Climate Change Impacts in Japan

The IPCC 2014 report talks about the major impacts over the globe, discussing in which locations there is physical, biological, or human/manage impacts. In Japan, they are biological impacts. The biological impacts in Japan are marine ecosystems, and are a major contribution of climate change. The confidence in attribution to climate change is medium. The key risk for medium confidence change in Asia lists; increased flooding in coastal/urban/riverine areas which can cause widespread damage to infrastructure, livestock, and settlements. The adaptation issues in Asia include economic diversification, constructing early and effective warning systems, and reduction in vulnerable or weak infrastructures, and effective land-use and planning. Climate Drivers in Asia include damaging cyclones, extreme precipitation, and an increase in sea level.

Next, we look at IPCC 2013 Climate change reports. In this report, it touched on the heating of the land vs. the sea and what global heating is doing to the amount of precipitation in East Asia as well as the wind speeds. What I found most interesting about this was that not only are the waves, hot spells, and days in heat increasing, but so is the precipitation, flooding, winds, and tropical typhoons. The precipitation is projected to increase over East Asia at most through May and July, but this article directly names Japan when talking about extreme precipitation throughout July. What I find interesting as well is that throughout East Asia, temperatures are increasing during the summer and increasing through the winter as well. It's hard for me to grasp this because I am from Colorado, where temperatures get higher every summer but colder every winter.

The take away after reading the executive summary on Asia from WGIIAR5 for me, is that everything is connected. Higher precipitation and hotter days will make it harder for rice production in Asia. Not only will food production be lowered, but freshwater is a huge concern as well. Because sea levels are rising, swamps, lakes, marshes and rivers are all at risk for being mixed with salt water, unless they are extremely far inland (In Japan though, not much is inland as it's an island). If there is a sea level rise, this also is a problem for the marine life as well. Like noted in the first paragraph, marine ecosystems are a huge biological impact in Japan. If sea levels are rising and the ocean is becoming warmer, this can erode natural reef life and cause widespread damage to coral reefs. Also, "More frequent and intense heat waves in Asia will increase mortality and morbidity in vulnerable groups. Increases in heavy rain and temperature will increase the risk of diarrheal disease, dengue fever, and malaria." (Asia, 1331 Chapter 24) This executive summary for me was a way to describe that even though at first glance, a heat wave may not seem so bad-it could cause death. Maybe not directly, but everything is connected. Heat-drought-food shortage-famine-death. It's just a really interesting concept for people that don't believe climate change is an issue.

In the same WGIIAR5, I chose to talk about the food production systems and food security. I think I chose this because of what we talked about in class. It affects many people because without food-what power do you have? One can survive without many different things but food production is something the world cannot survive without. I think this is also an important topic because like the previous paragraphs above, biological marine life is something that Japan impacts and it impacts Japan. So the thought of damaging the coral reefs and marine life decreasing, could mean a limit on Japan's food supply. I think this threat is 'most interesting' to me because I also care a lot about animals and the conservation of wildlife. Japan is an island so I know that many parts of Japan are dependent of fisheries. I learned while reading this that as the reefs around Japan erode, fishing in the marinas can contribute to a more wide range of overfishing, habitat loss, pollution, and this can also lower the population of fish that are not normally caught, creating a loss of species. I think food production is the most interesting threat because it affects people and humans around the globe just as much as it affects animals and wildlife.

http://www.unep.org/dewa/vitalwater/article176.html