Coping with climate change

The world’s scientific community has been talking of unprecedented warming of the global climate system these last 1,300 years. Most of this warming has been attributed to human influence or anthropogenic factors.

Eleven of the past 12 years have been the warmest on record since 1850 (when global instrumental record keeping began). Over the past 100 years, the global annual average surface temperature has risen by 0.74 °C (1.3 °F), with most of this warming coming in only the past 50 years.

This is the main conclusion of the United Nations’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that released in 2007 its Fourth Assessment Report, saying “Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, as is now evident from observations of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice, and rising global average sea level.”

Hundreds of climatologists, meteorologists, and other scientists from around the world, including four from the Philippines, were involved in the preparation of IPCC reports as authors, contributors, and expert reviewers. They reviewed comprehensive scientific climate-change studies, providing an objective understanding of climate change, its potential impacts, and options for adaptation and mitigation.

Climate undergoes natural changes and cycles. Scientists examine the balance of the energy that reaches the Earth from the Sun and that radiated away from the Earth, identifying human or natural factors that drive the energy balance up or down.

Anthropogenic (human) activity is deemed responsible for most of the current global warming, with radiative forcing from anthropogenic sources being over 10 times larger than all natural components combined.

The primary anthropogenic source is the emission of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, produced mainly by the burning of fossil fuels. Greenhouse gases allow sunlight to pass through, but trap heat radiated from the Earth as it is warmed by the sunlight.

Land-use change, such as the burning or clearing of forests, also contributes to global climate change to a lesser extent.

In general, average land surface temperatures have been increasing more rapidly than ocean surface temperatures (although the oceans absorb 80 percent of the heat that the world is gaining).

Climate change has challenged all monitoring of global cycles. With warmer surface temperatures and warmer oceans, more water evaporates and the moisture in the atmosphere increases. Storms with heavy precipitation have occurred with more frequency and intensity.

Extreme events such as hurricanes and cyclones are not really more frequent globally, but there is evident increase in the strength and duration of the storms since 1970 consistent with increases in ocean temperature.

Increases in the extent of spring melting and in storms with heavy precipitation have resulted in more flooding in some areas. Warmer temperatures can also mean more rapid drying, however, and some areas have experienced more periods marked by drought.

Climate change has significant and varied impacts on both natural and human-managed systems, and should now be integrated into decision making at all levels for sustainable development. This has become a primordial concern for Filipinos as the Philippines is one of the Asia-Pacific countries most vulnerable to extreme weather changes. Practically all storms generated in the Western Pacific pass through the Philippine area of responsibility.

Farmers and nature-dependent workers are most vulnerable to the effects of climate change. With more expected storms and flooding, their production can be compromised, leading to more losses to themselves, their communities, and to the country in general.

Farmers urged to plant other crops

Farming production should be redirected by encouraging farmers to produce climate change resilient crops. Rice may be the country’s staple food, but this is also an input-intensive crop that demands a lot of water and a lot of minding, and farmers can consider planting other crops to cope with inevitable climate change.

Peanuts and mungbean are two climate-change resilient crops suggested to help farmers cope with climate change. They have longer root systems, require lesser minding and less water, compared to other crops, as writers found out in a Farmers’ Field Day activity last week, sponsored by the Philippine Council for Agriculture, Forestry and Natural Resources Research and Development.

Mungbean is considered the black gold of San Mateo, Isabela, where its massive production in relatively short time has earned for the town a Galing Pook (literally, ‘Excellent Place’) Award. Starting in 2002, the town government encouraged production by providing a plant now-pay later scheme to interested planters, and the plan paid off in terms of bumper harvests.

In Lal-lo, Cagayan, Nora Tomas, a female Magsasaka Siyentista, exhorted fellow farmers to intercrop peanut with corn, rice and other crops for greater gain. They are planting the Namnama variety developed by the Cagayan Valley Agriculture and Resources Research Consortium, and will soon plant the bigger Asha variety developed by the India-based International Center for Research in Semi-Arid Tropics (Icrisat).

Peanut production is no laughing matter. The country continues to import peanuts for all domestic needs. Our need for the crop is obvious, to save dollars and increase the country’s agricultural stock.

Headed by former Philippine Agriculture Secretary William Dar, Icrisat is providing the Asha peanut, sweet sorghum and other climate change-resilient crops to help farmers surmount expected problematic changes due to global warming.–Manila Times

ngamolo@manilatimes.net/ngamolo@gmail.com