UNIVERSIDADE CATÓLICA DE MOÇAMBIQUE

INSTITUTO DE EDUCAÇÃO À DISTÂNCIA

Topic: Climate Change and its effects on development. Global and local
perspectives.

Dalton Bonifácio Fernando Intogorro. No 708230646

Curso: Geografia
Disciplina: Inglês
Ano de Frequência: 1º ano
Turma: H

Gurue, Setembro de 2023

 Folha de Feedback
Classificação
Categorias Indicadores Padrões Pontuação Nota do
Subtotal
máxima tutor
• Capa 0.5

• Índice 0.5

Aspectos • Introdução 0.5

Estrutura
organizacionais • Discussão 0.5
• Conclusão 0.5
• Bibliografia 0.5
• Contextualização
(Indicação clara do 1.0
problema)
Introdução
• Descrição dos objectivos 1.0

• Metodologia adequada
2.0
ao objecto do trabalho
• Articulação e domínio
do discurso académico
(expressão escrita 2.0
Conteúdo
cuidada, coerência /
coesão textual)
Análise e discussão • Revisão bibliográfica
nacional e
internacionais 2.
relevantes na área de
estudo
• Exploração dos dados 2.0
• Contributos teóricos
Conclusão 2.0
práticos
• Paginação, tipo e
tamanho de letra,
Aspectos gerais Formatação 1.0
paragrafo, espaçamento
entre linhas
Normas APA 6ª • Rigor e coerência das
Referências
edição em citações citações/referências 4.0
Bibliográficas
e bibliografia bibliográficas
Folha para recomendações de melhoria: A ser preenchida pelo tutor

___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
 Indices
Introduction ................................................................................................................................ 5

Aims ........................................................................................................................................ 5

Methodology ........................................................................................................................... 5

1. Define climate change and its main causes ............................................................................ 6

2. A different examples of climate change in the global and local contexts .............................. 7

Paleoclimate ............................................................................................................................ 8

What is Climate Change ....................................................................................................... 10

The Coupled Model Intercomparison Projects (CMIPs) ...................................................... 12

Conclusion ................................................................................................................................ 13

Bibliography ............................................................................................................................. 14
Introduction
Climate change affects all, but it does not affect us equally. Nor do we possess the same capacity
to respond to its challenges. As is often the case, the most vulnerable countries – particularly
the Least Developed Countries and Small Island Developing States – find themselves in the
worst situation once again. In these countries, climate change is already affecting economic
growth, health indicators, water availability, food production and the fragile ecosystems.

Th e Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPPC) concluded in 2007 that a sea-level

rise resulting from a global temperature increase of 4 degrees Celsius would completely
submerge low-lying island states like Tuvalu, Kiribati, and the Maldives. For the LDCs in
Africa and Asia, climate change will result in fl ooding of low-lying coastal areas, increased
water scarcity, decline in agricultural yields and fi sheries resources, and loss of biological
resources. Th e IPPC has predicted that yields from rain-fed agriculture in Africa could be
reduced by as much as 50 percent by 2020.

Water shortages and the shrinking of land suitable for agriculture would cause other social and
political disruptions, including forced migration and confl ict.." (Bas Press, 2014.)

Aims
• Define climate change and its main causes.
• Describe different examples of climate change in the global and local contexts
• Show its impact on development (economic and social) and the livelihoods (contextualize
whenever possible).

Methodology
For this work, we opted for bibliographic research with Explanatory-Exploratory
characteristics.

5
1. Define climate change and its main causes
Th e climate of the African continent, where 33 of the 49 LDCs are located, is controlled by
complex maritime and terrestrial interactions that produce a variety of weather changes across
a range of regions, from the humid tropics to the hyper-arid Sahara15. Th e African climate has
a major influence on day-to-day economic developments, particularly in the agricultural and
water-resources sectors.

Since 2001, observed temperatures have indicated a greater warming trend since the 1960s.
Although these trends seem to be consistent across the continent, the changes are not always
uniform. For instance, decadal warming rates of 0.29°C in the African tropical forests and 0.1
to 0.3°C in South Africa have been observed. In South Africa and Ethiopia, minimum
temperatures have increased slightly faster than maximum or mean temperatures.

Between 1961 and 2000, there was an increase in the number of warm spells over southern and
western Africa, and a decrease in the number of extremely cold days; whilst in eastern Africa,
new trends in temperature have been observed from weather stations located close to the coast
or to major inland lakes.

