An assessment of the economic impact of climate change on the tourism sector in Saint Lucia

This report provides an analysis and evaluation of the likely effects of climate change on the tourism sector in Saint Lucia. Clayton (2009) identifies three reasons why the Caribbean should be concerned about the potential effects of climate change on tourism: (a) the relatively high dependence on tourism as a source of foreign exchange and employment; (b) the intrinsic vulnerability of small islands and their infrastructure (e.g. hotels and resorts) to sea level rise and extreme climatic events (e.g. hurricanes and floods); and, (c) the high dependence of the regional tourist industry on carbon-based fuels (both to bring tourist to the region as well as to provide support services in the region). The effects of climate change are already being felt on the island. Between 1970 and 2009 there was a rise in the number of relatively hot days experienced on the island. Added to this, there was also a decline in mean precipitation over the period. In addition to temperature, there is also the threat of increased wind speeds. Since the early twentieth century, the number of hurricanes passing through the Caribbean has risen from about 5-6 per year to more than 25 in some years of the twenty-first century. In Saint Lucia, the estimated damage from 12 windstorms (including hurricanes) affecting the island was US$1 billion or about 106% of 2009 GDP. Climate change is also likely to significantly affect coral reefs. Hoegh-Guldberg (2007) estimates that should current concentrations of carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere rise from 380ppm to 560ppm, decreases in coral calcification and growth by 40% are likely. This report attempted to quantify the likely effects of the changes in the climatic factors mentioned above on the economy of Saint Lucia. As it relates to temperature and other climatic variables, a tourism climatic index that captures the elements of climate that impact on a destination’s experience was constructed. The index was calculated using historical observations, as well as those under two, likely, Special Report on Emissions Scenarios (SRES) climate scenarios: A2 and B2.

An assessment of the economic impact of climate change on the tourism sector in Aruba

In this study, an attempt is made to assess the economic impact of climate change on Aruba. This study has three main objectives. The first is to examine the factors that influence the demand and supply of tourism in Aruba. The second is to forecast the cost of climate change to the tourism sector until 2050 under the A2 and B2 climate scenarios with the Business as Usual (BAU) as a comparator climate scenario, and the third is to estimate the cost of adaptation and mitigation strategies that can be undertaken by Aruba to address climate change in the tourism sector.

An assessment of the economic impact of climate change on the tourism sector in Curacao

In this study, an attempt is made to estimate the economic impact of climate change on the tourism sector in the (former) Netherlands Antilles. There are three main objectives in this study. The first is to examine the factors that influence the demand and supply of tourism in Netherlands Antilles. The second is to forecast the cost of climate change to the tourism sector until 2050 under the A2 and B2 climate scenarios with the (Business as Usual) as a comparator climate scenario, and the third is to estimate the cost of adaptation and mitigation strategies that can be undertaken by the tourism sector in the Netherlands Antilles to address climate change.

An assessment of the economic impact of Climate Change on the Macroeconomy in the Caribbean

Between 2008 and 2011, the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) worked on a project to assess the economic impact of climate change in the Caribbean. The overall aim is to prepare the Caribbean region to better respond to climate change, while fostering a regional approach to reducing carbon emissions by 2050. This study updates the report on the impact of climate change on the macroeconomy at the regional level and will focus on 9 countries: Aruba, the Bahamas, Barbados, Curacao, the Dominican Republic, Montserrat, Jamaica, Saint Lucia and Trinidad and Tobago.

The impact of climate on Leptospirosis in Sao Paulo, Brazil

In this work, we correlate the daily number of human leptospirosis cases with several climatic factors. We used a negative binomial model that considers hospital daily admissions due to leptospirosis as the dependent variable, and the climatic variables of daily precipitation pattern, and maximum and minimum temperature as independent variables. We calculated the monthly leptospirosis admission probabilities from the precipitation and maximum temperature variables. The month of February showed the highest probability, although values were also high during the spring months. The month of February also showed the highest number of hospital admissions. Another interesting result is that, for every 20 mm precipitation, there was an average increase of 31.5% in hospital admissions. Additionally, the relative risk of leptospirosis varied from 1.1 to 2.0 when the precipitation varied from 20 to 140 mm.

