas, might lead you to think that the Arab states would welcome Iran's nuclear program.
After all, the call to wipe the Zionist regime from the map is a longstanding clich of Arab nationalist
rhetoric. But the interests of Shiite non-Arab Iran do not always coincide with those of Arab leaders. A
nuclear Iran means, at the very least, a realignment of power dynamics in the Persian Gulf. It could
potentially mean much more: a historic shift in the position of the long-subordinated Shiite minority
relative to the power and prestige of the Sunni majority, which traditionally dominated the Muslim world.
Many Arab Sunnis fear that the moment is ripe for a Shiite rise. Iraq's Shiite majority has been asserting the
right to govern, and the lesson has not been lost on the Shiite majority in Bahrain and the large minorities in
Lebanon and Saudi Arabia. King Abdullah of Jordan has warned of a "Shiite crescent" of power stretching
from Iran to Lebanon via Iraq and (by proxy) Syria.
But geopolitics is not the only reason Sunni Arab leaders are rattled by the prospect of a nuclear Iran. They
also seem to be worried that the Iranians might actually use nuclear weapons if they get them. A nuclear
attack on Israel would engulf the whole region. But that is not the only danger: Sunnis in Saudi Arabia and
elsewhere fear that the Iranians might just use a nuclear bomb against them. Even as Iran's defiance of the
United States and Israel wins support among some Sunnis, extremist Sunnis have been engaging in the act
of takfir, condemning all Shiites as infidels. On the ground in Iraq, Sunni takfiris are putting this theory into
practice, aiming at Shiite civilians and killing them indiscriminately. Shiite militias have been responding
in kind, and massacres of Sunni civilians are no longer isolated events.
Adding the nuclear ingredient to this volatile mix will certainly produce an arms race. If Iran is going to
get the bomb, its neighbors will have no choice but to keep up. North Korea, now protected by its own
bomb, has threatened proliferation - and in the Middle East it would find a number of willing buyers. Small
principalities with huge U.S. Air Force bases, like Qatar, might choose to rely on an American protective
umbrella. But Saudi Arabia, which has always seen Iran as a threatening competitor, will not be willing to
place its nuclear security entirely in American hands. Once the Saudis are in the hunt, Egypt will need
nuclear weapons to keep it from becoming irrelevant to the regional power balance - and sure enough, last
month Gamal Mubarak, President Mubarak's son and Egypt's heir apparent, very publicly announced that
Egypt should pursue a nuclear program.
Given the increasing instability of the Middle East, nuclear proliferation there is more worrisome than
almost anywhere else on earth. As nuclear technology spreads, terrorists will enjoy increasing odds of
getting their hands on nuclear weapons. States - including North Korea - might sell bombs or give them to
favored proxy allies, the way Iran gave Hezbollah medium-range rockets that Hezbollah used this summer
during its war with Israel. Bombing through an intermediary has its advantages: deniability is, after all, the
name of the game for a government trying to avoid nuclear retaliation.
Proliferation could also happen in other ways. Imagine a succession crisis in which the Saudi government
fragments and control over nuclear weapons, should the Saudis have acquired them, falls into the hands of
Saudi elites who are sympathetic to Osama bin Laden, or at least to his ideas. Or Al Qaeda itself could
purchase ready-made bombs, a feat technically much less difficult than designing nuclear weapons from
scratch. So far, there are few nuclear powers from whom such bombs can be directly bought: as of today,
only nine nations in the world belong to the nuclear club. But as more countries get the bomb, tracing the
seller will become harder and harder, and the incentive to make a sale will increase.

Oceans Topic
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U.S. Iran war engulfs the Middle East spilling over causing
extinction
Harding 12 (O. Harding, MEd. in Psychology from Mount Saint Vincent University)
(War With Iran A Possible Scenario, 9-25-12 http://voices.yahoo.com/war-iran-
possible-scenario-11785806.html?cat=9)

The attack on Iran will be quick, ferocious and crippling. The attacks will come wave after
wave and from multiple directions. Attacks will be conducted from the air as well as from
the sea and probably from land as Special Forces already in Iran, perform their planned
roles. American and NATO war planes will totally destroy all the nuclear facilities. They
will destroy their surface to air missiles, short and long range missile sites, military
planes, air fields, radar communications. Tomahawk missiles fired from submarines and
ships in the Gulf will help level every military establishment in the country. The Iranians
will be completely overwhelmed. There will be panic and confusion in the military.
We will see the F22 Raptor fighter plane in action for the first. Other technologies will be
tested. The U.S will have a chance to see how well its missile defense shield works in a
real war situation. America and its allies will not stop at the destruction of the nuclear
sites; they will set out to change the balance of power in the Middle East.
In the event of an attack, Iran may attempt to close the Strait of Hormuz. Their ships and
submarines will be quickly eliminated. They will end with no pride left. The government
of Iran will be forced to accept whatever terms the international community enforces on
them.
The paltry response that Iran will be able to muster will not be enough to hurt Israel or
the attacking force. Hezbollah will attack Israel and they will be dealt with decisively this
time around. Iran having been knocked out militarily, Syria in the throes of a civil war,
Hezbollah will be on its own, their source of supplies being cut off. Hezbollah will suffer
a fatal blow to their military machinery by the Israelis.
The Allied forces will not make the same mistake this time as they did in Iraq and
Afghanistan. This will not be a protracted war but it will be very effective militarily.
Objection to the military strike will be strong in some places. However, many of the Arab
nations will be in favor of the strike. To keep dissent to a minimum, the allies will have to
ensure that civilian deaths are at a minimum, that Israel does not participate, that the war
ends quickly and that Iran is not occupied.
This could be a time of great instability for the Middle East. A critical diplomatic balance
would have to be pursued to set the stage for a return to relative peace in that region.

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Topicality Ocean Exploration

Earth observation satellites engage in ocean exploration

NASA Science, no date, Ocean Exploration, http://science1.nasa.gov/earth-
science/oceanography/ocean-exploration/
Ocean Exploration

As defined by the President's Panel on Ocean Exploration (NOAA, 2000),
exploration is discovery through disciplined, diverse observations and the
recording of findings. Exploration is an early component of the research
process; it focuses on new areas of inquiry and develops descriptions of
phenomena that inform the direction of further study.
NASA is the exploration agency of the Federal Government. NASA Earth observing
satellites often open up new vistas for earth science research. All are meant to
explore the envelope of what is known and understood about the physical,
chemical and biological processes of the planet.
No suite of NASA Earth Science missions more exemplify the spirit of exploration
than the Earth System Science Pathfinder (ESSP) missions. These missions generally
try to measure a geophysical parameter that has been poorly sampled or
unattainable from in situ platforms and bring to bear new cutting-edge technology
to address the problem.
Two NASA ESSP missions address ocean exploration right now. First, the Gravity
Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) currently on orbit is exploring hitherto
undetectable variations in the mass field of the ocean - important for climate and
ocean circulation studies. Second, the Aquarius mission to be launched in 2008 will
explore the salinity of the ocean from space. Historically, salinity measurements
have been difficult to make in situ and so our knowledge of the spatial and temporal
variability of ocean salinity is quite poor. Using microwave remote-sensing
technology Aquarius will "reveal" for the first time the detailed patterns of salinity
at the surface of the ocean. Ocean surface salinity is known to be an important, but
poorly understood factor within
the climate system.
NASA supports the research and preparation of explorers for all its missions. For the
ocean, the basic research programs in physical and biological oceanography support
the background developments needed to launch new explorations of the ocean
(from space).
Previous NASA explorations of the ocean have lead to knowledge and technology
that is now used widely in research and application (ocean surface togography
topography as measured by precision altimeters, ocean vector winds as measured
by scatterometers, and ocean color as measured by radiometers are three excellent
examples where NASA initiated the field through is exploration initiative).

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FYI How Ocean Satellite Monitoring Occurs
How the ocean is monitored by satellites

NOAA, no date, How NOAA Monitors the Climate,
http://www.noaa.gov/features/02_monitoring/climate.html

NOAA incorporates a broad spectrum of state-of-the-art measurements,
including those from on site and satellite systems, to accomplish its climate
goals.
On site surface observing networks measure variables such as air temperature,
precipitation, soil moisture, snowfall, snow depth, humidity, winds, and air pressure
on every continent. Although NOAA networks such as the Cooperative Observers
Network and Automated Surface Observing System were not designed specifically to
monitor the Earths climate, NOAA recognized the need to develop networks with a
specific focus on climate observations.
The worlds oceans are monitored by thousands of ships, buoys, and floats. There
are nearly 3,000 drifting floats in the Argo array that measure not only conditions at
the ocean interface, but also below the surface to record profiles of temperature,
salinity, and current.
Balloons and satellites are critical to providing NOAAs atmospheric and large-area
observations. Balloon-borne radiosondes and radar measure variables including
temperature, precipitation, winds, humidity, and pressure from the surface to
heights more than 10 miles above the Earths surface. Satellite observing systems
observe weather systems for weather forecasting purposes, but they are also critical
for monitoring climate by providing consistent and continuous coverage of regional
and global areas.
Geostationary and polar orbiting satellites enhance on site measurements by
observing unique variables and by extending coverage to areas not measured
with sensors on location. They routinely capture information such as sea ice
extent, glacier melting rates, sea level height and winds, global cloudiness,
wildfires and vegetation health.

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Solvency Satellite Solvency
Satellites critical to ocean climate monitoring

European Space Agency, February 7, 2014, Space for our Climate,
http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Observing_the_Earth/Space_for_our_climate
/Is_global_warming_hiding_underwater
Like flying thermometers, some satellites carry instruments that provide a
global view of the surface temperature of oceans and seas. Measuring the sea-
surface temperature is important for improving weather and ocean
forecasting and climate change research.

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Solvency General Adaptation

Adaptation solves its feasible and it saves money in in the long run.
Schwartz, consultant and an National Academy of Engineering member, in 10 | Jr, Henry G. Adaptation
to the Impacts of Climate Change on Transportation, The Bridge, Fall|

Interactions and relationships among geographical regions and social sectors cannot be ignored. Drought in
the Southwest and/or increases in water and air temperatures may reduce the efficiencies of power plants,
just when more power is needed for air conditioning. Intense storms and floods can impact commerce, as
they did following Katrina and the great floods of 1993 on the upper Mississippi River. Conflicts inevitably
arise between the needs of people and the needs of the ecosystem in which they live, and adaptation
measures to manage the risks of climate change must incorporate sound sustainability principles. If we plan
and act responsibly, we may be able to have our cake and eat it too. Sound Solutions for the 21st Century
Transportation System We must not use the uncertainties and challenges of adapting to climate change as
an excuse for inaction. The challenge to the engineering profession is to take into account the inherent
uncertainties of climate science, as well as complex technological, social, economic, and environmental
interrelationships, and develop sound solutions for transportation systems that will serve us until the end of
the century. A large body of work has been done on making decisions on issues that include great
uncertainties. Scenario analyses, for example, can provide envelopes of possible outcomes(e.g., best
case/worst case scenarios and respective probabilities).To many, climate change is a distant worry, but
developers of transportation systems work on a time horizon of 50 to 100 years for new and rehabilitated
facilities. Thus they have no choice but to take into account the impacts of climate change. The marginal
costs of accommodating climate change impacts in major systems will be dwarfed by the cost of retrofitting
systems to meet these same needs decades hence. To engineers, many of the solutions for adaptation are
fairly obviousbuild robust, resilient systems, protect or move existing assets, and, when necessary,
abandon indefensible facilities. Some adaptations to climate change are listed below: Sea Level Rise Build
or enhance levees and dikes to resist higher sea levels and storm surges. Elevate critical infrastructure.
Abandon or relocate coastal highways, rail lines, and bridges. Provide good evacuation routes and
operational plans. Provide federal incentives to reduce the amount of development in at-risk coastal
regions. Heat Waves Support research on new, more heat-resistant materials for paving and bridge decks.
Replace and/or reconstruct highway and bridge expansion joints. Increase the length of airport runways to
compensate for lower air densities. Revisit standards for construction workers exposed to high
temperatures. Increased Storm Intensity Revise hydrologic storm and flood frequency maps. Develop new
design standards for hydraulic structures. Reinforce at-risk structures, particularly to protect against
scouring of bridge piers. Encourage better land-use planning for flood plains. Stronger Hurricanes Move
critical infrastructure inland. Reinforce and/or build more robust, resilient structures. Design for greater
storm surges. Strengthen and elevate port facilities.Arctic Warming Identify areas and infrastructure that
will be damaged by thawing permafrost. Develop new approaches to foundation design. Reinforce,
protect, or move seaside villages. Conclusions. We can continue to debate the validity of climate
science,but waiting for decades or longer for final proof would be foolhardy at best. Fifty or 100 years
from nowthe impact of increasing emissions of GHGs will be firmly established. If the projections of
todays climate scientists are correct and we have failed to take both mitigating and adaptive actions, then
much damage will already have been done. The potential impacts of climate change on the built
environment and the implications for transportation infrastructure are sufficiently well defined for us to
take action now. If this generation of engineers fails to act, coastal highways and railroads will be under
water, bridges will be unusable, tunnels will be periodically flooded, communities in the Midwest,
Northeast, and Southeast will be threatened by river flooding, people inthe Southwest will face increasing
water shortages, and entire villages along the North Slope of Alaska will be swallowed by the sea.
However, if we incorporate climate change into the regular planning processes for transportation and other
infrastructure, the marginal costs of building more robust, resilient systems can be readily accommodated.
And we will have met our obligations to future generations.

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Solvency Information Critical to Adaptation
Adaptation critical to avoid the impacts of climate change. Improved
information is necessary to solve.

John Hamre, President & CEO of CSIS, 2010, Earth Observation for Climate Change: A
Report of the CSIS Technology and Public Policy Program,
As we develop new policies, we are confronted with critical questions of capacity
and responsibility for this endeavor. The scientific community has done a great deal
to study the nature and pace of global climate change and increase our
understanding of these global phenomenaboth in terms of what we know and
what we do not know. Now, as policymakers, businesses, the international
community, and households consider ways to reduce emissions in the hope of
avoiding the most severe effects of a changing climate, build more resilient
infrastructure and systems to withstand the unavoidable impacts of climate change,
and plan for dealing with climate-related disasters, our ability to provide decision-
makers with the information that they need must grow and improve.
Among many complex issues, we need to understand climate-related trends as they
apply to state and local communities; we must decide how to monitor emissions and
check results against agreed-upon reductions and expected outcomes; we must
address how to better model the economic effects of emissions reductions plans and
a changing natural environment in ways that will help us understand the impact of
new climate policies. We need to establish methods of assessing the relative costs
and benefits of more aggressive action that will allow us to prioritize actions to take
for climate change, and, of course, we need to continuously improve on
understanding how and why the Earths climate is changing so as to build greater
certainty into policy efforts. This is a daunting task for government, which must
manage information on an unprecedented scale. Federal agencies will have to
translate vast quantities of scientific data into knowledge that can guide
policymakers and administrators. Currently, the federal government is generating
enormous amounts of data and analysis on the Earths climate, on ocean
temperatures and currents, on jet streams and Arctic ice melt. Over time, our
ability to monitor emissions and understand important feedbacks, including societal
adjustments to the policies in place as well as a changing climate, will need to
improve and expand. The government does have an excellent starting point with the
work of the U.S. Global Change Research Program and the Earth observation
functions supported by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
(NOAA) and National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). NOAA has
made tremendous efforts, working with foreign partners to create the Global Earth
Observing System of Systems (GEOSS). This network seeks to provide global, real-
time data in an open, collaborative, and transparent way. But the implementation of
GEOSS has not progressed much beyond developing a blueprint for the system.
1

Oceans Topic
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Essential data to solve climate change is missing, enhanced satellite data is key

Until this year, Americas civil space policiesand the budgets that derive from itwere shaped
to a considerable degree by the political imperatives of the past and by the romantic fiction of
spaceflight. We believe there is a new imperativeclimate changethat should take
precedence in our national plans for space and that the goal for space spending in the next decade
should be to create a robust and adequate Earth observation architecture. There is unequivocal
evidence, despite careless mistakes and noisy protests, that Earths climate is warming. While the
effects and implications of this are subject to speculation, there should be no doubt that the world
faces a major challenge. There are important shortfalls in data and analysis needed to manage this
challenge. Inadequate data mean that we cannot determine the scope or nature of change in some
key areas, such as the melting of Antarctic sea ice. Long-term changes in daily temperature are
not adequately understood, in part because of limited observations of atmospheric changes. Our
understanding of how some anthropogenic (man-made) influences affect climate change is still
incomplete.

These shortfalls must be remedied, if only to overcome skepticism and doubt.
Climate change now occupies a central place on the global political agenda, and the United States
should adjust its space policies to reflect this. Assessing and managing climate change will
require taking what has largely been a scientific enterprise and operationalizing it.
Operationalization means creating processes to provide the data and analysis that governments
will need if they are to implement policies and regulations to soften the effects of climate change.
Operationalization requires the right kind of data and adequate tools for collecting, analyzing, and
disseminating that data in ways that inform decision-making at many levels of society. Satellites
play a central role in assessing climate change because they can provide a consistent global view,
important data, and an understanding of change in important but remote areas. Yet there are
relatively few climate satellitesa total of 19, many of which are well past their expected service
life. Accidents or failures would expose the fragility of the Earth observation system.

We lack
the required sensors and instruments for the kinds of measurement that would make predictions
more accurate and solutions more acceptable. Weather satellites, which take low-resolution
pictures of clouds, forests, and ice caps, are not adequate to the task. NASA builds impressive
Earth observation satellites for climate change, but these have been experimental rather than on-
going programs. Climate change poses a dilemma for space policy. The programs needed to
manage climate change have been woefully underfunded for decades. The normal practice is to
call uncritically for more money for civil space and its three componentsplanetary exploration,
Earth observation, and manned spaceflight. In fact, civil space has been lavishly funded. Since
1989, NASA has received $385 billion, with $189 billion in the last decade.

This is more than the
space budgets of most other nations combined. The problem is not a lack of money but how it
has been spent. The bulk of this money went to NASAs manned space program. This is a legacy
of the Cold War. Manned spaceflight showed that market democracies could surpass scientific
socialism. The point has been made. Spaceflight provides prestige, but a long series of
miscalculations have left the United States with a fragile and fabulously expensive space
transportation system. It will take years to recover, and some goals, such as a voyage to Mars, are
simply unachievable absent major breakthroughs in physics and other sciences.

Oceans Topic
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Data is essential to an effective climate change policy
On a national level, the United States is beginning a similar effort to better inform
decisionmakers about climate change. U.S. climate change policy is based on three
components: slowing the growth of emissions; strengthening science, technology,
and institutions; and enhancing international cooperation. Climate change has been
a priority for the Obama administration, and it now needs to be reinforced by
organizational measures that, like the World Climate Service System, provide
essential information to decisionmakers. Effective climate change policy requires
the government to provide the user community with information on anticipated
climate changes and the potential effect of any policies. Federal government, states,
local communities, businesses, and individuals all require information to make
decisions about how to respond to climate change.

US should prioritize satellite climate change policy
Climate change poses a dilemma for space policy. If we accept that climate change
poses credible and major risks to regional stability, national security, and
economic health, the United States needs to reconsider how it spends its money for
civil space. Earth observation data are critical to understanding the causes and
effects of climate change and quantifying changing conditions in the environment.
The shortage of satellites actually designed and in orbit to measure climate change
is unacceptable if we are serious about climate change. Until this year, U.S. space
policy was on autopilot. The Bush space policy did not differ markedly from the
space policy of Jimmy Carter. The hallmark of this period was heavy investment in
the shuttle and space station. The commitment to these 1970s technologies eroded
public interest in space. A science reporter for a national newspaper said that when
he wrote on the unmanned Mars explorers, thousands of readers would look at the
story on the newspapers Web site, but when he wrote about the shuttle, there
would be only a few hundred hits. The overlong commitment to the shuttle and
the station ended in final years of the Bush administration, but unfortunately it was
replaced with an unworkable vision for manned exploration that would have
consumed a major portion of the space budget. In fact, a mission to Mars is beyond
the technical capabilities of any nation. Leonardo da Vinci could draw helicopters
and aircraft, but they were made of wood and cloth. Until breakthroughs in
materials, chemistry, and physics, his ideas could not be implemented. The same is
now true for manned planetary exploration. Our propulsion and life support
systems will not support a manned flight to Mars. In contrast, a return to the Moon
is achievable. The dilemma is that NASA would need another $150 billion to return
Oceans Topic
21
to the moon more than 40 years after the first visit. There is no doubt that a return
to the moon would bring prestige to the United States and that if another nation
such as China was to get there beforehand it will be interpreted as another sign of
U.S. decline. Years of a static approach to space policy have put us in this
uncomfortable situation. From the perspective of the national interest, however, the
United States would be better served by building and maintaining a robust space
capacity for monitoring climate change. This is a question of priorities. Manned
flight should remain a priority, but not the first priority. Earth observation data is
critical to understanding the causes and effects of climate change and quantifying
changing conditions in the environment. The paucity of satellites actually designed
and in orbit to measure climate change is disturbing. The United States does not
have a robust climate-monitoring infrastructure. In fact, the current infrastructure is
in decline. Until that decline is reversed and an adequate space infrastructure put
in place, building and launching satellites specifically designed for monitoring
climate change should be the first priority for civil space spending. Manned
spaceflight provides prestige, but Earth observation is crucial for security and
economic well-being. The United States should continue to fund as a priority a more
robust and adequate space infrastructure to measure climate change, building and
orbiting satellites specifically designed to carry advanced sensors for such
monitoring. Satellites provide globally consistent observations and the means to
make simultaneous observations of diverse measurements that are essential for
climate studies. They supply high-accuracy global observations of the atmosphere,
ocean, and land surface that cannot be acquired by any other method. Satellite
instruments supply accurate measurements on a near-daily basis for long periods
and across broad geographic regions. They can reveal global patterns that ground or
air sensors would be unable to detectas in the case of data from NASA satellites
that showed us the amount of pollution arriving in North America from Asia as
equal to 15 percent of local emissions of the United States and Canada. This sort of
data is crucial to effective management of emissionsthe United States, for
example, could put in place regulations to decrease emissions and find them
neutralized by pollution from other regions.

Satellites allow us to monitor the
pattern of ice-sheet thickening and thinning. While Arctic ice once increased a few
centimeters every year, it now melts at a rate of more than one meter annually. This
knowledge would not exist without satellite laser altimetry from NASAs ICESat
satellite. Satellite observations serve an indispensable rolethey have provided
unprecedented knowledge of inaccessible regions. Of the 44 essential climate
variables (ECV) recognized as necessary to support the needs of the parties to the
UNFCCC for the purposes of the Convention, 26 depend on satellite observations.
But deployments of new and replacement satellites have not kept pace with the
termination of older systems. Innovation and investment in Earth observation
technology have failed to keep pace with global needs for monitoring and
verification. Much of our data comes from satellites put in orbit for other purposes,
such as weather prediction and monitoring. The sensors on these weather satellites
provide valuable data, but they are not optimized for monitoring climate change or
for adequately assessing the effect of mitigation efforts. More precise and
specialized data are needed to understand and predict climate change, and getting
Oceans Topic
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these data will require new orbital sensors. Countries have improved many of their
climate observation capabilities, but reports suggest little progress in ensuring long-
term continuity for several important observing systems. The bulk of climate data is
collected by the United States, and NASAs investment in the Earth Observing
System missions has provided the climate-quality data used to establish trends in
sea level, ozone concentrations, ocean color, solar irradiance, Earths energy
balance, and other key variables. While this investment has made an invaluable
contribution, it is not an operational system. Many satellites currently in orbit are
operating well past their planned lifetimes. In the next eight years, half of the
worlds Earth observation satellites will be past their useful life. One reason for this
is that many of the satellites that provide critical data for monitoring climate change
are experimental satellites (such as TRMMthe Tropical Rainfall Measuring
Mission). Satellites built as research efforts provide real benefit, but if they are not
replaced when their service life ends and if a permanent operational capability for
Earth observation is not put in place, we will face insurmountable problems for
observing capabilities and our ability to manage climate change. Many missions and
observations for collecting climate data are at risk of interruption. These include
measurements of ocean color that are critical for studying phytoplankton bloom and
the role of ocean biomass as a carbon source and sink and data on the role of forests
in the carbon cycle. Perhaps the most important shortcoming involves the
monitoring of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and greenhouse gases. Reduction and
regulation of CO2emissions are part of every discussion on how to manage climate
change, but the crash of NASAs Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO) satellite left the
world essentially bereft of the ability to make precise measurements to assess
emissions reduction efforts. OCO cost approximately $278 million,

which was about
2 percent of NASAs annual budget for manned space flight in 2009. Its loss will
cripple global carbon monitoring until we have its replacement, finally funded this
year and scheduled for launch no later than February 2013. Existing GHG
monitoring networks and programs are predominantly ground-based, but they are
not truly adequate to the task. Ground-based networks are limited because they can
only provide disjointed pieces of a larger picture. Moreover, these systems are aging,
and investment for replacement has declined. We now rely on Japans GOSAT, the
European Space Agencys SCIAMACHY sensor, and Canadas microsatellite, CanX-2,
for observations of atmospheric concentrations of carbon; however, these sensors
are not advanced enough to meet data requirements needed to understand critical
aspects of the carbon cycle, and they are highly constrained by their range of
coverage. For example, the carbon produced from a fossil fuel power plant is too
small to measure with GOSAT, and low spatial resolution and high uncertainty of
measurements limit the monitoring capabilities of SCIAMACHY. The implications are
serious for measuring the effectiveness of climate policies. If reduction in GHG
emissions (the most significant being carbon dioxide) is the centerpiece of
mitigation efforts and a goal for both national legislation and international
agreement, we are woefully unprepared to assess the effectiveness of these
measures. It will be The need for information has never been greater, but there are
significant gaps in global Earth monitoring capabilities.

