Carnegie Institution of Washington

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Contact Dr. Christopher Field at Carnegie’s Department of Global Ecology, 650-462-1047 x 201; cfield@globalecology.stanford.edu

For a copy of the paper contact PNAS at 202-326-6716, or PNASnews@nas.edu

California climate alert: Major impacts on the horizon

Stanford, CA. “More frequent heat waves, dramatically reduced Sierra snowpack, and decreased quality of wine grapes are in California’s future unless we take action now to minimize climate change,” commented Christopher Field of the Carnegie Institution’s Department of Global Ecology in Stanford, California. The amount of climate change in California and the severity of its impacts strongly depend on emissions of heat-trapping gases, concludes a team of interdisciplinary scientists from leading institutions.* The researchers compared the expected climate in a future with a heavy reliance on traditional fossil energy sources with a future that includes extensive investment in energy sources that do not emit carbon dioxide or other heat-trapping gases. Their results indicate that both pathways lead to significant climate changes over the coming decades. The amount of climate change and the impacts, however, can be cut by half or more through emphasis on reducing emissions. The study is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on-line early edition, August 16-20, 2004.
Using results from two of the latest generation of climate models, the team of scientists has for the first time looked at a broad range of impacts for a particular region and assessed the sensitivity of the impacts to the future pattern of greenhouse gas emissions at the global scale. All of the simulations showed increased temperatures by mid-century. Even with lower emissions, heat waves, extreme heat, and heat-related human mortality in Los Angeles could double to quadruple by century’s end. The warming may be great enough for widespread impacts on agriculture, potentially threatening California’s status as a producer of high-quality wines.

“We truly have a choice,” said Field. “Leadership in developing innovative technologies, policies, and strategies can pave the way to a much more positive future,” he concluded.

*Scientists from the following institutions participated in the study: ATMOS Research and Consulting; Climate Research Division, The Scripps Institution of Oceanography; The Carnegie Institution of Washington, Department of Global Ecology; Union of Concerned Scientists; Civil Engineering Department, Santa Clara University; Atmosphere and Ocean Sciences Group, Earth Sciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory; Environment and Societal Impacts Group, National Center for Atmospheric Research; Department of Biological Science and Institute for International Studies, Stanford University; Corvallis Forestry Sciences Laboratory, U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service; Department of Agriculture and Resource Economics, University of California, Berkeley; Center for Climatic research, Department of Geography, University of Delaware; Department of Geography, Kent State University.

The Carnegie Institution of Washington (www.CarnegieInstitution.org) has been a pioneering force in basic scientific research since 1902. It is a private, nonprofit organization with six research departments in the U.S.: Embryology, in Baltimore, MD; the Department of Terrestrial Magnetism and the Geophysical Laboratory in Washington, DC; The Observatories in Pasadena, CA, and Chile; and Plant Biology and Global Ecology in Stanford, CA.