ALBERT

Description: It is firmly established in the hydrologic literature that flooding depends on both antecedent watershed wetness and precipitation. One could phrase this relationship as “heavy precipitation does not necessarily lead to high stream discharge”, but rarely do studies directly affirm this statement. We have observed several non-hydrologists mistake trends in heavy precipitation as a proxy for trends in riverine flooding. If the relationship between heavy precipitation and high discharge was more often explicitly presented, heavy precipitation may less often be misinterpreted as a proxy for discharge. In this paper, we undertake such an analysis for 390 watersheds across the contiguous U.S. We found that 99th percentile precipitation only results in 99th percentage discharge 36 % of the time. However, when conditioned on soil moisture from the Variable Infiltration Capacity model, 62 % of 99th percentile precipitation results in 99th percentile discharge during wet periods and only 13 % during dry periods. When relating trends in heavy precipitation to hydrologic response, precipitation data should, therefore, be segregated based on concurrent soil moisture. Taking this approach for climate predictions, we found that CMIP-5 atmosphere–ocean global circulation model (AOGCM) simulations for a RCP 6.0 forcing project increases in concurrence of greater than median soil wetness and extreme precipitation in the northern United States and a decrease in the south, suggesting northern regions could see an increase in very high discharges while southern regions could see decreases despite both regions having an increase in extreme precipitation. While the actual outcome is speculative given the uncertainties of the AOGCM’s, such an analysis provides a more sophisticated framework from which to evaluate the output as well as historic climate data.

Description: Probabilistic event attribution (PEA) is an important tool for assessing the contribution of climate change to extreme weather events. Here, PEA is applied to explore the climate attribution of recent extreme heat events in California’s Central Valley. Heat waves have become progressively more severe due to increasing relative humidity and nighttime temperatures, which increases the health risks of exposed communities, especially Latino farmworkers and other socioeconomically disadvantaged communities. Using a superensemble of simulations with the Hadley Centre Regional Model (HadRM3P), we find that (1) simulations of the hottest summer days during the 2000s were twice as likely to occur using observed levels of greenhouse gases than in a counterfactual world without major human activities, suggesting a strong relationship between heat extremes and the increase in human emissions of greenhouse gases, (2) detrimental impacts of heat on public health-relevant variables, such as the number of days above 40 °C, can be quantified and attributed to human activities using PEA, and (3) PEA can serve as a tool for addressing climate justice concerns of populations within developed nations who are disproportionately exposed to climate risks.

Description: Extreme weather events are a significant cause of loss of life and livelihoods, particularly in vulnerable countries and communities in Africa. Such events or their probability of occurring may be, or are, changing due to climate change with consequent changes in the associated risks. To adapt to, or to address loss and damage from, this changing risk we need to understand the effects of climate change on extreme weather events and their impacts. The emerging science of probabilistic event attribution can provide scientific evidence about the contribution of anthropogenic climate change to changes in risk of extreme events. This research has the potential to be useful for climate change adaptation, but there is a need to explore its application in vulnerable developing countries, particularly those in Africa, since the majority of existing event attribution studies have focused on mid-latitude events. Here we explain the methods of, and implications of, different approaches to attributing extreme weather events in an African context. The analysis demonstrates that different ways of framing attribution questions can lead to very different assessments of change in risk. Crucially, defining the most appropriate attribution question to ask is not a science decision but one that needs to be made in dialogue with those stakeholders who will use the answers. This is true of all attribution studies but may be particularly relevant in a tropical context, suggesting that collaboration between scientists and policy-makers is a priority for Africa.

Description: We develop a methodology with which to assess the effects of policy instruments on the long-term abatement and costs of carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies for coal power plants. Using an expert elicitation, historical data on the determinants of technological change in energy, values from the engineering literature, and demand estimates from an integrated assessment model, we simulate ranges of outcomes between 2025 and 2095. We introduce probability distributions of all important parameters and propagate them through the model to generate probability distributions of electricity costs, abatement costs, and CO 2 avoided over time. Carbon pricing has larger effects than R&D and subsidies. But much of the range of outcomes is driven by uncertainty in other parameters, such as capital costs and returns to scale. Availability of other low carbon technologies, particularly bioenergy with CCS affects outcomes. Subsidies have the biggest impacts when they coincide with expanding manufacturing scale of CCS components. Our results point to 4 parameters for which better information is needed for future work informing technology policy to address climate change: capital costs, demonstration plants, growth constraints, and knowledge spillovers among technologies.

Description: Future bitumen production in the Athabasca Oil Sands, one of the largest remaining reserves of petroleum on the planet, is a key factor in global climate policy and politics. Climate warming in the Athabasca River Basin (ARB) has the potential to limit future streamflow availability for aquatic ecosystem needs, as well as for water withdrawals in oil sands mining operations. This study applies the land surface model IBIS and the hydrological routing algorithm THMB, with forced output from CMIP5 global climate models, to examine the response of streamflow in the ARB to climate change this century. In comparison to the small impact of water withdrawals on streamflow, climate change impacts are projected to be the primary driver of future low flow occurrences. Although winter flows are most sensitive to water withdrawals under the historical hydroclimatological regime, future climate change is projected to increase winter flows and decrease summer flows instead, with the frequency of summer low flows projected to rise by up to 85 % in the highest future emissions scenario by the end of the century. A decline in water availability due to more frequent low flows could interrupt oil sands water withdrawals and subsequent daily bitumen production for an additional 2–3 months each year by mid-century. Adaptation to climate warming in the ARB will need to recognize these changing seasonal patterns of flow in order to maintain available flows for ecological needs and water withdrawals.

Description: Recent trends in the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events have raised the concern that climate change could increase flooding risks and property damage. However, a major challenge in attributing and projecting changes in disaster risk is that damage is influenced not only by the physical climate hazard, but also by non-climatic factors that shape exposure and vulnerability. Recent assessments of integrated disaster risk have been hampered by the paucity of literature analyzing local-scale interactions between hazard, exposure and vulnerability in the historical record. Here we develop an integrated empirical analysis of historical flood damage that emphasizes spatial and temporal heterogeneity in flood hazard, economic exposure and social vulnerability. Using the Midwestern United States as a testbed, we show that annual property damage from flooding is projected to increase by 13 to 17.4 % over the next two decades. At the state level, over half of the increase is driven by projected growth in housing units. However, at the county level, the dominant factor causing future damage varies, emphasizing the value of a fully integrated, spatially and temporally resolved approach to assessing flooding risk and control strategies.

Description: Religious beliefs, an important element of culture, influence adaptation to climate change. Less understood is how changing beliefs shape the adaptive capacity of communities responding to climate change. In the last century sub-Saharan Africa has experienced a transformation in beliefs. Since 1900 Christians have increased 70-fold while in rural areas Traditional Beliefs and associated Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) continue to influence the lived practices of vulnerable rural communities. Using two case studies of rural communities in Malawi (Bolero) and Zambia (Monze) we explore how Christianity and Traditional beliefs (and associated TEK) co-exist and assess if, and how, holding multiple belief systems affects climate-sensitive livelihood practices of food production. In Bolero we observed a lack of tensions between belief systems with Traditional leaders and elders noting the flexibility of adhering to both belief systems. In Monze however, basing livelihood decisions on the practice of rain-rituals resulted in strong tensions. In both communities elders noted their concern of how changing beliefs affect adherence to TEK management practices. We find that culture and beliefs play an important role in adaptive capacity but are not static. In the context of changing beliefs, adaptive capacity will be influenced by how different belief systems co-exist and how epistemological and intergenerational frictions are negotiated. As climate services become the focus of research and government interventions in vulnerable regions, avoiding culturally and economically expensive mal-adaptation will require giving attention to the complexity and dynamism of changing religious landscapes.