Although more than 50
nations operate or plan to operate Earth observation satellites, most of these are
Oceans Topic
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basic electro-optical satellites, essentially orbiting digital cameras that lack the
necessary sensors for precise climate monitoring. There are only a handful of
dedicated satellites for monitoring climate change, and the time has passed when
general-purpose weather satellites can meet our informational needs. Japan,
Europe, and the United States operate satellites with some of the sensors needed to
monitor climate change, but a recent National Academies study found that of the 26
essential climate variables that can be monitored from space, we have coverage of
only 16.

Only a coordinated federal policy and investment, including revised
priorities for our civil space programs, can change this. For most of the last decade,
NASA was unable to replace its climate-monitoring satellites. Re- placing these
satellites is crucial to avoid a drastic decline in collecting the most valuable
information for monitoring climate change. The Obama administration has
proposed a budget for NASAs Earth science programs of $2.4 billion in new funding
over the next five years, an increase of more than 60 percent. The new funding,
which requires congressional approval, will help replace OCO and allow NASA to
replace the twin GRACE satellites that make detailed measurements of Earths
gravity field that can provide important climate data. The request for NOAAs budget
for climate-related activities has been increased as well. NOAA will be spending $2.2
billion to maintain and further develop satellites and to support climate difficult to
assess and adjust CO-reducing research; $435 million has been requested to support
the U.S. Global Change Research Program, with $77 million in new increases for core
climate services and observations. Spending on space has always been a question of
priorities. Until recently, those priorities were frozen in time, reflecting political
needs that were decades out of date. Our national priorities have changed. A new
priority, reflecting the new challenges to our security and national interest, involves
monitoring and understanding climate change. Debate over climate change is fierce
and there are many skeptics, but the signs of major changes are undeniable.
Warnings of catastrophe are likely overblown, but we do not fully understand the
implications of climate change or the utility of various measures to mitigate it.
Climate change is occurring, and it creates new risks. In this context, the recent
decision to scale back spending on human space flight and increase spending on
Earth observation is a better match for national priorities and interests. It updates a
space policy that has been badly out of date for years. Observation of climate change
began more than a century ago with simple measurements of the Earths average
temperature. These were interesting, but inadequate. The breakthrough in
understanding climate change came with Earth observation satellites. Satellites
provide global awareness in ways that other technologies cannot match. The
monitoring needed for a serious effort requires observations that can only be done
from space.

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Solvency Need to Monitor Ecosystems

Remote sensing critical to monitor ecosystems impacted by climate change

Ira Leifer, Marine Science Institute, University of California, 2012, State of the Art
Satellite and airborne marine oil spill remote sensing: Application to the BP
Deepwater Horizon Spill, Remote Sensing of the Environment, 124, pp. 185-209.
1. Vegetation and ecosystem impacts
Petroleum hydrocarbons contain many toxic compounds that cause vegetation stress, changing
leaf color and damaging the canopy. Longer- term, germination disruption and vegetation
mortality can shift the ecosystem towards more chemically tolerant species, altering the dominant
species (Li et al., 2005). Imaging spectroscopy has sufficient spectral resolution to characterize
diagnostic absorption signatures (band position, width, depth, and symmetry) allowing
monitoring of soil and vegetation changes. High spectral resolution is critical to enable dis-
crimination between vegetation species and other scene items such as soil (Li et al., 2005).
Remote sensing provides the spatial coverage and sensitivity to assess oil spill damage and
ecosystem impacts over statistically significant areas, provides data for logistically or politically
inaccessible sites, and has been used for other disasters, but seldom for oil spills.
Change detection and damage detection are two approaches to remote sense ecosystem oil spill
impacts.
In change detection, changes in remote sensing parameters, such as surface reflectance,
emittance, SAR backscatter, etc., identify changes such as ecosystem shifts. For example, soil
property changes from the 1991 Kuwaiti oil spill for over 100 oil lakes were monitored with
Landsat TM land surface temperature (LST) data (Husain & Amin, 1995). Areas with higher LST
had either shallower or greater oil contamination than areas with lower LST, and gradually
decreased over the 7-year study (Ud Din et al., 2008).
Plant stress can be identified by spectral shape changes including shifts towards shorter
wavelengths of the red edge, located near 700 nm, due to chlorophyll loss and less scattering
between leaves (Boochs et al., 1990). Although vegetation status often is assessed by the
normalized difference vegetation index, spectral changes in the shape and location of the red edge
are more robust (Li et al., 2005; van der Meijde et al., 2009). Spectral changes in the red edge
have identified vegetation stress from petroleum hydrocarbons in ground-based spectrometer data
(van der Meijde et al., 2009) and AVIRIS data for an oil spill in Jornada, New Mexico (Li et al.,
2005). Be- cause these variations can occur on sub-pixel scales, spectral mixture analysis often is
used to characterize the fraction of endmembers (distinct components) in a pixel, such as
dominant species (Roberts et al., 1998). SAR monitoring of canopy structural changes also can
map plant stress effectively (Ramsey et al., 2011). Because other factors can cause vegetation
stress, spatial information on vegetation oil- ing can be important (Li et al., 2005). Combining
remote sensing oil hydrocarbon spectral detection (e.g., Fig. 4) with ecosystem stress remote
sensing can allow discrimination between stresses from oil and other causes.

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Solvency US Climate Leadership

Obtaining climate change information is necessary for US global leadership on
climate change
Meeting the needs of climate policy requires a transformation in how climate research is
incorporated into public policymaking.

Operationalizing information systemsinvesting in the
Earth observation systems necessary for producing the right data over the right time and space
horizons, coordinating data collection, interpreting and sharing to maximize the datas benefits,
focusing on the human and social science effects of climate change, improving modeling
capabilities, and making this information accessible and relevant for a wide range of usersis a
necessary step in designing effective U.S. climate policy. It also represents an opportunity for
America to demonstrate global leadership and contribute to building global capacity to
understand and more effectively respond to the climate.

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Solvency Plan Advocacy

US should increase earth observation of climate change
The U.S. approach to climate change policy needs to inform decisionmakers and planners in both
government and the private sector by providing understandable metrics and analyses of the
effectiveness of, and compliance with, mitigation programs and adaption plans. The customers
for this should include federal agencies, state and local governments, private sector users, and
other nations.
To better serve the national interest, the United States should increase its Earth observation
capabilitiesespecially space-based sensors for carbon monitoringto improve our ability to
understand the carbon cycle and to inform any future international agreement. This means that
until these capabilities are adequate for monitoring climate change, investment in Earth
observation satellites should take precedence over other space programs. Increased spending on
earth observation satellites specifically designed for climate change should be maintained until
the current capability shortfall is eliminated. The United States should accelerate, expand, and
reinforce a National Climate Service to improve climate information management and
decisionmaking. In a related effort, the United States should support the World Meteorological
Organization in its efforts to create a World Climate Service System. The United States should
complement its national effort by supporting and expanding multilateral efforts to coordinate
Earth observation for climate change, building on existing international efforts such as GCOS.
This could entail coordinated investment in space and, subsidies for ground facilities in
developing countries, recognizing that the United States, EU, Japan, and Canada will bear the
largest share of the cost at this time.
More investments should be made in remote sensing

Avery Sen, Masters candidate/Researcher, Space Policy Institute, Elliott School of International
Affairs, George Washington University, 2004, The benefits of remote sensing for energy
policy, Space Policy, 20, pp. 17-24
A strong remote sensing regime is a necessary component of any contemporary national
or international energy policy. Energy is essential to the functioning of modern industrial
society, and as such it is the responsibility of governments to produce sound national
energy policies in order to ensure stable economic growth, ecologically responsible use
of energy resources and the health and safety of citizens. Comprehensive, accurate and
timely remote sensing data can aid decision making on energy matters in several areas.
This paper looks at the benefits that can be realized in resource exploration, weather
forecasting and environmental monitoring. Improvements in the technology of remote
sensing platforms would be of great value to buyers of energy, sellers of energy and the
environment. Furthermore, the utility of such information could be enhanced by efforts of
government agencies to communicate it more effectively to the end-user. National energy
Oceans Topic
27
policies should thus include investments not only in satellite system hardware to collect
data, but also in the services required to interpret and distribute the data.
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Solvency A2: OCEAN Monitoring Not Key
Ocean warming dramatic and understanding ocean changes is critical to
understanding climate change
Quartz.com, February 4, 2014, http://qz.com/173647/climate-change-is-slowly-
but-steadily-cooking-the-worlds-oceans/
Because the oceans so bigit takes up more than 70% of the planets
surfaceit absorbs a lot of energy without anyone being much the wiser.
Heres a look at data for the upper 2,000 meters (1.14 miles) of the global ocean.
Check out the three-month moving average for the last quarter of 2013, via the
National Oceanographic Data Center, which actually goes off the chart:

Roughly speaking, from about 1980 to 2000, the ocean gained around 50
zettajoules (ZJ, or 10
21
joules) of heat. But from 2000 to 2013, it added another
150 ZJs of heat. Of course, even if you knew what a zettajoule is, its hard to
envision what this means. Science Skeptic, a blog on climate change, offers this
useful analogy: Over the last half-dozen or so decades, the oceans been storing
the heat energy equivalent of about two Hiroshima bombs per second.
Worryingly, that rates picking up, with around four bombs per second stored in the
last 16 years.
In 2013, however, the ocean gained the heat equivalent to about 12 bombs per
second, says Science Skeptic.
That adds up to more than 378 million atomic bombs a year worth of heat.
Thats troublesome, considering that warmer waters are thought to make
hurricanes and typhoons more severe, including Typhoon Haiyan, which
ravaged the Philippines in 2013. Warmer waters also cause global sea levels
to rise, threatening property values and exacerbating flooding.

The variation in surface temperature is a big reason people suspect that the earth is
getting warmer.
Deep-ocean temperatures are among the more consistent indicators of how our
climate is changing. Solar energy transmitted by greenhouse gases doesnt
necessarily translate to warmer surface temperatures, which are also influenced by
a slew of other factors, including wind and current. In the last decade, around one-
third of global warming showed up 700 meters under the seas surface or
deeper, according to research (pdf) by Magdalena A. Balmaseda, Kevin E. Trenberth
and Erland Klln published last year.
So while its easy to ignore whats going on a mile under the waves, some 378
million Hiroshima bombs worth of heat a year are begging for our attention.
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Solvency -- Information Solves

Observational data is key to construct effective adaptation measures in all
relevant areas.
Evans 12 (2/14/12, Jason, PhD, regional climate and hydrology, Australian
National University, Australian Research Council Future Fellow, the climate
projection lead for the NARCliM project, and the AustralAsia domain coordinator for
the CORDEX project, researcher at the University of New South Wales in Sydney,
Australia, Regional Climate Modelling: The Future for Climate Change Impacts and
Adaptation Research, http://www.earthzine.org/2012/02/14/regional-climate-
modelling-the-future-for-climate-change-impacts-and-adaptation-research/)

With an international agreement to limit greenhouse gases remaining ever elusive,
future impacts of climate change on human and natural systems are all but assured.
The eventual magnitude of these impacts increases with each year that successful
mitigation measures are not in place. Thus, the need for robust quantification of the
risks posed to these systems due to climate change is becoming increasingly
more urgent. Fundamental questions concerning the magnitude of the impacts and the time frames over which they
occur need to be answered. With this knowledge, one can then ask: What adaptation
options are available? And, when would an intervention need to occur to be
successful?
All climate change impacts and adaptation research relies on climate projection
information supplied by the climate research community. The required spatial and
temporal scales and climate variables vary substantially, depending on the particular impact and system
of interest. Quantifying impacts on large-scale water supplies requires knowledge of rainfall
and evaporation at daily (or monthly) time scales over large catchments (thousands of square kilometers), while
urban water infrastructure requires rainfall data derived over minutes to hours,
over comparatively small areas (Figure 1).
Coastal erosion (Figure 2) studies require information on winds (and waves) over large expanses of ocean
(100 km+) for days, with related storm damage requiring knowledge of extreme wind gusts over minutes. Understanding
agricultural impacts requires knowledge of rainfall, temperature, solar radiation,
and winds on time scales from hours (e.g. overnight frosts) to seasons, and spatial scales
down to fields. Crops also are often sensitive to particular extreme events during parts of the
growth cycle, so capturing a wide variety of these often temperature-related extremes also is needed.
Urban air pollution is often related to the presence of a low-level atmospheric
temperature inversion which traps the produced pollution, thus these impacts require knowledge
of the vertical structure of the low-level atmosphere on time scales of hours. Natural systems
cover a similarly broad range of variables and spatial and temporal scales.

Knowledge is a prerequisite solvency deficits dont assume the information
gathering of the counterplan.
Stigter and Winarto 12 (4/4/12, C. Kees, Visiting professor in developing
countries, Agromet Vision, Bondowoso, Indonesia, and Bruchem, Netherlands, and
Yunita, Academy Professorship Indonesia & Professor of Anthropology, Department
of Anthropology, Faculty of Social & Political Sciences, KNAW-AIPI, Universitas
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Indonesia, What Climate Change Means for Farmers in Asia,
http://www.earthzine.org/2012/04/04/what-climate-change-means-for-farmers-
in-asia/)

Vulnerable communities across the world are already feeling the effects of a
changing climate. These communities are urgently in need of assistance aimed at
building resilience, and at undertaking climate change adaptation efforts as a
matter of survival and in order to maintain livelihoods (e.g. [1, 2]). They are in need of an urgent rural
response to climate change. The reality of climate change calls for a need to
understand how it might affect a range of natural and social systems, and to identify and
evaluate options to respond to these effects (e.g. [3]). This should lead to an in-depth investigation of
vulnerabilities and adaptations to climate change, which have become central to
climate science, policy and practice. The capacity, however, to conduct vulnerability
and adaptation assessments is still limited [4].

More research and new observation metrics can remove technical barriers
currently preventing adaptation.
Lewis et al. 10 (June 2010, James, Director and Senior Fellow, Technology and
Public Policy Program, CSIS, Sarah O. Ladislaw, Senior Fellow, Energy and National
Security Program, CSIS, and Denise E. Zheng, congressional staffer, Earth
Observation for Climate Change,
http://csis.org/files/publication/100608_Lewis_EarthObservation_WEB.pdf)

Like mitigation, adaptation requires time, money, and planning. It also requires communities
to weigh the benefits and the costs of specific adaptation measures, a difficult task
made even more complicated by uncertainty regarding the timing and magnitude
of climate change. Communities must balance planning for high impact, low probability events with planning for low impact, high
probability trends. In addition, economic, technological, cultural, and information barriers to
adaptation often challenge even the most conscientious efforts to improve resiliency
and lower vulnerability.
There are significant challenges in going from predictions of how the climate may
change to the effects these changes may have on water, resources, or human health.
Meeting this challenge requires boosting adaptation research; bolstering capacity to
monitor change and its effects; producing the sorts of integrated assessment on the pace,
patterns, and regional effects of climate change that will be needed by
decisionmakers and providing metrics and goals for both mitigation and adaptation; and making climate
data and information accessible to those who need it.

More information is critical to plan for extreme weather events and sustain
agricultural production.
Haggar et al. 11 (Aug. 2011, Jeremy, PhD, agroecology, Head of Agriculture,
Health and Environment, University of Greenwich, Rebecca Clements, Project
Coordinator, Practical Action Latin America, non-profit charity organization
focusing on climate change adaptation measures in rural areas, MA, International
Studies, Alicia Quezada, Regional Consultancy Manager at Practical Action Latin
America, MSc, Development Management, Juan Torres, Climate Change Team
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Leader, Practical Action Latin America, Technologies for Climate Change
Adaptation, http://tech-
action.org/Guidebooks/TNA_Guidebook_AdaptationAgriculture.pdf)

The Technology and Its Contribution to Adaptation
For countries to understand their local climate better and thus be able to develop scenarios for climate change, they must have
adequate operational systematic observing networks, and access to the data
available from other global and regional networks. These systems enable the integration of
national early warning systems, GIS mapping of vulnerable areas, meteorological
information on flooding and droughts, as well as the mapping of disease outbreaks. In
this way, they provide indicators for monitoring the impacts of climate change and
facilitate disaster preparedness and adaptation planning.
The Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) is running a number of initiatives aimed at modelling the impacts of climate
change on agriculture which provide vital information for national decision-making and planning (Box 4.2).
Advantages
There are many advantages of having a comprehensive and reliable national climate
monitoring system. On a national level, accurate weather forecasting is invaluable for many
sectors, particularly agriculture. In developing countries, where the main economic activity of a majority
of the population is linked to agriculture, predictions about what environmental conditions can be
expected during the year can have a huge impact on peoples livelihoods and the
national food supply. Decisions about what crops to plant, when to plant and when to
harvest are crucial and the more accurately weather can be forecasted, the better decisions
can be taken (Box 4.3).
One of the effects of climate change seems to be the more frequent occurrence of
extreme weather events. These include hurricanes and typhoons, as well as unseasonal extremes of temperature and heavy
rains, which can cause droughts, flooding, landslides and other disasters. The devastation that these events can
suddenly have on agricultural production means that any improvement on the
ability to predict or anticipate them and plan accordingly is invaluable. Due to the complexity
of global climate and weather systems and the fact that our understanding is based on modelling using historical data, the regular
measurements of specific variables provided by climate monitoring systems is essential for
developing early warning systems.

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Solvency More Information Key

The disconnect creates a viscious cycle lack of information means
policymakers cut funding for information gathering programs.
Gail 09 (2/9/09, William, PhD, electrical engineering (focus on Earths
magnetosphere), Stanford University, member of the advisory board for NASAs
Earth science applications program, former member of the National Research
Councils Decadal Survey of Earth Sciences, The Value of Climate-Related Satellite
Data,
http://www.rff.org/Publications/WPC/Pages/09_02_09_Cimate_Related_Satellite_D
ata.aspx)

Furthermore, by providing a picture of how resources and natural systems at the local
level are impacted by climate change, satellite-based data help to pinpoint where
adaptation policies are most needed. Examples include policies to promote the
transition to hardier crops in areas at greater risk of drought and construction
projects for valuable coastal regions most threatened by sea level rises.
Using Satellite Data to Assist Climate Policy
Earth-based observations of climate-related phenomena are a public good. As there is no
private market for this information, its collection must be largely funded by the government. NASA
is the only U.S. government entity with a portfolio of satellites capable of generating
new scientific understanding of climate issues. Over the last twenty years the United States has invested around
$1 billion a year in expanding, maintaining, and operating satellites for climate-related monitoring. The most recent congressional stimulus
package (as of this writing, HR1, The American Recovery Act of 2009) allocates a further $400 million to fund environmental satellites
identified as vital by a 2007 National Academy of Sciences study.
NASAs data collection over the last two decades has laid the groundwork for
understanding how Earths complex natural variabilityand human influence on
itimpacts society. However, the next step is to ensure that this accumulating scientific
knowledge is fully applied to improve critical policy and economic decisions. At present
there is a fundamental and puzzling disconnect between those parties engaged in
crafting domestic climate policy legislation, and those responsible for choosing how
to allocate NASA funding among alternative priorities so as to inform policy issues. Legislative proposals
provide little detail on how information will be collected and used to monitor
emissions control programs, particularly with regard to crediting of forest
sequestration and reductions in non-CO2 GHGs. NASA representatives need a more
prominent place in deliberations over climate policy design, both to ensure that the
best use is made of satellite information and that NASA focuses on the most pressing
priorities for earth observation.

Oceans Topic
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Solvency Federal Government Solves

Federal government action key to integrate squo adaptation measures and
make them successful.
Smith et al. 10 (Mar. 2010, Joel, Jason M. Vogel, Terri L. Cruce, Stephen Seidel,
Heather A. Holsinger, Adapting to Climate Change: A Call for Federal Leadership,
Pew Center for Global Climate Change,
http://www.c2es.org/docUploads/adaptation-federal-leadership.pdf)

While many adaptations will occur at the state and local levels, the federal government is a critical player in an
effective and coordinated approach to climate change adaptation in the United
States. The federal government is significant for four primary reasons discussed in more detail in a
later section: it owns and manages a significant number of assets and natural resources;
its programs affect the ability of others to adapt; it is an important provider of
technical, fiscal, and other support; and it plays a crucial role in dealing with impacts
that cross geographic or jurisdictional boundaries.
Some municipalities, states, federal agencies, and others have already recognized
the importance of addressing climate impacts by initiating climate adaptation plans,
commissioning impact or vulnerability assessments, or enacting no regrets
adaptation actions2 that improve their communities climate resilience. Such efforts
are making initial strides in tackling adaptation needs, but a dedicated and appropriately
focused national program is needed to address the multiple institutions, sectors, and levels of government involved in
adaptation as well as the complexity, magnitude, and long time horizon of many climate impacts.

Oceans Topic
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Solvency Adaptation Solvency

Adaptation solves but requires government action their evidence is biased
by green lobbists and interest groups.
Economist 10 (11/25/10, briefing from the print edition of The Economist,
Facing the consequences, http://www.economist.com/node/17572735)

The fight to limit global warming to easily tolerated levels is thus over. Analysts who
have long worked on adaptation to climate changefinding ways to live with scarcer water, higher peak
temperatures, higher sea levels and weather patterns at odds with those under which todays settled patterns of farming developedare
starting to see their day in the uncomfortably hot sun. That such measures cannot
protect everyone from all harm that climate change may bring does not mean that
they should be ignored. On the contrary, they are sorely needed.
Public harms
Many of these adaptations are the sorts of thingmoving house, improving water supply, sowing different
seedsthat people will do for themselves, given a chance. This is one reason why adaptation has not been the subject of
public debate in the same way as reductions in greenhouse-gas emissions from industry and deforestation have. But even if a lot of
adaptation will end up being done privately, it is also a suitable issue for public
policy.
For a start, some forms of adaptationflood barriers, for instanceare clearly public goods, best
supplied through collective action. Adaptation will require redistribution, too. Some
people and communities are too poor to adapt on their own; and if emissions caused
by the consumption of the rich imposes adaptation costs on the poor, justice
demands recompense.
Furthermore, policymakers neat division of the topic of climate change into mitigation,
impact and adaptation is too simplistic. Some means of adaptation can also act as
mitigation; a farming technique which helps soil store moisture better may well help
it store carbon too. Some forms of adaptation will be hard to distinguish from the
sort of impact you would rather avoid. Mass migration is a good way of adapting if
the alternative is sitting still and starving; to people who live where the migrants
turn up it may look awfully like an unwelcome impact.
Its frequently private and slightly blurry nature is not the only reason why adaptation has been marginalised. The
green pressure groups and politicians who have driven the debate on climate
change have often been loth to see attention paid to adaptation, on the ground that the more people
thought about it, the less motivated they would be to push ahead with emissions reduction. Talking about adaptation
was for many years like farting at the dinner table, says an academic who has worked on adaptation
over the past decade. Now that the worlds appetite for emissions reduction has been revealed to be chronically weak, putting people off dinner
is less of a problem.
Another reason for taking adaptation seriously is that it is necessary now. Events such as
this years devastating floods in Pakistan make it obvious that the world has not adapted to the climate it already has, be it man-made or natural.
Even if the climate were not changing, there would be two reasons to worry about
its capacity to do more harm than before. One is that it varies a lot naturally and the
period over which there are good global climate records is short compared with the timescale on
which some of that variability plays out. People thus may be ignoring the worst that todays climate can do, let alone tomorrows. The
other is that more lives, livelihoods and property are at risk, even if hazards do not
change, as a result of economic development, population growth and migration to coasts and floodplains.
Oceans Topic
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Adaptation solves the impact of warmingthe aff makes it worse
MILLER 2007 (Henry, physician and molecular biologist and fellow @ Stanford, March 16, Washington Times)
A significant lowering of emissions would be too costly, too little and too late. Reduced burning of fossil fuels sufficient to have even a modest
impact would create havoc with economic growth. In any case, discernible effects on warming would be decades away. We really need to
focus our efforts and resources on becoming more resilient and adaptive. As noted recently
in an insightful article in the journal Nature by University of Colorado Environmental Studies Professor Roger Pielke Jr. and his collaborators,
vulnerability to climate-related impacts on society is increasing for reasons that have nothing to
do with greenhouse-gas emissions, such as rapid population growth along coasts and in areas
with limited water supplies, which exacerbates impacts of droughts. Nevertheless, they observe that many activists regard adaptation as
necessary only because we aren't aggressive enough in preventing greenhouse-gas emissions and that, because most projected impacts of
anthropogenic climate change are marginal increases on already huge losses, applying adaptation only to that narrow margin makes no sense.
They cite the example of the Philippines, where policymakers are wringing their hands about a possible gradual climate change-mediated rise in
sea level of from 1 to 3 millimeters per year, while they ignore the primary cause of enhanced flood risk, excessive groundwater extraction,
which is lowering the land surface by several centimeters to more than a decimeter per year (100 millimeters equals 1 decimeter, or about 4
inches). Perhaps more attention should be given ways to reduce groundwater extraction,
such as desalination, wastewater treatment and recycling, collection of rainwater
and cultivation of crop plants that require less irrigation. In a similar vein, the authors say
"nonclimate factors are by far the most important drivers of increased risk to tropical disease,"
although such risk "is repeatedly invoked by climate-mitigation advocates as a key reason to curb emissions." They cite a study finding that
without factoring in climate-change effects, "The global population at risk from malaria would increase by 100 percent by 2080, whereas the
effect of climate change would increase the risk of malaria by at most 7 percent." Mr. Pielke and his colleagues criticize the political obsession
with the idea that climate risks can be reduced by cutting emissions, because it distracts attention from other,
more cost-effective approaches. However, for many activists, emissions reduction has become
an article of faith: Al Gore dismissed adaptation as a kind of laziness, an arrogant faith in our ability to react in time to save our skins.
Doctrinaire activism and command-and-control policymaking are inimical to
resilience; they jeopardize our survival as individuals and our success as a society. The need for resilience in both the
private and public sectors is not new. The buggy-whip manufacturers had to adapt and begin supplying automobile components to Henry Ford's
assembly line, or perish. More recently, the U.K. built the Thames Barrier, a monumental system of movable flood gates that prevents the
flooding of London by surge tides that occur under certain meteorological conditions and because tide levels have been rising by 60 centimeters
(2 feet) per century. How resilient will preeminent farming areas be to a warming trend? Agriculture will adapt for example, by
adjusting what gets planted where. Crops that require cooler temperatures will increasingly be cultivated at higher
elevations, on northern exposures, or closer to the coast. We have already observed a similar phenomenon
in Germany, where the growers of wine grapes have begun to exploit higher temperatures: Because of the northward migration of
Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot grapes, during the last five years the proportion of locally made red wines consumed by German consumers has
increased from 17 percent to 27 percent. Technological advances will help, too: Gene-splicing
techniques already are used to enhance the resistance to drought and other stresses
of many kinds of crop plants. But here again, public policy has impeded innovation and, thereby, our ability to adapt. Gene-
splicing technology, which offers markedly enhanced precision and predictability compared to its predecessors, is grossly over-regulated. As a
result, the additional expense to perform field trials with gene-spliced plants causes the technology to be underutilized by academic and
industrial scientists. Worse still, in response to mendacious and irresponsible activism, some local jurisdictions have banned entirely the
cultivation of plants or seeds improved with these techniques. Resilience is in short supply these days, and there is plenty of blame to go around.
Politicians tend to be short-term thinkers, their purview often limited to the next election, and many seem to care less about the public interest
than about scoring political points. Moreover, many are just not very smart and are often particularly challenged in science and logic. If
individually and collectively we are to meet economic, environmental, and public health challenges, we need plenty of options and opportunities
for innovation and the wealth to pursue them. In society, as in biology, survival demands adaptation. But in large and
small ways, unimaginative, shortsighted politicians and benighted activists have conspired to limit
our options, constrain economic growth and make real solutions elusive.

