Purpose and outline of the report

Impacts of climate change on ecosystem services 8

2. I

MPACTS OF CLIMATE CHANGE ON ECOSYSTEM SERVICES increase in night-time temperature results in 10percent decline in yield. Beyond a night temperature of 35° C it is impossible to grow current rice varieties there, which constitutes an adaptation limit beyond which diferent types actors farmers, traders, the economy at large can incur losses and damages due to changes in the ecosystem service Dow et al., 2013. The second example demonstrates how a society itself can choose its adaptation limits: After settling in Ecosystems are the collections of macro and microscopic biota that form critical life support systems. Globally and locally overexploitation is degrading ecosystems. The services that ecosystems provide are undervalued and under-recognized by current resource management approaches, yet are critical to human well-being WWAP, 2015; MA, 2005. Climate change has the potential to exacerbate ecosystem degradation and reduce the eiciency of ecosystem services Staudinger et al., 2012; Bangash et al., 2013; and Lorencová et al., 2013. Fisherman along the Jamuna River Brahmaputra River in Bangladesh which is affected by river bank erosion. Food from fisheries is an example of a provisioning service provided by the environment. Photo credit: Stefan Kienberger Many of the negative consequences human societies stand to experience from climate change are tied to the adaptation limits of individual species upon which we depend for food, iber, fuel and shelter, as well as the services provided by whole ecosystems. Dow and others 2013 provide examples of limits to adaptation. Temperature constraints on rice pollination and lowering in South Asia provides their irst example: After a threshold temperature of 26° C, every 1° C Greenland around 1000AD, the complex and vibrant Norse society there ended around 1450. The settlements’ collapse can be attributed to their adaptation limits. When harsh conditions began, Norse Greenlanders adopted new ways of exploiting marine mammals as declines in agriculture and domestic livestock production persisted. But faced with growing competition from Inuit hunters, declining trade in ivory and fur with Norway as pack ice blocked their access, and a generally chilling climate, Impacts of climate change on ecosystem services