Description: Climate-related extreme weather events can result in the loss of drinking water access. We assessed the relative vulnerability of 3143 United States (U.S.) counties to loss of drinking water access due to droughts, floods, and cyclones. Five vulnerability assessment models from the literature were compared, each differing in the aggregation method used to combine the three determinants of vulnerability (V) – exposure (E), sensitivity (S), and adaptive capacity (AC). Exposure scores were calculated using historical occurrence data, sensitivity scores were determined from the intrinsic resilience of the drinking water technologies, and adaptive capacity scores were calculated from nine socioeconomic indicators. Our results showed that models V  =  E  +  S  +  AC and V  =  E  +  S – AC were the same, as were models V  =  E  ×  S  ×  AC and V  =  E  ×  S  ÷  AC . Between these two model forms (form 1: V  =  E  +  S  +  AC and V  =  E  +  S – AC ; form 2: V  =  E  ×  S  ×  AC and V  =  E  ×  S  ÷  AC ), scores from one model form could be used to predict scores from the second model form, with R-squared values ranging from 0.61 to 0.82 depending on the extreme weather event type. A fifth model, V  = ( E – AC ) ×  S was not found to correlate with any of the other four models. We used V  =  E  +  S  +  AC as our reference model as this resulted in a more uniform distribution of counties in each of the five intervals of vulnerability. Comparing the vulnerability scores identified the counties with greatest vulnerability to losing access to drinking water due to floods, droughts, and cyclones. Our results can be used to inform evidence-based decisions such as allocation of resources and implementation of adaptation strategies.

Description: Implementing an effective climate policy is one of the main challenges for the future. Curbing greenhouse gas emissions can prevent future irreversible impacts of climate change. Climate policy is therefore crucial for present and future generations. Nonetheless, one may wonder whether future economic and social development could be harmed by climate policy. This paper addresses this question by examining recent developments in international climate policy and considering different levels of cooperation that may arise in light of the outcomes of the Conference of the Parties held in Doha. The paper analyses how various climate policy scenarios would enhance sustainability and whether there is a trade-off between climate policy and economic development and social cohesion. This is done by using a new comprehensive indicator, the FEEM Sustainability Index (FEEM SI), which aggregates several economic, social, and environmental indicators. The FEEM SI is built into a recursive-dynamic computable general equilibrium model of the world economy, thus offering the possibility of projecting all indicators into the future and of delivering a perspective assessment of sustainability under different future climate policy scenarios. We find that the environmental component of sustainability improves at the regional and world level thanks to the implementation of climate policies. Overall sustainability increases in all scenarios since the economic and social components are affected negatively yet marginally. This analysis does not include explicitly climate change damages and this may lead to underestimating the benefits of policy actions. If the USA, Canada, Japan and Russia did not contribute to mitigating emissions, sustainability in these countries would decrease and the overall effectiveness of climate policy in enhancing global sustainability would be offset.

Description: This study provides the first attempt in quantifying the uncertainties in future urban climate projections due to regional climate models and metropolitan-scale urban planning scenarios. Targeted for the 2050s Augusts in Tokyo, Japan, dynamical downscaling simulations are conducted using two regional climate models, the WRF and NHRCM models, both downscaled from the global climate model MIROC5 under the RCP4.5 scenario. Both regional climate models are coupled with appropriate urban canopy models to accurately evaluate the urban climate. The projected 10-year mean temperature increases for the 2050s Augusts in the central Tokyo are roughly 2.4 °C and 2.2 °C, for the WRF and NHRCM models, respectively, with a roughly 0.2 °C difference between the two. Urban scenario experiments with the WRF model indicate that the compact city urban scenario can reduce the August mean temperature of surrounding residential areas by 0.4 °C, while the dispersed city scenario can increase the temperature by 0.1 °C. On the other hand, impact of urban scenarios on the temperature increase in central Tokyo is comparative or less than the surrounding areas. The impacts of urban scenario and regional climate model differences are larger in nighttime than in daytime, but are at most 0.6 °C. The results indicate that the uncertainties with the regional climate models and urban scenario are significantly less than those in emission scenarios or global climate model projections.

Description: While the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is continuously improving its communication, visualisation has taken a back seat to more pressing issues. The consequence is a set of IPCC imagery where our understanding of perception remains empirically unchallenged. The visual design (defined in this study as the method, technique, and style used to create a visual) directly affects perception and yet, we know very little about how people intuitively respond to visuals depicting climate science. This study examines the perception of four images from the IPCC summary report for policymakers and two open sourced infographics. Using a group-administered study we found the visual design to have a significant impact on a novice readers ability to associate relevant words with an image. While the visuals part of the summary for policymakers educed a sense of confidence, a well-designed infographic left readers feeling less confident. The veneer of legitimacy associated with IPCC visuals is because they look scientific, whereas infographic images were found to look less serious. We acknowledge the accessibility of an infographic but urge IPCC authors to use it with caution, as any negative impact on scientific credibility is an unwanted feature in IPCC communication.

Description: Freshwater ecosystems in many parts of the world have been severely affected by past management practices that have altered the volume, timing and quality of water flows and caused a decline in their ecological health. Some of these systems are also experiencing the negative impacts of climate change. Adaptation to climate change and the continual need to address existing ecological damage poses ongoing challenges for freshwater managers. In this paper we propose and discuss a Catchment Assessment Framework (CAF) that is used to evaluate existing and potential freshwater management actions, such as riparian revegetation and habitat connectivity, for their adaptation potential. The CAF was developed as a tool for prioritizing low risk climate change adaptation options in Australian catchment management. The CAF enables catchment managers and technical experts to assess management actions against seven inter-related criteria to provide a holistic assessment: relevance to the catchment; climate change adaptation potential, including potential for maladaptation and benefit under different climate scenarios; ecosystem service benefits; compatibility with other actions; implementation constraints; socio-economic consequences; and a risk assessment. It was developed and applied by assessing nine management options with stakeholders in three catchments within the Murray-Darling Basin in south-eastern Australia. We found that while management options are undertaken as a response to existing degradation, they can be used as building blocks for a climate change adaptation strategy that considers a range of different but complementary measures to better manage climate-related risk. The CAF enables practitioners to assess the advantages of a range of adaptation options and to subject them to their wider decision making and management planning.