Adaptation can safeguard both nature and human populations.
HOEKSTRA 2009 (John, PhD in Zoology, director of The Nature Conservancy's climate change team, Adaptation 101,
http://www.nature.org/initiatives/climatechange/features/art26193.html)
What's often missing from discussions on climate change? Well-planned and coordinated strategies that give people and nature the best
opportunity to thrive and survive in a world changed by global warming in other words, adaptation strategies. But climate change
adaptation is a difficult concept to grasp. To help explain it, Nature.org talked to Jonathan Hoekstra, The Nature Conservancys director of
emerging strategies, to get the details and find out why the Conservancy is a global leader in this area. Nature.org: What exactly are we adapting
and how can people possibly help nature adapt to climate change? Jonathan Hoekstra: The Conservancy's
Oceans Topic
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adaptation strategy is in many ways like helping nature stave off an illness. We try to prevent
damage and to ensure that habitats are healthy enough to survive. The goal is to
safeguard nature and the human communities that depend on it from irreversible harm by
a changing climate. For example, in Kimbe Bay, Papua New Guinea, where warming oceans threaten to kill-off coral reefs, the
Conservancy helped local communities design a network of marine protected areas that will be able to
bounce back from coral bleaching and ensure more sustainable fisheries. To do this, we link
the reefs through currents, which allow larvae from healthy reefs to replenish those that have experienced bleaching. In New Mexico, hotter,
drier conditions will make forests more vulnerable to bark beetle outbreaks and devastating fire. So the Conservancy is using cutting-edge
science tools to identify the most vulnerable areas in the state, so that proactive forest management practices can
be put in place. In each of these cases, we are helping change how we protect habitat and how we manage natural resources to resist
and recover from the damaging impacts of climate change. For more than 50 years, we've worked to protect
places of exceptional ecological importance and our adaptation efforts are an
extension of that work. Nature.org: You mentioned human communities. Why should people care about adaptation as a
strategy and support it? Jonathan Hoekstra: Because climate change threatens far more than just natural places. For instance, changing
patterns of temperature and rainfall threaten peoples water supplies and alter how
and where we grow food. And more intense and frequent storms, floods and heatwaves will threaten our health and safety.
Nature.org: Can you give examples of specific strategies to adapt to those threats? Jonathan Hoekstra: Sure. For instance, restoring
floodplains would improve river health and help slow and store floodwaters.
Preserving barrier islands saves sensitive coastal habitats and protects coastal
communities from punishing storms. And protecting healthy coral reefs safeguards these jewels of the sea and
helps sustain fisheries and other sources of economic livelihood for coastal
communities.

The counterplan both slows warming and solves the impact
MARTON-LEFEVRE AND WIT 2010 (Julia, Director General, IUCN and Piet, Chair, Commission on Ecosystem
Management, Building Resilience to Climate Change, http://data.iucn.org/dbtw-wpd/edocs/2010-050.pdf)
Clearly there is an imperative to reduce the extent of the warming through efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and to sequester more
greenhouse gases in the worlds ecosystems through habitat regeneration and restoration. But also there is a need to adapt to
the changes that are already in the climate system, and to which we are committed in the coming decades.
Such changes vary enormously in different parts of the world. Some will be drier, some wetter, most warmer, and many affected by increasing
uncertainty and variation in weather patterns and seasonal change. The uncertainties associated with the
impacts of climate change make adaptation all the more complex, and require that
we make the most of no-regrets adaptation approaches those that will bring
costeffective benefits to nature and people under a range of longer-term climatic
changes. The management of our local ecosystems to provide benefits on which
people depend in the face of climate change, such as for flood protection, water flow
regulation in dry spells, wind breaks and as shade, often provides such no-regrets
responses, and in doing so, can contribute more broadly to building the resilience of
local communities to climatic and other changes.

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---Solves Biodiversity

More planning makes ecosystem-based adaptation successful
IUCN 2010 (International Union for Conservation of Nature, Building Resilience to Climate Change, http://data.iucn.org/dbtw-
wpd/edocs/2010-050.pdf)
In this context, there is a strong need in the biodiversity and natural resource management
sectors to advance the development of adaptation strategies (Campbell et al., 2009; Heller and
Zavaleta, 2009). This is critical, not only for achieving biodiversity conservation goals, but
also for maintaining the contribution of biodiversity and the ecosystem services it
provides for societal adaptation (Campbell et al., 2009). Heller and Zavaleta (2009) stressed the
need to have more operational examples of adaptation principles and recommended
the development of a practical adaptation planning process that feeds existing
policies and programs and enhances greater integration of social science into
adaptation planning frameworks. Additionally, Hagerman et al. (2010) pointed out that policy adaptation in
conservation should be based on existing scientific information and value-based commitments. This book intends to contribute to fill
the aforementioned gaps, specifically by compiling a set of current operational case studies from around the globe and by highlighting
some practical adaptation planning processes that may advance the development of Ecosystem-based Adaptation (EbA), and
conservation adaptation strategies. Here, eleven case studies from different parts of the world covering
a variety of ecosystems are presented and discussed. Between them, the case studies cover a range of
adaptation interventions, some focused on adaptation for conservation purposes, and some focused on supporting
people to adapt to climate change, through Ecosystem-based Adaptation. Many of the case studies have both elements, in recognition
of the fact that in order to continue to provide services to enable people to adapt to climate
change, ecosystems themselves also will need to adapt.

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---Solves Ecosystems

Ecosystem-based adaptation solves
In terms of biodiversity, successful adaptation is an adjustment that prepares an ecosystem or community
for a new or different environment without simplification or loss of its structure,
functions and components (CBD, 2006). The natural responses of biodiversity to changes resulting from new
environmental situations are called autonomous adjustments (CBD, 2006). These include properties such as resilience, recovering
capacity, vulnerability and sensitivity. It is considered, however, that autonomous adaptation, naturally managed, is not sufficient to
halt biodiversity loss and ecosystem services. Therefore, development of activities proposed by societies and known as
planned adaptation are required (CBD, 2009). These actions should be implemented in
different sectors such as agriculture, water resource management, development, and
infrastructure, among others, and applied to different planning levels: local, regional, national and international.
Adaptive management provides criteria from the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), on how planned adaptation should be
addressed, prioritizing actions based on the maintenance of natural infrastructures and the ecological integrity of ecosystems (CBD,
2009). Ecosystem-based Adaptation (EbA) is an approach that builds resilience and reduces the
vulnerability of local communities to climate change. Through considering the
ecosystem services on which people depend to adapt to climate change, EbA
integrates sustainable use of biodiversity and ecosystem services in a comprehensive
adaptation strategy (CBD, 2009). Adaptation is seen as a key element in creating a resilient
society. EbA puts special emphasis on ecosystem services that underpin human well-
being in the face of climate change. This approach suggests that ecosystem-based solutions can
contribute to address climate change through providing social benefits and
ecosystem conservation. EbA approaches consider that both natural and managed ecosystems
can reduce vulnerability to climate-related hazards and gradual climatic changes. The
sustainable management of ecosystems can provide social, economic and
environmental benefits, both directly through a more sustainable management of
biological resources and indirectly through the protection of ecosystem services (World
Bank, 2010). In this way, EbA provides for communitybased adaptation objectives, giving a broader ecological context to an adequate
implementation.

Reducing ecosystem vulnerability increases community resilience and solves the impact of
sea level rise
Human and natural communities will need to adapt in order to survive. Mutually
beneficial solutions for human and natural communities lie in examining
relationships between coastal hazard mitigation and biodiversity conservation to
preserve infrastructure and livelihoods while protecting nature. Reducing coastal
losses to people and nature, and clearly recognizing that decision makers will address peoples needs first, the team
proposes here that common ground can be reached with ecosystem-based solutions. The
well-being of coastal communities is so closely linked to the natural environment that
many of the strategies that will protect natural resources in the face of global
warming will also enhance the resilience of human communities. At this stage in Ecosystem-
based Adaptation, efforts are required to integrate climate science and inundation scenarios with local decision making. This work is
just beginning; the present project is one of the first to attempt this integrated approach.

Oceans Topic
39
---Solves Oceans

Marine reserves solve.
BRAX 2002 (Jeff, J.D., University of California at Berkeley School of Law, 29 Ecology L.Q. 71)
The NRC's wait for baseline data and new research appears to be over. The Council fully endorsed no-take zones in a recently-published report,
stating that "[a] growing
body of literature documents the effectiveness of marine reserves for conserving
habitats, fostering the recovery of overexploited species, and maintaining marine
communities." 133 That "growing body of literature" includes "hundreds of published scientific
papers on marine reserves from around the world" 134 and at least thirty-two studies specifically estimating
marine reserve area requirements. 135 The average body size of fish is approximately one-third
more than that of species in fished areas, and the number of species is one-third
greater inside reserves. 136 Most importantly, a statement released in February 2001 and signed by 161 of the world's leading marine
scientists 137 concluded that there is now compelling evidence that fully protected marine reserves help conserve
fisheries and preserve ocean biodiversity. The study of more than seventy reserve
areas around the world by the American Association for the Advancement of Science found that after only one to
two years of protection: . population densities of fish and other marine creatures
increased an average of ninety-one percent; . their biomass increased 192 percent; .
their average size increased thirty-one percent; and . species diversity increased
twenty-three percent. . ocean areas adjoining the reserves benefited as well. 138 The
Association's study made headlines around the world, and undeniably "demonstrates that there is now an
international consensus among marine scientists that a network of marine reserves
presents the most powerful tool for enhancing biodiversity and mitigating damage
to marine ecosystems." 139 [*101] The oldest and best-managed reserves have demonstrated even greater gains than those
identified in the 2001 study. Inside New Zealand's 1.5-square-nautical-mile Cape Rodney Okakari Point Reserve off Auckland, established in
1975, the density of snapper and other prized fish is now forty times higher than in similar fished areas. 140 Snappers and lobsters are up to
fifteen times more abundant inside New Zealand's twenty-two-year-old Leigh reserve than in surrounding waters. 141 In the fourteen-year-old
Hol Chan Marine Reserve in Belize, the biomass of snapper and other commercially targeted species is almost double that of nearby fishing
grounds, and it is ten times larger within certain areas of the reserve. 142 Even after just a two-year closure of fishing in Florida's Looe Key NMS,
the abundance of snappers nearly doubled and the density of groupers more than quadrupled. 143 Increasing numbers of
scientific accounts show that, regardless of the nation or continent, even a short-
term ban on fishing can result in a dramatic transformation of the undersea
environment. 144 Marine reserves benefit fishing stocks in several interrelated ways.
Perhaps most importantly, marine reserves provide insurance against stock collapse. Stocks
collapse for a variety of reasons beyond overfishing, including disease, natural
disasters, and pollution. 145 If a stock collapses for any of these reasons, reserves act
as a reservoir for rebuilding a stock at a faster rate [*102] than would otherwise be
possible. Marine reserves are uniquely valuable for their ability to protect and
preserve breeding, nursery, and recruitment areas, 146 and they allow more juvenile and medium-size fish
to live long enough to serve as mature brood stock. 147 These larger fish are essential to stock reproduction because fish
reproduction actually increases exponentially with size. A mature red snapper, for example, produces
nearly two million eggs per year, eighteen times more than an adolescent fish, 148 and a fifteen-pound snapper will produce as many eggs as
212 approximately three pound fish. 149 The Pacific Fishery Management Council notes that marine reserves are even paying dividends in the
devastated New England cod, haddock, and flounder fisheries. The groundfish spawning stock biomass has increased steadily since the 1995
closure of the fisheries, and the harvestable biomass of scallops has increased fourteen-fold within the closures. 150

Oceans Topic
40
---Solves Disasters

Improved earth science enables effective disaster preparation and response.
SSB 05 (2005, Space Studies Board, National Academies Press, Earth Science and
Application from Space: Urgent Needs and Opportunities to Serve the Nation, Earth
Observations and Presidential Initiatives,
http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=11281&page=13)

Earth Science and Applications from Space: Urgent Needs and Opportunities to Serve the Nation Although weather and seasonal climate
forecasts are a prominent example, Earth science knowledge has many other important applications.
Today, we can track vast clouds of dust and pollution from their source on continents
across the oceans, permitting health alarms to be sounded effectively. We can map
deformations of Earths surface and evacuate regions that may soon experience
volcanic eruptions or landslides. We can track changes in soil moisture and then
redirect food supplies to areas that may soon face drought and famine. We can
monitor long-term changes in the land surface, atmosphere, and oceans and thereby
characterize the impacts of human activities on climate. We have documented ozone loss in the stratosphere, resulting in the Montreal Protocol
and termination of the production of the causative chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs). As these examples show, Earth information is essential to
ensuring the prosperity and security of society as a whole. Yet the more we apply this knowledge and observe its benefits, the more we identify
new needs for basic knowledge, Earth information, credible forecasts, and decision-support structures designed to serve society. Businesses and
national infrastructure elements, from transportation to energy, have a critical need for improved weather information.6 Governments have
obligations to manage new environmental treaties and regulations. Much of the U.S. and world population lives
in areas that are subject to natural disasters, including hurricanes, tornadoes, floods,
earthquakes, and tsunamis. Better forecasts are essential to protect lives and
property from such disasters. Improved satellite observations of disaster areas
can also speed relief and rebuilding efforts (Box 1.2).7 Finally, effective management of
natural resourcesfrom clean water to oil and gas reserves to plants and animals
depends critically on the availability of better information and tools. Despite many successes in
applying Earth science information to improve lives, security, and the economy, we have the ability to do much
more. The increase in knowledge produced over the last decade by Earth scientists is itself a tremendous societal benefit with clear public
policy implications (Box 1.3). And the experience in applying that knowledge lays a solid foundation for more systematically selecting new
missions that address not only important scientific issues but also critical societal needs. A fundamental challenge for the
coming decade is to ensure that established societal needs help guide scientific
priorities more effectively, and that emerging scientific knowledge is actively
applied to obtain societal benefits. New observations, analyses, better interpretive
understanding, enhanced predictive models, broadened community participation,
and improved means for information dissemination are all needed. If we meet this challenge, we
will begin to realize the full economic and security benefits of Earth science.

Disaster monitoring solves the impact
LERNER-LAM et. Al, 2005 (Austin American Statesman, 1-3-05, Lerner-Lam and Seeber, seismologists with the Lamont-
Doherty Earth Observatory, and Chen, a geographer with the Center for International Earth Science Information Network, are scientists with the
Earth Institute at Columbia University)
Disasters affect poor and developing countries disproportionately. The poor's struggle for daily survival does
not allow for disaster preparedness. Persistent environmental stress, such as
recurring natural disasters, diverts long-term investment in sustainable
development. Little is left for the sorts of investments that make for livable societies.
When this happens repeatedly, no matter the disaster, countries can get trapped in a
reactive rather than proactive development trajectory. What will motivate the
Oceans Topic
41
developed world to reduce the effect of disasters before they happen? Should it not be
axiomatic that there is a human right to knowledge and technology that can benefit all? The Sumatra earthquake was no
surprise, geologically speaking. And global networks of seismometers operated by
the developed world were able to locate the earthquake and quickly characterize its
potential to unleash a tsunami, all within a fraction of the time it took for the wave
to cross the Bay of Bengal. Agonizingly, despite years of discussions, the relatively
inexpensive water level sensors needed to sense and track a tsunami were not in
place. Neither was there in place a comprehensive response infrastructure able to
use available warnings. There are no technical barriers to developing a tsunami
warning system for the Indian Ocean region. An effective system has been in place in
the Pacific for about 40 years. And the civil defense mechanisms in place to evacuate affected areas in the paths of typhoons
could have been beefed up to respond more quickly and specifically in the event of a tsunami. From hurricanes in the
Caribbean to earthquakes in Southeast Asia to landslides in the Andes to drought in
Africa, we know enough about natural disaster occurrence to identify vulnerable
regions. Work by both the United Nations Development Program and the World Bank's Hazard Management Unit (in which we
participated) has quantified the exposures of people and their economies to multiple natural hazards. For the most part, we also know
where the potential for devastation is greatest. Globally, the costs of taking pre-
emptive action are less than what is spent on recovery. The value of saving lives is
immeasurable in terms of dollars, of course. In addition, the potential to reduce the ongoing loss of livelihood and well-being has a
direct relation to the costs of sustainable development. Pre-emptive investments can build strong and long-
lasting infrastructure. That means water and sanitation systems, transport and
telecommunications networks and health-care delivery systems. These all are
important when it comes to disaster mitigation and response, but they contribute to
basic development and living standards as well. Only a fraction of disaster recovery
funds gets spent on future mitigation.

Oceans Topic
42
---Solves Disease

Satellites solve disease adaptation.
Ford et al. 09 (Timothy E. Ford, PhD in Aquatic Microbiology from the University
College of North Wales, Bangor, department head of Microbiology at Montana State
University, Rita R. Colwell, Joan B. Rose, Stephen S. Morse, David J. Rogers, and Terry
L. Yates, University of New England, Biddeford, Maine, USA (T.E. Ford); University of
Maryland, College Park, Maryland, USA (R.R. Colwell); Johns Hopkins University
Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, Maryland, USA (R.R. Colwell);
Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan, USA (J.B. Rose); Columbia
University Mailman School of Public Health, New York, New York, USA (S.S. Morse);
Oxford University, Oxford, UK (D.J. Rogers); and University of New Mexico,
Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA (T.L. Yates) Emerging Infectious Diseases Journal,
Satellite Imagery in Predicting Infectious Disease Outbreaks, September 2009,
v.15)

The scientific community has a relative consensus that epidemic and pandemic
disease risks will be exacerbated by environmental changes that destabilize weather
patterns, change distribution of vectors, and increase transport and transmission
risk. Predictive modeling may lead to improved understanding and potentially
prevent future epidemic and pandemic disease. Many respiratory infections are well known as highly climate
dependent or seasonal. Although we are not yet able to predict their incidence with great
precision, we may well be able to do this in the future. Meningococcal meningitis (caused by Neisseria
meningitidis) in Africa is probably the best known example. In the disease-endemic so-called meningitis belt
(an area running across sub-Saharan Africa from Senegal to Ethiopia), this is classically a dry season disease,
which ceases with the beginning of the rainy season, likely as a result of changes in
host susceptibility (19). Many other infectious diseases show strong seasonality or association with climatic conditions (20).
Perhaps one of the most interesting is influenza, which is thought of as a wintertime disease in temperate climates but shows both winter and
summer peaks in subtropical and tropical regions (21). Although the reasons for seasonality are often poorly understood, the close dependence
of such diseases on climatic conditions suggests that these, too, are likely to be amenable to prediction by modeling and remote sensing (22).
When we consider influenza, it is hard not to think about the future risks from pandemic influenza. Public health agencies in the United States
and around the world are focusing on influenza preparedness, notably concerning influenza virus A subtype H5N1, which has captured attention
because it causes severe disease and death in humans but as yet has demonstrated only very limited and inefficient human-to-human
transmission. The severity of the disease raises images of the 1918 influenza epidemic on an unimaginably vast scale if the virus were to adapt to
more efficient human-to-human transmission. Can predictive modeling using satellite or other imaging
of environmental variables help in prediction of future influenza pandemics? Xiangming
Xiao at the University of New Hampshire was funded in 2006 by the National Institutes for Health to lead a multidisciplinary and multi-
institutional team to use remote satellite imaging to track avian flu. Xiao et al. have used satellite imagederived
vegetation indices to map paddy rice agriculture in southern Asia (23). They believe
that a similar approach can be used in conjunction with the more traditional
approach of analyzing bird migration patterns and poultry production (24,25) to
map potential hot spots of virus transmission (26). An interesting question is why did we not see disease
epidemics in Indonesia, following the devastating tsunami disaster of December 2004? Could rapid public health intervention be credited with
minimizing spread of disease? In the case of Aceh Province, many communities reported diarrhea as the main cause of illness (in 85% of children
<5 years of age), but no increases in deaths were reported, and no outbreaks of cholera or other potentially epidemic diseases occurred (27).
Given the massive scale of the disaster, was this likely? In some towns, more than two thirds of the population died at the time of impact, almost
100% of homes were destroyed, and 100% of the population lacked access to clean water and sanitation (27). To a large extent, the Australian
army and other groups are to be credited with rapidly deploying environmental health teams to swiftly implement public health measures,
including provision of safe drinking water, proper sanitary facilities, and mosquito control measures (28). Widespread fecal pollution of the
surface waters was shown, yet the saltiness of the potable water supply after the disaster made much of the water unpalatable. Wells were
vulnerable, perhaps to other etiologic agents of fecal origin including viruses and Shigella spp., with greater probability of infection than Vibrio
spp., thus leading to the widespread diarrhea. The most important lesson from the Asian tsunami is that disease epidemics can be prevented by
Oceans Topic
43
public health intervention. Unfortunately, most flooding events, and other conditions that promote infectious disease epidemics, do not receive
the same global media attention. A tsunami captures the imagination of the world in a way that weeks of rainfall in the Sudan or a rise in sea
surface temperature cannot. However, if climatologic data can be used to predict future disease
outbreaks, public health interventions can be mobilized in a more timely and
proactive manner. A continuing concern is the conditions that result in newly
emergent virulent strains of pathogens. Faruque et al. have provided molecular evidence that V. cholerae O139
strains are derived from O1 strains through genetic modification (29). In addition, Chakraborty et al. in Kolkata have seen the presence and
expression of virulence genes in several environmental strains of V. cholerae cultured from surface waters (30). Recently, E. coli O157 has been
isolated from the Ganges River in India for the first time (31). Indications are that it is metabolically different from E. coli O157 isolated from
other parts of the world, but the conditions that have led to these differences are as yet unclear. From the above studies, risk for transmission of
virulence genes is likely to be high, but studies of conditions promoting transmission and approaches to modeling resultant disease risks are in
their infancy. New epidemic strains could potentially occur through mutation of existing epidemic strains or through gene transfer.
Environmental stressors such as chemical contaminants are thought to accelerate both mutation rates and gene transfer (32). Thus, the degree
of chemical pollution may need to be a component of disease models (in addition to other stressors). The scientific community is a long way
from incorporating environment-gene interactions into predictive models and clarifying the risks posed to human society from emerging
diseases. However, investigation of these parts of the pathogen's ecology should remain on
the national research agenda as we move forward with developing predictive
models of disease outbreaks. Current modeling of infectious diseases is by necessity
retrospective. Environmental parameters measured by remote satellite imaging
show the greatest promise for providing global coverage of changing environmental
conditions. With current imaging technologies, we can measure sea surface temperature, sea surface height, chlorophyll A levels, and a
variety of vegetation and soil indices, in addition to many other physical, biologic, and chemical parameters of the earth's surface and
atmosphere. A variety of these parameters can be incorporated in complex mathematical models, together with biotic and ecologic variables of
the pathogen and host life cycles, to correlate environment with outbreaks of disease (Figure 2). However, we are still far from
being able to accurately predict future disease events on the basis of existing
environmental conditions. Successful predictive modeling of disease and the
establishment of early warning systems have reached a critical junction in
development. As we improve our understanding of the biology and ecology of the
pathogen, vectors, and hosts, our ability to accurately link environmental variables,
particularly those related to climate change, will improve. What has become clear
over the past few years is that satellite imaging can play a critical role in disease
prediction and, therefore, inform our response to future outbreaks. We conclude that infectious
disease events may be closely linked to environmental and global change. Satellite imaging may be critical for
effective disease prediction and thus future mitigation of epidemic and pandemic
diseases. We cannot stress too strongly our belief that a strong global satellite
program is essential for future disease prediction.

