The Amazon Glaciers

In this chapter, we will examine the relationship between the Andean tropical glaciers and the Amazon rainforest, presenting a comprehensive overview on those ice masses that are the headwaters of the Amazon River and examining changes in environmental processes that may affect their mass balance and how they may feedback into the Amazon lowlands environmental processes. The first part of this chapter describes the present glaciological knowledge on these Andean ice masses that flow towards the Amazon drainage basin, about 1666 km2 (of which 68% are in Peru, 24% in Bolivia and the remaining 8% in Ecuador). The mass balance of these glaciers is strongly dependent on the Amazon hydrological cycle, as water coming from the Atlantic Ocean and recycled though the rainforest is the main source of their precipitation. A second part of the chapter explores how two environmental systems are interconnected and interacted. The third part of chapter examines the present (last 50 years) human-made changes in the Amazon basin and how they may affect the Andean ice masses. These glaciers also hold the best proxy for the Amazon Holocene changes, the record left in the snow and ice chemistry. So, as a complement to this chapter, we review the information on the paleoenvironmental changes found in ice cores in Bolivia and Peru and what they may point about the future of the Andean tropical glaciers

Methodology for constructing a flood-hazard map for a future climate

Flooding is a major natural hazard in many parts of the world, and its frequency and magnitude are projected to increase with global warming. With increased concern over ongoing climate change, more detailed and precise information about climate-change risks is required for formulating local-scale countermeasures. However, the impacts of biases in climate-model outputs on river-flood simulation have not been fully evaluated, and thus evaluation of future flood risks using hazard maps (high-resolution spatial-distribution maps of inundation depths) has not been achieved. Therefore, this study examined methods for constructing future-flood-hazard maps and discussed their validity. Specifically, we compared the runoff-correction method that corrects for bias in general-circulation-model (GCM) runoff using the monthly climatology of reanalysis runoff with the lookup method, which uses the GCM simulation results without bias correction to calculate changes in the return period and depends on the reanalysis simulation to determine absolute flood depths. The results imply that the runoff-correction method may produce significantly different hazard maps compared to those based on reanalysis of runoff data. We found that, in some cases, bias correction did not perform as expected for extreme values associated with the hazard map, even under the historical climate, as the bias of extreme values differed from that of the mean value. We found that the change direction of a future hazard (increase or decrease) obtained using the runoff-correction method relative to the reference reanalysis-based hazard map may be inconsistent with changes projected by Catchment-based Macro-scale Floodplain Model (CaMa-Flood) simulations based on GCM runoff input in some cases. On the other hand, the lookup method produced future-hazard maps that are consistent with flood-hazard changes projected by CaMa-Flood simulations obtained using GCM runoff input, indicating the possibility of obtaining a reasonable inundated-area distribution. These results suggest that the lookup method is more suitable for future-flood hazard-map construction than the runoff-correction method. The lookup method also has the advantage of facilitating research on efficient construction of future-climate hazard maps, as it allows for improvement of the reanalysis hazard map through upgrading of the model and separate estimation of changes due to climate change. We discuss future changes at the global scale in inundation areas and the affected population within the inundation area. Using the lookup method, the total population living in modeled inundation areas with flood magnitudes exceeding the 100-year return period under a future climate would be approximately 1.86 billion. In the assessment of future-climate risks, we found that an affected population of approximately 0.2 billion may be missed if the historical-hazard map is used as an alternative to constructing future-hazard maps, and only frequency changes are considered. These results suggest that, in global flood-risk studies, future-hazard maps are important for proper estimation of climate-change risks rather than assessing solely changes in the frequency of occurrence of a given flood intensity.</p

Solutions to climate change in UK housing developments: a lifestyle approach

This thesis is concerned with how sustainable and low carbon living can be enabled in new housing developments in the UK. The consumption of energy and resources is not just related to the insulating qualities of the fabric of the building and the heating, lighting, appliances and ventilation systems that go into the building, but also to the occupancy patterns and activities of future residents over the long-term. Conventional business models for new housing development, operating under current government regulations, policies and targets have failed to develop housing which encourages the adoption of sustainable lifestyles taking whole life consumption into account. This thesis aims to identify alternative ways in which UK housing development can contribute to achieving 80% carbon savings in the UK by 2050. A tool (the Climate Challenge Tool) has been developed allowing whole-life carbon equivalent emissions and costs of various options for new developments to be calculated. These cover technical and soft measures; energy used within the home, energy embodied in the building materials and emissions from transport, food and waste treatment. Applying the tool to a case study development, it was found that carbon reductions can be achieved at much lower costs through an approach, which enables sustainable lifestyles, rather than one that purely focuses on technical measures such as those covered in the building regulations. Furthermore a wider sustainability analysis showed additional social and economic benefits from many of the lifestyles measures. A specific opportunity to incorporate lifestyles measures into new developments was identified: Eco-self-build housing communities. The feasibility of this opportunity was assessed through a stakeholder survey and was judged to be viable. It is concluded that with additional government support or removal of regulatory barriers, eco-self-build communities has the potential to contribute considerably to an 80% emission reduction target

Climate and the Amazon

Titulo en español: Clima en el AmazonasSummary: When concerning ourselves with the future of the earth’s climate we must not make the grave mistake of counting only the quantities of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere from the combustion of fossil fuels, while neglecting those from changes in vegetation cover. But, there is another crucial dimension too: the role of natural ecosystems in giving us a climate we can live with. In this context the future of the Amazon forest is absolutely vital. Titulo en español: Clima en el AmazonasSummary: When concerning ourselves with the future of the earth’s climate we must not make the grave mistake of counting only the quantities of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere from the combustion of fossil fuels, while neglecting those from changes in vegetation cover. But, there is another crucial dimension too: the role of natural ecosystems in giving us a climate we can live with. In this context the future of the Amazon forest is absolutely vital.