This is the last week of class before Final project presentations. The notes I highlighted from the text is found below. 

I prepared for class by reading chapters 25 and 26. My group will present the material for chapter 26.

Chapter 25

Key Message 1: Water Resources

• Water for people and nature in the Southwest has declined during droughts, due in part to human-caused climate change. Intensifying droughts and occasional large floods, combined with critical water demands from a growing population, deteriorating infrastructure, and groundwater depletion, suggest the need for flexible water management techniques that address changing risks over time, balancing declining supplies with greater demands.
• Increased temperatures, especially the earlier occurrence of spring warmth, have significantly altered the water cycle in the Southwest region.
  • These changes include decreases in snowpack and its water content, earlier peak of snow-fed streamflow, and increases in the proportion of rain to snow.
• Drought and Megadrought are a major concern because of the increase frequency and severity
• Water shortages because of the increase in population, drought, and reduced river flows

Key Message 2: Ecosystems and Ecosystem Services

• The integrity of Southwest forests and other ecosystems and their ability to provide natural habitat, clean water, and economic livelihoods have declined as a result of recent droughts and wildfire due in part to human-caused climate change. Greenhouse gas emissions reductions, fire management, and other actions can help reduce future vulnerabilities of ecosystems and human well-being.
• Large and older tress have died due partly to climate change
• Climate change has led to excessive wildfires that affect the ecosystem
• Forest pest infestations has also increased and destroyed many trees

Key Message 3: The Coast

• Many coastal resources in the Southwest have been affected by sea level rise, ocean warming, and reduced ocean oxygen—all impacts of human-caused climate change—and ocean acidification resulting from human emissions of carbon dioxide. Homes and other coastal infrastructure, marine flora and fauna, and people who depend on coastal resources face increased risks under continued climate change.
• Sea level rise is expected to rise by 30 inches near San Francisco by 2100. This would create massive issues for people living near the coast. 
• Ocean warming has disrupted the marine ecosystem and impacted fisheries for California salmon during 2016 and 2017.
• Ocean acidification has increased by 25 - 40% from preindustrial era to the early 2000s from human activates 

Key Message 4: Indigenous People

• Traditional foods, natural resource-based livelihoods, cultural resources, and spiritual well-being of Indigenous peoples in the Southwest are increasingly affected by drought, wildfire, and changing ocean conditions. Because future changes would further disrupt the ecosystems on which Indigenous peoples depend, tribes are implementing adaptation measures and emissions reduction actions.
• Traditional food from indigenous people are declining because of poor growing conditions due to climate change.
• Reservations where indigenous people live are located in one of the driest portion of the Southwest.
• Although Indigenous peoples have adapted to climate variations in the past, historical intergenerational trauma, extractive infrastructure, and socioeconomic and political pressures reduce their adaptive capacity to current and future climate change

Key Message 5: Energy

• The ability of hydropower and fossil fuel electricity generation to meet growing energy use in the Southwest is decreasing as a result of drought and rising temperatures. Many renewable energy sources offer increased electricity reliability, lower water intensity of energy generation, reduced greenhouse gas emissions, and new economic opportunities.
• Drought affects hydropower production.
• In California, utilities increased fossil fuel generation of electricity to compensate for the drought-driven decline in hydroelectricity, increasing state carbon dioxide emissions in the first year of the drought (2011 to 2012) by 1.8 million tons of carbon, the equivalent of emissions from roughly 1 million cars.
• Using other renewable energy sources is one way to create cleaner energy.
• Electric cars are another option to reduce energy use from fossil fuels.

Key Message 6: Food

• Food production in the Southwest is vulnerable to water shortages. Increased drought, heat waves, and reduction of winter chill hours can harm crops and livestock; exacerbate competition for water among agriculture, energy generation, and municipal uses; and increase future food insecurity.
• Drought reduce the amount of water for crops.
• Heat wave change the ideal locations of crops and causes stress to the crops.
• Decrease winter weather affects many fruit and nut trees that requires periods of cold weather during the winter to grow.

Key Message 7: Human Health 

• Heat-associated deaths and illnesses, vulnerabilities to chronic disease, and other health risks to people in the Southwest result from increases in extreme heat, poor air quality, and conditions that foster pathogen growth and spread. Improving public health systems, community infrastructure, and personal health can reduce serious health risks under future climate change.
• The risk of illness or death associated with extreme temperatures can be reduced through targeted public health and clinical interventions.
• The greatest concern for human health are ground-level ozone air pollution, dust storms, particulate air pollution, aeroallergens, and low water quality and availability.
• Alternating episodes of drought and extreme precipitation coupled with increasing temperatures promote the growth and transmission of pathogens.

