Climate change and Nutrition

Climate Change and Nutrition

Introduction

“Climate change” is closely related to “global warming” but can be thought of as a more complex set of phenomena, many of which are directly dependent on global warming. Discussed elsewhere in this volume, global warming is a phenomenon that results from radiative forcing as a result of various gaseous and particulate substances in Earth's atmosphere. The increase in Earth's mean surface temperature is caused by warming of land, ocean, and/or atmosphere as a result of the amount of the sun's radiant energy that is not reradiated into space but absorbed by the Earth and it components.

Usually, the concept of food security includes both physical and economic access to food that meets people's dietary needs and preferences. Cities employ various strategies to ensure that their populations are food secure, including supporting urban agriculture, food banks and other charities that feed people and the elimination of food deserts by supporting food retailers in communities that lack sources of healthy food. In 1986, the World Bank Report on Poverty and Hunger brought attention to the temporal dynamics of food insecurity and introduced distinction between chronic food insecurity and transitory food insecurity. (Watson, 1996, 195)

Discussion and Analysis

Climate change” is closely related to “global warming” but can be thought of as a more complex set of phenomena, many of which are directly dependent on global warming. Discussed elsewhere in this volume, global warming is a phenomenon that results from radiative forcing as a result of various gaseous and particulate substances in Earth's atmosphere. The increase in Earth's mean surface temperature is caused by warming of land, ocean, and/or atmosphere as a result of the amount of the sun's radiant energy that is not reradiated into space but absorbed by the Earth and it components.

Sources of this global warming are natural or anthropogenic. Absent human influence, naturally occurring GHGs (including carbon dioxide) and water vapour (in the form of clouds) provide a relatively stable radiative forcing that maintains the global mean surface temperature at a level conducive to human and other biological life. Abrupt warming may result from variations in solar radiation patterns. Abrupt cooling may result from the reflection back into space of greater amounts of solar radiation by dust resulting from volcanic activity.

A change in global mean surface temperature from global warming results in a variety of physical and chemical changes to Earth systems that often manifest themselves in weather events (such as hurricanes or thunderstorms). The long-term (regional) “average” of these weather events determines what we term our climate and defines the weather we expect at any particular time of year at any place on the globe. The change in well-established climate patterns is recognized as climate change.

Climate change has an effect on agriculture, on food production, and as a result, on food security. There is a direct effect on food production resulting from changes in temperatures, precipitations, land suitability, crop yields, and agroecological conditions, and the indirect impact comes from the effect on growth and distribution ...