For precipitation, the situation is more complicated in areas where rainfall exhibits signifi cant
spatial and temporal variability. Inter-annual rainfall variability is large over most of Africa
and, for some regions; multi-decadal variability is quite substantial. Th e drying of the Sahel
region since the 1970s has, for example, been linked to an increase in equatorial Indian Ocean
sea-surface temperature.

Changes in extreme events, such as droughts and floods, have major implications for the various
African regions. Droughts have attracted much interest over the past 30 years, particularly with
reference to their impact on ecological systems and on society.

The climate of Africa is a range of climates such as the equatorial climate, the tropical wet and
dry climate, the tropical monsoon climate, the semi-arid climate (semi-desert and steppe), the
desert climate (hyper-arid and arid), the humid subtropical climate, and the subtropical highland
climate.

Temperate climates are rare across the continent except at very high elevations and along the
fringes. In fact, the climate of Africa is more variable by rainfall amount than by temperatures,
which are consistently high.
African deserts are the sunniest and the driest parts of the continent, owing to the prevailing
presence of the subtropical ridge with subsiding, hot, dry air masses. Africa holds many heat-
related records: the continent has the hottest extended region year-round, the areas with the
hottest summer climate, the highest sunshine duration, and more.

Climate change in Africa is an increasingly serious threat as Africa is among the most
vulnerable continents to the effects of climate change. Some sources even classify Africa as
"the most vulnerable continent on Earth". This vulnerability is driven by a range of factors that
include weak adaptive capacity, high dependence on ecosystem goods for livelihoods, and less
developed agricultural production systems. The risks of climate change on agricultural
production, food security, water resources and ecosystem services will likely have increasingly
severe consequences on lives and sustainable development prospects in Africa.

With high confidence, it was projected by the IPCC in 2007 that in many African countries and
regions, agricultural production and food security would probably be severely compromised by
climate change and climate variability. Managing this risk requires an integration of mitigation
and adaptation strategies in the management of ecosystem goods and services, and the
agriculture production systems in Africa.

2. A different examples of climate change in the global and local contexts

The Earth’s climate is changing and the global climate is projected to continue to change over
this century and beyond. The magnitude of climate change beyond the next few decades will
depend primarily on the amount of greenhouse (heat-trapping) gases emitted globally and on
the remaining uncertainty in the sensitivity of the Earth’s climate to those emissions.

With significant reductions in the emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs), global annual
averaged temperature rise could be limited to 2°C or less. However, without major reductions
in these emissions, the increase in annual average global temperatures, relative to preindustrial
times, could reach 5°C or more by the end of this century.

The global climate continues to change rapidly compared to the pace of the natural variations
in climate that have occurred throughout Earth’s history.

Trends in globally averaged temperature, sea level rise, upper-ocean heat content, land-based
ice melt, arctic sea ice, depth of seasonal permafrost thaw, and other climate variables provide
consistent evidence of a warming planet. These observed trends are robust and confirmed by
multiple, independent research groups around the world. Figure 1 shows global average
temperature anomalies; since the 1880s global average temperature has warmed approximately
1°C.

The plot shows how much global annual average temperatures for the years 1880-2022 have
been above or below the 1881-1910 average. Temperatures for years warmer than the early
industrial baseline are shown in red; temperatures for years cooler than the baseline are shown
in purple. Graphic: Climate Central; Data: NASA GISS and NOAA NCEI. global temperature
anomalies averaged and adjusted to early industrial baseline (1881-1910). Data as of
1/12/2023

Observations of the climate system are based on direct physical and biogeochemical
measurements, and remote sensing from ground stations and satellites. Information derived
from paleoclimate archives provides a long-term context of past climates. Different types of
environmental evidence are used to understand what the Earth’s past climate was like and why.
Records of historical climate conditions are preserved in tree rings, locked in the skeletons of
tropical coral reefs, sealed in glaciers and ice caps, and buried in laminated sediments from
lakes and the ocean.

Paleoclimate

Reconstructions from paleoclimate archives allow current changes in atmospheric composition,

sea level and climate systems (including extreme events such as droughts and floods), as well
as projections of future climates, to be placed in a broader perspective of past climate
variability. Past climate information also documents the behavior of slow components of the
climate system including the carbon cycle, ice sheets and the deep ocean for which instrumental
records are short compared to their characteristic time scales of responses to perturbations, thus
informing on mechanisms of abrupt and irreversible changes. Climate records over past
centuries and millennia indicate that average temperatures in recent decades over much of the
world have been much higher, and have risen faster during this time period, than at any time
for which the historical global distribution of surface temperatures can be reconstructed.

