This document discusses potential impacts of climate change in 3 sentences or less: Climate change could negatively impact human health, agriculture, forests, water resources, coastal areas, and species through increased temperatures, changes in precipitation, and rising sea levels. Key risks include increased deaths from heat waves and poor air quality, reduced crop yields, shifts in forest composition, water scarcity, erosion and flooding of coastal lands, and loss of habitats. Failure to curb climate change could trigger feedback loops that further increase temperatures through releases of carbon dioxide and methane from ecosystems.

1. Confronting climate change – considering potential impacts and feedbacks Global Roundtable on Climate Change at Columbia University 11-12 May, 2005 Jerry M. Melillo The Ecosystems Center Marine Biological Laboratory Woods Hole, MA

2. Human Health Agriculture Forests Water Resources Species and Natural Areas Temperature Precipitation Sea Level Rise Coastal Areas Energy Demands Transportation POTENTIAL IMPACTS Climate Changes

10. Hurricane categories Vulnerable coastal areas for Manhattan based on about a 6 meter high flooding zone for the year 2100- simulation of Klaus Jacob, Lamont-Doherty Potential urban impacts of coastal flooding

14. IGSM diagram Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change MIT Integrated Global System Model (IGSM) M ASSACHUSETTS I NSTITUTE OF T ECHNOLOGY Ref : R. Prinn et al ., Climatic Change , 41: 469-546, 1999 Contact rprinn @ mit . edu for citation permission

15. Ref : J. Melillo et al ., Nature 363:234-240, 1993 CH 4

17. Current 2090s w CO 2 fert. 2090s High-latitude annual carbon budget that considers both carbon dioxide and methane -200 -100 0 100 200 ( g CO 2 –eq. m -2 yr -1 )