Abstract
The theme of this essay is the importance of a focused Balkan regional analysis of future climate change and climate change impacts on a more detailed, cross-national and regional basis than has been undertaken before. The argument is based on the differences in potential future climate in the Balkans compared to the European continental area in which the region is typically included and on the reality that geographical propinquity may be more important than boundaries of nation states when issues of climate change impacts are considered. Differences among climate change scenarios and uncertainty in resulting impact patterns are not grounds for ignoring the importance of regional collaboration on climate change assessment. Thus the creation of an informal collaborative among Balkan climate change scientists is proposed.
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Notes
- 1.
Seehttp://www.ipcc.ch for full documentation of the IPCC reports.
- 2.
Seehttp://ec.europa.eu/environment/climat/home_en.htm as an entry to EU-level climate change documents.
- 3.
See http://unfccc.int for details and access to extensive documentation on the emissions, mitigation and adaptation reports of individual nations.
- 4.
http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg1/ar4-wg1-chapter11.pdf;last accessed 10 October 2009
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Acknowledgments
I would like to acknowledge the contributions of members of the Scientific Coordination Center for Global Change (Bulgarian Academy of Sciences), the former Center for Integrated Regional Assessment at the Pennsylvania State University, and various individuals from around the Balkan Region and eastern Europe to my thoughts expressed here as they developed over time. My research in the region has been supported by the U. S. National Science Foundation, the International Research and Exchanges Board, and the Pennsylvania State University. Opinions, of course, are mine alone.
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Knight, C.G. (2010). Climate Change and the Balkans: Real Concern or “Useless Arithmetic”. In: Alexandrov, V., Gajdusek, M., Knight, C., Yotova, A. (eds) Global Environmental Change: Challenges to Science and Society in Southeastern Europe. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-8695-2_2
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