Climate Change and New Mexico's Ecosystems What does climate change mean for New Mexico? In 2005, an interagency task force comprised of personnel from the New Mexico Departments of Agriculture, Environment, Transportation, Health, Game and Fish and others developed a report titled Potential Effects of Climate Change in New Mexico. This report along with other information, plans and strategies on climate change in New Mexico, can be found at http://www.nmenv.state.nm. us/cc/ Below is text excerpted from the report discussing the impacts to natural systems. Impacts to agricultural systems will be similar in many ways. Human health will be affected, as will the economy. "Climate change is likely to have significant impacts on the ecosystems of New Mexico’s forests, grasslands, deserts, lakes and streams. Predicting the specific impacts is difficult because of the complexity of natural systems, with each species responding in its own way to the physical environment and with multiple interactions among species ... Changes in ecosystem structure and functioning will often be abrupt rather than continuous and gradual. Aquatic systems are particularly vulnerable to climate change because they will be impacted not only by warmer temperatures but also by changes in the timing and amount of water... Riparian ecosystems are expected to experience losses and decline, with a reduction in species diversity. Change in terrestrial ecosystems will include shifts in the timing of .. events such as breeding of birds, insects or amphibians, and flowering of plants... Some species trapped on isolated mountain ranges could become locally extinct if the mountain is not high enough to provide suitable alternative habitat and the species cannot disperse ... Forests are likely to experience more catastrophic wildfires, and more massive dieback due to drought stress and insect outbreaks. Alpine meadows may largely disappear from New Mexico." More resources and reading on climate change: Forest Service Climate Change Resource Center USGS National Climate Change and Wildlife Science Center CLIMAS (Climate Assessment for the Southwest) Tribes, Climate Change and Solutions New Mexico Climate Change Adaptation Project (The Nature Conservancy of New Mexico) An Overview of Potential Economic Costs to New Mexico of a Business-As-Usual Approach to Climate Change Climate Leadership Initiative, University of Oregon, Program on Climate Economics - click on the link "Potential Economic Costs to New Mexico of a Business-As-Usual Approach to Climate Change (2009). |
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