Description: This paper compares projections over the twenty-first century of SO 2 , BC, and OC emissions from three technologically detailed, long-term integrated assessment models. The character of the projections and the response of emissions due to a comprehensive climate policy are discussed focusing on the sectoral level. In a continuation of historical experience, aerosol and precursor emissions are increasingly decoupled from carbon dioxide emissions over the twenty-first century due to a combination of emission controls and technology shifts over time. Implementation of a comprehensive climate policy further reduces emissions, although there is significant variation in this response by sector and by model: the response has many similarities between models for the energy transformation and transportation sectors, with more diversity in the response for the building and industrial sectors. Much of these differences can be traced to specific characteristics of reference case end-use and supply-side technology deployment and emissions control assumptions, which are detailed by sector.

Description: Household flood management measures can significantly reduce the risk from flooding. Understanding the factors that influence the uptake of measures has important implications for the design of measures to induce people to take charge of risk mitigation. We investigate the impact of flood action groups in communities in Scotland on the uptake of four measures: insurance, flood warnings, sandbags and floodgates applying regression analysis using a cross-sectional survey ( n  = 124). The groups were formed in response to the threat from flooding in those communities, and offer information and training on household flood management measures. We use the theoretical framework of Protection Motivation Theory, and compare uptake of the measures before and after the foundation of the flood action groups, as well as in the near future. The models show positive adoption effects for flood warnings, floodgates and to an extent for insurance, and a positive correlation with increased confidence of implementing and belief in the effectiveness of the measures. The effect is significant if specific information on the measures was provided, indicating the importance of tailored content. We conclude that appropriately designed flood action groups can be a cost-effective way of increasing the uptake of household flood management measures.

Description: Research reveals that liberals and conservatives in the United States diverge about their beliefs regarding climate change. We show empirically that political affiliation also matters with respect to climate related risks such as flooding from hurricanes. Our study is based on a survey conducted 6 months after Superstorm Sandy in 2012 of over 1,000 residents in flood-prone areas in New York City. Democrats’ perception of their probability of suffering flood damage is significantly higher than Republicans’ and they are also more likely to invest in individual flood protection measures. However, 50% more Democrats than Republicans in our sample expect to receive federal disaster relief after a major flood. These results highlight the importance of taking into account value-based considerations in designing disaster risk management policies.

Description: A 2030 climate and energy policy framework was endorsed by the European Council in 2014. The main elements are a binding 40 % greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction target compared to 1990, a renewable energy share of 27 %, and an energy savings target of at least 27 % by 2030. In this paper, we assess the impact of these targets on the European land use, land use change, and forestry (LULUCF) sector using a Europe focused global land use model linked with a detailed forest management model. We show that implementing a 40 % GHG emission reduction target by 2030 may only have a small negative impact on the domestic LULUCF sink if the additional biomass demand for energy is mostly met through ligno-cellulosic energy crops rather than forest removals. However, if the increased biomass demand were met through higher rates of forest harvest removals, a more negative impact on the LULUCF sink could be expected.

Description: Transboundary river basins face significant threats from climate change, with the need for adaptation widely noted. In this paper we develop a theoretically-rooted indicator-based evaluation framework to identify transboundary river basins where the need for adaptation support is pronounced and prioritize where attention is best placed. The framework combines indicators which capture the broad level potential to adapt (adaptive capacity) and the actual preparedness for adaptation (adaptation readiness) at the level of transboundary institutions. Adaptive capacity and adaptation readiness have not previously been evaluated and compared within a single framework, and by combining them we gain a more comprehensive and nuanced basis for characterising and evaluating the adaptation landscape and diagnosing opportunities and constraints for adaptation. We apply the framework to 42 transboundary basins in Mediterranean Europe, the Middle East, North Africa and sub-Saharan Africa, which account for 15 % of global transboundary river basins, are home to over 550 million people, and cover 8 % of Earth’s total land area. We find: 1) There is widespread need for improving national and transboundary institutional support for adaptation spanning basins of various economic, physical, and demographic characteristics; 2) Many transboundary basins in Africa have low adaptive capacity, but were found to have high readiness to begin adapting if resources were available; and 3) Improved coverage of River Basin Organisations and treaties with mandates to recognise and respond actively to climate change would underpin adaptation efforts across basins.

Description: By 15 December 2015, 187 countries had submitted their Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) summarising their climate actions after 2020 in the context of the Paris Agreement. We used a unified framework to assess the mitigation components of INDCs covering 105 countries (representing approximately 91 % of global greenhouse gas emissions in 2012) with a special focus on the G20 economies. We estimated the required reduction effort by comparing the greenhouse gas emission targets implied by the INDCs with the projected levels resulting from current mitigation policies. The resulting projected global reduction effort amounts to approximately 4–6 GtCO 2 eq by 2030, of which the G20 economies are responsible for the largest share, in particular Brazil, China, the EU, and the United States. Despite these reductions, the global and G20 emission level is still projected to be higher in 2030 than it was in 2010. We compared the ambition levels of individual INDCs by analysing various indicators. Our analysis shows, for instance, that INDCs imply that greenhouse gas emissions of Brazil, Indonesia, Mexico, and South Korea peak before 2025, and of China, India and South Africa by 2030 or later.

Description: Large-scale data from digital infrastructure, like mobile phone networks, provides rich information on the behavior of millions of people in areas affected by climate stress. Using anonymized data on mobility and calling behavior from 5.1 million Grameenphone users in Barisal Division and Chittagong District, Bangladesh, we investigate the effect of Cyclone Mahasen, which struck Barisal and Chittagong in May 2013. We characterize spatiotemporal patterns and anomalies in calling frequency, mobile recharges, and population movements before, during and after the cyclone. While it was originally anticipated that the analysis might detect mass evacuations and displacement from coastal areas in the weeks following the storm, no evidence was found to suggest any permanent changes in population distributions. We detect anomalous patterns of mobility both around the time of early warning messages and the storm’s landfall, showing where and when mobility occurred as well as its characteristics. We find that anomalous patterns of mobility and calling frequency correlate with rainfall intensity ( r  = .75, p  〈 0.05) and use calling frequency to construct a spatiotemporal distribution of cyclone impact as the storm moves across the affected region. Likewise, from mobile recharge purchases we show the spatiotemporal patterns in people’s preparation for the storm in vulnerable areas. In addition to demonstrating how anomaly detection can be useful for modeling human adaptation to climate extremes, we also identify several promising avenues for future improvement of disaster planning and response activities.

Description: This paper analyses the response of alcohol thermometers in relation to the departure from linearity and the choice of the calibration points. The result is that alcohol thermometers are affected by large departures that reach a maximum (i.e. −6 °C) at 50 °C ambient temperature. This may have caused a severe bias in early records, when alcohol thermometers were popular, especially during the Little Ice Age. Choosing a lower temperature for the upper point, calibration may substantially reduce this bias. Examples are given with thermometers in use in the 17th and 18th centuries. A careful correction of long series is necessary to avoid misleading climate interpretations.

