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Climate Change and Agriculture

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 May 2017

Harry M. Kaiser*
Affiliation:
Department of Agricultural Economics at Cornell University
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Extract

Without a doubt, climate change will be one of the most important environmental topics of the 1990s and will be high on the research agendas of many scientific disciplines in years ahead. While not yet universally accepted, it is now widely believed that anthropogenic emissions of carbon dioxide and other “greenhouse” gases have the potential to substantially warm climates worldwide. Although there is no consensus on the timing and magnitude of global warming, current climate models predict an average increase of 2.8°C to 5.2°C in the earth's temperature over the next century (Karl, Diaz, and Barnett). Changes in regional temperature and precipitation will likely accompany the global warming, but there is even less scientific agreement on the magnitude of these changes.

Type
Invited Presentation
Copyright
Copyright © 1991 Northeastern Agricultural and Resource Economics Association 

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Footnotes

Helpful comments from Kathy Beissner, Jonell Blakeley, Duane Chapman, Tom Drennen, Tim Mount, Radha Raman, Ken Robinson, Deborah Streeter, and Dan Wilks are appreciated. A portion of this paper is based on the results of a multi-disciplinary research project being conducted at Cornell University and sponsored by the Resources and Technology Division of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. In addition to the author, Susan Riha and Dan Wilks from the Department of Soil, Crop and Atmospheric Sciences at Cornell University are participating in this project.

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