ERF '01
ERF's Biocomplexity
Initiative
News
ERF Home
Guide
About ERF
Newsletter
Journal
Education
Directory
Membership
Meetings
Bulletin Board
Jobs
Links
Feedback

AERS
NEERS
SEERS
GERS
PERS

Full report on the ERF workshop on estuarine responses: a background perspective by Donald Boesch

• Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The Third Assessment Report
  (IPCC 2001) was prepared by a multinational group of experts under the
  auspices of the WMO and UNEP. Summaries for Policy Makers and longer
  Technical Summaries are provided for each of the three Working Groups, dealing
  with the science of climate change, impacts and mitigation, respectively. An
  overall Synthesis report is available in a web-based version at
  http://www.ipcc.ch/pub/tar/syr/index.htm.
• U.S. National Assessment of the Consequences of Climate Variability and
  Change. Hereafter referred to as the U.S.National Assessment, this was
  produced under congressional mandate by the National Science and Technology
  Council and involved hundreds of contributors. Various reports were produced
  for regions and sectors, including one on coastal areas and marine resources
  (Boesch et al. 2000). An Overview and more detailed Foundation report were
  produced as well.
• Pew Center for Global Climate Change. This policy center has commissioned
  various reports on environmental effects, solutions, economics and policy.
  Particularly relevant are those on the Science of Climate Change (Wigley, 1999),
  which provides a good overview on climate models and forcasts, Sea Level Rise
  (Neumann, et al. 1999) and Aquatic Ecosystems (Poff et al., 2002). A report on
  marine ecosystems is forthcoming (Kennedy et al., in press); a draft in included
  on the CD.
• Union of Concerned Scientists/Ecological Society of America. UCS and
  ESA have sponsored two regional assessments of the consequences of climate
  change, one for California and the other for the Gulf Coast (Twilley et al. 2001).
• U.S. Global Climate Change Research Program. The USGCRP produces an
  annual overview of federal global climate change research, Our Changing
  Climate.

This summary is intended as a very brief overview of the findings of these reports as
they relate to estuarine ecosystems. The major changing physical forces (temperature,
freshwater inflows, sea-level, storms, and coastal currents) are reviewed and examples
given of the potential biocomplex responses that may be involved. These are just
examples, often highly speculative, intended to stimulate further considerations and
debate among those involved in the ERF planning process.

Because the ERF planning process is supported through the National Science
Foundation’s Biocomplexity in the Environment (BE) initiative, it is important that the
process address the biocomplexity of responses, not just physical variability and change
and straightforward biological consequences. Biocomplex responses are considered to
be those that involve nonlinear behavior mediated though biological processes. These
responses can be at many levels of organization: genome, population, community,
ecosystem, landscape, and human society. Of particular importance is the interaction of
the activities of human society and changing estuarine ecosystems. To what degree will
societal development exacerbate or alleviate the effects of more variable and changing
climate? How will society mitigate or cope with these changes?


|TOP|