Only increasing climate satellites solve
Lancet 09 (5/19/09, Lancet and University College London Institute for Global
Health Commission, represting over 20 authors, lots of PhDs, from the Institute for
Global Health, UCL Medical School, UCL Environment Institute, Centre for
International Health and Development, and various other programs, "Managing the
health eects of climate change," http://www.ucl.ac.uk/global-health/ucl-lancet-
climate-change.pdf)

Changing patterns of disease and mortality A fundamental requisite for health adaptation to climate
change is to improve monitoring and surveillance of disease and mortality in
sensitive regions. In developing countries, disease surveillance systems are inconsistent and
poorly managed. The challenge is to incorporate a strong public health
infrastructure and empower communities to achieve eective disease surveillance.
Health early warning systems are especially important in the context of heatstroke,
Oceans Topic
44
extreme weather events, and disease outbreaks for developing and developed
countries. The eectiveness of health early warning systems depends on the past
and current disease monitoring and surveillance, and accurate and reliable
meteorological and climatic forecasts. Health early warning systems are a win-win
strategy that reduces the risk of disease whilst increasing adaptive capacity that is most essential in the context of developing countries. In
the developing world, no region-specic projections of changes in health-related exposures and no research projecting health outcomes under
various future emissions and adaptation scenarios compared with many parts of developed countries exist. 1,101 Recent reports
have highlighted the urgent need for improved surveillance systems and
technologies, especially for infectious diseases in developing countries and for
increased cooperation between states in the identication and public health
response to outbreaks and epidemics. 102

Oceans Topic
45
---Solves Sea Levels

Ecosystem adaptation solves the impact of sea level rise
HOEKSTRA 2009 (John, PhD in Zoology, director of The Nature Conservancy's climate change team, Adaptation 101,
http://www.nature.org/initiatives/climatechange/features/art26193.html)
Nature.org: Why is nature-based adaptation more important than infrastructure adaptation? Why should we spend money on habitat when we
also need to shore up roads, levees, bridges and tunnels? Jonathan Hoekstra: Its not that nature-based adaptation is more or less important.
Rather, its that nature-based adaptation and infrastructure adaptation offer alternative
solutions to some of the problems stemming from climate change. Faced with
rising sea-levels and increased storm exposure, communities could choose to build
levees and concrete sea-walls, or they could choose to maintain natural floodplains
and coastal marshes that provide similar protection. Theres good evidence that
nature-based strategies can be cost-effective. In Vietnam, 12,000 hectares of mangroves
were planted as a buffer against typhoon damage. According to the Red Cross, that project cost $1.1 million
but saved $7.3 million each year in dike maintenance costs. The new mangroves also provided nursery
habitat for local shrimp fisheries, thus providing additional benefit to local families.

Oceans Topic
46
---Solves Agriculture

Adaptation research and yield intensification solve agriculture issues without
using too much land.

Against the uncertainty over thresholds and CO2 fertilisation must be weighed farmers ability to adapt to change and improve yields.
Despite many warnings of doom, yields of arable crops have grown remarkably in
the past half-century. Among other things, this intensification of farming has saved a
great deal of wilderness from the plough: to feed todays population with 1960s yields would require an area of
extra farmland roughly as big as Russia. In that it avoids deforestation, intensification is one of a
number of adaptation strategies which also help mitigation.
Successful adaptation will require not just expanded research into improved crop
yields and tolerance of temperature and water scarcity, but also research into new
ways of managing pests, improving and conserving soil, cropping patterns and crop-
management techniques that add resilience. Such researchand its application
will make it more likely that enough food for 9 billion people can be grown in
a three-degrees-hotter world without much of the planets remaining uncultivated land or pastures coming under the
plough.

Crop research solves pests, disease, and famine
AFRICA NEWS 2007 (citing Martin Parry, co-chair of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and William Dar,
director-general of the International Centre for Research in Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) in Hyderabad, India, SciDev.net, Africa; Crop Research
'Must Switch to Climate Adaptation', November 23, acc. 06.30.08, pLN, san luis)
Climate-change and crop experts have called for a paradigm shift in agricultural
research to focus on making plants more resilient to global warming rather than on increasing
yields. Martin Parry, co-chair of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
and William Dar, director-general of the International Centre for Research in Semi-
Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) in Hyderabad, India, said the focus of crop research should be
reoriented towards adaptation to environmental stress, such as rising temperatures and water scarcity. "Adaptation is
crucial. Drought-proofing of crops by developing heat-resistant varieties is probably
one of the key elements," said Parry at an international symposium on climate change yesterday (22 November). Dar said
changes in climate will alter populations and the geographic spread of pests and pathogens, which also need to be
countered with more resistant plant varieties. Experts from ICRISAT urged governments
and international donor agencies to invest more in crop research in view of the
adverse projections on agriculture due to global warming. They said focus should
shift to crops such as pearl millets and sorghum that grow in arid and semi-arid
tropics.

Crop adaptation solves the impact to global warming
REVKIN 2007 (Andrew C., Climate specialist, April 1, POOREST NATIONS WILL BEAR BRUNT AS WORLD WARMS, NYT, accessed
07.01.2008, pLN, san luis)
James L. Connaughton, President Bush's top adviser on environmental issues, defended the focus on broader development efforts. ''If we can
shape several billion dollars in already massive development funding toward adaptation, that's a lot more powerful than scrounging for a few
million more for a fund that's labeled climate,'' he said. But it is clear that the rich countries are far ahead of the poor
ones in adapting to climate change. For example, American farmers are taking advantage
Oceans Topic
47
of advances in genetically modified crops to prosper in dry or wet years, said Donald Coxe, an
investment strategist in Chicago who tracks climate, agriculture and energy for the BMO Financial Group. The new seed varieties
can compensate for a 10 or 15 percent drop in rainfall, he said, just the kind of change
projected in some regions around the tropics. But, he said, the European Union still opposes efforts to sell such modified
grains in Africa and other developing regions. Technology also aids farmers in the north. John Reifstack, a third-
generation farmer in Champaign, Ill., said he would soon plant more than 30 million genetically modified corn seeds on 1,000 acres. It will take
him about five days, he said, a pace that would have been impossible just four years ago. (Speedy planting means the crop is more likely to
pollinate before the first heat waves, keeping yields high.) The seed costs 30 percent more than standard varieties, he said, but the premium is
worth it. Precipitation is still vital, he said, repeating an old saw: ''Rain makes grain.'' But if disaster strikes, crop
insurance will keep him in business. All of these factors together increase resilience,
Mr. Reifstack and agriculture experts said, and they are likely to keep the first world farming for
generations to come. Robert O. Mendelsohn, an economist at Yale focused on climate, said that in the face of warming, it might be
necessary to abandon the longstanding notion that all places might someday feed themselves. Poor regions reliant on
unpredictable rainfall, he said, should be encouraged to shift people out of farming
and into urban areas and import their food from northern countries.

Oceans Topic
48
AT: Tea Party

Combining accurate data and new communication measures solves
skepticism.
Lewis et al. 10 (June 2010, James, Director and Senior Fellow, Technology and
Public Policy Program, CSIS, Sarah O. Ladislaw, Senior Fellow, Energy and National
Security Program, CSIS, and Denise E. Zheng, congressional staffer, Earth
Observation for Climate Change,
http://csis.org/files/publication/100608_Lewis_EarthObservation_WEB.pdf)

There is unequivocal evidence, despite careless mistakes and noisy protests, that
Earths climate is warming. While the effects and implications of this are subject to
speculation, there should be no doubt that the world faces a major challenge. There are important shortfalls in data
and analysis needed to manage this challenge. Inadequate data mean that we cannot
determine the scope or nature of change in some key areas, such as the melting of Antarctic sea ice. Long-term
changes in daily temperature are not adequately understood, in part because of limited observations of atmospheric changes. Our understanding of
how some anthropogenic (man-made) influences affect climate change is still incomplete.1
These shortfalls must be remedied, if only to overcome skepticism and doubt.
Climate change now occupies a central place on the global political agenda, and the
United States should adjust its space policies to reflect this. Assessing and managing
climate change will require taking what has largely been a scientific enterprise and
operationalizing it. Operationalization means creating processes to provide the data and analysis that governments will need if they are to
implement policies and regulations to soften the effects of climate change. Operationalization requires the right kind of data and adequate tools for collecting, analyzing,
and disseminating that data in ways that inform decisionmaking at many levels of society.
Satellites play a central role in assessing climate change because they can provide a
consistent global view, important data, and an understanding of change in
important but remote areas. Yet there are relatively few climate satellitesa total of
19, many of which are well past their expected service life. Accidents or failures would expose the fragility of the Earth observation system.2
We lack the required sensors and instruments for the kinds of measurement that would make predictions more accurate and solutions more acceptable.
Weather satellites, which take low-resolution pictures of clouds, forests, and ice caps, are not adequate to the task. NASA builds
impressive Earth observation satellites for climate change, but these have been experimental rather than ongoing programs.
Climate change poses a dilemma for space policy. The programs needed to manage climate change have been woefully underfunded for decades. The normal practice is
to call uncritically for more money for civil space and its three componentsplanetary exploration, Earth observation, and manned spaceflight. In fact, civil space has
been lavishly funded. Since 1989, NASA has
received $385 billion, with $189 billion in the last decade.3 This is more than the space budgets of most other nations combined. The problem is not a lack of money but
how it has been spent. The bulk of this money went to NASAs manned space program. This is a legacy of the Cold War. Manned spaceflight showed that market
democracies could surpass scientific socialism. The point has been made. Spaceflight provides prestige, but a long series of miscalculations have left the United States
with a fragile and fabulously expensive space transportation system. It will take years to recover, and some goals, such as a voyage to Mars, are simply unachievable
absent major breakthroughs in physics and other sciences.
If we accept that climate change poses serious risks to regional stability, national security, and economic health, the United States needs to reconsider its funding
priorities for civil space. Earth observation is crucial for national security and the economy; manned spaceflight programs provide prestige. The United States must make
climate-monitoring satellites its priority for funding if it is serious about managing climate change. In practical terms, this means a reduction in the spending on human
spaceflight in order to fund a sustained program of satellite-building to create a robust climate monitoring space system.This is, of course, not an all-or-nothing issue.
The United States can fund a range of space programs, manned and unmanned, for exploration and for Earth sciences. It is a question of priorities. Our recommendation
is that the funding given to Earth observation should increase, as it is more important now for the national interest to monitor and manage climate change, even if that
means a slower pace for other programs, such as manned spaceflight, until a robust Earth observation system has been put in orbit.
Having the right data is only part of the challenge. The usefulness of that data
depends on the strength of climate models and computing capabilities and our
ability to make this information available to decisionmakers and user communities
in a useful form. In the United States, these functions could be provided by a strengthened and
reorganized interagency climate information structure bolstered by the creation of a
National Climate Service, which could aggregate and analyze climate data in ways tailored to support management, policymaking, and the
information needs of a broad-based user community.There is also an opportunity for the United States to lead an international effort that takes the many existing
collaboration structuressuch as the Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS) and the Global Climate Observation System (GCOS)and operationalizes
them. The Global Framework for Climate Services being advocated by the World Meteorological Organization could provide the platform to make climate data more
accessible to policymakers.
Oceans Topic
49

Oceans Topic
50
AT: Not Enough

Executive leadership creates a policy direction and leads to spillover effects.
Sundt 10 (10/11/10, Nick, Communications Director for Climate Change, World
Wildlife Fund, staff associate at the U.S. Climate Change Science Program Office, In
Rolling Stone Interview, Obama Says We're Going to Have to Mobilize on Climate
Change, http://www.wwfblogs.org/climate/content/rolling-stone-interview-
obama-climate-change-oct2010)

Climate Change Preparedness Missing from President's Remarks The President exclusively emphasized the
need to curb greenhouse gas emissions (also known as climate change "mitigation"). Notably missing
from the President's remarks was any mention of the need for climate change
preparedness (often termed "adaptation") and steps the Administration is taking to
address the impacts of climate change that already are being felt and that will
become more disruptive in the future. Silence on that question was all the more
conspicuous in light of recommendations submitted to the White House by the National
Climate Adaptation Summit Committee on 13 September 2010. In a report [PDF] released publicly on 29 September
2010, the committee said "[t]he United States response to climate change must include
adaptation as well as mitigation." Among the key issues and challenges listed by the committee was the need for Federal leadership --
starting at the top: "Increased Presidential engagement on climate adaptation issues would
both elevate the importance of adaptation activities within the government and
raise the profile of the adaptation challenge with the nation as a whole. Opportunities include
being more vocal on the importance of this topic, the validity of the science, and the need to take reasonable actions." Earlier this year, on 30
April 2010, the Pew Center on Global Climate Change similarly highlighted the importance of leadership in mobilizing Americans and the
government towards climate change preparedness. In its report, Adapting to Climate Change: A Call for Federal Leadership [PDF], Pew
listed five main components of such leadership, the first of which is the need for a
"clear public commitment by a chief executive," adding that a "public commitment,
perhaps in the form of a formal statement to explain the national strategy and
program sends a clear signal that adaptation is important." The authors explained that "[o]nce
a chief executive in government makes adaptation a clear priority, it increases
attention and resources available to the issue and provides clear policy
direction. In many cases, executive leadership is the only way to elevate adaptation as a
government priority, but formal organization, funding, or legislative action may be necessary to maintain an adaptation program
after the initial leadership push."

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AT: Emissions Cuts Key

Emissions cuts cant solve must adapt.
Solomon et al. 10 (10/26/10, Susan, PhD, climotology, UC Berkeley, Nobel Peace
Prize Winner, Chairman of the IPCC, Chemical Sciences Division, Earth System
Research Laboratory, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Gian-
Kasper Plattner, Professor of climate and environmental physics, Physics Institute,
University of Bern, Deputy Head, Director of Science, Technical Support Unit
Working Group I, IPCC Affiliated Scientist, John S. Daniel, PhD, physics, University of
Michigan, research scientist at NOAA, Todd J. Sanford, Cooperative Institute for
Research in Environmental Science, University of Colorado, Daniel M. Murphy,
Chemical Sciences Division, Earth System Research Laboratory, NOAA, Reto Knutti,
Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science, Zurich, and Pierre Friedlingstein,
Chair, Mathematical Modelling of Climate Systems, member of the Science Steering
Committee of the Analysis Integration and Modeling of the Earth System (AIMES)
programme of IGBP and of the Global Carbon Project (GCP) of the Earth System
Science Partnership (ESSP), Persistence of climate changes due to a range of
greenhouse gases, Proceedings of the National Academy of the Sciences of the
United States of America, Vol 107.43: 18354-18359)

Carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and other greenhouse gases increased over
the course of the 20th century due to human activities. The human-caused increases
in these gases are the primary forcing that accounts for much of the global warming
of the past fifty years, with carbon dioxide being the most important single radiative
forcing agent (1). Recent studies have shown that the human-caused warming linked to carbon
dioxide is nearly irreversible for more than 1,000 y, even if emissions of the
gas were to cease entirely (25). The importance of the ocean in taking up heat and slowing the response of
the climate system to radiative forcing changes has been noted in many studies (e.g., refs. 6 and 7). The key role of the
oceans thermal lag has also been highlighted by recent approaches to proposed metrics for comparing the
warming of different greenhouse gases (8, 9). Among the observations attesting to the importance of these effects are those showing that climate changes caused by
transient volcanic aerosol loading persist for more than 5 y (7, 10), and a portion can be expected to last more than a century in the ocean (1113); clearly these signals
persist far longer than the radiative forcing decay timescale of about 1218 mo for the volcanic aerosol (14, 15). Thus the observed climate response to volcanic events
suggests that some persistence of climate change should be expected even for quite short-lived radiative forcing perturbations. It follows that the
climate changes induced by short-lived anthropogenic greenhouse gases such as
methane or hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) may not decrease in concert with decreases in
concentration if the anthropogenic emissions of those gases were to be
eliminated. In this paper, our primary goal is to show how different processes and timescales contribute to determining how long the climate changes due to
various greenhouse gases could be expected to remain if anthropogenic emissions were to cease. Advances in modeling have led to improved
AtmosphereOcean General Circulation Models (AOGCMs) as well as to Earth Models of Intermediate Complexity (EMICs). Although a detailed representation of the
climate system changes on regional scales can only be provided by AOGCMs, the simpler EMICs have been shown to be useful,
particularly to examine phenomena on a global average basis. In this work, we use the Bern 2.5CC EMIC
(see Materials and Methods and SI Text), which has been extensively intercompared to other EMICs and to complex AOGCMs (3, 4). It should be noted that, although the
Bern 2.5CC EMIC includes a representation of the surface and deep ocean, it does not include processes such as ice sheet losses or changes in the Earths albedo linked to
evolution of vegetation. However, it is noteworthy that this EMIC, although parameterized and simplified, includes 14 levels in the ocean; further, its global ocean heat
uptake and climate sensitivity are near the mean of available complex models, and its computed timescales for uptake of tracers into the ocean have been shown to
compare well to observations (16). A recent study (17) explored the response of one AOGCM to a sudden stop of all forcing, and the Bern 2.5CC EMIC shows broad
similarities in computed warming to that study (see Fig. S1), although there are also differences in detail. The climate sensitivity (which characterizes the long-term
absolute warming response to a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations) is 3 C for the model used here. Our results should be considered illustrative
and exploratory rather than fully quantitative given the limitations of the EMIC and the uncertainties in climate sensitivity. Results One Illustrative Scenario to 2050. In
the absence of mitigation policy, concentrations of the three major greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide can be expected to increase in this
century. If emissions were to cease, anthropogenic CO2 would be removed from the
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52
atmosphere by a series of processes operating at different timescales (18). Over
timescales of decades, both the land and upper ocean are important sinks. Over
centuries to millennia, deep oceanic processes become dominant and are controlled
by relatively well-understood physics and chemistry that provide broad consistency
across models (see, for example, Fig. S2 showing how the removal of a pulse of carbon compares across a range of models). About 20% of
the emitted anthropogenic carbon remains in the atmosphere for many
thousands of years (with a range across models including the Bern 2.5CC model being about 19 4% at year 1000 after a pulse emission; see ref.
19), until much slower weathering processes affect the carbonate balance in the ocean
(e.g., ref. 18). Models with stronger carbon/climate feedbacks than the one considered here
could display larger and more persistent warmings due to both CO2 and non-CO2
greenhouse gases, through reduced land and ocean uptake of carbon in a warmer
world. Here our focus is not on the strength of carbon/climate feedbacks that can lead to differences in the carbon concentration decay, but rather on the factors
that control the climate response to a given decay. The removal processes of other anthropogenic gases including methane and nitrous oxide are much more simply
described by exponential decay constants of about 10 and 114 y, respectively (1), due mainly to known chemical reactions in the atmosphere. In this illustrative study,
we do not include the feedback of changes in methane upon its own lifetime (20). We also do not account for potential interactions between CO2 and other gases, such as
the production of carbon dioxide from methane oxidation (21), or changes to the carbon cycle through, e.g., methane/ozone chemistry (22). Fig. 1 shows the computed
future global warming contributions for carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide for a midrange scenario (23) of projected future anthropogenic emissions of these
gases to 2050. Radiative forcings for all three of these gases, and their spectral overlaps, are represented in this work using the expressions assessed in ref. 24. In 2050,
the anthropogenic emissions are stopped entirely for illustration purposes. The figure shows nearly irreversible warming for at least 1,000 y due to the imposed carbon
dioxide increases, as in previous work. All published studies to date, which use multiple EMICs and one AOGCM, show largely irreversible warming due to future carbon
dioxide increases (to within about 0.5 C) on a timescale of at least 1,000 y (35, 25, 26). Fig. 1 shows that the calculated future warmings due to anthropogenic CH4 and
N2O also persist notably longer than the lifetimes of these gases. The figure illustrates that emissions of key non-CO2
greenhouse gases such as CH4 or N2O could lead to warming that both
temporarily exceeds a given stabilization target (e.g., 2 C as proposed by the G8 group of nations and in the Copenhagen
goals) and remains present longer than the gas lifetimes even if emissions were to
cease. A number of recent studies have underscored the important point that reductions of non-CO2 greenhouse gas emissions are an approach that can indeed
reverse some past climate changes (e.g., ref. 27). Understanding how quickly such reversal could happen and why is an important policy and science question. Fig. 1
implies that the use of policy measures to reduce emissions of short-lived gases will be less effective as a rapid climate mitigation strategy than would be thought if
based only upon the gas lifetime. Fig. 2 illustrates the factors influencing the warming contributions of each gas for the test case in Fig. 1 in more detail, by showing
normalized values (relative to one at their peaks) of the warming along with the radiative forcings and concentrations of CO2 , N2O, and CH4 . For example, about
two-thirds of the calculated warming due to N2O is still present 114 y (one
atmospheric lifetime) after emissions are halted, despite the fact that its excess
concentration and associated radiative forcing at that time has dropped to about
one-third of the peak value.

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AT: Adaptation Fails

Their evidence is biasedwarming studies have ignored adaptation and they
all assume the worst case for warming
PARRY ET. AL 2007 [Martin, Osvaldo Canziani, Jean Palutikof, Paul van der Linden, Clair Hanson, IPCC Working Group II,
Climate Change 2007: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability, Chapter 5: Food, Fibre, and Forest Products,
http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg2/ar4-wg2-chapter5.pdf, accessed 07.01.2008, san luis]
Adaptation is used here to mean both the actions of adjusting practices, processes and capital in response to the actuality or threat of climate
change as well as changes in the decision environment, such as social and institutional structures, and altered technical options that can affect
the potential or capacity for these actions to be realised (see Chapter 17). Adaptations are divided here into two categories: autonomous
adaptation, which is the ongoing implementation of existing knowledge and technology in response to the changes in climate experienced, and
planned adaptation, which is the increase in adaptive capacity by mobilising institutions and policies to establish or strengthen conditions
favourable for effective adaptation and investment in new technologies and infrastructure. The TAR noted agriculture has
historically shown high levels of adaptability to climate variations and that while there
were many studies of climate change impacts, there were relatively few that had
comparisons with and without adaptation. Generally the adaptations assessed were most effective in mid-
latitudes and least effective in low-latitude developing regions with poor resource endowments and where ability of farmers to respond and
adapt was low. There was limited evaluation of either the costs of adaptation or of the environmental and natural resource consequences of
adaptation. Generally, adaptation studies have focussed on situations where climate changes
are expected to have net negative consequences: there is a general expectation that
if climate improves, then market forces and the general availability of suitable
technological options will result in effective change to new, more profitable or
resilient systems (e.g., Parson et al., 2003).

All of their evidence is wrongit assumes farmers wont adapt and ignores
other mechanisms that protect agricultureadaptation will leave farmers
better off than they were before
ESSEX AND McKITRICK 2002 (Christopher, Prof in the Dept of Applied Mathematics @ U of Western Ontario; Ross, Assoc
Prof. Dept. of Economics @ U of Guelph, Taken By Storm 247-248)
Even if we assume technology will not advance, just taking account of currently
feasible adaptation measures can dramatically affect the cost forecasts. Early
simulations of the cost of climate change often overstated the case by assuming
that people will be passive in the face of temperature and precipitation changes.
This is not true in the short term, and there was no reason to believe it applies in the long term. For instance, some early
estimates suggested doubling atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations could cut
global cereal grain output by 20%. But these studies did not take account of the full
range of adaptation measures people would employ. This is sometimes called the dumb
farmer assumption. But one of the things economists have learned in recent years is that the way
people adapt to changing conditions does not just reduce the costs of climate
change, but can actually leave them better off than before! Consider farmers who grow
corn. They can choose among dozens of varieties of seed, each with different times to maturity. If you
expect a long hot summer, pick a slow-maturing seed that does well in arid soil. If you expect a short wet summer, pick a faster-maturing and
more water-intensive variety. Or hedge your bets by planting some of each or of different varieties all together.
And beyond corn there are dozens of agricultural and horticultural crops, each with
dozens or hundreds of seed varieties covering every weather possibility. Should
this not be enough to hedge your bets, farmers can buy crop insurance for weather-induced disasters. Now
they can even buy weather derivatives on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. These are contracts that promise compensation payments if
weather conditions deteriorate to an agreed-upon level over a commercially relevant interval. All these hedging options
mean farmers can, for a price, at least maintain their base income regardless of the
Oceans Topic
54
weather over a growing season. Changes in prevailing weather mean, at the simplest level, a small change in the optimal mix of crops and
insurance instruments at each location. But there is more to it. An optimal choice of seed variety for a new
climate can produce improved results over optimal choices in the old. If the climate
changes, you might lose if you dont adapt, but you may be better off than you were before if you do.
Opportunities presented by a changing climate may be, on balance, harmful or beneficial. It is hopeless to pretend we can predict which will be
the case a decade or a century from now.

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AT: Adaptation Bad

Soft adaptation solves.
One of the main challenges in current adaptation work is to understand and demonstrate how adaptation works and what the implications of
adaptation for resilience are (Tschakert and Dietrich, 2010). This dynamic notion of adaptation allows
promoting resilience of both ecosystems and human societies, beyond mere
technological options mainly focused at building hard infrastructure and other similar
measures. Recent studies have shown a negative impact of many adaptation strategies
on biodiversity, especially in the case of hard defenses built to prevent coastal and inland flooding
(Campbell et al., 2009). This could result in so-called mal-adaptation in the long term if the ecological
attributes that regulate the modified ecosystems are disturbed. On the other hand, adaptation strategies that
incorporate natural resource management can result in positive feedbacks for both
people and biodiversity (Campbell et al., 2009; CBD, 2009).