The last mangroves of Marajo Island - Eastern Amazon: Impact of climate and/or relative sea-level changes

The dynamics, over the last 7500 years, of a mangrove at Marajo Island in northern Brazil were studied by pollen and sedimentary facies analyses using sediment cores. This island, located at the mouth of the Amazon River. is influenced by riverine inflow combined with tidal fluctuations of the equatorial Atlantic Ocean. Herbaceous vegetation intermingled with rainforest dominates the central area of the island, while varzea is the main vegetation type along the littoral. In particular, the modem northeastern coastal zone is covered by a mosaic of dense rainforest, herbaceous vegetation, mangroves, varzea, and restinga. The integration of pollen data and fades descriptions indicates a tidal mud flat colonized by mangroves in the interior of Marajo Island between similar to 7500 cal yr BP and similar to 3200 cal yr BP. During the late Holocene, mangroves retracted to a small area (100-700 m in width) along the northeastern coastal plain. Mangrove expansion during the early and mid Holocene was likely caused by the post-glacial sea-level rise which, combined with tectonic subsidence, led to a rise in tidal water salinity. Salinity must have further increased due to low river discharge resulting from increased aridity during the early and mid Holocene. The shrinking of the area covered by mangrove vegetation during the late Holocene was likely caused by the increase in river discharge during the late Holocene, which has maintained relatively low tidal water salinity in Marajo Island. Tidal water salinity is relatively higher in the northeastern part of the island than in others, due to the southeast-northwest trending current along the littoral. The mixing of marine and riverine freshwater inflows has provided a refuge for mangroves in this area. The increase in flow energy during the last century is related to landward sand migration, which explains the current retraction of mangroves. These changes may indicate an increased exposure to tidal influence driven by the relative sea-level rise, either associated with global fluctuations or tectonic subsidence, and/or by an increase in river water discharge. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Impact of Holocene climate changes on alpine and treeline vegetation at Sanetsch Pass, Bernese Alps, Switzerland

In order to infer reactions of treeline and alpine vegetation to climatic change, past vegetation changes are reconstructed on the basis of pollen, macrofossil and charcoal analysis. The sampled sediment cores originate from the small pond Emines, located at the Sanetsch Pass (connecting the Valais and Bern, Switzerland) at an altitude of 2288 m a.s.l. Today's treeline is at ca. 2200 m a.s.l. in the area, though due to special pass (saddle) conditions it is locally depressed to ca. 2060 m a.s.l. Our results reveal that the area around Emines was covered by treeless alpine vegetation during most of the past 12,000 years. Single individuals of Betula, Larix decidua and possibly Pinus cembra occurred during the Holocene. Major centennial to millennial-scale responses of treeline vegetation to climatic changes are evident. However, alpine vegetation composition remained rather stable between 11,500 and 6000 cal. BP, showing that Holocene climatic changes of +/− 1 °C hardly influenced the local vegetation at Emines. The rapid warming of 3–4 °C at the Late Glacial/Holocene transition (11,600 cal. BP) caused significant altitudinal displacements of alpine species that were additionally affected by the rapid upward movement of trees and shrubs. Since the beginning of the Neolithic, vegetation changes at Sanetsch Pass resulted from a combination of climate change and human impact. Anthropogenic fire increase and land-use change combined with a natural change from subcontinental to more oceanic climate during the second half of the Holocene led to the disappearance of P. cembra in the study area, but favoured the occurrence of Picea abies and Alnus viridis. The mid- to late-Holocene decline of Abies alba was primarily a consequence of human impact, since this mesic species should have benefitted from a shift to more oceanic conditions. Future alpine vegetation changes will be a function of the amplitude and rapidity of global warming as well as human land use. Our results imply that alpine vegetation at our treeline pass site was never replaced by forests since the last ice-age. This may change in the future if anticipated climate change will induce upslope migration of trees. The results of this study emphasise the necessity of climate change mitigation in order to prevent biodiversity losses as a consequence of unprecedented community and species displacement in response to climatic change.

Impact of suborbital climate changes in the North Atlantic on ice sheet dynamics at the Mid-Pleistocene Transition

[1] Early and Mid-Pleistocene climate, ocean hydrography and ice sheet dynamics have been reconstructed using a high-resolution data set (planktonic and benthicδ18O time series, faunal-based sea surface temperature (SST) reconstructions and ice-rafted debris (IRD)) record from a high-deposition-rate sedimentary succession recovered at the Gardar Drift formation in the subpolar North Atlantic (Integrated Ocean Drilling Program Leg 306, Site U1314). Our sedimentary record spans from late in Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 31 to MIS 19 (1069–779 ka). Different trends of the benthic and planktonic oxygen isotopes, SST and IRD records before and after MIS 25 (∼940 ka) evidence the large increase in Northern Hemisphere ice-volume, linked to the cyclicity change from the 41-kyr to the 100-kyr that occurred during the Mid-Pleistocene Transition (MPT). Beside longer glacial-interglacial (G-IG) variability, millennial-scale fluctuations were a pervasive feature across our study. Negative excursions in the benthicδ18O time series observed at the times of IRD events may be related to glacio-eustatic changes due to ice sheets retreats and/or to changes in deep hydrography. Time series analysis on surface water proxies (IRD, SST and planktonicδ18O) of the interval between MIS 31 to MIS 26 shows that the timing of these millennial-scale climate changes are related to half-precessional (10 kyr) components of the insolation forcing, which are interpreted as cross-equatorial heat transport toward high latitudes during both equinox insolation maxima at the equator.