Paleoclimate can help us understand climate change on a geological timescale rather than a few
human generations. Figure 2 presents paleoclimate reconstruction for the Northern
Hemisphere(NH), which reveals average annual temperatures, for the period 1983–2012 was
very likely the warmest 30-year period of the last 800 years and likely the warmest 30-year
period of the last 1400 years. a) shows the radiative forcing due to volcanic, solar and well-
mixed greenhouse gases (WMGHGs). Different colors illustrate the two existing data sets for
volcanic forcing and four estimates of solar forcing and the grey line represents WMGHGs for
the period 850-2000. b) represents the simulated (red) and reconstructed (shading) Northern
Hemisphere temperature anomalies. The thick red line depicts the multi-model mean while the
thin red lines show the multi-model 90% range. The overlap of reconstructed temperatures is
shown by grey shading.

Figure 2. a) Radiative forcing (W/m2) due to volcanic, solar and well-mixed greenhouse gases
for the period 850-2000. b) Reconstructed (grey) and simulated (red) Northern Hemisphere
Temperature Anomalies for the period 850-2000.

Model projections (Figure 3) indicate that twenty-first century global average warming will
substantially exceed the Last Glacial Maximum period and even the warmest Holocene
conditions; producing a climate state not previously experienced.
Figure 3. Model-simulated global temperature anomalies for the Last Glacial Maximum
(21,000 years ago), the mid-Holocene (6,000 years ago), and projection for 2071–2095, under
RCP8.5

What this means

Earth’s climate is now changing faster than at any point in the known history of the climate,
primarily as a result of human activities. There is scientific consensus that unmitigated carbon
emissions will lead to global warming of at least several degrees Celsius by 2100, resulting in
high-impacts of local, regional and global risks to human society and natural ecosystems.
Global climate change has already resulted in a wide range of impacts across every region of
the earth as well as many economic sectors.

Impacts related to climate change are evident across regions and in many sectors important to
society, such as human health, agriculture and food security, water supply, transportation,
energy, and biodiversity and ecosystems; impacts are expected to become increasingly
disruptive in the coming decades. There is very high confidence that the frequency and intensity
of extreme heat and heavy precipitation events are increasing in most continental regions of the
world.

What is Climate Change

Observed changes over the 20th century include increases in global air and ocean temperature,
rising global sea levels, long-term sustained widespread reduction of snow and ice cover, and
changes in atmospheric and ocean circulation as well as regional weather patterns, which
influence seasonal rainfall conditions. These changes are caused by extra heat in the climate
system due to the addition of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. These additional greenhouse
gases are primarily input by human activities such as the burning of fossil fuels (coal, oil, and
natural gas), deforestation, agriculture, and land-use changes. These activities increase the
amount of ‘heat-trapping’ greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. The pattern of observed changes
in the climate system is consistent with an increased greenhouse effect. Other climatic
influences such as volcanoes, the sun and natural variability cannot alone explain the timing
and extent of the observed changes.
Climate, refers to the long-term regional or global average of temperature, humidity and
rainfall patterns over seasons, years or decades.

While the weather can change in just a few hours, climate changes over longer
timeframes. Climate change is the significant variation of average weather conditions
becoming, for example, warmer, wetter, or drier—over several decades or longer. It is the
longer-term trend that differentiates climate change from natural weather variability.

Human activity leads to change in the atmospheric composition either directly (via emissions
of gases or particles) or indirectly (via atmospheric chemistry). Anthropogenic emissions have
driven the changes in WMGHG concentrations during the Industrial Era. Radiative forcing (RF)
is a measure of the net change in the energy balance of the Earth system in response to some
external perturbation; positive RF leads to a warming and negative RF to a cooling. The RF
concept is valuable for comparing the influence on global mean surface temperature of most
individual agents affecting the Earth’s radiation balance. Figure 4 shows the Radiative Forcing
and Effective Radiative Forcing (ERF), by concentration change, between 1750 and 2011, with
associated uncertainty range.

Figure 4. Radiative Forcing (RF) and Effective Radiative Forcing (ERF) of climate change
during the Industrial Era, 1750-2011. Solid bars are ERF, hatched bars are RF, green
diamonds and associated uncertainties are for RF.

Figure 5. Total annual anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions (gigatonne of CO2-
equivalent per year, GtCO2-eq/yr) for the period 1970 to 2010, by gases.
Figure 5. The graph shows human-caused emissions over time for individual greenhouse gases.
Carbon dioxide (CO2) from fossil fuel use and industry is the single largest contributor to total
emissions at 64%, while CO2 from land use change and forestry accounts for 11% and methane
(CH4) contributes 18%. Source, IPCC Working Group III, 2022.

