Impact of Climate Change on Sri Lanka Essay -- Global Warming Essays

Climate change is an inevitable phenomenon that is being experienced globally in various forms such as temperature rise. Sea level rise, droughts, floods, hurricanes, landslides, etc. According to the forth assessment report of the IPCC project even with immediate implementation of mitigation strategies global climate change will continue for decades. Climate change is inflicting serious consequences on human wellbeing and will continue to inflict damages in the future. It is estimated that mean global temperature will rise by 1.8 Â ºC - 4.0 Â ºC by end of the 21st century (Izaurraade, 2009). A new global climate model predicts that in the coming decade the surface air temperature is likely to exceed existing records (Smith et al., 2007). Growing season temperatures in the tropics and subtropics by end of the 21st century will exceed the most extreme temperature recorded in the history (Battistic and Rosamond, 2009). Agriculture is considered to be one of the most vulnerable sectors to climate change. Although at present, the overall impact of climate change on global scale agricultural productivity is not reliably estimated (Gornall et al., 2010). Many studies show serious implications on agricultural productivity for instance IFPRI(2009) projects that in South Asia by 2050 climate change will reduce production of rice, wheat and maize by 14%, 44% to 49% and 9%-19% respectively relative to no climate change situation. Historical temperature yield relationship indicates that at the global scale warming from 1981-2002 very likely offset some of the yield gains from technology advances, rising CO2 and other non climatic factors (Lobell and Field, 2007). Developing countries are said to be more vulnerable than developed countri... ...local agriculture and food security, this paper attempts to give an overview of observed and projected climate change in Sri Lanka, its impact on the agriculture sector and climate change adaptation strategies through reviewing recent literature on climate change. To develop appropriate strategies and institutional responses to climate change targeting smallholder farmers it is necessary to have a good understanding about the local farming environment in terms of farmer perception about climate change, key issues faced by farmers in overcoming climate adversities, local knowledge and strengths on climate change adaptation. There is a dearth of such research studies undertaken in Sri Lanka therefore; this paper presents a case study undertaken on a farming community in the intermediate zone to demonstrate how farmers perceive and respond to climate adversities.