Conservation planning and management solves ecosystem resilience
PARRY ET. AL 2007 [Martin, Osvaldo Canziani, Jean Palutikof, Paul van der Linden, Clair Hanson, IPCC Working Group II,
Climate Change 2007: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability, Chapter 4: Ecosystems, their properties, goods, and services,
http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg2/ar4-wg2-chapter4.pdf, accessed 07.01.2008, san luis]
As climatic changes occur, natural resource management techniques can be applied
to increase the resilience of ecosystems. Increasing resilience is consistent also with
the ecosystem approach developed by the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD)
which is a strategy for management of land, water and living resources that
promotes conservation and sustainable use in an equitable way (Smith and Malthby, 2003). There are
many opportunities to increase resilience (Cropp and Gabrica, 2002; Tompkins and Adger, 2003); however, they
may only be effective for lower levels of climate change (2-3C, Executive Summary, Figure 4.4, Table 4.1). Effective responses depend on an
understanding of likely regional climatic and ecological changes. Monitoring environmental change, including climate, and associated
ecosystem responses is vital to allow for adjustments in management strategies (e.g., Adger et al., 2003; Moldan et al., 2005). Although many
adaptation options are available to wildlife managers, uncertainty about the magnitude and timing of climate change and delayed ecosystem
responses (e.g., Section 4.4.5) may discourage their application. Nevertheless, no regrets decisions based on the precautionary principle
appear preferable. Actions to reduce the impact of other threats, such as habitat
fragmentation or destruction, pollution and introduction of alien species, are very
likely to enhance resilience to climate change (e.g., Goklany, 1998; Inkley et al., 2004; Opdam and Wascher,
2004). Such proactive approaches would encourage conservation planning that is
relevant both today and in the future. Techniques that allow the management of
conservation resources in response to climate variability may ultimately prove to
be the most beneficial way of preparing for possible abrupt climate change by
increasing ecosystem resilience (Bharwani et al., 2005). A few key options to adapt at least to lower levels of climate
change in intensively managed ecosystems (Chapter 5) have been suggested (e.g., Hannah et al., 2002a, 2002b; Hannah and Lovejoy, 2003;
Hansen et al., 2003). Expansion of reserve systems can potentially reduce the vulnerability
of ecosystems to climate change (McNeely and Schutyser, 2003). Reserve systems may be
designed with some consideration of long-term shifts in plant and animal
distributions, natural disturbance regimes and the overall integrity of the protected
species and ecosystems (e.g., Williams et al., 2005). Ultimately, adaptation possibilities are determined by the conservation
priorities of each reserve and by the magnitude and nature of the change in climate. Strategies to cope with climate change are beginning to be
considered in conservation (Cowling et al., 1999; Chopra et al., 2005; Scott and Lemieux, 2005), and highlight the importance of planning
guided by future climate scenarios. A primary adaptation strategy to climate change and even
current climate variability is to reduce and manage the other stresses on species
and ecosystems, such as habitat fragmentation and destruction, over-exploitation, eutrophication, desertification and acidification
Oceans Topic
56
(Inkley et al., 2004; Duraiappah et al., 2005; Robinson et al., 2005; Worm et al., 2006). Robinson et al. (2005) suggest that this may be the only
practical large- scale adaptation policy available for marine ecosystems. In addition to removing other stressors it is necessary to maintain
viable, connected and genetically diverse populations (Inkley et al., 2004; Robinson et al., 2005). Small, isolated populations are often more
prone to local extirpations than larger, more widespread populations (e.g., Gitay et al., 2002; Davis et al., 2005; Lovejoy and Hannah, 2005).
Although connectivity, genetic diversity and population size are important current conservation goals, climate change increases their
importance. The reduction and fragmentation of habitats may also be facilitated through
increases in agricultural productivity (e.g., Goklany and Trewavas, 2003) reducing pressures on
natural ecosystems. However, increasing demand for some types of biofuels may negate this potential benefit (e.g., Busch, 2006).

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AT: Too Slow

Adaptation would be fast
ZAKARIA 2007 (Fareed, Editor of Newsweek International, Feb. 19)
In an intelligent, practical speech last September, the president of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, Frances Cairncross,
urged that we begin such a discussion. "We need to think about policies that prepare for a hotter, drier world,
especially in poor countries," she said. "That may involve, for instance, developing new crops, constructing flood
defenses, setting different building regulations or banning building close to sea level." She points out that
adaptation programs could move forward fast. Unlike plans to slow down global
warming, which require massive and simultaneous international efforts, adaptation
strategies can be pursued by individual countries, states, cities and localities. Three years
ago the Pew Foundation sponsored an excellent study, "Coping With Global Climate Change," which focused on the role of adaptation. The report
found that moving in this direction would be costly and fraught with uncertainty and error. Yet, the authors point out, humankind's
long history has shown it's possible; we have adapted as the environment around us
has changed. The costs of relocating seaside communities are extremely high, but they will be even higher if we wait 20 years. The most
important conclusion of the Pew study was that early planning is far more effective than managing the
consequences of a breakdown. In other words, strengthening the levees in New Orleans costs much, much less than
rebuilding the city.

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AT: Poor People

Urbanization and adaptation solve.

Farmers may be cheered by the thought that food prices are likely to rise. For poor farmers, who spend much of their income on food, this is a
mixed blessing, especially if higher frequencies of drought make prices more volatile too. For poor people more generally,
it is even worse news.
Even if prices are higher, crops more resilient and insurance more readily available,
abandoning the farm may be the way many farmers choose to adapt. It may be prudent even
before the fact. Paul Collier, Gordon Conway and Tony Venables, three British development specialists, have suggested that attempts to provide
anticipatory help to poor African farmers could be badly overdone. Better to encourage them into cities and to
reform labour markets, restrictions on the opening and closing of firms and so forth
in ways that will help them earn money.
More than half the worlds people live in cities already. Three-quarters or more may do so by mid-
century. Encouraging this trend further, at least in some places, may be a useful way of reducing
the economys exposure to climate change. Statistical analyses by Salvador Barrios
of the European Unions Joint Research Centre and his colleagues suggest that
climate change is already a factor in African urbanisation. A related study shows strong climate effects on
sub-Saharan agriculture in Africa not seen elsewhere, which is not perhaps surprising given the huge effect of the 1980s droughts across the
Sahel.
A downside to urbanisation is that cities are hotter than the surrounding countryside, creating what meteorologists call
urban heat islands. But there are ways of dealing with this. More greenery in a city,
spread through streets and over roofs, means more cooling as water evaporates
from leaves; the bits which are not green can be painted white, to reflect sunlight.
And cities have intrinsic advantages. City dwellers emissions per person tend to be lower, and the more planners can
do to increase population density the better. Protecting a single port city from floods is easier than
protecting a similar population spread out along a coastline of fishing villages (though
when things go wrong disasters can be correspondingly larger and harder to address). Cities have higher rates of
innovation and of developing new businesses, business models and social strategies,
formal or informal.
Ideally, there would be opportunities to move to cities in other countries, too; the
larger the region in which people can travel, the easier it is to absorb migrants from
struggling areas. This is one reason why adaptation is easier for large countries or integrated
regions. Within the EU, Greeks and Italians will be better placed to move to cooler climes than inhabitants of similarly sized countri es
elsewhere.

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AT: Poor Wont Do It

Developing countries will model us.

If climate change does slow poor countries growth rates, the onus on rich ones to
help will be even larger. This was recognised to some extent in the Copenhagen accord, which proposed that $100 billion a year
should flow from north to south by 2020, to be split between investments in mitigation and adaptation. But whereas investments
in mitigation are fairly easy to understandbuild windmills not coal-fired power stations, and so onthose
in adaptation are harder to grasp. Action on climate bleeds into more general
development measures.
The poorest countries all have wish-lists for adaptation funding, drawn up in the UN climate-
convention process of which the Copenhagen and Cancn meetings are part. Money and know-how are essential,
but so is example. Rich countries can show, through their own programmes for
flood defence, zoning laws, sewerage and so on that adaptation must be part of
the mainstream of political and economic life, not an eccentric and marginal
idea. Adaptation by and for the poor alone is likely to be poor adaptation.

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Climate Change Ocean Acidification
Climate change will acidify the oceans
BBC, March, 26, 2014, http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-26746039
Off the remote eastern tip of Papua New Guinea a natural phenomenon offers an
alarming glimpse into the future of the oceans, as increasing concentrations of
CO2 in the atmosphere make sea water more acidic.
Streams of volcanic CO2 bubbles emerge from deep under the seabed here, like a
giant jacuzzi.
As the bubbles of carbon dioxide dissolve into the water, carbonic acid is
formed.
The site hints at the possible fate of the world's seas as 24 million tonnes of CO2
from industrial society is absorbed every day into the sea.
Humans are turning whole oceans more acidic. We're changing ocean
chemistry faster than it's changed for tens - maybe hundreds - of millions of
years.
Our Newsnight team joined an international research boat on an expedition to the
far tip of Papua New Guinea.
I tug on my wetsuit, 3mm thick. I'm about to see the effects of CO2 for myself. They
say I only need a stinger suit - a hooded nylon onesie - to shield me from the deadly
box jellyfish. But I feel the cold.
I flop into the lukewarm water from the platform at the back of the boat, and fin
slowly towards the volcanic CO2 vents.
The sea bed is a wondrous sight. The afternoon sun illuminates the bubbles as they
race towards the surface, encasing them in globules of radiant light.
It's like swimming in a sea of lemonade.
Watch Roger Harrabin's report on Newsnight at 22:30 GMT on BBC Two on
Thursday 27 March.
Newsnight has seen a UN report due out on Monday, which says there is
conclusive proof emissions of CO2 from modern society are turning the oceans
more acidic.
It warns that a mass extinction may be under way.
I run a hand through a column of bubbles as it shoots from the sand, half expecting it
to hurt. It doesn't harm me, of course - the bubbles are only CO2. But their acidity is
inarguably hurting the local sea life.
Only tough old boulder corals can survive here. The beautiful branching corals
which adorn a nearby uncontaminated reef can't cope.
It's a huge loss because the branching corals play a vital role in the reef ecosystem,
protecting the young fish needed to help feed a hungry world population.
Research at the volcanic vents shows that between 30-50% of coral types won't be
able to cope with the CO2 levels expected for the world's oceans this century.
The lead scientist, Katharina Fabricius from the Australian Institute of Marine
Science, tells me: "There will be winners and losers as ocean acidity increases.
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61
Seaweed and seagrass are thriving under higher CO2 levels. But many species lose
out.
"We are very concerned because the baby corals find it very hard to survive in high
CO2 so reefs won't be able to repair themselves. It's very, very serious."
Our cameras capture one experiment revealing a startling disparity in the number of
species between the normal CO2 area and the high CO2 vents.
There's no comparable place to assess how reef creatures are affected by increasing
CO2 so there's sharp competition for places on the research vessel, The Chertan. It's
just 18m (59ft) long and while there are nine scientists there are only seven beds.
Volunteers sleep on the floor.
It's a fast-expanding area of science, and Fabricius is one of several researchers
working in laboratories to see how creatures deal with high CO2 and the elevated
temperatures predicted to accompany it.
Dr Katharina Fabricius is studying the effect of acidic oceans on coral
Terry Hughes, director of the Centre for Reef Studies at James Cook University in
Australia says acidification is the latest threat to reefs.
"We've already lost a third of coral reefs thanks primarily to pollution and
overfishing - both are accelerating. Now there's the added impost (sic) of global
warming and in future, ocean acidification.
"I'm very worried about acidification. Some coral species will substitute for others,
but if you lose table corals and tall branching corals, most of nooks and crannies -
the hiding places for juvenile fish - will disappear. And it'll directly affect humans
being because fish stocks will be affected."
Research on acidification is now spreading from corals to fish. One group of
scientists at the university is chasing fish in a barrel to see if their athleticism is
compromised by water that could be 170% more acidic than pre-industrial times by
the century's end (although still alkaline overall).
Dr Jodie Rummer is testing the athletic ability of fish
Already tests show acidification makes some fish lose their sense of smell and
behave recklessly in the presence of predators.
A draft UN report also warns that mass extinctions happened in the past, when CO2
levels changed more slowly than they are changing now.
"The changes we're making are irreversible for tens of thousands of years,"
Fabricius tells me as the sun sets over the dugout canoes heading home after a day's
fishing.
"We can protect reefs from over-fishing and local pollution if there's a will. But with
the atmosphere and oceans it's completely different - there's nothing to remove the
effects of CO2 from the system. It's terrible."

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Climate Change - -Climate Change Killing the Ocean
Climate change will have a dramatic impact on the ocean in many ways
Environmental Defense Fund, October 8, 2013, https://www.edf.org/blog/2013/11/14/five-ways-climate-
change-affecting-our-oceans (Rod, director of research and development for Environmental Defense Fund's
Oceans program, is a leader in the theory and practice of sustainable fisheries that align conservation with the
business of fishing.)
Much attention has been focused on the effects of climate change on forests, farms, freshwater sources and
the economy. But what about the ocean? Even with its vast capacity to absorb heat and carbon dioxide, the
physical impacts of climate change on the ocean are now very clear and dramatic.
According to a recent report, temperatures in the shallowest waters rose by more than 0.1 degree
Celsius (0.18 degree Fahrenheit) a decade for the 40 years through 2010 . . . Average sea levels have
increased worldwide by about 19 centimeters (7.5 inches) since 1901. What are the effects of these
warmer temperatures?
Coral bleaching
As early as 1990, coral reef expert Tom Goreau and I pointed out that mass coral bleaching events
observed during the 1980s were probably due to anomalously warm temperatures related to
climate change. Mass coral bleaching results in the starvation, shrinkage, and death of the corals
that support the thousands of species that live on coral reefs.
1. Fish migration
In addition, many fish species have moved toward the poles in response to ocean warming,
disrupting fisheries around the world.
2. Drowning wetlands
Rising sea levels, partly the result of heat absorbed by the ocean, is also drowning wetlands.
Wetlands normally grow vertically fast enough to keep up with sea level rise, but recently the sea
has been rising too fast for wetlands to keep their blades above water. Coral reefs and sea grass
meadows are also in danger of drowning since they can only photosynthesize in relatively
shallow water. (Their depth limits are greater when the water is extremely clear, but deforestation,
farming, construction, and other activities adjacent to coral reefs are all reducing water clarity and
thus exacerbating the risk of drowning.)
3. Ocean acidification
The ocean has absorbed about 30% of all of the carbon dioxide we humans have sent into the
atmosphere since the start of the Industrial Revolution some 150 billion tons. However, this
great service, which has substantially slowed global warming, has been accomplished at great
cost: the trend in ocean acidification is about 30 times greater than natural variation, and average
surface ocean pH (the standard measure of acidity) has dropped by 0.1 unit (a highly significant
increase in acidity).
This is damaging many ocean species that use calcium carbonate to form their skeletons and
shells. Recent studies show that calcium carbonate formation is disrupted if water becomes too
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acidic. Ocean acidification also appears to be affecting whole ecosystems, such as coral reefs,
which depend on the formation of calcium carbonate to build reef structure, which in turn provides
homes for reef organisms.
4. A disastrous positive feedback loop
Finally, acidification also appears to be reducing the amount of sulfur flowing out of the ocean
into the atmosphere. This reduces reflection of solar radiation back into space, resulting in even
more warming. This is the kind of positive feedback loop that could result in runaway climate
change and of course, even more disastrous effects on the ocean.
For decades, the ocean has been absorbing carbon dioxide dumped into the atmosphere by burning fossil
fuels. It has also absorbed a lot of the extra heat produced by elevated atmospheric carbon dioxide levels.
But even the ocean has limits, and we are bumping up against them, with damaging consequences for the
whole world.
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Climate Change -- Inevitable
Climate change inevitable

Milina & Litterman, April 12, 2014, USA Today, Mario Molina is the chair of the
Climate Science Panel of the American Association for the Advancement of Science
"What We Know" initiative, for and to which Bob Litterman is a funder and advisor.
Litterman is a partner in an asset management firm, Kepos Capital LP, and sits on a
number of boards of companies that make investments some of which may be
positively or negatively impacted by a carbon tax. He does not own any direct
investments that would benefit from environmental risk pricing,
http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2014/04/12/climate-change-global-
warming-evidence-science-column/7438567/

For far too long, our national debate about climate change has been about "yes or
no:" Is human-caused climate change real? That debate should now end. Based
on well-established evidence, about 97% of climate scientists have concluded
that human-caused climate change is happening. If 97 of 100 doctors told you
that your child's health was at serious risk without surgery, how long would you
wait for the other three to get on board?
The next debate is about how we should respond. Those decisions should be
supported by the best information climate science can give us about what's already
happening, what's likely to happen in the future and importantly what might
happen.
Let's start with what's already happening. Temperatures are going up. Ice sheets
are melting. Sea level is rising. The patterns of rainfall and drought are
changing. Heat waves are getting worse as is extreme precipitation. The
oceans are acidifying. All of these impacts have social and economic costs. But
we must also consider what science tells us as we conduct this unprecedented
experiment with the world's climate system: expect the unexpected.
As global temperature rises, the risk increases that one or more important parts of
the Earth's climate system will experience changes that may be abrupt,
unpredictable and potentially irreversible with massively disruptive and large-scale
impacts. As one example, we could experience abrupt losses from both major ice
sheets in Antarctica, precipitating rapid and irreversible sea level rise all around the
globe. Will that happen? It's unlikely, but the point is that it might. And the risk
increases as global temperature goes up.
We must consider these worst-case scenarios for climate the same as we do
for all the risks we manage. We don't get in our cars expecting a head-on collision
with a drunk driver. Nevertheless, we buy insurance, contribute to Mothers Against
Drunk Driving, insist that our cars have seat belts, air bags and crumple zones and
support vigilant policing to insure against that risk.
The good news is that we have a great tool for managing the risks of climate
change. We simply decide to reward ourselves for doing the things that reduce
our risk. Just as insurance companies give us "safe-driver" discounts, we can create
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incentives that reward everyone consumers, businesses and investors for
reducing emissions. Such incentives would unleash a torrent of American
innovation and economic activity aimed at slowing down emissions -- from
conservation to low-emissions energy to new emissions-reducing technologies --
that would provide a new and sustainable foundation for economic prosperity.
The bad news at least at present is that we've got our incentives for emissions
exactly backwards. Right now the U.S. estimates the cost of economic damages
created by greenhouse gas emissions at $37 per ton. Once all climate risks are
included, this number would go up. Would charging ourselves this much for
emissions mean a big tax increase? No, because whatever revenues we collected by
putting a price on emissions that pollute our atmosphere we could give right back to
ourselves in lower income taxes. Today, however, the actual global price for
emissions is -$15 per ton. That's not a typo! It reflects the fact that governments
around the world subsidize (with our tax dollars) the production and consumption
of fossil fuels.
Should we reward ourselves for emissions that are increasing the most dangerous
environmental risks we've ever faced? That's only great for the fossil fuel industry.
As the reality and risks of climate change sink in, it's time to start rewarding
ourselves for moving in the opposite direction.
Temperatures will rise 4-5 degrees

The Independent, April 13, 2014,
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/leaked-climate-
change-report-scientific-body-warns-of-devastating-rise-of-45c-if-we-carry-on-
as-we-are-9256708.html

Global greenhouse gas emissions over the past decade were the "highest in
human history", according to the world's leading scientific body for the
assessment of climate change. Without further action, temperatures will
increase by about 4 to 5C, compared with pre-industrial levels, it warns, a level
that could reap devastating effects on the planet.
The stark findings are to be revealed in the latest report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change (IPCC) today, the last in a trilogy written by hundreds of scientists on what is considered the
definitive take on climate change.
The experts were working on the report until the early hours of yesterday morning. Although the thrust of
the report is dramatic, it does say that it is not too late to limit global warming to less than 2C, which
experts regard as the minimum needed to avoid radical global shifts. But its suggested scenarios would
mean slashing global emissions by 40 to 70 per cent by 2050 from 2010 levels.
This would include "fundamental changes in energy systems and potentially the land", the draft found, such
as a move towards renewable energy, nuclear power and fossil energy whose carbon emissions are captured
or stored.
"These reports make it crystal clear what is at stake, and no government can justifiably say the case hasn't
been made for strong and urgent action," said Bob Ward, the policy director for the Grantham Research
Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics and Political
Science. "It's affordable and, frankly, the benefits are not even just in terms of climate risks. Shutting down
coal-fired power stations in China, for example, will improve local air quality. The only thing standing in
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our way now is political will. The evidence is conclusive: the current pledges made by governments will be
insufficient to get us to our targets."
It was in 2010 that hundreds of governments agreed to reduce emissions so as not to breach the 2C
warming mark the point at which it is thought the risk to food and water supplies would be high, as well
as a risk of irreversible changes, such as a meltdown of Greenland's ice sheet.
At this level, we could lose 20 to 30 per cent of our wildlife, as well as face more extreme weather,
according to Mike Childs, head of science, policy and research at Friends of the Earth. At 4C of warming,
there could be a "devastating" impact on agriculture, wildlife and human civilisation, he added.
But despite global attempts to mitigate climate change picking up in recent years, greenhouse gas emissions
grew more rapidly between 2000 and 2010 than in each of the previous three decades, according to the final
draft of the IPCC report seen by The Independent on Sunday. The main contributors were a "growing
energy demand and an increase of the share of coal in the global fuel mix", the draft found.
It estimated that if mitigation efforts are delayed until 2030, it would "substantially increase the difficulty
of the transition to low longer-term emission levels".
Almost 80 per cent of the emissions growth between 1970 and 2010 was caused by fossil fuel combustion
and industrial processes, according to the report. To reach the 2C target, the experts warned that the global
energy supply must dramatically change, with at least a tripling of the use of "zero and low-carbon" energy,
such as renewables, nuclear and fossil energy. It added that a growing number of renewable technologies
had achieved a level of "technical and economic maturity to enable deployment at significant scale".
The report found that emissions could be "reduced significantly" by replacing coal-fired power plants with
more efficient alternatives. It added that the decarbonisation of the electricity system would be a "key
component" of cost-effective strategies but the Government voted down a plan to do this by 2030.
Caroline Flint, the Shadow Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, said that the report "provides
overwhelming and compelling scientific evidence that climate change will have a devastating impact if
urgent action is not taken to reduce our carbon emissions and invest in mitigation". She added: "It
highlights the need for a global, legally binding treaty to cut carbon emissions at the Paris conference in
2015. But to have influence abroad we must show leadership at home. That's why the next Labour
government will set a decarbonisation target for the power sector for 2030, unshackle the Green Investment
Bank and reverse the decline in investment in clean energy we have seen under David Cameron."
Kaisa Kosonen, senior political adviser at Greenpeace International, said the report should encourage a
move from "a decade of coal to the century of renewables". She added: "The solutions are clear. Our
energy system needs to undergo a fundamental transformation from fossil fuels to renewable and smart
energy. In recent years, the transition has already started, but it must scale up and speed up. Dirty energy
industries are sure to put up a fight, but it's only a question of time before public pressure and economics
dictate that they either change or go out of business."
The report also concludes that the next decade could be a "window of opportunity" for mitigating global
warming in cities, through locating residential areas in spaces of high employment, achieving diversity of
land uses, increasing accessibility and investing in public transport.
Where there's a will...
The world can reach its global warming targets if it reduces its emissions by 40 to 70 per cent. It is about
transforming our energy supply and the way we use our land. After The Independent on Sunday viewed a
final draft of the findings, we asked some climate change experts what we can do now to mitigate against
global warming, before it is too late.
Mark Lynas, author and environmentalist, said: "It is important to remember that every measure of climate-
change reduction is still worth it. This report is a like a climate-change version of a suspended sentence.
The 5C rise would be catastrophic, but we still have time to avoid the permanent rise in sea levels, for
example, and we could avoid losing large agricultural zones. The important thing for people to understand
is that it doesn't mean going back to living in caves; we can make many of these changes without making
enormous changes to our lifestyles."
Darren Johnson, the chair of the London Assembly, who has been working in the field for a quarter of a
century, is less hopeful. "I'm desperately worried about the timescale we have to turn things around," he
said. "I'm appalled by the lack of will of previous governments and the coalition." But he still believes there
is a chance to reduce emissions and prevent the "worst-case scenario". He added: "We need politicians to
grasp this. We need a massive switch to renewables, a big investment in wind and solar power, and to
reduce energy and reduce vehicles. This has to be made an absolute priority."
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As for Sian Berry, Green Party member and part of the Campaign for Better Transport, she thought it was
more about behavioural change. "People can stand up against the construction of large supermarkets, and
out-of-town developments that would require people to drive more. They can vote for people who are going
to improve public transport. They should be planning their lives around driving less."
None of this changes the need to address the drivers of global warming, and one thing the report doesn't
spend a lot of space on is the tired debate about the science. It simply notes that the world's leading climate
scientists are 95% to 100% certain that human influence has been the dominant cause of the observed
warming since the middle of the 20th century. So every day spent on arguments about whether man-made
climate change is real is a day better spent on mitigation and adaptation.
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Climate Change Anthropogenic

Fast anthropogenic warming now
Rahmstorf 8 Professor of Physics of the Oceans at Potsdam University (Richard.
Global Warming: Looking Beyond Kyoto. Edited by Ernesto Zedillo. Anthropogenic
Climate Change? Page 42-49)

