摘要：Atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases (GHGs), prominently carbon dioxide (CO2), methane
(CH4), nitrous
oxide (N2O), and halocarbons, have risen from fossil-fuel combustion, deforestation, agriculture, and
industry. There is currently heated national and international debate about the
consequences of such increasing concentrations of GHGs on the Earth's climate, and,
ultimately, on life and society in the world as we know it. This paper reviews (i) long-term
patterns of climate change, secular climatic variability, and predicted population growth
and their relation to water resources management, and, specifically, to ground water
resources management, (ii) means available for mitigating and adapting to trends of
climatic change and climatic variability and their impacts on ground water resources.
Long-term (that is, over hundreds of millions of years), global-scale, climatic
fluctuations are compared with more recent (in the Holocene) patterns of the
global and regional climates to shed light on the meaning of rising mean surface
temperature over the last century or so, especially in regions whose historical
hydroclimatic records exhibit large inter-annual variability. One example of regional
ground water resources response to global warming and population growth is
presented.