Chapter 26

Key Message 1: Marine Ecosystems

• Alaska’s marine fish and wildlife habitats, species distributions, and food webs, all of which are important to Alaska’s residents, are increasingly affected by retreating and thinning arctic summer sea ice, increasing temperatures, and ocean acidification. Continued warming will accelerate related ecosystem alterations in ways that are difficult to predict, making adaptation more challenging.
• Since the early 1980s, annual average arctic sea ice extent has decreased between 3.5% and 4.1% per decade.
• Changes in ocean chemistry and increased corrosiveness are exacerbated by sea ice melt, respiration of organic matter, upwelling, and glacial runoff and riverine inputs, thus making the high-latitude North Pacific and the western Arctic Ocean particularly vulnerable to the effects of ocean acidification.
• Marine ecosystem food webs are also being affected by climate change because the increasing ocean temperatures push fish further North and changing the distributions of marine animals.

Key Message 2: Terrestrial Processes

• Alaska residents, communities, and their infrastructure continue to be affected by permafrost thaw, coastal and river erosion, increasing wildfire, and glacier melt. These changes are expected to continue into the future with increasing temperatures, which would directly impact how and where many Alaskans will live.
• Since the 1970s, Arctic and boreal regions in Alaska have experienced rapid rates of warming and thawing of permafrost, with spatial modeling projecting that near-surface permafrost will likely disappear on 16% to 24% of the landscape by the end of the 21st century.
• Rates of erosion vary throughout the state, with the highest rates measured on the Arctic coastline at more than 59 feet per year.
• The annual area burned by wildfires in Alaska varies greatly year-to-year, but the frequency of big fire years has been increasing—with three out of the top four fire years in Alaska occurring since the year 2000.
• Melting glaciers are likely to produce uncertainties for hydrologic power generation, which is an important resource in Alaska.

Key Message 3: Human Health

• A warming climate brings a wide range of human health threats to Alaskans, including increased injuries, smoke inhalation, damage to vital water and sanitation systems, decreased food and water security, and new infectious diseases. The threats are greatest for rural residents, especially those who face increased risk of storm damage and flooding, loss of vital food sources, disrupted traditional practices, or relocation. Implementing adaptation strategies would reduce the physical, social, and psychological harm likely to occur under a warming climate.
• The influence of climate change on human health in Alaska can be traced to three sources: direct exposures, indirect effects, and social or psychological disruption.
• Examples of direct exposure are extreme weather events, dangerous traveling conditions during warmer winters, and air pollution from forest fires.
• Climate change has indirect effects on human health in Alaska through changes to water, air, and soil and through ecosystem changes affecting the range and concentration of disease-spreading animals and food security,
  especially in rural communities
• Climate change is a common concern among Alaskans and is associated with feelings of depression and uncertainty about the potential changes to communities, subsistence foods, culture, and traditional knowledge and the potential of relocation from long-established traditional sites

Key Message 4: Indigenous People

• The subsistence activities, culture, health, and infrastructure of Alaska’s Indigenous peoples and communities are subject to a variety of impacts, many of which are expected to increase in the future. Flexible, community-driven adaptation strategies would lessen these impacts by ensuring that climate risks are considered in the full context of the existing sociocultural systems.
• Climate change is altering the physical setting in which subsistence activities are conducted.
  • Examples are reducing the presence of shore-fast ice used as a platform to hunt seals or butcher whales, reducing the availability of suitable ice conditions for hunting seals and walrus, and exacerbating the risks of winter travel due
    to increasing areas of thin ice and large fractures within the sea ice as well as water on rivers.
• As the environment changes, overall well-being can also suffer from the sense of dislocation and from losing the spiritual and cultural benefits of providing and sharing traditional foods, as these activities do much to tie communities together.
• Examples of Adaptation are expanding networks for sharing of foods and ideas, as has been seen in the Kuskokwim River area; applying Indigenous evidence and approaches to habitat protection; or giving communities more say in identifying priorities for action and directing available funds for community needs and action-oriented science.

Key Message 5: Economic Costs

• Climate warming is causing damage to infrastructure that will be costly to repair or replace, especially in remote Alaska. It is also reducing heating costs throughout the
  state. These effects are very likely to grow with continued warming. Timely repair and maintenance of infrastructure can reduce the damages and avoid some of these added costs.
• Threats to infrastructure in Alaska from coastal and riparian erosion caused by the combination of rising sea levels, thawing permafrost, reduced sea ice, and fall storms are well known.
• Ice road transport will become more dangerous with warmer temperatures, while marine vessel traffic will increase with more ice free periods.
• Wildfire causes a lot of damage and increase temperatures also lowers heating cost.

Key Message 6: Adaption

• Proactive adaptation in Alaska would reduce both short- and long-term costs associated with climate change, generate social and economic opportunity, and improve livelihood security. Direct engagement and partnership with communities is a vital element of adaptation in Alaska.
• Adaptation is often defined as an adjustment in human systems to a new or changing environment that exploits beneficial opportunities or moderates negative effects242 and is an iterative, ongoing process that involves assessment and redirection as needed.
• Key elements of successful adaptation in Alaska include coordinated consideration of both environmental and social conditions and careful attention to local context; there is no “one-size-fits-all” strategy.
• Creating decision support tools, establishing climate services and knowledge networks, and providing data sharing and social media are methods for adapting to the effects of climate change in Alaska.