It is time to turn to statement B: human activities are altering the climate. This can
be broken into two parts. The first is as follows: global climate is warming. This is by
now a generally undisputed point (except by novelist Michael Crichton), so we deal
with it only briefly. The two leading compilations of data measured with
thermometers are shown in figure 3-3, that of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and that of the British
Hadley Centre for Climate Change. Although they differ in the details, due to the inclusion of different data sets and use of different spatial
averaging and quality control procedures, they both show a consistent picture, with a global mean
warming of 0.8C since the late nineteenth century. Temperatures over the past ten
years clearly were the warmest since measured records have been available. The
year 1998 sticks out well above the longterm trend due to the occurrence of a major
El Nino event that year (the last El Nino so far and one of the strongest on record).
These events are examples of the largest natural climate variations on multiyear
time scales and, by releasing heat from the ocean, generally cause positive
anomalies in global mean temperature. It is remarkable that the year 2005 rivaled
the heat of 1998 even though no El Nino event occurred that year. (A bizarre curiosity, perhaps worth
mentioning, is that several prominent "climate skeptics" recently used the extreme year 1998 to claim in the media that global warming had
ended. In Lindzen's words, "Indeed, the absence of any record breakers during the past seven years is statistical evidence that temperatures are
not increasing.")33 In addition to the surface measurements, the more recent portion of the global warming
trend (since 1979) is also documented by satellite data. It is not straightforward to derive a reliable
surface temperature trend from satellites, as they measure radiation coming from throughout the atmosphere (not just near the surface),
including the stratosphere, which has strongly cooled, and the records are not homogeneous' due to the short life span of individual satellites,
the problem of orbital decay, observations at different times of day, and drifts in instrument calibration.' Current analyses of
these satellite data show trends that are fully consistent with surface measurements
and model simulations." If no reliable temperature measurements existed, could we be sure that the climate is warming? The
"canaries in the coal mine" of climate change (as glaciologist Lonnie Thompson puts it) ~are mountain glaciers. We know, both
from old photographs and from the position of the terminal moraines heaped up by
the flowing ice, that mountain glaciers have been in retreat all over the world during the
past century. There are precious few exceptions, and they are associated with a strong increase in precipitation or local cooling.36 I have
inspected examples of shrinking glaciers myself in field trips to Switzerland, Norway, and New Zealand. As glaciers respond sensitively to
temperature changes, data on the extent of glaciers have been used to reconstruct a history of Northern Hemisphere temperature over the past
four centuries (see figure 3-4). Cores drilled in tropical glaciers show signs of recent melting that
is unprecedented at least throughout the Holocene-the past 10,000 years. Another
powerful sign of warming, visible clearly from satellites, is the shrinking Arctic sea
ice cover (figure 3-5), which has declined 20 percent since satellite observations began in 1979. While
climate clearly became warmer in the twentieth century, much discussion particularly in the popular media has focused on the question of how
"unusual" this warming is in a longer-term context. While this is an interesting question, it has often been mixed incorrectly with the question of
causation. Scientifically, how unusual recent warming is-say, compared to the past millennium-in itself contains little information about its
cause. Even a highly unusual warming could have a natural cause (for example, an exceptional increase in solar activity). And even a warming
within the bounds of past natural variations could have a predominantly anthropogenic cause. I come to the question of causation shortly, after
briefly visiting the evidence for past natural climate variations. Records from the time before systematic temperature measurements were
collected are based on "proxy data," coming from tree rings, ice cores, corals, and other sources. These proxy data are generally linked to local
temperatures in some way, but they may be influenced by other parameters as well (for example, precipitation), they may have a seasonal bias
(for example, the growth season for tree rings), and high-quality long records are difficult to obtain and therefore few in number and geographic
coverage. Therefore, there is still substantial uncertainty in the evolution of past global or hemispheric temperatures. (Comparing only local or
regional temperature; as in Europe, is of limited value for our purposes,' as regional variations can be much larger than global ones and can have
many regional causes, unrelated to global-scale forcing and climate change.) The first quantitative reconstruction for the Northern Hemisphere
temperature of the past millennium, including an error estimation, was presented by Mann, Bradley, and Hughes and rightly highlighted in the
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2001 IPCC report as one of the major new findings since its 1995 report; it is shown in figure 3_6.39 The analysis suggests that, despite the large
error bars, twentieth-century warming is indeed highly unusual and probably was unprecedented during the past millennium. This result,
presumably because of its symbolic power, has attracted much criticism, to some extent in scientific journals, but even more so in the popular
media. The hockey stick-shaped curve became a symbol for the IPCC, .and criticizing this particular data analysis became an avenue for some to
question the credibility of the IPCC. Three important things have been overlooked in much of the media coverage. First, even if the scientific
critics had been right, this would not have called into question the very cautious conclusion drawn by the IPCC from the reconstruction by Mann,
Bradley, and Hughes: "New analyses of proxy data for the Northern Hemisphere indicate that the increase in temperature in the twentieth
century is likely to have been the largest of any century during the past 1,000 years." This conclusion has since been supported further by every
single one of close to a dozen new reconstructions (two of which are shown in figure 3-6). Second, by far the most serious scientific criticism
raised against Mann, Hughes, and Bradley was simply based on a mistake. 40 The prominent paper of von Storch and others, which claimed
(based on a model test) that the method of Mann, Bradley, and Hughes systematically underestimated variability, "was [itself] based on incorrect
implementation of the reconstruction procedure."41 With correct implementation, climate field reconstruction procedures such as the one used
by Mann, Bradley, and Hughes have been shown to perform well in similar model tests. Third, whether their reconstruction is accurate or not
has no bearing on policy. If their analysis underestimated past natural climate variability, this would certainly not argue for a smaller climate
sensitivity and thus a lesser concern about the consequences of our emissions. Some have argued that, in contrast, it would point to a larger
climate sensitivity. While this is a valid point in principle, it does not apply in practice to the climate sensitivity estimates discussed herein or to
the range given by IPCC, since these did not use the reconstruction of Mann, Hughes, and Bradley or any other proxy records of the past
millennium. Media claims that "a pillar of the Kyoto Protocol" had been called into question were therefore misinformed. As an aside, the
protocol was agreed in 1997, before the reconstruction in question even existed. The overheated public debate on this topic has, at least, helped
to attract more researchers and funding to this area of paleoclimatology; its methodology has advanced significantly, and a number of new
reconstructions have been presented in recent years. While the science has moved forward, the first seminal reconstruction by Mann, Hughes,
and Bradley has held up remarkably well, with its main features reproduced by more recent work. Further progress probably will require
substantial amounts of new proxy data, rather than further refinement of the statistical techniques pioneered by Mann, Hughes, and Bradley.
Developing these data sets will require time and substantial effort. It is time to address the final statement: most of the observed
warming over the past fifty years is anthropogenic. A large number of studies exist that have taken different
approaches to analyze this issue, which is generally called the "attribution problem." I do not discuss the exact share of the anthropogenic
contribution (although this is an interesting question). By "most" I imply mean "more than 50 percent. The first and crucial
piece of evidence is, of course, that the magnitude of the warming is what is
expected from the anthropogenic perturbation of the radiation balance, so
anthropogenic forcing is able to explain all of the temperature rise. As discussed
here, the rise in greenhouse gases alone corresponds to 2.6 W/tn2 of forcing. This
by itself, after subtraction of the observed 0'.6 W/m2 of ocean heat uptake, would
Cause 1.6C of warming since preindustrial times for medium climate sensitivity (3"C). With a current "best guess'; aerosol
forcing of 1 W/m2, the expected warming is O.8c. The point here is not that it is possible to obtain the 'exact observed number-this is fortuitous
because the amount of aerosol' forcing is still very' uncertain-but that the expected magnitude is roughly right. There can be little doubt that the
anthropogenic forcing is large enough to explain most of the warming. Depending on aerosol forcing and climate
sensitivity, it could explain a large fraction of the warming, or all of it, or even more
warming than has been observed (leaving room for natural processes to counteract
some of the warming). The second important piece of evidence is clear: there is no
viable alternative explanation. In the scientific literature, no serious alternative
hypothesis has been proposed to explain the observed global warming. Other
possible causes, such as solar activity, volcanic activity, cosmic rays, or orbital
cycles, are well observed, but they do not show trends capable of explaining the
observed warming. Since 1978, solar irradiance has been measured directly from satellites and shows the well-known eleven-year
solar cycle, but no trend. There are various estimates of solar variability before this time, based on sunspot numbers, solar cycle length, the
geomagnetic AA index, neutron monitor data, and, carbon-14 data. These indicate that solar activity probably increased somewhat up to 1940.
While there is disagreement about the variation in previous centuries, different authors agree that solar activity did not significantly increase
during the last sixty-five years. Therefore, this cannot explain the warming, and neither can any of the other factors mentioned. Models driven by
natural factors only, leaving the anthropogenic forcing aside, show a cooling in the second half of the twentieth century (for an example, See
figure 2-2, panel a, in chapter 2 of this volume). The trend in the sum of natural forcings is downward. The only way out would
be either some as yet undiscovered unknown forcing or a warming trend that arises
by chance from an unforced internal variability in the climate system. The latter
cannot be completely ruled out, but has to be considered highly unlikely. No
evidence in the observed record, proxy data, or current models suggest that such
internal variability could cause a sustained trend of global warming of the observed
magnitude. As discussed, twentieth century warming is unprecedented over the past 1,000
years (or even 2,000 years, as the few longer reconstructions available now suggest), which does not 'support the idea of large internal
fluctuations. Also, those past variations correlate well with past forcing (solar variability, volcanic activity) and thus appear to be largely forced
rather than due to unforced internal variability." And indeed, it would be difficult for a large and sustained unforced variability to satisfy the
fundamental physical law of energy conservation. Natural internal variability generally shifts heat around different parts of the climate system-
for example, the large El Nino event of 1998, which warmed, the atmosphere by releasing heat stored in the ocean. This mechanism implies that
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the ocean heat content drops as the atmosphere warms. For past decades, as discussed, we observed the atmosphere warming and the ocean
heat content increasing, which rules out heat release from the ocean as a cause of surface warming. The heat content of the whole climate system
is increasing, and there is no plausible source of this heat other than the heat trapped by greenhouse gases. A completely different approach to
attribution is to analyze the spatial patterns of climate change. This is done in so-called fingerprint studies, which associate particular patterns
or "fingerprints" with different forcings. It is plausible that the pattern of a solar-forced climate change differs from the pattern of a change
caused by greenhouse gases. For example, a characteristic of greenhouse gases is that heat is trapped closer to the Earth's surface and that,
unlike solar variability, greenhouse gases tend to warm more in winter, and at night. Such studies have used different
data sets and have been performed by different groups of researchers with different
statistical methods. They consistently conclude that the observed spatial pattern of
warming can only be explained by greenhouse gases.49 Overall, it has to be considered, highly likely' that
the observed warming is indeed predominantly due to the human-caused increase in greenhouse gases. ' This paper discussed the evidence for
the anthropogenic increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration and the effect of CO2 on climate, finding that this anthropogenic
increase is proven beyond reasonable doubt and that a mass of evidence points to a
CO2 effect on climate of 3C 1.59C global-warming for a doubling of concentration. (This is, the classic IPCC
range; my personal assessment is that, in-the light of new studies since the IPCC Third Assessment Report, the uncertainty range can now be
narrowed somewhat to 3C 1.0C) This is based on consistent results from theory, models, and
data analysis, and, even in the absence-of any computer models, the same result
would still hold based on physics and on data from climate history alone.
Considering the plethora of consistent evidence, the chance that these conclusions
are wrong has to be considered minute. If the preceding is accepted, then it follows
logically and incontrovertibly that a further increase in CO2 concentration will lead
to further warming. The magnitude of our emissions depends on human behavior, but
the climatic response to various emissions scenarios can be computed from the information presented here. The result is the famous range of
future global temperature scenarios shown in figure 3_6.50 Two additional steps are involved in these computations: the consideration of
anthropogenic forcings other than CO2 (for example, other greenhouse gases and aerosols) and the computation of concentrations from the
emissions. Other gases are not discussed here, although they are important to get quantitatively accurate results. CO2 is the largest
and most important forcing. Concerning concentrations, the scenarios shown basically assume that ocean and biosphere
take up a similar share of our emitted CO2 as in the past. This could turn out to be an optimistic assumption; some models indicate the possibility
of a positive feedback, with the biosphere turning into a carbon source rather than a sink under growing climatic stress. It is clear that even in
the more optimistic of the shown (non-mitigation) scenarios, global temperature would rise by 2-3C above its preindustrial level by the end of
this century. Even for a paleoclimatologist like myself, this is an extraordinarily high temperature, which is very likely unprecedented in at least
the past 100,000 years. As far as the data show, we would have to go back about 3 million years, to the
Pliocene, for comparable temperatures. The rate of this warming (which is important for the
ability of ecosystems to cope) is also highly unusual and unprecedented probably for an even longer time. The last major global warming trend
occurred when the last great Ice Age ended between 15,000 and 10,000 years ago: this was a warming of about 5C over 5,000 years, that is, a
rate of only 0.1 C per century. 52 The expected magnitude and rate of planetary warming is highly likely to come with major risk and impacts in
terms of sea level rise (Pliocene sea level was 25-35 meters higher than now due to smaller Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets), extreme events
(for example, hurricane activity is expected to increase in a warmer climate), and ecosystem loss. The second part of this paper examined the
evidence for the current warming of the planet and discussed what is known about its causes. This part showed that global
warming is already a measured and-well-established fact, not a theory. Many
different lines of evidence consistently show that most of the observed warming of
the past fifty years was caused by human activity. Above all, this warming is exactly what would be expected
given the anthropogenic rise in greenhouse gases, and no viable alternative explanation for this warming has been proposed in the scientific
literature. Taken together., the very strong evidence accumulated from thousands of
independent studies, has over the past decades convinced virtually every
climatologist around the world (many of whom were initially quite skeptical,
including myself) that anthropogenic global warming is a reality with which we
need to deal.

Multiple lines of evidence for climate change
Wight 10 (James Wight, Professor of Civil Engineering Department of Civil and
Environmental Engineering, Evidence for global warming, 9/6/10)
http://www.skepticalscience.com/evidence-for-global-warming.htm
Land surface air temperature as measured by weather stations. You know all those
skeptic arguments about how the temperature record is biased by the urban heat
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island effect, badly-sited weather stations, dropped stations, and so on? This is the
only indicator which suffers from all those problems. So if youre arguing with
somebody who tries to frame the discussion as being about land surface air
temperature, just remind them about the other nine indicators.
Sea surface temperature. As with land temperatures, the longest record goes back to
1850 and the last decade is warmest.
Air temperature over the oceans.
Lower troposphere temperature as measured by satellites for around 50 years. By
any of these measures, the 2000s was the warmest decade and each of the last three
decades has been much warmer than the previous one.
Ocean heat content, for which records go back over half a century. More than 90% of
the extra heat from global warming is going into the oceans contributing to a rise
in
Sea level. Tide gauge records go back to 1870, and sea level has risen at an
accelerating rate.
Specific humidity, which has risen in tandem with temperatures.
Glaciers. 2009 was the 19th consecutive year in which there was a net loss of ice from
glaciers worldwide.
Northern Hemisphere snow cover, which has also decreased in recent decades.
Perhaps the most dramatic change of all has been in Arctic sea ice. Satellite
measurements are available back to 1979 and reliable shipping records back to
1953. September sea ice extent has shrunk by 35% since 1979.
Science isnt like a house of cards, in that removing one line of evidence (eg. land
surface air temperature) wouldnt cause the whole edifice of anthropogenic global
warming to collapse. Rather, land surface warming is one of more than ten bricks
supporting global warming; and with global warming established, there is a whole
other set of bricks supporting anthropogenic global warming. To undermine these
conclusions, youd need to remove most or all of the bricks supporting them but as
the evidence continues to pile up, that is becoming less and less likely.

Multiple independent lines of evidence for warming
Cook 11 (John Cook, Climate Communication Fellow for the Global Change Institute at
the University of Queensland, citing a variety of peer reviewed papers, Evidence for
global warming, 10/19/11) http://www.skepticalscience.com/evidence-for-global-
warming-intermediate.htm
There are many lines of independent empirical evidence for global warming, from
accelerated ice loss from the Arctic to Antarctica to the poleward migration of
planthttp://www.skepticalscience.com/sksadmin.php?Action=EditForm&TableName
=rebuttal&UniqueIdentifier=108 and animal species across the globe. The evidence
for global warming is being meticulously accumulated by scientists all over the
world. This evidence includes the following independent observations that paint a
consistent picture of global warming: Our planet is suffering an energy imbalance
and is steadily accumulating heat (Hansen 2005, Murphy 2009, von Schuckmann
2009, Trenberth 2009) The height of the tropopause is increasing (Santer 2003, press
release) Jet streams are moving poleward (Archer 2008, Seidel 2007, Fu 2006) The
tropical belt is widening (Seidel 2007, Fu 2006) There is an increasing trend in
record hot days versus record cold temperatures with currently twice as many
record hot days than record cold temperatures (Meehle 2009, see press release). A
shift towards earlier seasons (Stine 2009) Cooling and contraction of the upper
atmosphere consistent with predicted effects of increasing greenhouse gases
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(Lastovicka 2008) Lake warming (Schneider & Hook 2010) Ice Melt Arctic permafrost
is warming at greater depths (Walsh 2009) and degrading (IPCC AR4, section 4.7.2.3)
Global sea level rise is accelerating (Church 2006) Antarctic ice loss is accelerating
(Velicogna 2009), even from East Antarctica which was previously thought to be too
stable to lose ice mass (Chen 2009) Greenland ice loss is accelerating (Velicogna
2009, van den Broeke et al 2009) Glaciers are shrinking globally at an accelerating
rate (WGMS 2008) Arctic sea-ice loss is accelerating with the loss rate exceeding
model forecasts by around a factor of 3 (Stroeve 2007). Lake and river ice cover
throughout the Northern Hemisphere are freezing later and breaking up earlier
(Magnuson 2000, Hodgkins 2005) Biological changes Animal and plant species are
responding to earlier springs. Eg - earlier frog breeding, bird nesting, earlier
flowering, earlier migration of birds and butterflies (Parmesan 2003) The
distribution of tree lines, plants, birds, mammals, insects, fish, reptiles, marine
invertebrates are shifting towards the poles (Parmesan 2003) Growing season is
lengthening (Christidis 2007) Earlier emergence of Melbourne butterflies (Kearney
2010) Changes to physical and biological systems across the globe are consistent with
warming temperatures (Rosenzweig 2008) Distribution of plants are shifting to
higher elevations (Lenoir 2008) UK Flowers blooming earlier now than any time in
last 250 years (Amano 2010) Arctic phytoplankton blooming earlier in the year,
affecting the food chain (Kahru 2010) Earlier emergence of Melbourne butterfly: 1.6
days per decade (Kearney 2010). Decline in lizard populations (Sinervo 2010) Drop
in primary productivity due to unprecedented warming at Lake Tanganyika (Tierney
2010) Tropical reef corals are expanding poleward (Yamano 2011) Species are
shrinking (Sheridan 2011)

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Climate change heading to 6deg
Were on the road to 6 degree warming
Potsdam Institute 12 (A Report for the World Bank by the Potsdam Institute for
Climate Impact Research and Climate Analytics, Turn Down the Heat: Why a 4C
Warmer World Must be Avoided, November 2012)
http://climatechange.worldbank.org/sites/default/files/Turn_Down_the_heat_Why
_a_4_degree_centrigrade_warmer_world_must_be_avoided.pdf
Without further commitments and action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the
world is likely to warm by more than 3C above the preindustrial climate. Even with
the current mitigation commitments and pledges fully implemented, there is
roughly a 20 percent likelihood of exceeding 4C by 2100. If they are not met, a
warming of 4C could occur as early as the 2060s. Such a warming level and
associated sea-level rise of 0.5 to 1 meter, or more, by 2100 would not be the end
point: a further warming to levels over 6C, with several meters of sea-level rise,
would likely occur over the following centuries. Thus, while the global community
has committed itself to holding warming below 2C to prevent dangerous climate
change, and Small Island Developing states (SIDS) and Least Developed Countries
(LDCs) have identified global warming of 1.5C as warming above which there
would be serious threats to their own development and, in some cases, survival, the
sum total of current policiesin place and pledgedwill very likely lead to
warming far in excess of these levels. Indeed, present emission trends put the world
plausibly on a path toward 4C warming within the century. This report is not a
comprehensive scientific assessment, as will be forthcoming from the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 201314 in its Fifth
Assessment Report. It is focused on developing countries, while recognizing that
developed countries are also vulnerable and at serious risk of major damages from
climate change. A series of recent extreme events worldwide continue to highlight
the vulnerability of not only the developing world but even wealthy industrialized
countries. Uncertainties remain in projecting the extent of both climate change and
its impacts. We take a risk-based approach in which risk is defined as impact
multiplied by probability: an event with low probability can still pose a high risk if it
implies serious consequences. No nation will be immune to the impacts of climate
change. However, the distribution of impacts is likely to be inherently unequal and
tilted against many of the worlds poorest regions, which have the least economic,
institutional, scientific, and technical capacity to cope and adapt. For example:
Even though absolute warming will be largest in high latitudes, the warming that
will occur in the tropics is larger when compared to the historical range of
temperature and extremes to which human and natural ecosystems have adapted
and coped. The projected emergence of unprecedented high-temperature extremes
in the tropics will consequently lead to significantly larger impacts on agriculture
and ecosystems. Sea-level rise is likely to be 15 to 20 percent larger in the tropics
than the global mean. Increases in tropical cyclone intensity are likely to be felt
disproportionately in low-latitude regions. Increasing aridity and drought are
likely to increase substantially in many developing country regions located in
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tropical and subtropical areas. A world in which warming reaches 4C above
preindustrial levels (hereafter referred to as a 4C world), would be one of Turn
Down The heaT: why a 4C warmer worlD musT Be avoiDeD xiv unprecedented
heat waves, severe drought, and major floods in many regions, with serious impacts
on human systems, ecosystems, and associated services. Warming of 4C can still be
avoided: numerous studies show that there are technically and economically
feasible emissions pathways to hold warming likely below 2C. Thus the level of
impacts that developing countries and the rest of the world experience will be a
result of government, private sector, and civil society decisions and choices,
including, unfortunately, inaction

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Add-On -- Economy
Climate change will destroy current transportation networks wrecking the
economy
Potter et al, 08, (Joanne R. March, 2008 Michael J. Savonis, Virginia R. Burkett U.S.
Climate Change Science Program Synthesis and Assessment Product 4.7 Impacts of
Climate Change and Variability on Transportation Systems and Infrastructure: Gulf
Coast Study, Phase I
http://files.library.northwestern.edu.turing.library.northwestern.edu/transportatio
n/online/restricted/200819/PB2008110533.pdf)

Transportation is such an integral part of daily life in the United States that few
pause to consider its importance. Yet the Nations strong intermodal network of
highways, public transit, rail, marine, and aviation is central to our ability to
work, go to school, enjoy leisure time, maintain our homes, and stay in touch with
friends and family. U.S. businesses depend on reliable transportation services
to receive materials and transport products to their customers; a robust
transportation network is essential to the economy. In short, a sound
transportation system is vital to the Nations social and economic future.
Transportation professionals including planners, designers, engineers, financial
specialists, ecologists, safety experts, and others work hard to ensure that U.S.
communities have access to safe and dependable transportation services. Given the
ongoing importance of the Nations transportation system, it is appropriate to
consider what effect climate change may have on this essential network. Through a
regional case study of the central Gulf Coast, this report begins to examine the
potential implications of climate change on transportation infrastructure,
operations, and services. Investments in transportation are substantial and result in
infrastructure that lasts for decades. Transportation plans and designs should,
therefore, be carefully considered and well informed by a range of factors,
including consideration of climate variability and change. Climate also affects
the safety, operations, and maintenance of transportation infrastructure and
systems. This research investigates the potential impacts of climate variability and
change on transportation, and it assesses how planners and managers may
incorporate this information into their decisions to ensure a reliable and robust
future transportation network. This report does not contain recommendations
about specific facilities or adaptation strategies, but rather seeks to contribute to the
information available so that States and local communities can make more informed
decisions when planning for the future. The climate models used to estimate
temperature changes agree that it will be warmer in the future. According to the
IPCC report, global average warming is expected to be about 0.4C (0.72F) during
the next 20 years. Even if the concentrations of all greenhouse gases and aerosols
had been stabilized at 2000 levels, warming of 0.2C (0.36F) would be expected
during this period (IPCC, 2007). Over the longer term, the IPCC models project
average global temperature increases ranging from 1.1C (1.98F) to 6.4C (11.5F)
Oceans Topic
76
by the end of the 21st century, although climate responses in specific regions will
vary. These projections are the result of reviewing a robust set of global climate
models under a variety of future scenarios using a range of assumptions for future
economic activity and energy use for the Earth as a whole. The average increase in
temperature may not be as important to the transportation community as the
changes in extreme temperature, which also are expected to increase. Over the last
50 years, the frequency of cold days and nights has declined, while hot days, hot
nights, and heat waves have become more frequent. The number of days with
temperature above 32C (90F) and 38C (100F) has been increasing since 1970, as
has the intensity and length of periods of drought. The IPCC report finds that it is
virtually certain that the next century will witness warmer and more frequent hot
days and nights over most land areas (IPCC, 2007). Increasing temperatures have
the potential to affect multiple modes of transportation, primarily impacting
surface transportation. The transportation impacts mentioned most often in
the literature included pavement damage; rail buckling; less lift and fuel
efficiency for aircraft; and the implications of lower inland water levels,
thawing permafrost, reduced ice cover on seaways, and an increase in
vegetation. These are discussed in greater detail below: Pavement damage The
quality of highway pavement was identified as a potential issue for temperate
climates, where more extreme summer temperatures and/or more frequent
freeze/thaw cycles may be experienced. Extremely hot days, over an extended
period of time, could lead to the rutting of highway pavement and the more
rapid breakdown of asphalt seal binders, resulting in cracking, potholing, and
bleeding. This, in turn, could damage the structural integrity of the road
and/or cause the pavement to become more slippery when wet. Adaptation
measures mentioned included more frequent maintenance, milling out ruts,
and the laying of more heat resistant asphalt. Rail buckling Railroads could
encounter rail buckling more frequently in temperate climates that experience
extremely hot temperatures. If unnoticed, rail buckling can result in derailment of
trains. Peterson (2008) noted, Lower speeds and shorter trains, to shorten braking
distance, and lighter loads to reduce track stress are operational impacts.
Adaptation measures included better monitoring of rail temperatures and
ultimately more maintenance of the track, replacing it when needed. Vegetation
growth The growing season for deciduous trees that shed their leaves may be
extended, causing more slipperiness on railroads and roads and visual obstructions.
Possible adaptation measures included better management of the leaf foliage and
planting more low-maintenance vegetation along transportation corridors to act as
buffers (Wooler, 2004). Reductions in aircraft lift and efficiency Higher
temperatures would reduce air density, decreasing both lift and the engine
efficiency of aircraft. As a result, longer runways and/or more powerful airplanes
would be required. However, one analyst projected that technical advances would
minimize the need for runway redesign as aircraft become more powerful and
efficient (Wooler, 2004). Reduced water levels Changes in water levels were
discussed in relation to marine transport. Inland waterways such as the Great Lakes
and Mississippi River could experience lower water levels due to increased
temperatures and evaporation; these lower water levels would mean that ships and
Oceans Topic
77
barges would not be able to carry as much weight. Adaptation measures included
reducing cargo loads, designing vessels to require less draft, or dredging the water
body to make it deeper. Reduced ice cover Reduced ice cover was generally
considered a positive impact of increasing temperatures in the literature. For
example, a study conducted by John D. Lindeberg and George M. Albercook, which
was included in the Report of the Great Lakes Regional Assessment Group for the
U.S. Global Change Research Program, stated, the costs of additional dredging [due
to lower water levels] could be partially mitigated by the benefits of additional
shipping days on the [Great] Lakes caused by less persistent ice cover (Sousounis,
2000, p. 41). Additionally, arctic sea passages could open; for example, the Arctic
Climate Impact Assessment noted, projected reductions in sea-ice extent are likely
to improve access along the Northern Sea Route and the Northwest Passage
(Instanes et al., 2005, p. 934). However, negative environmental and security
impacts also may result from reduced ice cover as well from as the increased level of
shipping. These are discussed below in the subsection on indirect impacts (Section
1.3.6.). Thawing permafrost The implications of thawing permafrost for Arctic
infrastructure receive considerable attention in the literature. Permafrost is the
foundation upon which much of the Arctics infrastructure is built. The literature
consistently noted that as the permafrost thaws the infrastructure will become
unstable an effect being experienced today. Roads, railways, and airstrips are all
vulnerable to the thawing of permafrost. Adaptation measures vary depending on
the amount of permafrost that underlies any given piece of infrastructure. The
literature suggested that some assets will only need rehabilitation, other assets will
need to be relocated, and different construction methods will need to be used,
including the possibility of installing cooling mechanisms. According to the Arctic
Research Commission, roads, railways, and airstrips placed on ice-rich continuous
permafrost will generally require relocation to well-drained natural foundations or
replacement with substantially different construction methods (U.S. Arctic
Research Commission Permafrost Task Force, 2003, p. 29). Other Other impacts
of increasing temperatures included a reduction in ice loads on structures
(such as bridges and piers), which could eventually allow them to be designed
for less stress, and a lengthening of construction seasons due to fewer colder
days in traditionally cold climates.

