Impacts and sensitivities in agriculture

The effects of climate change on agriculture are characterised by various forms of uncertainty. First, as previously mentioned, there are uncertainties concerning the rate and magnitude of climate change itself. Second, there are uncertainties around the biological response of agricultural outputs, for example with regard to CO2 fertilization. Third, there are uncertainties as to how society responds .. or even has the capacity to respond .. to projected and expected impacts. Some aspects of climate change research are limited by fundamental, irreducible uncertainties. Some of these uncertainties can be quantified, but many simply cannot, leaving some level of irreducible ignorance in our understandings of future climate uncertainty (Dessai and Hulme, 2004).