Page 66 - Ecuador's Banana Sector under Climate Change

ecuador’s banana sector under climate change: an economic and biophysical assessment to promote a sustainable and climate-compatible strategy
1. Climate change and global trends
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released its Fifth Assessment Report in 2014 and provides an updated evaluation of climate change trends (IPCC, 2014a; IPCC, 2014b). The IPCC forecasts an increase of 3.4oC in the average global temperature for the period 2080-2099, relative to 1980-1999, if mitigation efforts against global warming remain the same as today. With more concerted efforts, the increase could be 2.4oC.16 Forecasting becomes less precise within smaller areas, although temperatures become less the nearer the Equator and more the closer to the North and South Poles.17 The interiors of the world’s continents, which are the most distant regions from the moderating influence of the oceans, tend to have the highest temperatures. The surface of the ocean warms less than does land surface. Finally, the increase in temperature at higher altitudes is greater. While this does not have a direct effect on the banana, the seasonal discharge of water from small glaciers and snow fields to river basins could alter and challenge existing water management systems in banana growing areas.
2. Climate change in the Amazon region
2.1 Temperature
Ecuador belongs to a region of the Amazon which comprises South America, north at 20o South.18 The average predicted increase for this region of the Amazon for 2080-2099 (relative to 1980-99 temperatures) is 3.3oC (see Figure 13, wherein the bar in the middle represents the mean forecast). Half of the climate models included in the IPCC assessment predict increases within the ranges of 2.6oC and 3.7oC, indicated by the shaded box in Figure1. The lowest and highest forecasts are 1.8oC and 5.1oC, respectively, represented by the lines extending below and above the box.
IPCC considers that the chance of a change in the projected temperature
at the end of the twenty-first century will be at least 66 percent correct. Future temperatures will depend, in part, on global mitigation efforts and known or unknown physical factors. In the short term, the temperature relating to the next two decades is likely to increase by at least 0.2oC each decade.
2.2. Tropical cyclones
Tropical cyclones are a hazard to the production of bananas. Ecuador is free of tropical cyclones, as is the west coast of South America - an advantage
16 The forecast ranges are: 2.0oC to 5.4oC and 1.4oC to 3.8oC.
17 The Equator experiences minimum seasonality: the amount of daylight (from sunrise to sunset) in Guayaquil (2oC 11’S) ranges from 12:00 hours on 20 June to 12:14 hours on 21 December, a difference of 14 minutes. Above the Arctic Circle (66oC 34’N) the annual variation in daylight is 24 hours, from 0 minutes in the middle of the winter to 24 hours in the middle of the summer
18 The 200S latitude crosses approximately 200 km south of the border between Chile and Peru and includes most of Bolivia and Brazil, north of Belo Horizonte
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