Try or die for the aff even small risk of warming will devastate trade
WTO and UNEP 09 (World Trade Organization and United Nations Environment
Programme WTO and UNEP, Trade and Climate Change
http://www.wto.org/english/res_e/booksp_e/trade_climate_change_e.pdf)
As greenhouse gas emissions and temperatures increase, the impacts from
climate change are expected to become more widespread and to intensify. For
example, even with small increases in average temperature, the type,
frequency and intensity of extreme weather such as hurricanes, typhoons,
floods, droughts, and storms are projected to increase. The distribution of
these weather events, however, is expected to vary considerably among regions and
countries, and impacts will depend to a large extent on the vulnerability of
populations or ecosystems. Developing countries, and particularly the poorest and
Oceans Topic
78
most marginalized populations within these countries, will generally be both the
most adversely aff ected by the impacts of future climate change and the most
vulnerable to its eff ects, because they are less able to adapt than developed
countries and populations. In addition, climate change risks compound the other
challenges which are already faced by these countries, including tackling poverty,
improving health care, increasing food security and improving access to sources of
energy. For instance, climate change is projected to lead to hundreds of
millions of people having limited access to water supplies or facing
inadequate water quality, which will, in turn, lead to greater health problems.
Although the impacts of climate change are specific to location and to the level of
development, most sectors of the global economy are expected to be affected and
these impacts will often have implications for trade. For example, three trade-
related areas are considered to be particularly vulnerable to climate change.
Agriculture is considered to be one of the sectors most vulnerable to climate change,
and also represents a key sector for international trade. In low-latitude regions,
where most developing countries are located, reductions of about 5 to 10 per cent in
the yields of major cereal crops are projected even in the case of small temperature
increases of around 1 C. Although it is expected that local temperature increases of
between 1 C and 3 C would have benefi cial impacts on agricultural outputs in
mid- to high-latitude regions, warming beyond this range will most likely result in
increasingly negative impacts for these regions also. According to some studies, crop
yields in some African countries could fall by up to 50 per cent by 2020, with net
revenues from crops falling by as much as 90 per cent by 2100. Depending on the
location, agriculture will also be prone to water scarcity due to loss of glacial
meltwater and reduced rainfall or droughts. Tourism is another industry that may
be particularly vulnerable to climate change, for example, through changes in snow
cover, coastal degradation and extreme weather. Both the fi sheries and forestry
sectors also risk being adversely impacted by climate change. Likewise, ix Part IV
Part III Part II Part I there are expected to be major impacts on coastal ecosystems,
including the disappearance of coral and the loss of marine biodiversity. Finally, one
of the clearest impacts will be on trade infrastructure and routes. The IPCC
has identified port facilities, as well as buildings, roads, railways, airports and
bridges, as being dangerously at risk of damage from rising sea levels and the
increased occurrence of instances of extreme weather, such as flooding and
hurricanes. Moreover, it is projected that changes in sea ice, particularly in the
Arctic, will lead to the availability of new shipping routes.
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Investment in adaptation tech solves economic consequences

DEFRA 11 (Climate Resilient Infrastructure: Preparing for a Changing Climate;
Adapting Infrastructure to a Changing Climate; May 9, 2011 Defra - Department
for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
www.defra.gov.uk/environment/climate/sectors/infrastructure-companies/)

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The impact of climate change on infrastructure is an important economic,
environmental and social issue, recognised by the Governments National
Infrastructure Plan 4. Recent impacts from flooding and severe weather
highlight the risks infrastructure could face and the significant economic
damage these types of events bring. Effective, reliable infrastructure underpins
economic activity, and failure to adapt, increases the possibility of service
disruption and adverse economic impacts. That is why Defras Business Plan 5
has a priority to support a strong and sustainable green economy resilient to
climate change; adapting infrastructure forms a key part to realising this. To
reduce the risk infrastructure faces from climate change planned, but flexible,
adaptation actions are required. Therefore, it is about putting in place
measures that enable the cost effective management of climate impacts to
reduce the risk that climate change presents to infrastructure. This includes
integrating the impacts of climate change into decision making for new
infrastructure and maintenance of existing infrastructure. It is not about
eliminating all risks from climate change or extreme weather. Potential
Opportunities In a low carbon, climate resilient world, investment in climate
resilient infrastructure will help enhance the attractiveness of the UK for inward
investment, benefitting the economy, business and Government. Modelling by
the OECD6 suggests that each 1 spent on climate change adaptation delivers
four times its value in terms of potential damage avoided. Adapting
infrastructure to climate change presents opportunities if early action is taken
and expertise developed. This includes new skills and technologies as well as
additional adaptation capacity to enable infrastructure to be adapted, such as
new engineering practices or IT-based technology. All countries will need to
increase their investment in their infrastructure to adjust to a more challenging
climate. This is a potential opportunity; by developing adaptation expertise now,
businesses should be well-placed to capitalise on opportunities in domestic and
global markets. Potential economic opportunities Development of new
technologies and skills to be used domestically and exported. Engineering and
planning consultancy benefits, if we do this sooner and better than other
countries, our engineering and consultancy organisations can be market leaders
in adapting infrastructure. Development of new ICT-based technologies to aid
climate resilient infrastructure. Investment and insurance sector can promote
climate resilience, reducing the risk of damage and securing rates of return.

Oceans Topic
81

Oceans Topic
82

More Resources
Book
http://books.google.com/books?id=uR-RO_H-
ibwC&pg=PA41&lpg=PA41&dq=%22earth+observation+satellite%22+and+ocean+-
Malaysian+NASA&source=bl&ots=l2kDjZxcHg&sig=9hQpUq_fvDQfMI77VCaR5XWtr_o&hl=en&sa=
X&ei=mOlJU-yPJ-
ersAT23oHAAQ&ved=0CFkQ6AEwBTgU#v=onepage&q=%22earth%20observation%20satellite%22%2
0and%20ocean%20-Malaysian%20NASA&f=false

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Add-On Coastal Zone Management
Ocean remote sensing strengthens coastal zone management

Susanne Kratzer, Stockholm University, 2014 Marine Policy, 2014 (43), The use of
ocean color remote sensing in integrated coastal zone management 29-39

Sound ecosystem-based management of the coastal zone must be based on comprehensive and
quality-assured data about the respective coastal ecosystems. Variable spatial and temporal scales
and the complex dynamics of coastal processes mean that it is not practical to study these using
only in situ measurements. Remote sensing can provide the improved spatial and temporal
resolution required to monitor and evaluate the changes in coastal ecosystems both in space and
time.
In recent years, the development of coastal remote sensing has accelerated, especially due to the
development of the ocean color sensor Medium Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MERIS).
MERIS was launched in 2002, on board the Environmental Satellite ENVISAT, and delivered
data to Earth for a period of 10 years. The spectral and spatial resolution of MERIS is better than
for most other operational ocean color sensors and MERIS is therefore better suited for remote
sensing and monitoring of coastal waters [13]. The advantages of using remote sensing in
management are evident: remote sensing provides a synoptic view of whole water basins,
including coastal areas. Furthermore, one can derive information on coastal dynamics, e.g. the
extent of river plumes and algal blooms. As an example, Fig. 1 shows a MERIS image of a
cyanobacteria bloom in the north-western Baltic Sea. Cyanobac- teria blooms are a common
phenomenon in the Baltic Sea during late summer [4]. Some of these are toxic, and therefore have
important management implications.
The Baltic Sea is a brackish semi-enclosed intra-continental sea surrounded by nine European
countries. It is connected through the Danish straits with the Skagerrak and the North Sea. Its
catchment area is about four times as large as the Baltic Sea itself, with a population of
approximately 85 million people. In Germany, Denmark and Poland approximately 6070% of
the catchment area consist of farmland, whereas in Finland, Russia, Sweden and Estonia between
65% and 90% of the catchment area consist of forests, wetlands and lakes [5].
Since approximately the middle of the last century, human activities at sea and throughout the
catchment area of the Baltic Sea have put increasing pressure on this fragile brackish ecosystem.
In 1974, the Helsinki Convention on the Protection of the Marine Environment of the Baltic Sea
Area [6] was adopted by the (then) seven coastal states bordering the Baltic Sea. The Contract-
ing Parties committed themselves to take appropriate measures to prevent and abate pollution and
to protect and enhance the marine environment of the Baltic Sea Area. In 1992, a new convention
[7] was signed by all the states bordering the Baltic Sea, as well as the European Community.
Besides the Baltic Sea nd its sea bed the new convention also covers inland waters, and aims to
reduce land-based pollution in the whole catchment area of the Baltic Sea. The new convention
entered into force in 2000, and the present Contracting Parties are all bordering countries,
Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Sweden and the
European Community [7].
The European Councils Urban Wastewater Treatment Directive (UWWTD) was adopted in May
1991 [8]. It regulates the collection, treatment and discharge of urban waste water and from
industrial sectors in order to protect the environment from the adverse effects of waste water
Oceans Topic
84
discharges. The UWWTD requires the European Unions Member States to ensure that both
discharges from urban wastewater treatment plants and receiving waters are monitored. In the
same year the Nitrates Directive [9] was adopted that regulates the agricultural use of nitrates in
organic and chemical fertilizers. It is one of the key instruments in the protection of waters
against agricultural pressure and requires the monitoring of e.g. nitrates concentrations and
eutrophication.
In 2000, the European Unions member states adopted the Water Framework Directive (WFD)
[10]. The WFD requires the assessment of the ecological status of European transitional and
coastal waters using a number of so-called elements. The elements are stated in Annex 5 of the
WFD as follows: (1) biological elements (Phytoplankton, aquatic flora, benthic invertebrate
fauna); (2) hydro-morphological elements supporting the biological elements (Morphological
conditions, Hydrological and Tidal regime); and (3) chemical and physico-chemical elements
supporting the biological elements (General elements: dissolved oxygen, nutrients,
transparency, temperature, etc.; specific elements: synthetic and non-synthetic pollutants).
Remote sensing strengthens ocean coastal management

Susanne Kratzer, Stockholm University, 2014 Marine Policy, 2014 (43), The use of
ocean color remote sensing in integrated coastal zone management 29-39

Here, the use of remote sensing in integrated coastal zone management is evaluated. The Systems
Approach Framework (SAF) of SPICOSA proved to be a very useful tool as the progress in
coastal remote sensing in Sweden could be presented to stakeholders and other end-user
communities on a regular basis, who, in turn, provided feed-back to the system developers. The
continuous feed-back from both scientific users as well as end- users of the operational remote
sensing system was crucial to the further development of the operation system. Both users and
end- users have primarily assisted in defining results and products that are useful for local
stakeholders in agreement with existing field- based monitoring programs and the demands of the
WFD. As a practical example related to monitoring, the initial CDOM product was changed to a
new product, called humic absorbance, a widely used optical method for water-quality monitoring
in Swedish lakes. The end-users also guided the system developers in the division of each area
into different water bodies which will subsequently be used as the basis for the statistical analysis
of the data in relation to the WFD status classification. Further positive outcomes of the frequent
meetings with end-users were the improvement of communication with stakeholders and coastal
zone managers in Himmerfjrden, as well as the possibility to develop academic and professional
training in integrated coastal zone management as an inherent part of this process.
As a further development of the work from the Himmerfjrden case study, a conceptual model
was developed that explored how best to integrate remote sensing data in a physical-biological
model of the Baltic Sea, shown in Fig. 7. In principle it is possible to use ocean color remote
sensing and bio-optical measurements at two places in the CZFBL in SPICOSA:
I. To sense changes in physical forcing (e.g. light regime or coastal run-off, subsequently
affecting Secchi depth and Kd(490)).
II. To sense changes in ecosystem response (e.g. changes in chlorophyll a-derived biomass).
Remote sensing products can be used as model input of ecosystem variables that may act as
external drivers [39,40]. SPM summarizes the effect of river run-off, tidal regime and bottom
Oceans Topic
85
substrates, and therefore may provide a synthesis of hydro- morphological drivers of a coastal
system [16]. It could therefore be used as a proxy to spatially extend hydro-morphological
elements where not measured explicitly In the Baltic Sea, the diffuse attenuation coefficient
could be used as a proxy for light as an external driver for the productivity, and could therefore
act as a model input for light. Humic substances (CDOM) can also be used as indicators for
terrestrial run-off and are inversely related to salinity [28,41]. CDOM may also be used as a
proxy for light for the open Baltic Sea, since it is optically dominant [16], except during
cyanobacteria bloom events.
Alternatively, remote sensing products may be used for validating the model output of the system.
Taking the SPICOSA CZFBL and the advances in coastal remote sensing based on MERIS into
account it is possible to monitor the distribution of chlorophyll a as well as the Secchi depth (or
the diffuse attenuation coefficient), and to use these as indicators for eutrophication. Such
chlorophyll maps can also be used for analyzing time series, trends and ecosystem health [42,43].
Chlorophyll a maps as provided by the operational monitoring system could also be used to test
the output of a bio-geochemical model as a proxy of phytoplankton biomass. CDOM maps
derived from MERIS may be used as a proxy and to spatially extend information on physical-
chemical elements since colored dissolved organic matter is generally well correlated to DOM
[44].
The study presented here, shows that MERIS provides us with a new tool to assess coastal
systems from space. Indicators for eutrophication, e.g. chlorophyll a and Secchi depth
(respectively Kd(490)), can be successfully derived from remote sensing data. However, it does
also raise some questions, such as, could the aps shown in Figs. 1, 4, 5 and 7 be used to relate to
the HELCOM objective of water transparency restoration, for which Secchi depth is a good
indicator [12]? There may be an opportunity for this.
In addition, increased chlorophyll a concentrations have been identified as a direct effect or
primary symptom for eutrophication, thus it is valid to use chlorophyll a as a monitoring
indicator to assess eutrophication [44]. Remote sensing is one of the methods suggested for
deriving chlorophyll a in time series and climatology [15], therefore this would be consistent with
existing approaches.
The methods developed here are highly relevant both for monitoring the ecological status of the
Baltic Sea and for international water management treaties (e.g. the WFD, MSFD and the
HELCOM Convention). The methods will contribute to an improved capacity to assess and
predict the changing status and trends related to eutrophication. The derived products from ocean
color sensors can provide a basis for better decision making in coastal management, e.g. in
choosing investigation sites with contrasting water quality, taking local gradients into account and
evaluating the monitoring sites synoptically. The use of remote sensing as a monitoring and
management tool within ICZM and WFD has been shown to work very well in several studies.
The strength of using remote sensing in integrated coastal zone management is that it can display
complex issues in a visual format that is relatively easy to understand, providing a new window to
look at the Baltic Sea ecosystem. Hence, the information and knowledge gained from
conventional monitoring programs can be considerably strengthened and improved by including
remote sensing data. The good spatial and temporal resolution provided by MERIS, offers a firm
basis for using remote sensing as a complementary monitoring method in ICZM. Remote sensing
provides synoptic data over whole water basins as well as coastal areas, and in combination with
conventional monitoring, one can get a more holistic view of what processes are occurring in any
given coastal ecosystem.
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The operational remote sensing system presented here follows the EC recommendation on ICZM
on providing information and data in a format that is accessible for decision makers, that is user-
friendly and readily publicly available. Furthermore, the system covers the Swedish great lakes
that are also partially part of the Baltic Sea catchment area. Furthermore, remote sensing data
may provide ocean boundary conditions for coastal areas, and help establish the cause of
violation of quality thresholds for certain indicators. The continuous measurements provided by
remote sensing can help to monitor rapid changes in algal communities, and e.g. detect peaks of
algal blooms that may be missed out by ship-borne monitoring methods. If remote sensing and
bio- optical modeling are used together, satellite-derived water quality variables can indicate the
impact from nutrients from land onto coastal water bodies covered by the WFD. Applications of
remote sensing techniques are therefore significant.
4. Conclusions
In general, the focus of data acquisition on natural systems has been mostly on the spatial and
temporal distributions of substances e.g. in response to natural processes or human-induced
impact studies. As shown here, remote sensing is a very useful tool to illustrate such distributions.
The SPICOSA approach emphasizes the capacity to make numerical predictions of a systems
natural response. This requires a well-designed, efficient model approach that extracts and
validates data that can serve as a proxy for tracking system functions. Ocean color remote sensing
is a relatively new technique, and when validated and combined with ship-based conventional
monitoring programs, can significantly improve levels of understanding of coastal ecosystems.
Once validated and integrated, such techniques can result in global near real-time and continuous
monitoring of coastal ecosystems. It may be anticipated that such a shift in observational
techniques will be required in order to support current and future EU directives related to
sustainable development of the coastal zone.
Existing approaches in coastal management in Sweden do not make full use of bio-optics and
remote sensing and the associated gains in terms of spatial coverage. Chlorophyll a, Secchi depth
and CDOM can be used as proxies for some of the quality elements defined in the WFD.
Chlorophyll a generally acts as a proxy for biomass and is one of the biological elements in the
WFD. SPM summarizes the effect of river run-off, tidal regime and bottom substrates, and
therefore may provide a synthesis of hydro-morphological drivers of a coastal system. It could
therefore be used as a proxy to spatially extend hydro-morphological elements where not
measured explicitly.
The MERIS mission lasted for 10 years, providing us with a decade of information on coastal
areas which will support follow- up analysis of water status classification according to the WFD.
Furthermore, new robust Secchi depth and Kd(490) algorithms have recently been developed for
optically complex waters that can be readily implemented in operational remote sensing systems
for the coast. The MERIS mission will be continued from approximately 2014 to 2023 via the
Ocean Land Color Instrument (OLCI), an ocean color sensor similar to MERIS in its optical
characteristics, which will be launched in on the Sentinel-3 satellite. Its mission will provide us
with a long-term perspective regarding the evaluation of the effects of climate change on e.g.
algal bloom development or the browning of the Baltic Sea due to increased humic substances.

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Add-On Marine Protected Areas

Remote sensing critical to marine protection management

Daniel Kachelreiss, Global Change Ecology, University of Bayreuth, 2014 (The
application of remote sensing for marine protection management, Ecological
Indicators, 36 (2014), p. 169-77

Marine protected areas (MPAs) are important tools for the conservation of marine biodiversity but their designation and
effective monitoring require frequent, comprehensive, reliable data. We aim to show that remote sensing (RS), as
demonstrated for terrestrial protected areas, has the potential to provide key information to support MPA management.
We review existing literature on the use of RS to monitor biodiversity surrogates, e.g. ecological (e.g., primary
productivity) and oceanographic (e.g., Sea Surface Temperature) parameters that have been shown to structure marine
biodiversity. We then highlight the potential for RS to inform marine habitat mapping and monitoring, and discuss how
RS can be used to track anthropogenic activities and its impacts on biodiversity in MPAs. Reasons for low integration
of RS in MPA management and current limitations are also presented. This work concludes that RS shows great
promise to support wildlife managers in their efforts to protect marine biodiversity around the world, in particular when
such information is used in conjunction with data from field surveys.
Marine biodiversity under threat, its critical to global biodiversity. Marine
Protect Areas MPAS are critical to protect that biodiversity and remote
observation is critical to protect the MPAs

