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Climate change is a favored subjectamong disputatious individuals.About its cause, proof of who isright and who is wrong is certain

not to emerge between dinner andbreakfast.

The wonderful opera, life, is

staged on Earth amidst the splendidscenery that is the biosphere.Astonishingly, it is the orchestra ofliving organismsharmonizing thelaws of physics and chemistry, withthe aid of energy from the Sunthathas built the edice of the currentbiosphere, across geological time.

New members of the orchestrahave taken their places after rigorousnatural selection, from the widerange of applicants proposed bymutation in the process of evolution.Some fear that the more recenthuman members have abandonedthe score and, like modern jazzmusicians, are improvising. Thefear is that the resulting cacophonicpollution will surely destroy thecurrent show. Humans will take theirplace, somewhat like dinosaurs, insedimentary layers to be excavatedmillions of years hence by the highlyevolved and curious inheritorsof Earth. Some will ask, Why

did they become extinct? Somewill answer, Global warming.Others will say, Rubbish!

Special interest groups,dispassionate scientists, and lunatics(repent, the end is nigh!) often havecontrasting opinions about futureclimates and the fate of humankind.Geologists, atmospheric chemists,astronomers, oceanographers,physicists, botanists, ecologists,economists, meteorologists, and

agronomists have been assembledto construct predictions relating toclimate change under the umbrella ofthe United Nations IntergovernmentalPanel on Climate Change. Like thelaborers constructing the Towerof Babel, they are almost mutually

incomprehensible. Nonetheless, asort of scientic pidgin has emergedand although lacking in precision issurprisingly useful when employedin a number of special reports.

In his Gaia theory, JamesLovelock attempted to integrateknowledge from all branches ofscience into a theory of Earth as aliving organism. However, as yet thereis no universally accepted theory ofclimate and what forces it to changeand so many aspects of climatechange remain speculative affairs.

I used to think that climate wasthe integral of weather averagedover somewhat arbitrary periodscalled seasons and that topography

needlessly complicated the correlationbetween latitude and warmth.As a student, I was taught thatsunshine hours, rainfall, windspeed,and maximum and minimumtemperatures were the raw materialsof weather. Nowadays, smog, ozone,

oxides of nitrogen, hydroxyls,acid rain, UV levels, atmosphericparticulates, carbon dioxide,methane, sulfur, chlorouorocarbons,and a cornucopia of other thingsmust be added to the mixturefrom which climate is made.

The debate about the contributionof humans to climate change hasstimulated much scientic activity.As a consequence, we have a muchbetter understanding of past climates.One of the most fascinating studieshas been that of the Vostok ice corein Antarctica. Gases, dust, and pollenare trapped annually in falling snowand then entombed in the polar ice.Drilling an ice core 3,623 meters

Buy a house on a hill byJohn SheehyAs Earths climate changes, so does the way we approach agriculture. The head of the International Rice Research Institutes applied photosynthesis laboratory

offers his observations on the current state of play.

The variability o the climate requires a corresponding variability in those who live in it, whether animal or plant; and all uture planning, all development o skills

or increasing ood supplies and raising living standards, must take account o the possibility o drastic change and the certainty o continuing fuctuations, and

thus be so ar as possible geared to the worst rather than the best in prevailing circumstances.Crispin Tickell (1977), Climatic Change and World Afairs

38 Rice TodayJanuary-March 2009

RESEARCH AT IRRI aims to mitigate, as well asdevelop rice varieties that are adapted to, theeects o climate change.

Joseraymondpanaligan(2)

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39Rice TodayJanuary-March 2009

deep, an international team extracteda record of the climate for the past400,000 years. Present-day levels ofthe greenhouse gases carbon dioxide(around 385 parts per million) andmethane (1,700 parts per billion by

volume) are unprecedented duringthe past 420,000 years: previousmaximum values were 280 parts permillion and 773 parts per billion.

A picture of the periodic natureof the glacial and interglacialperiods emerged, as well as thecorrelation between componentsof the climate changing more orless in phase. Four glacial periods,each lasting about 100,000 years,were separated by relatively briefwarm interglacial periods.

Without energy from the Sunand the atmosphere, there could beno climate or life. The eccentricityof Earths orbit around the Sunvaries, Earth tilts and wobbles onits axis, and these factors inuencethe amount and distribution of solarenergy incident over land and seaon the surface of the planet. Suchfactors are grouped together andcalled orbital forcers of climatechange. Cores of marine sediments

are used to analyze past climates upto 180 million years ago and, on thistime scale, tectonic events becomepart of the climate-forcing factors.

To understand greenhouse gasforcing of climate requires a smalldigression. At a stable averageenvironmental temperature, theradiation entering Earths atmosphereequals the amount leaving. Increasingconcentrations of greenhouse gasesin the atmosphere absorb more

of the infrared radiation. To re-establish the zero-sum radiationbalance, the emission of long-waveinfrared radiation has to increase.To achieve this, temperaturesmust rise and thus either force or

amplify climate change. On top ofthis, some of the changes in pastclimates have yet to be explained.

The Vostok record shows that, inthe absence of the billions of humansinhabiting the planet, the next phaseof global climate change would bea gradual drift into an ice age. Thebreak from glacial to interglacialperiods has been accompanied byincreases in the concentrations ofgreenhouse gases. Modern humansascended from caves to skyscrapersduring the past 20,000 years ofthe most recent warming period.

The prospect of ice sheetsgrinding down through NorthAmerica and Europe will be achilling one for my progeny. Butmy problem is global warming. Theevidence suggests that the world isgetting warmer and it would be mostodd if increasing concentrationsof greenhouse gases and otheranthropogenic gaseous emissions

were not playing a signicant,albeit somewhat obscure, role.

The key question, of course, is,What will happen? Will it suddenlyget 6C hotter? Will the polar capspartly melt, causing sea levels torise by several meters? Will thefuture course of climate change bealtered irreversibly by the activitiesof humankind? I dont knowbutneither does anyone else.

Weather disasters could become

the normal human experience overthe coming century. When extremevariation in the weather makesclimate a variable, agriculture ceasesto be an industry and becomes adesperate struggle for survival.

What is the InternationalRice Research Institute (IRRI)doing? IRRI has a long historyof climate research and, over thepast few years, has scaled up itsactivities in that area, includingthe establishment of the Riceand Climate Change Consortium.The Institute is ramping up itsdevelopment of rice varieties thatare ood, drought, and salt tolerant,fast growing, and high yielding,and crop management practicesthat are robust and exible.

The development of technologiesand skills for increasing food suppliesand raising living standards musttake account of the likelihood ofdrastic changes in the weather. Asignicant part of IRRIs agenda mustfocus on how to cope with the worstof expected future circumstancesrather than the best of prevailingcircumstances. A substantial partof the Institutes experimental

farm should be dedicated to thatend. A Climate Change DisasterCenter would allow us to test ourconcepts and train our partnersfor the worst. Varieties that canprovide food in a hotter, more CO2-rich and uncertain world of violentweather extremes have become, andmust continue to be, a priority.

By the way, does anyone have ahectare of land at about 200 metersabove sea level in the tropics for sale?

EXTREME WEATHER events such as foods and typhoons are predicted to become more requent.