Description: Drinking water in much of Asia, particularly in coastal and rural settings, is provided by a variety of sources, which are widely distributed and frequently managed at an individual or local community level. Coastal and near-inland drinking water sources in South and South East (SSE) Asia are vulnerable to contamination by seawater, most dramatically from tropical cyclone induced storm surges. This paper assesses spatial vulnerabilities to salinisation of drinking water sources due to meteorological variability and climate change along the (ca. 6000 km) coastline of SSE Asia. The risks of increasing climatic stresses are first considered, and then maps of relative vulnerability along the entire coastline are developed, using data from global scale land surface models, along with an overall vulnerability index. The results show that surface and near-surface drinking water in the coastal areas of the mega-deltas in Vietnam and Bangladesh-India are most vulnerable, putting more than 25 million people at risk of drinking ‘saline’ water. Climate change is likely to exacerbate this problem, with adverse consequences for health, such as prevalence of hypertension and cardiovascular diseases. There is a need for identifying locations that are most at risk of salinisation in order for policy makers and local officials to implement strategies for reducing these health impacts. To counter the risks associated with these vulnerabilities, possible adaptation measures are also outlined. We conclude that detailed and fine scale vulnerability assessments may become crucial for planning targeted adaptation programmes along these coasts.

Description: Changes in the seasonal timing of recurring biological events are considered to be a major component of the global “fingerprint” of climate change. One effect of these changes is that ecologically important seasonal species interactions could become desynchronised as a result of these shifts (i.e. phenological mismatching), leading to reductions in fitness for some or all of the organisms concerned. One important, but unresolved, issue is the extent to which variations in voltinism (the number of generations a population of a species produces per year) may serve to exacerbate, or confer resilience to, the effects of seasonal shifts. Univoltine organisms (those with one generation per year) will always suffer the deleterious consequences of phenological mismatch, whereas multivoltine species are likely to experience at least some relief from these negative effects in generations that occur later in the season. Conversely, univoltine species will experience continual selection to adapt to changing seasonality, whereas multivoltine species will experience reduced or no selection during those generations that occur later in the season. Here, we present a new theoretical model to explore the population consequences of scenarios of changing seasonality and varying voltinism in clonal species. We find that organisms that undergo multiple generations per year show greater resilience to phenological mismatching in the spring and adapt better to changing seasonality, because of the recovery of population size and genetic diversity after each spring mismatching event. These results have clear implications for management and conservation of populations that are threatened by the effects of mismatch.

Description: This paper examines the dynamics of energy investments and clean energy Research and Development (R&D) using a scenario-based modeling approach. Starting from the global scenarios proposed in the RoSE model ensemble experiment, we analyze the dynamics of investments under different assumptions regarding economic and population growth as well as availability of fossil fuel resources, in the absence of a climate policy. Our analysis indicates that economic growth and the speed of income convergence across countries matters for improvements in energy efficiency, both via dedicated R&D investments but mostly through capital-energy substitution. In contrast, fossil fuel prices, by changing the relative competitiveness of energy sources, create an economic opportunity for radical innovation in the energy sector. Indeed, our results suggest that fossil fuel availability is the key driver of investments in low carbon energy innovation. However, this innovation, by itself, is not sufficient to induce emission reductions compatible with climate stabilization objectives.

Description: A recent Climatic Change paper suggests a relationship between climatic change in the 7th century BCE and the fall of the Assyrian Empire. However, available archaeological and textual evidence does not support the hypothesis that Assyria was overpopulated during this time and for that reason susceptible to outbreaks of drought. Besides long-term climatic variation, inter-annual variability in crops has always been very high in the dry farming areas of Upper Mesopotamia. To cope with this uncertainty, the local population developed several strategies (e.g. storage of agricultural surpluses in granaries and artificial irrigation in river valleys). Finally, slave prices, known to have declined during times of famine, were relatively stable during the entire century suggesting absence of prolonged periods of food shortage.

Description: Floods are caused by a number of interacting factors, making it remarkably difficult to explain changes in flood hazard. This paper reviews the current understanding of historical trends and variability in flood hazard across Australia. Links between flood and rainfall trends cannot be made due to the influence of climate processes over a number of spatial and temporal scales as well as landscape changes that affect the catchment response. There are also still considerable uncertainties in future rainfall projections, particularly for sub-daily extreme rainfall events. This is in addition to the inherent uncertainty in hydrological modelling such as antecedent conditions and feedback mechanisms. Research questions are posed based on the current state of knowledge. These include a need for high-resolution climate modelling studies and efforts in compiling and analysing databases of sub-daily rainfall and flood records. Finally there is a need to develop modelling frameworks that can deal with the interaction between climate processes at different spatio-temporal scales, so that historical flood trends can be better explained and future flood behaviour understood.

Description: This paper analyzes public discourse on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) as it is portrayed in the media and examines how this influences effective and equitable outcomes of REDD+ in Nepal. It draws on analysis of articles in three national newspapers and interviews with radio and newspaper journalists, governmental and non-governmental stakeholders, and technical experts. Findings show that REDD+ coverage has been limited in the Nepalese print media and overall reporting on REDD+ has declined over time. The discourse is currently dominated by a small number of experts and development project implementers who portray REDD+ optimistically as an opportunity to benefit from carbon markets, while contributing to sustainable forest management. There was limited representation of the interests and concerns of marginalized groups and local communities in the public debate, thus underplaying the complexities and challenges of REDD+ development and implementation in Nepal. While the absence of debate on potential negative impacts can be explained partly by the dominance of optimistic voices in the media, it was also attributed to journalists’ limited access to independent knowledge and understanding of the issue. The resulting lack of balanced information in the public domain could undermine both the effectiveness of REDD+ implementation and its equitable outcome.

Description: Traditional definitions of seasonality are insufficient to reflect changes associated with a swiftly changing climate. Regional changes in season onset and length using surface based metrics are well documented, but hemispheric assessments using tropospheric metrics has received little attention. The long-term average of six-hourly analyses of temperature on isobaric surfaces, provided by the Twentieth Century Reanalysis Project, is separated here into quartiles to determine climatologic seasonal end dates. Annual season end dates are defined as the date when the 5-day moving average rose above (winter and spring) or fell below (summer and fall) the long term mean. Climatic season end dates fall between meteorological and astronomical season end dates. The length of summer has increased by an average of 13 days and the length of winter has decreased by an average of 20 days, which are more substantial seasonal changes than previous studies. These changes in season length have occurred largely within the past 36 years, corresponding to most aggressive anthropogenic climate change. Results show that the planetary boundary layer is warming at nearly twice the rate of the free troposphere. The spatial distribution of warming suggests that topographically induced weather systems are collocated with maxima or minima in free tropospheric and boundary layer temperature slope. Furthermore, regions of greatest ensemble spread are not collocated with relative maxima or minima in free troposphere or boundary layer temperature slope. This improved assessment of seasonal transitions is useful to climatologists, agricultural land managers, and scientists interested in seasonally driven biology, hydrology and biogeochemical processes.

Description: Large-scale infrastructure networks are vulnerable to climate change. Their operation involves public and private actors under complex legislative and market regulations. We analyze climate adaptation of railway infrastructure, based on an in-depth case study of the German railway system. The case includes a unique set of qualitative interviews with key players of operating and regulative organizations, as well as a document study. Our analysis crucially extends previous technology-oriented research on the railway sector by applying core insights and categories from the actor-centered institutionalism. We trace observed obstacles for a climate resilient railway system and adaptation decisions back to deeper causes, in particular political priorities and values. Moreover, diverging perceptions and the competition among different actors hamper adaptation. On the other hand, single actors who display a great willingness to act are able to make use of unclear responsibilities to integrate adaptation concerns into existing institutions. Our research suggests that changes in technical standards and in economic regulation support adaptation of infrastructure systems.

