Impacts of Climate Change on Lakes and Reservoirs Dynamics and Restoration Policies

Abstract

Global and regional climates have already begun changing. The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) (2006) has pointed out that “since the start of the 20th century, the global average surface temperature has risen approximately 0.7°C. But this rise has not been continuous. Since 1976, the global average temperature has risen sharply, at 0.18°C per decade. In the northern and southern hemispheres, the period 1997–2006 averaged 0.53 and 0.27°C above the 1961–1990 mean, respectively.” The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report (IPCC 2007) indicates that (1) there is high agreement and much evidence that, with current climate change mitigation policies and related sustainable development practices, global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions will continue to grow over the next few decades; (2) continued GHG emissions at or above current rates would cause further warming and induce many changes in the global climate system during the twenty-first century that would very likely be larger than those observed during the twentieth century; (3) even if radiative forcing (e.g., GHG-driven longwave radiation) were to be stabilized, thermal expansion (i.e., expansion of seawater volume due to global warming) would continue for many centuries, due to the time required to transport heat into the deep ocean.

Reprinted with permission of Integrated Research System for Sustainability Science from G.B. Sahoo and S.G. Schladow, Sustain. Sci. 3(2008) 189–199. DOI 10.1007/s11625-008-0056-y