The Coupled Model Intercomparison Projects (CMIPs)

Understanding our current and future climate are questions that are too large and too complex
to be tackled by a single country, agency or scientific discipline. Through international
scientific cooperation and partnerships, the World Climate Research Program (WCRP)
supports the coordination of partners and modeling groups participating in the Coupled Model
Inter-comparison Projects, or CMIPs. the CMIPs advance our understanding of the multi-scale
dynamic interactions between natural and social systems that affect climate. Over time, as
participation in CMIP increased and the number and complexity of climate models expanded,
the need for increasingly detailed and organized experiments led to CMIP becoming an
integrated framework within which a number of individual Model Intercomparison Projects
(MIPs) are organized. MIPs are sets of experiments and simulations designed to test and
compare specific aspects of climate models. Each individual MIP lays out an experimental
design aimed at improving understanding of:

• important physical processes in the climate system; or

• the response of the climate system to external drivers (such as increasing greenhouse
gases).

The climate science community relies on models to understand the Earth’s carbon cycle
feedbacks in response to anthropogenic emissions, which lead to changes in atmospheric
concentrations of greenhouse gases and aerosol, and thus ultimately result in radiative forcings
that drive the climate system changes. The CMIPs provide a coordinating framework for these.
Conclusion
Decadal, inter-annual, and inter-seasonal variability exists across the climate system. Internal
variability can diminish the relevance of trends over periods as short as 10 to 15 years from
long-term climate change. A critical effort of projecting climate change is to understand if
‘change’ is part of the natural variability or if projected change reveals trends that are
statistically significant from natural variability. Due to this, natural variability trends based on
short records are very sensitive to the beginning and end dates and do not, in general, reflect
longer-term climate trends.

Uncertainty exists for any future projection. While advances continue to be made in the
understanding of climate physics and the response of the climate system to increases in
greenhouse gases, many uncertainties are likely to persist. The rate of future global warming
depends on future emissions, feedback processes that dampen or reinforce disturbances to the
climate system, and unpredictable natural influences on climate, like volcanic eruptions.

Uncertain processes that will affect how fast the world warms for a given emissions pathway
are dominated by cloud formation, but also include water vapor and ice feedbacks, ocean
circulation changes, and natural cycles of greenhouse gases. Although information from past
climate changes largely corroborates model calculations, this is also can have a degree of
uncertainty due to potentially important factors about which we have incomplete information.
Bibliography
1. Clark, P., Shakun, J., Marcott, S. et al., 2016: Consequences of twenty-first-century
policy for multi-millennial climate and sea-level change. Nature Clim Change 6, 360–
369. DOI:https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate2923
2. Eyring, V., Bony, S., Meehl, G. A., Senior, C. A., Stevens, B., Stouffer, R. J., & Taylor,
K. E. (2016). Overview of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6
(CMIP6) experimental design and organization. Geoscientific Model Development,
9(5), 1937–1958. https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-9-1937-2016.
3. IPCC, 2013: Climate Change 2013: Technical Summary. The Physical Science Basis.
Contribution of Working Group I to the Fifth Assessment Report of the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Stocker, T.F., D. Qin, G.-K. Plattner, M.
Tignor, S.K. Allen, J. Boschung, A. Nauels, Y. Xia, V. Bex and P.M. Midgley (eds.)].
Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA.
URL:https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/02/WG1AR5_TS_FINAL.pdf
4. IPCC, 2014: Climate Change 2014: Synthesis Report. Contribution of Working Groups
I, II and III to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change [Core Writing Team, R.K. Pachauri and L.A. Meyer (eds.)]. IPCC, Geneva,
Switzerland, 151 pp. URL: https://ar5-
syr.ipcc.ch/ipcc/ipcc/resources/pdf/IPCC_SynthesisReport.pdf
5. IPCC, 2021: Summary for Policymakers. In: Climate Change 2021: The Physical
Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Sixth Assessment Report of the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Masson-Delmotte, V., P. Zhai, A. Pirani,
S.L. Connors, C. Péan, S. Berger, N. Caud, Y. Chen, L. Goldfarb, M.I. Gomis, M.
Huang, K. Leitzell, E. Lonnoy, J.B.R. Matthews, T.K. Maycock, T. Waterfield, O.
Yelekçi, R. Yu, and B. Zhou (eds.)]. In Press.
URL:https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/downloads/report/IPCC_AR6_WGI_SPM_fi
nal.pdf
6. International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), 2014: Representative
Concentration Pathways Database. URL:
https://iiasa.ac.at/web/home/research/researchPrograms/TransitionstoNewTechnologie
s/RCP.en.html