Description: In this study the possible impact of climate change on the occurrence of the Cercospora leaf spot disease (CLS) in sugar beet, triggered by the fungus Cercospora beticola sacc. , and its regional differentiation in Southwest Germany was analyzed by means of the forecasting model CERCBET1. The model projects the day of the year (DOY) when 1 %, 50 % and 100 % of the fields in the region are potentially infested by C ercospora L eaf S pot disease (CLS1, CLS50 and CLS100). To run the disease model the data of the RE gional climate MO del REMO were used. The possible impact of climate change on the occurrence was studied comparing three time windows: baseline period ‘ B ′ (1971–2000), medium-term period ‘ K ‘ (2021–2050), long-term period ‘ L ‘ (2071–2100). In addition the ontogenesis of the young sugar beet plants was simulated using a leaf-growth model. The results of CERCBET1 and the leaf-growth model were compared to draw conclusions whether CLS potentially would occur in a different leaf stage. The dates of completion of the 20- and 40-leaf stage (B20 and B40) therefore were examined. The simulation results indicate an earlier CLS occurrence as well as an accelerated leaf growth due to the projected climate change. The disease might occur in earlier growth stages of the sugar beet plants. A possible consequence of the earlier CLS occurrence could be an increasing number of necessary fungicide applications also regarding the prolonged growing season. For period L, especially, projections are difficult to make due to the uncertainties of the archived breeding progress, particularly regarding the breeding for resistance, the development of fungicides and the future socio-economic development.

Description: Despite the importance of coffee as a globally traded commodity and increasing concerns about risks associated with climate change, there is virtually no information about the effects of rising atmospheric [CO 2 ] on field-grown coffee trees. This study shows the results of the first 2 years of an innovative experiment. Two commercial coffee cultivars (Catuaí and Obatã) were grown using the first free-air CO 2 enrichment (FACE) facility in Latin America (ClimapestFACE). Plants of both cultivars maintained relatively high photosynthetic rates, water-use efficiency, increased growth and yield under elevated [CO 2 ]. Harvestable crop yields increased 14.6 % for Catuaí and 12.0 % for Obatã. Leaf N content was lower in Obatã (5.2 %) grown under elevated [CO 2 ] than under ambient [CO 2 ]; N content was unresponsive to elevated [CO 2 ] in Catuaí. Under elevated [CO 2 ] reduced incidence of leaf miners ( Leucoptera coffeella ) occurred on both coffee cultivars during periods of high infestation. The percentage of leaves with parasitized and predated mines increased when leaf miner infestation was high, but there was no effect of elevated [CO 2 ] on the incidence of natural enemies. The incidence of rust ( Hemileia vastatrix ) and Cercospora leaf spot ( Cercospora coffeicola ) was low during the trial, with maximum values of 5.8 and 1 %, respectively, and there was no significant effect of [CO 2 ] treatments on disease incidence. The fungal community associated with mycotoxins was not affected by the treatments.

Description: Wetter et al. ( 2014 ; hereinafter W14) conclude that western Europe experienced significantly higher temperatures in AD 1540 compared to all other years in the instrumental record, including the summer heat waves of 2003 and 2010 (Schär et al. 2004 ; Barriopedro et al. 2011 ). Based on 300+ first-hand documentary weather reports, the authors argue that large parts of Europe were hit by an unprecedented, 11-month-long, ‘Megadrought’ in 1540 exceeding all recorded and reconstructed levels, and falling outside the probability range of state-of-the-art palaeoclimate model simulations. Despite compiling, transforming and interpreting an exceptional pool of documentary evidence, W14 neglected to systematically analyse the existing collection of European tree ring-based climate reconstructions. An independent comparison of their findings from societal entries against natural proxy archives, however, would have been beneficial. For example, Pauling et al. ( 2006 ), already identified low precipitation amounts in 1540 derived mainly from tree-ring analyses, a study not cited in W14. In this reply we look into some of the tree-ring data available back to 1540 and before, and demonstrate that W14’s conclusion regarding the inability of natural proxy archives to record climate extremes is not defensible.

Description: To investigate climate variability in Asia during the last millennium, the spatial and temporal evolution of summer (June–July–August; JJA) temperature in eastern and south-central Asia is reconstructed using multi-proxy records and the regularized expectation maximization (RegEM) algorithm with truncated total least squares (TTLS), under a point-by-point regression (PPR) framework. The temperature index reconstructions show that the late 20th century was the warmest period in Asia over the past millennium. The temperature field reconstructions illustrate that temperatures in central, eastern, and southern China during the 11th and 13th centuries, and in western Asia during the 12th century, were significantly higher than those in other regions, and comparable to levels in the 20th century. Except for the most recent warming, all identified warm events showed distinct regional expressions and none were uniform over the entire reconstruction area. The main finding of the study is that spatial temperature patterns have, on centennial time-scales, varied greatly over the last millennium. Moreover, seven climate model simulations, from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5), over the same region of Asia, are all consistent with the temperature index reconstruction at the 99 % confidence level. Only spatial temperature patterns extracted as the first empirical orthogonal function (EOF) from the GISS-E2-R and MPI-ESM-P model simulations are significant and consistent with the temperature field reconstruction over the past millennium in Asia at the 90 % confidence level. This indicates that both the reconstruction and the simulations depict the temporal climate variability well over the past millennium. However, the spatial simulation or reconstruction capability of climate variability over the past millennium could be still limited. For reconstruction, some grid points do not pass validation tests and reveal the need for more proxies with high temporal resolution, accurate dating, and sensitive temperature signals, especially in central Asia and before AD 1400.

Description: Climate change impact on the agricultural sector is expected to be significant and extensive in Sub-Saharan Africa, where projected increase in temperature and changes in precipitation patterns could determine sensible reductions in crop yields and concerns for food security achievement. This study presents a multi-model approach to analysing climate change impacts and associated risks for staple food crops in Nigeria. Previous attempts to evaluate climate change impacts in Nigeria had mainly focused on a reduced number of crops, with analysis limited to single experimental fields or specific areas, and in many cases considering only a limited number of climate models. In this work, crop simulation models implemented in the DSSAT-CSM software were used to evaluate climate change impacts on crop production in different Agro-Ecological Zones, considering multiple combinations of soils and climate conditions, varieties and crop management. The climate impact assessment was made using an ensemble of future climate projections, to include uncertainty related to climate projections. Even if precipitations could increase in most parts of Nigeria, this is not likely to offset the crop yield reduction due to the increase in temperatures, particularly over the medium-term period (2050), with yield decreases projected especially for cereals. The short-term effects are more uncertain and yields for cassava and millet might actually increase by 2020. Moreover, yield reductions are only partially mitigated by the direct effect of increased CO 2 atmospheric concentration enhancing crop yield. In both periods and for all crops, there is a higher risk that crop yields may fall below the actual risk threshold.