Daniel Kachelreiss, Global Change Ecology, University of Bayreuth, 2014 (The application of
remote sensing for marine protection management, Ecological Indicators, 36 (2014), p. 169-77
Marine biodiversity is under serious threat from anthropogenic stressors, such as fisheries (Wom
et al., 2009), pollution from land-sources (Klemas, 2011a) and increasingly from climate change
(Greene et al., 2010; IPCC, 2011; Valdes et al., 2009) and ocean acidification (Hoegh-Guldberg
et al., 2007). Yet marine biodiversity is key to the provision of many ecosystem services: marine
resources were recently estimated to contribute 16.9% of the animal pro- tein for nutrition
worldwide (FAO, 2012). Apart from the intrinsic biodiversity value, there are economic
arguments for the protection of marine biodiversity (Balmford et al., 2002; Costanza et al., 1997).
Habitats such as mangroves are key for coastal protection against extreme flooding events
(Costanza et al., 1997; Dahdouh- Guebas, 2006). High marine biodiversity moreover increases
the resilience of marine ecosystems against climate change and ocean acidification (Hughes et al.,
2007; Wilson et al., 2009). This makes the maintenance of marine biodiversity a significant
environmental management objective.
Marine protected areas (MPAs) are important tools in the conservation of marine biodiversity
(Worm et al., 2009). They can be broadly defined as spatial protection measures associated with
varying access and resource use limitations, ranging from gear restrictions to no-take zones
(Roberts, 2005). The IUCN defines a MPA as any area of intertidal or sub-tidal terrain, together
with its overlying water and associated flora, fauna, historical and cultural features, which has
been reserved by law or other effective means to protect part or all of the enclosed environment
(Kelleher, 1999). While 13.9% of the terrestrial environment is under protection (Chape et al.,
2008), recent calculations by the Marine Reserve Coalition show that only 3.2% of the marine
environment is (Marine Reserves Coalition, 2012) the proportion of this that is effectively
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protected, is likely to be much lower. This figure falls short of the 10% coverage target to be
achieved by 2012 that was internationally agreed under the Convention on Biological Diversity
(CBD) in 2006 (Annex IV, Target 1.1, CBD, 2006). It should be noted, that in 2010 the time-
frame was revised to 10% coverage by 2020 (Strate- gic Goal C, Target 11 CBD, 2010), although
up to 30% have been called for (Sheppard et al., 2012). Most existing MPAs are located in the
coastal zone and in order to realistically reach the 10% target it will be necessary to extend the
designation of MPAs to the pelagic realm. Within national Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs)
there are a few recently established MPAs that incorporate the pelagic realm, such as the no-take
marine reserve in the British Indian Ocean Territories (Sheppard et al., 2012). Outside of EEZs,
however, the status of the High Seas under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Seas
as areas beyond national jurisdiction makes it complicated to establish, manage and enforce
MPAs (Druel et al., 2011), with the notable exception of some initiatives by regional
organisations, e.g. the multinational conservation organisation responsible for the North East
Atlantic (OSPAR) (OLeary et al., 2012). Meanwhile political progress is being made (Chiarolla
et al., 2012); the recent Rio + 20 outcome document specifically requests an international
framework for the designation of MPAs outside national jurisdiction to be developed before 2014
(Doran et al., 2012). MPAs have been the subject of intense scientific discussions and
improvement of current practices has been suggested by taking into consideration issues
including, but not limited to: difficulty of enforcement (Mora and Costello, 2006); indirect
trophic effects on species (Fenberg et al., 2012); limited effect on highly migratory species
(Hyrenbach et al., 2000; Roberts, 2000); representativeness (Boersma and Parrish, 1999;
Fraschetti et al., 2008; Stevens, 2002); capacity for self-recruitment/larvae retention (Bell, 2012;
Mora and Costello, 2006); vulnerability to land-based pollution (Boersma and Parrish, 1999); and
being inadequate to address detrimental effects of climate-change (Selig et al., 2012). Scientific
guidelines for MPA designation are not yet routinely implemented (Rabaut et al., 2009), nor is
there an agreed set of criteria for site selection. The ecological criteria reviewed by Salm and
Price (1995) are similar to the ones adopted by OSPAR in 2003 (OLeary et al., 2012) and the
indicators for Ecologically and Biologically Significant Areas (EBSAs) (Dunn, 2011; Gregr et al.,
2012) adopted by CBD in 2009 (see Appendix, Table 1A). Balancing ecological criteria with
social, economic and political considerations is an important aspect of decision making, resulting
in a bias towards well studied sites, where strong pro-conservation arguments can be provided
(OLeary et al., 2012) with low opposition by stakeholders (Roberts, 2000). Once designated,
being able to monitor a given MPA using scientifically sound criteria and protocols is key in
demonstrating MPA effectiveness (Fenberg et al., 2012). While terrestrial and marine ecosystems
are obviously different, some of the challenges faced by managers are of a similar nature, e.g. the
difficulties associated with the monitoring of large, remote areas without high field data coverage.
In particular, as MPAs are being more frequently established in the pelagic realm to increase
global representativeness, the issue of designating and monitoring large areas using scattered,
selective in situ datasets will become more frequent (OLeary et al., 2012). It is therefore
important to explore whether lessons can be learnt from terrestrial protected area management to
inform MPA management.
Remote sensing (RS) has been advocated as being key in supporting the designation, mapping,
and monitoring of terrestrial protected areas (Gross et al., 2009; Pettorelli et al., 2012). RS offers
repeatable, standardised and verifiable information on long-term trends in ecosystem structure
and processes at the global scale (Muller-Karger et al., 2005). RS has been applied successfully to
address a variety of questions relevant to environmental management, including, but not limited
to: landscape change monitoring (Townsend et al., 2009); habitat indicator derivation (Bommel et
al., 2005), representativeness assessment (Armenteras et al., 2003); connectivity monitoring
(DeFries et al., 2005); and climate change impact analysis (Pettorelli et al., 2012). There have
been numerous notable recent reviews and books on the applications of RS for coastal managers
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(Klemas, 2011a; Miller et al., 2005; Weng, 2010), coastal biodiversity indicators (Strand et al.,
2007), mangrove ecosystems (Kuenzer et al., 2011), seagrass meadows (Dekker et al., 2006;
Kirkman, 1996), reef fish management (Hamel and Andrfout, 2010) and fisheries science
(Klemas, 2012). To date, however, there has been no review on the merits and pitfalls of using
RS to inform the designation, mapping, monitoring and management of MPAs for biodiversity
protection, especially in regions with low in situ data availability. With this review, we aim to fill
this gap in knowledge, by providing an overview of the opportunities associated with the use of
RS to inform the management of MPAs. This review will start by providing a brief presentation
of the physical and biological parameters structuring marine environments and relevant to marine
biodiversity assessments that can be derived from RS. The use of RS information to map marine
habitats will then be explored, followed by a discussion on the monitoring capabilities of RS to
detect and map anthropogenic threats and their potential impacts on biodiversity in MPAs. The
review will end by listing existing limitations and highlighting new RS developments relevant to
MPA management.
Remote sensing critical to biodiversity protection
Biological diversity, or biodiversity, refers to the diversity within species, between species and
of ecosystems (CBD, 1992). RS is the derivation of information by analysing radiation received
by a sensor. For an explanation of RS terms, see Text 1A in the appendix. The direct observation
of individual species is usually not possible using RS information, but biological and physical
parameters that are reported to structure biodiversity patterns can be derived from RS data. Table
1 provides an overview of the most important parameters discussed below, as well as examples of
satellite sources.
The monitoring of primary productivity to support terrestrial protected area management has been
highlighted as a key tool by many (see e.g., Pettorelli et al., 2009, 2012; Pfeifer et al., 2011). In
pelagic environments, primary productivity refers to the productivity of phytoplankton, which has
a specific spectral signature due to its chlorophyll a content. The concentration can be inferred
from ocean colour, i.e., from the radiation reflected back from the ocean in the visible
wavelengths (Muller-Karger et al., 2005). The lessons from terrestrial PA management in this
context, however, need to be interpreted with caution, as major differences exist in the
importance of primary producers in the terrestrial and marine environments. Primary producers
represent the basis of the food chain in both terrestrial and marine habitats, but in marine sys-
tems the standing biomass is often dominated by higher trophic levels (e.g., in pristine coral reefs
(Sandin et al., 2008) or in the Antarctic benthos (Brey and Gerdes, 1997)). Moreover,
phytoplankton does not provide substrate or habitat for other species as plants do in terrestrial
habitats. Highly productive areas could therefore be expected to be less associated with high
species richness compared to terrestrial ecosystems. Nevertheless, areas of high primary
productivity have been shown to be highly correlated with benthic community patterns (e.g.,
Patagonian scallop; Bogazzi et al., 2005), and the distribution of highly migratory marine species
(e.g., blue shark (Queiroz et al., 2012); bluefin tuna (Druon, 2010); whale sharks (Sequeira et al.,
2012); and seabirds (Petersen et al., 2008)). These reported correlations indicate that the
monitoring of primary productivity has a high potential to indirectly inform species distribution
and therefore MPA establishment and management.
Temperature is another key parameter for understanding the distribution of biodiversity in
terrestrial environments (Walther et al., 2002) and the same is true for marine ecosystems (Gregr
et al., 2012; Tittensor et al., 2010). Sea Surface Temperature (SST) represents the temperature at
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the boundary between air and water, and can be derived by near-infrared sensors. Higher SST has
been shown to be positively correlated with species diversity for several taxonomic groups
(Tittensor et al., 2010). SST variability has also been shown to correlate with phytoplankton
dynamics (Campbell and Wynne, 2011) and the spatial distribution of fish stocks (Lehodey et al.,
2006). The relative patterns of SST inside a MPA can thus potentially inform the distribution of
species richness in the area.
Wind patterns are seldom thought of being a monitoring priority by terrestrial PA managers, yet
currents are among the most important oceanographic features to structure the pelagic environ-
ment (Dearden and Topelko, 2005). They can be monitored using radar scatterometers, as the
backscatter can be used to analyse the surface wind vector (SWV), to infer currents (Brown et al.,
2005). In association with this, Sea Surface Height (SSH) is the large-scale topography of the
oceans surface and can be derived by a satellite based altimeter; this data can help identify large
scale circulation patterns such as geostrophic currents (Purkis and Klemas, 2011). Space-borne
altimeters can also be used in combination with vessel-based echo soundings to derive
bathymetry maps (Becker et al., 2009). Monitoring of currents is key to understanding and
predicting energy flows: for example, the magnitude of larval import and export are dependent on
local current systems (Bogazzi et al., 2005), and these larval flows shape genetic connectivity
between meta-populations, as well as the scale of larval retention inside a MPA. This type of
information could be especially important in the designation process of MPAs (Bell, 2012).
Fronts - defined as sharp boundaries between two adjacent bodies of water are another
oceanographic feature influencing biodiversity patterns in the marine environment. Fronts have
been reported to be areas of high primary productivity (Hardman-Mountford et al., 2008) and to
be related to specific benthic communities (see e.g., Bogazzi et al., 2005; Wingfield et al., 2011)
and apex predator site fidelity (Queiroz et al., 2012). Radar scatterometers are generally used to
map oceanic fronts. Like SST, the detection and monitoring of fronts can be used as a proxy for
the distribution of specific communities when no other data is available.
Remote sensing critical to protect habitats in MPAs

Habitat is a key concept in ecology, being defined as the (. . .) type of site where an organismor
population naturally occurs (CBD, 1992). Using RS to monitor habitats is routinely performed in
terrestrial environments (Lengyel et al., 2008), and habitat distribution represents one of the
most common information reported by Parties to the CBD.
The idea of structuring the pelagic environment into habitats has recently received increased
attention (see e.g., Hobday et al., 2011; Chollett et al., 2012). Primary productivity, SST, currents
and front patterns are all important parameters structuring the spatio- temporal distribution of
marine biodiversity (Hardman-Mountford et al., 2008; Palacios et al., 2006; Valavanis et al.,
2008; Wingfield et al., 2011) and can be used for habitat classification (Fraschetti et al., 2008;
Gregr et al., 2012; see also Table 1). Importantly, a designation or monitoring system for MPAs
based on such information could address the lack of representativeness that has been frequently
cited as a limitation in current MPAs and the development of MPA networks (Klemas, 2011a;
Stevens, 2002).
Coastal ocean is defined by Muller-Karger et al. (2005) as extending from the coast seaward to
the edge of the continental margin (approximately 500 m depth). Coastal waters can be
distinguished based on how the spectral signature is influenced by the sea bed and turbidity:
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Case 2 waters refers to waters where the spectral signature is influenced by the sea bed and by a
high level of turbidity (which is often the case in coastal waters), while Case 1 waters refers to
open ocean (Doxaran et al., 2002; DSa and Miller, 2005). Mangrove forests are coastal habitats
that provide important nursery habitat for terrestrial and marine fauna (Nagelkerken et al.,
2008), offer coastal protection, wastewater treatment and count among the ecosystems with the
highest economic value (Costanza et al., 1997). RS can be used to inform on the distribution,
health, productivity, composition and biomass of mangrove forests, as reviewed by Kuenzer et al.
(2011). Methods used are mainly optical RS, but radar-based methodologies can also be
employed (see e.g., Cornforth et al., 2013). Seagrass meadows are also habitats specific to Case
2 waters. Seagrasses are marine flowering plants, occupying tropical and temperate soft-
sedimentary coastal waters and estuaries. As primary producers, seagrasses provide food; they
also stabilise the seabed and, like mangroves, provide important nursery habitat for many species
(Dekker et al., 2006; Short et al., 2007). RS can be used for accurate mapping and monitoring the
extent of seagrass meadows (Dekker et al., 2006; Godet et al., 2009; Kirkman, 1996). Coral reefs
finally represent another example of coastal habitats and numerous studies exist on the use of RS
to map and monitor the extent of coral reefs, coral health (Kuchler et al., 1986; Mumby et al.,
1997; Rowlands et al., 2012; Scoplitis et al., 2010), geomorphological features, ecological
zonation, and reef-fish communities (Arias-Gonzlez et al., 2011; Knudby et al., 2011; Mellin et
al., 2009). Relevant work also includes studies using RS to help manage coral-reef fisheries
(Hamel and Andrfout, 2010). Large-scale coral mortality events known as coral bleaching can
also be studied using RS, as the occurrence of these events is strongly correlated to SST
anomalies (Maynard, 2008; Sheppard and Rayner, 2002). The global prediction of local coral
bleaching for a given SST anomaly is, however, not straightforward, as the mortality threshold
differs regionally, depending on coral species, their symbionts, environmental history and small-
scale topography (Maynard, 2008). When it comes to monitoring coral bleaching, SST should
therefore be used as an indicator for threats, and not as a way to quantify bleaching. Moderate
resolution RS can be used to map bleaching events for large areas of mono-species patches
(Yamano and Tamura, 2004). Successes have also been achieved using high-resolution ocean
colour RS data (Elvidge et al., 2004; Rowlands et al., 2008), especially in combination with field
surveys (Purkis and Riegl, 2005).

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Add-on General Environment.
Remote sensing critical to protect against anthropogenic threats

Marine biodiversity is threatened by a variety of anthropogenic stressors that can be monitored
using RS (see Table 2 for an overview). Land-use change is still one of the most important drivers
of biodiversity loss in terrestrial habitats (Sala et al., 2000). It also impacts marine environments
as various components of terrestrial run-off can have adverse effects on marine biodiversity
(Boersma and Parrish, 1999). In this respect, suspended particular matter (SPM) and coloured
dissolved organic matter (CDOM) are examples of features highly relevant to the monitoring of
coastal habitats that can be successfully monitored using RS. SPM is a variable related to the
sediment load in the water. Due to its light attenuation, increased SPM has a negative effect on
primary productivity (Doxaran et al., 2002); high SPM can be indicative of increased
sedimentation rates, which can detrimentally affect mangroves (Nagelkerken et al., 2008) and
seagrass health (Kirkman, 1996). SPM can furthermore serve as an indicator for land-based
pollutants that cannot be detected by RS, e.g., heavy metals (Burrage et al., 2002). CDOM is
another component of run-off, and refers to organic matter that originates from decomposing
organic material. SPM and CDOM can be inferred from ocean colour data when ground
calibration data is available (Muller-Karger et al., 2005). River discharges often carry sediments
and the resulting plumes can be tracked using RS (Burrage et al., 2002; Donato and Klemas,
2001). The monitoring of SPM and CDOM therefore allows the assessment of the interactions
between the coastal environment and the adjacent land; regular assessments of CDOM concen-
trations can for example provide relevant information for the monitoring of water quality (Oney
et al., 2011).
Oil spills generally refer to incidental large-scale releases of oil from tankers or oil drilling
platforms: a famous example of oil spills is the Exxon-Valdez spill in 1989, which had long
ranging impacts on marine wildlife (Royer et al., 1990). Large oil spills such as the Exxon-Valdez
one are infrequent, while small scale oil spills are much more common events occurring when
tankers empty their billage tanks (Klemas, 2010). Oil spills can cause significant damage to
marine biodiversity: such damages have been particularly well studied in marine mammals
(Williams et al., 2011). Their effects can have long-term consequences for the health and
functioning of many coastal environments, such as mangroves (Boersma and Parrish, 1999; Duke
et al., 1997), as well as more widespread effects relating to plankton and thus other species up the
food chain. The early detection, tracking and prediction of the spread of an oil spill are key for the
design of effective counter-measures, as illustrated by the recent oil spill of the Deepwater
Horizon rig in 2010 (Klemas, 2010). Various established RS based methods exist to detect oil
spills and track their development, e.g., using synthetic aperture radar (SAR) or infrared sensors
(Klemas, 2010; Ottaviani et al., 2012). The detection of oil spills relies on the different properties
of water and oil in the absorption and emission of electromagnetic waves (Brekke and Solberg,
2005; Klemas, 2010). Hyperspectral data can also be used to discriminate hydrocarbons and track
oil spills (Hrig et al., 2001). Interestingly, information collected by hyperspectral sensors could
be used to improve the monitoring of plastic pollution, something that has not been done so far.
However, hyperspectral sensors are currently mainly air-borne (and therefore costly), with the
exception of the Hyperion sensor on the EO-1 Satellite.
Illegal, Undeclared or Unreported (IUU) fishing is another major threat to the successful
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implementation of MPAs (Game et al., 2009). Large predatory fish, often targeted by IUU
fisheries, have declined in most parts of the ocean (Worm et al., 2009) yet hold important
functional roles (Hughes et al., 2007; McCauley et al., 2010). They often represent one of the
original management targets for MPAs (Aburto-Oropeza et al., 2011; Koldewey et al., 2010). To
enforce spatial closures and other fisheries management policies most nations require fishing
vessels to carry a vessel monitoring system (VMS). To elude the regulation, however, fishing
vessels can turn-off their VMS. Combining RS information with data from
active VMSs allows ships that have switched their VMS off to be detected, as high-resolution
optical satellites can be used to detect vessels and monitor vessel movement (Corbane et al.,
2010). Opti- cal sensors are not the only type of sensor able to detect ships: SAR allows the
detection of boats up to a size of 1015 m (Brusch et al., 2011). This is especially useful for
remote areas where enforcement of MPAs by patrol vessels is difficult.
Remote sensing solves

RS can provide information on environmental parameters and habitats to improve the designatin
process of MPAs. Where additional (e.g., vessel- or air-borne) data collection is required to
overcome limitations of space-borne RS data, it can provide initial information on which field
sampling can be based. Monitoring after designation is then vital to ensure effectiveness and RS
can provide important information to support such assessment, helping detect trends in habitat
extent or other environmental variables relevant to biodiversity distribution. RS has great
potential to feed indicator systems, e.g. the EBSAs and the recently proposed Essential Bio-
diversity Variables (Pereira et al., 2013) in a repeatable, objective and standardised way. As
demonstrated throughout this review, RS can greatly contribute to help halt the loss of marine
biodiversity and should be routinely taken into consideration for the implementation and
monitoring of international agreements, such as the CBD 10% target. Better knowledge on the
ecology of marine species will further increase the usefulness of RS for conservation. Future
research will have to explore the constraints imposed by the depth limitation of optical RS, and
identify species and conditions for which RS has the greatest potential. We also believe better
communication between MPA managers and terrestrial practitioners could benefit the
development of new RS application.

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Add-On Oil Spills

Well-developed remote sensing is critical to effective responses to oil spills

Ira Leifer, Marine Science Institute, University of California, 2012, State of the Art Satellite and
airborne marine oil spill remote sensing: Application to the BP Deepwater Horizon Spill,
Remote Sensing of the Environment, 124, pp. 185-209.

The vast and persistent Deepwater Horizon (DWH) spill challenged response capabilities, which required accurate,
quantitative oil assessment at synoptic and operational scales. Although experienced observers are a spill response's
mainstay, few trained observers and confounding factors including weather, oil emulsification, and scene illumination
geometry present challenges. DWH spill and impact monitoring was aided by extensive airborne and spaceborne
passive and active remote sensing.
Oil slick thickness and oil-to-water emulsion ratios are key spill response parameters for containment/cleanup and were
derived quantitatively for thick (>0.1 mm) slicks from AVIRIS (Airborne Visible/Infrared Imaging Spectrometer) data
using a spectral library approach based on the shape and depth of near infrared spectral absorption features. MODIS
(Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) satellite, visible-spectrum broadband data of surface-slick
modulation of sunglint reflection allowed extrapolation to the total slick. A multispectral expert system used a neural
network approach to provide Rapid Response thickness class maps.
Airborne and satellite synthetic aperture radar (SAR) provides synoptic data under all-sky conditions; however, SAR
generally cannot discriminate thick (> 100 m) oil slicks from thin sheens (to 0.1 m). The UAVSAR's (Uninhabited
Aerial Vehicle SAR) significantly greater signal-to-noise ratio and finer spatial resolution allowed successful pattern
discrimination related to a combination of oil slick thickness, fractional surface coverage, and emulsification.
In situ burning and smoke plumes were studied with AVIRIS and corroborated spaceborne CALIPSO (Cloud Aerosol
Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observation) observations of combustion aerosols. CALIPSO and bathymetry
lidar data documented shallow subsurface oil, although ancillary data were required for confirmation.
Airborne hyperspectral, thermal infrared data have nighttime and overcast collection advantages and were collected as
well as MODIS thermal data. However, interpretation challenges and a lack of Rapid Response Products prevented
significant use. Rapid Response Products were key to response utilizationdata needs are time critical; thus, a high
technological readiness level is critical to operational use of remote sensing products. DWH's experience demonstrated
that development and operationalization of new spill response remote sensing tools must precede the next major oil
spill.

Natural seepage widely dispersed


Annually, on average 1,300,000 t of oil entered the oceans during the 1990s with tanker vessel
spills accounting for 100,000 t, run-off 140,000 t, and pipeline leaks just 12,000 t (NRC, 2003).
Aside from natural seeps, which contribute an estimated 600,000 t or ~45% of total emissions,
other important sources include vessel operational discharges (NRC, 2003). Oil spills impacting
coastal waters are occurrence with a cumulative total of 447 U.S. oil and chemical spills reported
from 1992 to 1999, with 50 between Oct. 1998 and Oct. 1999 (NRC, 2003). Tanker spills
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generally have decreased in volume with only 100 t spilled in 2009, whereas, at least 138,000 t
were spilled each year in the 1970s. Large spills like the Prestige in 2002 (63,000 t) still occur. In
contrast, spills resulting from sabotage and pipeline ruptures are increasing due in part to aging
pipeline networks and infrastructure expanding into ever deeper waters (Jernelv, 2010).
Although natural seeps are estimated as the largest marine oil source, few fluxes have been
measured. Annually, North American seeps emit an estimated 160,000 t of oil with California
seeps contributing 20,000t of oil, ~12% of the North American total emissions (NRC, 2003).
Where oil spills occur in natural seepage areas, such as the northern Gulf of Mexico, previously
generated, remote-sensing derived maps of seepage-occurrence (Garcia-Pineda et al., 2010) can
aid in discriminating natural from anthropogenic oil slicks. In general, natural seep oil emissions
are highly distinct from most oil spills and involve persistent and widely dispersed oil emissions
that generally result in very thin sheens (MacDonald et al., 2002).

Strong information needed to respond to a spill


In an oil spill's early phases, information on the spill's location often is acquired from a few,
often-conflicting observations, typically made from airborne platforms. These observations can
suffer from numerous false positives, particularly given the paucity of trained observers. Thus,
first observations frequently are from untrained individuals and increasingly from remote
sensing, although both yield false positives (Fingas & Brown, 1997). Such incoming data can
obscure the oil spill's true location and size (HAZMAT, 1996). Yet, initial response decisions and
resource allocation must be made on the available information. Initial resource allocation needs to
consider likely spill size and resource deployment times and thus, the oil's future location and
size when resources will arrive on-scene, i.e., spill modeling and prediction.
Moreover, predicting a spill's impact, and thus the best response strategy (Reed et al., 1999),
requires understanding the fate of the many oil components with different toxicities. This requires
understanding the processes affecting slick chemical evolution (Riazi & Al-Enezi, 1999) and
processes affecting its advection, dispersion, and transformation, as well as the sensitivity of the
likely impacted coastal habitats (Jensen et al., 1990). Despite the significant impact of marine oil
spills, many aspects remain poorly understood, in part due to difficulties in obtaining planned
release permits, leading to a scarcity of high quality field data.
Oil spill response must address the key question: How much oil has been released? Secondary,
critically important questions are: Where is the oil? What type of oil was spilled? When (and
how) was the oil released? What types of ecosystems are threatened? Answers are essential for
resource allocation. As oil drifts ever closer to ecologically sensitive habitats, public concern rises
rapidly, particularly if the public perceives weak organizational capacity and decision making
(Albaigs et al., 2006). Moreover, oil's tendency to spread and volatilize means some response
techniques lose efficacy with time (Nordvik, 1995).
In a typical tanker oil spill, the ship's manifest indicates the type of oil and maximum potential oil
spill volume from the hull and/or fuel tanks minus consumption during transport. Field
observations on how oil is leaking from the vessel, i.e., which fuel compartments may be
Oceans Topic
96
breached, can refine worst case release estimates downward. Although most tanker oil spills
release the oil at once, oil and gas well blowout spills, like the DWH and Ixtoc I, are far more
challenging due to continuous fresh oil release and the lack of a defined, upper-bound release
estimate. Persistent releases can threaten a more extensive coastline as currents and winds shift.
Oil type is important because lighter crudes rapidly lose much of their volume due to evaporation
(Fingas, 1996), reducing the volume requiring mitigation, but presenting a sinking risk (Michel &
Galt, 1995), for which few mitigation technologies are available. In addition, many light,
petroleum polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons are hazardous to health (Bostrm et al., 2002),
increasing inhalation health risks to response workers and coastal human populations.
The oil spill location in relationship to ecologically sensitive areas is important, described by an
Environmental Sensitivity Index (Jensen et al., 1990), which is used for contingency planning and
response decisions. Typical wind and current patterns may place greater risk for more distant than
more proximal areas, with the caveat that ecological impact depends on the oil's composition
when it reaches fisheries and coastal ecosystems.
1.2.4. Oil slick remote sensing for oil spill response
Airborne and satellite remote sensing can aid oil spill response, yet face significant challenges.
Passive approaches detect naturally occurring reflected and/or emitted electromagnetic radiation.
Active approaches include light detection and ranging (lidar) and radar. Reviews by Fingas and
Brown (1997, 2002) identified many promising remote sensing technologies and sensors, but
generally found limited spill response applicability beyond simple visual observations that
confirm known spill features. In part this is due to generally inadequate coverage, false positives,
and a lack of quantitative slick mapping capabilities.
Still, satellites can play a role in oil spill response by providing preliminary spill assessment for
remote locations and synoptic scale data. This role was enabled significantly by the International
Charter on Space and Major Disasters Agreement, which requires that all signatory countries'
space assets be provided during events such as major oil spills (www.disasterscharter.org, 2000).
Severe limitations can arise from overpass frequency and timing and clear daytime sky
requirements for passive reflective sensors (Fingas & Brown, 1997). Also of significant concern
is the trade-off between coarser spatial resolution and wide swath sensors, such as MODIS (~1
km pixels), with limited swath but finer spatial resolution sensors, such as the panchromatic
Quickbird (b1 m pixels). Oil slicks exhibit significant small-scale, i.e., sub-pixel, heterogeneity
that can lead to slick-estimation biases for coarse resolution sensors. Alternatively, much of the
slick may be missed during infrequent narrow swath data acquisitions at finer spatial
resolutions. Nested data collection can address these competing needs where the fine-scale sensor
provides sub-pixel information for the synoptic view sensor; however, this requires sensor
coordination.
Because oil slicks evolve on daily to hourly time-scales, swath mapping between subsequent
multi-day overpasses can be ineffective. Generally, the primary satellite contribution is oil
identification from radar or visual imagery prior to the arrival of on-scene investigators or outside
of expected areas, (Topouzelis et al., 2007). However, frequent false positives limit utility.
Consideration of ancillary data can aid spill identification and classification by experienced
analysts (Ivanov & Zatyagalova, 2008). Neural network approaches can discriminate slick-like
features from other dark, non-slick features, providing guidance on potential oil slicks for further
investigation (Topouzelis et al., 2007). The need for confidence level classification protocols for
radar-based detection has been noted; however, there is a need for contextual information,
Oceans Topic
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including assessment of analysis techniques, contrast, geographic location, winds and other
meteorological data (Ferraro et al., 2010). These evaluations are critical to satellite utility in
allocating airborne resources or indicating further satellite data analysis.
A practical reality is that acceptance of a new spill response technology requires that the
technology has a proven reliability track record with well-understood physical mechanism(s), and
significantly improved information relative to accepted approaches. Also critical are Rapid
Response Products, where analyzed data are available in a readily usable form on the order of
tens of minutes to hours after acquisition, allowing timely response decisions. Oil spills are highly
dynamic and information ages rapidly, losing most utility in less than a day.

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