TITLE:
A Case Study on Climate Change Response and Adaptation: Fictional Aysese Islands in the South Pacific
AUTHORS:
Amy Cannon, Peter Lalor, Shobha Sriharan, Chunlei Fan, Gulnihal Ozbay
KEYWORDS:
Climate Change, Case Study, Water Supply, Coastal Zone Erosion, Tropical Cyclones
JOURNAL NAME:
American Journal of Climate Change,
Vol.3 No.5,
December
31,
2014
ABSTRACT: The
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), established by the United
Nations and World Meteorological Organization, has determined that humans have
very likely influenced a net warming to the Earth from the increase of
greenhouse gases, aerosols and land use changes. This warming has caused the
amount of ice on the Earth to continue to decrease and sea levels to rise. In
addition, extreme precipitation events are happening more often in selected
regions of the world. A case study that assesses the impacts of, and
adaptations to, these changes in climate is presented here. Two modeling programs,
Sim CLIM and Train CLIM, (CLIM Systems, Hamilton, New Zealand) were used to
support assessments for water supply, coastal zones and tropical cyclones in a
fictitious island group in the South Pacific region. In the case study, a
consulting group was “hired” to carry out these assessments. A final analysis
and synthesis report were created to help the Ministry of the Environment of
the made-up nation decide how to improve the governmental actions to address
the real concerns posed by changing climate and sea level. Although a simulated
island group is used in this article, there are sincere concerns about climate
change and extreme weather events in this part of the world. It is important to
address the real and dangerous threat that these islands and people face in the
wake of a changing climate and a growing global society.