Description: Although the role of rising atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration [CO 2 ] on plant growth and fecundity is widely acknowledged as important within the scientific community; less research is available regarding the impact of [CO 2 ] on secondary plant compounds, even though such compounds can play a significant role in human health. At present, Artemisia annua , an annual plant species native to China, is widely recognized as the primary source of artemesinin used in artemesinin combination therapies or ACTs. ACTs, in turn, are used globally for the treatment of simple Plasmodium falciparum malaria, the predominant form of malaria in Africa. In this study, artemesinin concentration was quantified for multiple A. annua populations in China using a free-air CO 2 enrichment (FACE) system as a function of [CO 2 ]-induced changes both in situ and as a function of the foliar ratio of carbon to nitrogen (C:N). The high correlation between artemesinin concentration and C:N allowed an historical examination of A. annua leaves collected at 236 locations throughout China from 1905 through 2009. Both the historical and experimental data indicate that increases in artemesinin foliar concentration are likely to continue in parallel with the ongoing increase in atmospheric [CO 2 ]. The basis for the [CO 2 ]-induced increase in artemesinin is unclear, but could be related to the carbon: nutrient hypothesis of Bryant et al. ( 1983 ). Overall, these data provide the first evidence that historic and projected increases in atmospheric [CO 2 ] may be associated with global changes in artemesinin chemistry, potentially allowing a greater quantity of drug available for the same area of cultivation.

Description: It is banal to say that different beliefs provide the basis for different conceptions of the good and diverse ways of life, the protection of which will seem to many to be paramount as a matter of justice. But what happens when those beliefs are about global processes of the magnitude of those involved in climate change, with the scale of their implications? How, and to what extent, should the diversity of local beliefs about factors relevant to climate change be factored into a normative response to the challenges it poses? This article is framed in response to the companion piece ‘Local perceptions in climate change debates’, which presents detailed contrasts between such beliefs in Peru and the South Tyrol. Focusing on perceptions of the nature/culture relationship as an example, I contrast ‘globalist’ and ‘localist’ normative responses to evidence of such diversity in belief. Both are limited, to the extent that they dwell on the fair treatment of beliefs. I argue that normatively speaking, what is crucial is not accommodating diversity in belief – as if beliefs about the factors implicated in climate change were on a par with other beliefs about the nature of the good – but acknowledging the requirement to make ‘thick’ commitments about which such beliefs are most adequate. Alongside their fascinating contributions in other respects, anthropological findings can be crucial in this one. They will help furnish the kind of understanding of human/nature relations on which a political philosophy of climate change must depend.

Description: Farmers may choose to apply nitrogen fertilizer at a rate that exceeds the average ex post agronomically optimal rate when the yield response to nitrogen varies across growing seasons. Negative environmental consequences such as nitrous oxide (N 2 O) emissions and/or water pollution can result when all the applied nitrogen is not needed by the crop. Here we consider a nonlinear market instrument targeting farmers’ nitrogen use, and by solving for the optimal nitrogen reduction using a model of expected utility of farm profits, we evaluate the induced N 2 O emission reductions that are consistent with the instrument introduced. The market instrument is nonlinear because of the expected nonlinear relationship between N 2 O and nitrogen application rates. Our simulations show that, in cases where farmers apply N at rates which exceed recommendations and the N 2 O response is likely to be non-linear, payments will induce participation in the program and will have a significant impact on both expected and actual N 2 O emissions without significantly harming expected or actual yields. Failure to consider this nonlinearity would deviate the attention away from N 2 O pollution because it would require large N reductions (and crop yields) to achieve equivalent N 2 O abatement.

Description: A monthly water-balance model is used with CRUTS3.1 gridded monthly precipitation and potential evapotranspiration (PET) data to examine changes in global water deficit (PET minus actual evapotranspiration) for the Northern Hemisphere (NH) for the years 1905 through 2009. Results show that NH deficit increased dramatically near the year 2000 during both the cool (October through March) and warm (April through September) seasons. The increase in water deficit near 2000 coincides with a substantial increase in NH temperature and PET. The most pronounced increases in deficit occurred for the latitudinal band from 0 to 40°N. These results indicate that global warming has increased the water deficit in the NH and that the increase since 2000 is unprecedented for the 1905 through 2009 period. Additionally, coincident with the increase in deficit near 2000, mean NH runoff also increased due to increases in P. We explain the apparent contradiction of concurrent increases in deficit and increases in runoff.

Description: The aim of this study is to characterize rainfall patterns in a vast transition zone between the Amazon and the Cerrado Biomes. The analysis is focused on annual and seasonal tendencies, mainly about the onset and offset of the rainy season, its length and shifts. More than 200 Rain Gauges (RGs) were analyzed in the study area using Pettitt’s and Mann-Kendall’s non-parametric tests allied to a Linear Regression Analysis over the period 1971–2010. The onset and offset dates of the rainy season and its duration are also identified for 89 RGs. Pettitt’s test indicates ruptures in 16 % of the rainfall time series while Mann-Kendall’s monthly test indicates that 45 % of the RGs had negative trends, mainly in the transition seasons (spring and austral autumn). Linear Regression Analysis indicates negative trends in 63 % of the time series concomitant to the rainy season onset and offset analysis, which confirmes a delay for the onset of the rainy season in 76 % of the RGs and a premature demise for 84 % of the RGs. Identification of the tendencies for rainy season duration indicates that the rainy season has become shorter at 88 % of the RGs. There were recurring patterns in the results displaying drier conditions in RGs localized in deforested areas opposed to forested locations.

Description: A growing body of research indicates that opinions about long-term climate change and other natural resource issues can be significantly affected by current weather conditions (e.g., outside air temperature) and other highly contingent environmental cues. Although increased severity and frequency of droughts is regarded as a likely consequence of anthropogenic climate change, little previous research has attempted to relate the experience of drought with public attitudes about water supply or water-related climate change issues. For this study, a large set ( n  = 3,163) of public survey data collected across nine states of the southern United States was spatio-temporally linked with records of short-term (~12 weeks) and long-term (~5 years) drought condition at the level of each respondent’s zip code. Multivariate ordinal logistic regression models that included numerous other independent variables (environmental ideology, age, gender, education, community size, residency duration, and local annual precipitation) indicated highly significant interactions with long-term drought condition, but showed no significant effect from short-term drought condition. Conversely, attitudes about water-related climate change showed highly significant interactions with short-term drought, with weaker to no effects from long-term drought. While the finding of significant effects from short-term drought condition on opinions about future drought is broadly consistent with previous public opinion research on climate change, the finding of water supply attitudes being more responsive to longer term drought condition is, to our knowledge, a novel result. This study more generally demonstrates the methodological feasibility and applied importance of accounting for local drought condition when public opinion information is used to evaluate outreach programs for water conservation and climate change.

Description: Winter tourism is the main source of income and the driving force of local development in many mountain areas. However, in recent years, the industry has been identified as being extremely vulnerable to future climate change. Although the Pyrenees has the largest ski area in Europe after the Alps, there are few detailed climate change vulnerability assessments on the ski resorts based in this region. This paper analyzes the vulnerability of the Pyrenean ski resorts to projected changes in the snowpack under various future climate scenarios. In addition, the study analyzes the sustainability of the snowmaking systems to offset the climate variability of natural snow cover. On average, the study predicts a shorter ski-season length, especially in low-altitude ski resorts in a moderate climate change scenario and for all ski resorts in a more intensive climate change scenario. However, a significant regional variability has been identified for the projected impacts at very short geographical distances within the studied area. Moreover, this paper shows that snowmaking cannot completely solve the problem for all ski resorts in the Pyrenees, as the measure can only act as a robust adaptation strategy in the region provided climate change is limited to +2 °C snowmaking.

Description: The brown planthopper Nilaparvata lugens (Stål) is a major rice insect pest in China and other Asian countries. This study assessed a potential northward shift in the overwintering boundaries and changes in the overwintering areas and voltinism of this planthopper species in China in response to global warming. Temperature data generated by 15 Global Circulation Models (GCMs) from 2010 to 2099 were employed to analyze the planthopper’s overwintering boundaries and overwintering areas in conjunction with three Special Report on Emissions Scenarios (SRES). Planthopper voltinism from 1961 to 2050 was analyzed in scenario A2 using degree-day models with projections from the regional circulation model (RCM) Providing Regional Climates for Impacts Studies (PRECIS). In both analyses, 1961–1990 served as the baseline period. Both the intermittent and constant overwintering boundaries were projected to shift northward; these shifts were more pronounced during later time periods and in scenarios A2 and A1B. The intermittent overwintering area was modeled to increase by 11, 24 and 44 %, and the constant overwintering area, by 66, 206 and 477 %, during the 2020s, 2050s and 2080s, respectively. Planthopper voltinism will increase by 〈0.5, 0.5–1.0 and 1.0–1.4 generations in northern, central and southern China, respectively, in 2021–2050. Our results suggest that the brown planthopper will overwinter in a much larger region and will produce more generations under future climate warming scenarios. As a result, the planthopper will exert an even greater threat to China’s rice production in the future.

Description: This contribution looks at those Small Island Developing States that are doomed to disappear due to anthropogenic climate change. The citizens of these states will not only lose their physical homeland but also their social structure and cultural community. The focus here is on cultural loss. While its subjective importance is easy to grasp, it is harder to see cultural loss as a matter of justice. This paper first presents an account of why cultural loss is often seen as merely unfortunate but not unjust. Against these worries, the paper argues that we have a right that no one threatens our social bases of self-respect and that societal cultures are one important base of self-respect. The discussion concludes that anthropogenic climate change affects peoples’ rights with regard to the cultural dimension and that therefore adaptation efforts ought to protect the social bases of self-respect of those climate refugees whose physical, political, and cultural existence is threatened by our inability to keep emissions below safe levels.

Description: The Mekong Delta, one of the most vulnerable regions to climate change, is the focus of international action for adaptation. Improved understanding of the exposures and perceptions at the local level will help residents to cope with natural disasters and future climate disruptions. In this study, we assess the exposure to floods that rural communities across the Mekong Delta are facing. Among the various natural disasters threatening the delta, extreme flooding is by far the most prevailing concern. By carrying out a field survey on 1350 residents, we characterize the flooding patterns and vulnerabilities of households in three geographically diverse provinces. The aim of this study is to assess the effectiveness of current flood adaptation in these households in conditions of regular flooding, as well as to extreme flooding events, which become more intense and frequent due to climate change. While the findings suggest varying degrees of coping with seasonal flooding by raising the ground floors of their homes, their capacity to prepare for extreme floods is limited in spite of the residents’ awareness of the changing dynamics of natural disasters in their locality. We also examine their perception to the effects of climate change and identify factors that influence their awareness.

Description: We identify four issues in the decision framework for species conservation management under climate change proposed by Shoo et al. ( 2013 ) Clim Chan 119:239–246 and suggest ways to address them. First, binary-decision flow charts require Yes/No answers, which are not appropriate in most conservation decisions. A quantitative framework is preferable and action-guidance should be obtained even when the realistic answer to some questions remains “we simply do not know”. Second, the proposed flow chart imposes an a priori order of precedence and does not explicitly allow simultaneous actions. A workable framework should enable optimal allocation between multiple kinds of conservation efforts and permit complementary actions. Third, the probability of success, co-benefit to non-target species, and cost are unlikely to have a simple, consistent relationship across taxa. These variables need to be assessed case-by-case for each conservation measure and species. Finally, the decision framework disregards the legal, social, and ethical aspects pertaining to decision-making.

Description: Integrated cross-sectoral impact assessments facilitate a comprehensive understanding of interdependencies and potential synergies, conflicts, and trade-offs between sectors under changing conditions. This paper presents a sensitivity analysis of a European integrated assessment model, the CLIMSAVE integrated assessment platform (IAP). The IAP incorporates important cross-sectoral linkages between six key European land- and water-based sectors: agriculture, biodiversity, flooding, forests, urban, and water. Using the IAP, we investigate the direct and indirect implications of a wide range of climatic and socio-economic drivers to identify: (1) those sectors and regions most sensitive to future changes, (2) the mechanisms and directions of sensitivity (direct/indirect and positive/negative), (3) the form and magnitudes of sensitivity (linear/non-linear and strong/weak/insignificant), and (4) the relative importance of the key drivers across sectors and regions. The results are complex. Most sectors are either directly or indirectly sensitive to a large number of drivers (more than 18 out of 24 drivers considered). Over twelve of these drivers have indirect impacts on biodiversity, forests, land use diversity, and water, while only four drivers have indirect effects on flooding. In contrast, for the urban sector all the drivers are direct. Moreover, most of the driver–indicator relationships are non-linear, and hence there is the potential for ‘surprises’. This highlights the importance of considering cross-sectoral interactions in future impact assessments. Such systematic analysis provides improved information for decision-makers to formulate appropriate adaptation policies to maximise benefits and minimise unintended consequences.

Description: Quantitative participatory exploration of the many complex issues surrounding cross-sectoral climate change impacts, vulnerability and adaptation under uncertain futures is dependent on the provision, in some form, of scenarios and scenario outputs. However, the normal provision by the research community of pre-defined scenario outputs results in a lack of flexibility for stakeholders regarding choice of climate models, scenarios, scenario quantification and output indicators which in turn can lead to a lack of trust. This Special Issue describes the development and application of a web-based interactive simulation and display environment, called the CLIMSAVE Integrated Assessment (IA) Platform, which provides a holistic (cross-sectoral, climate and socio-economic change) modelling framework. The IA Platform guides the user through simulation of (1) potential impacts under scenarios of climate and/or socio-economic change, (2) identification of sectoral and multi-sectoral vulnerability ‘hotspots’ either before or after adaptation, (3) the potential for adaptation to reduce impacts within the capital constraints of the selected scenario(s), and (4) the cost-effectiveness of adaptation measures. The Special Issue explores how the IA Platform has been: (i) designed to provide a user-friendly, intuitive and facilitating, rather than predictive or prescriptive, environment for users; and (ii) utilised to quantitatively explore a diverse range of uncertain futures across Europe.

Description: Emerging literature on climate adaptation suggests the need for effective ways of engaging or activating communities and supporting community roles, coupled with whole-of-system approaches to understanding climate change and adaptation needs. We have developed and evaluated a participatory approach to elicit community and stakeholder understanding of climate change adaptation needs, and connect diverse community members and local office bearers towards potential action. The approach was trialed in a series of connected social-ecological systems along a transect from a rural area to the coast and islands of ecologically sensitive Moreton Bay in Queensland, Australia. We conducted ‘climate roundtables’ in each of three areas along the transect, then a fourth roundtable reviewed and extended the results to the region as a whole. Influence diagrams produced through the process show how each climate variable forecast to affect this region (heat, storm, flood, sea-level rise, fire, drought) affects the natural environment, infrastructure, economic and social behaviour patterns, and psychosocial responses, and how sets of people, species and ecosystems are affected, and act, differentially. The participatory process proved effective as a way of building local empathy, a local knowledge base and empowering participants to join towards future climate adaptation action. Key principles are highlighted to assist in adapting the process for use elsewhere.

Description: In Integrated Assessment modelling of climate change impacts and adaptation, there are two main uses for measures of capacity to adapt to climate change. The first is to represent the capacity for proactive adaptation: this can be termed adaptive capacity. The second is to represent the capacity for reactive or instantaneous coping: this can be termed coping capacity. Adaptive capacity helps to determine which proactive adaptation options are feasible as inputs to the models under any given pair of climate and socio-economic scenarios. Coping capacity represents the residual ability to react to conditions, and influences vulnerability under any given set of model outputs. Using the example of the CLIMSAVE Integrated Assessment Platform, we explain how these capacities can be represented in integrated assessment. We demonstrate how an index of adaptive and coping capacity can be developed using a five-capitals (human, social, manufactured, natural, financial) model of societal wealth and incorporated in integrated assessment models. We find that for very aggregate applications, but not local or sectoral applications, the same indicators can be used to simulate adaptive and coping capacity. In addition, we argue that it is generally unnecessary to account for the depletion of capacity through adaptation itself, and that natural capital can generally be omitted from capacity measures if it is already directly represented in model outputs.

Description: Vulnerability of a system is determined not only by the severity of climate change that occurs over the system but also by the system’s own sensitivity and adaptive capacity to cope with new change in climatic condition. This study while examining the agricultural vulnerability of Tamil Nadu State in India to climate change, tries to improve upon the vulnerability assessment methodology. It chooses the growth and instability of certain performance indicators to capture the relative vulnerability positioning of the districts of Tamil Nadu. The normalized indicators are assigned weights based on the proportional acreage of major crops in each district with respect to the State. The weighted component indicators are then aggregated into a single index by merely adding them. In addition this study also categorizes the districts beyond ranking to have a meaningful characterization of the different stages of vulnerability. The results thus obtained reveal the fact that all districts in an agro climatic zone does not fall under the same category of vulnerability which exemplifies the need for the State to prioritize research and development issues and effective decision making through “Location-Performance-Vulnerability” based adaptation strategies. In doing so, one must take into account the local community’s understanding of climate change

Description: A framework for assessing species vulnerability to climate change was developed and applied to the largest family of reptiles in Australia, the scincid lizards (skinks). This framework integrated the projections of environmental niche models (ENMs) with an index of vulnerability based on the species’ ecological traits. We found vulnerability to be highly variable among species, suggesting that responses to climate change will be idiosyncratic, and identified a number of species that by virtue of their ecological traits and model projections may be at risk of significant range contractions in the near future. Importantly, we also found that extrinsic vulnerability (as measured by the degree of range change) and intrinsic vulnerability (based on species traits) were not correlated, highlighting the importance of considering both types of information. This framework provides a transparent and objective tool for assessing climate change vulnerability and can provide a basis upon which to develop conservation strategies.

Description: We synthesized an expert review of climate change implications for hydroecological and terrestrial ecological systems in the northern coastal temperate rainforest of North America. Our synthesis is based on an analysis of projected temperature, precipitation, and snowfall stratified by eight biogeoclimatic provinces and three vegetation zones. Five IPCC CMIP5 global climate models (GCMs) and two representative concentration pathways (RCPs) are the basis for projections of mean annual temperature increasing from a current average (1961–1990) of 3.2 °C to 4.9–6.9 °C (5 GCM range; RCP4.5 scenario) or 6.4–8.7 °C (RCP8.5), mean annual precipitation increasing from 3130 mm to 3210–3400 mm (3–9 % increase) or 3320–3690 mm (6–18 % increase), and total precipitation as snow decreasing from 1200 mm to 940–720 mm (22–40 % decrease) or 720–500 mm (40–58 % decrease) by the 2080s (2071–2100; 30-year normal period). These projected changes are anticipated to result in a cascade of ecosystem-level effects including: increased frequency of flooding and rain-on-snow events; an elevated snowline and reduced snowpack; changes in the timing and magnitude of stream flow, freshwater thermal regimes, and riverine nutrient exports; shrinking alpine habitats; altitudinal and latitudinal expansion of lowland and subalpine forest types; shifts in suitable habitat boundaries for vegetation and wildlife communities; adverse effects on species with rare ecological niches or limited dispersibility; and shifts in anadromous salmon distribution and productivity. Our collaborative synthesis of potential impacts highlights the coupling of social and ecological systems that characterize the region as well as a number of major information gaps to help guide assessments of future conditions and adaptive capacity.

Description: Climate change will result in increased precipitation variability with more extreme events reflected in more frequent droughts as well as more frequent extremely wet conditions. The increase in precipitation variability will occur at different temporal scales from intra to inter-annual and even longer scales. At the intra-annual scale, extreme precipitation events will be interspersed with prolonged periods in between events. At the inter-annual scale, dry years or multi-year droughts will be combined with wet years or multi-year wet conditions. Consequences of this aspect of climate change for the functioning ecosystems and their ability to provide ecosystem services have been underexplored. We used a process-based ecosystem model to simulate water losses and soil-water availability at 35 grassland locations in the central US under 4 levels of precipitation variability (control, +25, +50 + 75 %) and six temporal scales ranging from intra- to multi-annual variability. We show that the scale of temporal variability had a larger effect on soil-water availability than the magnitude of variability, and that inter- and multi-annual variability had much larger effects than intra-annual variability. Further, the effect of precipitation variability was modulated by mean annual precipitation. Arid-semiarid locations receiving less than about 380 mm yr −1 mean annual precipitation showed increases in water availability as a result of enhanced precipitation variability while more mesic locations (〉380 mm yr −1 ) showed a decrease in soil water availability. The beneficial effects of enhanced variability in arid-semiarid regions resulted from a deepening of the soil-water availability profile and a reduction in bare soil evaporation. The deepening of the soil-water availability profile resulting from increase precipitation variability may promote future shifts in species composition and dominance to deeper-rooted woody plants for ecosystems that are susceptible to state changes. The break point, which has a mean of 380-mm with a range between 440 and 350 mm, is remarkably similar to the 370-mm threshold of the inverse texture hypothesis, below which coarse-texture soils had higher productivity than fine-textured soils.

Description: A study was conducted to investigate the intra-seasonal climate variability and change in semi-arid eastern Kenya and also assessed the ability of the households to discern trends in climate and how the perceived trends converge with actual long term weather observations. The study utilised long term climatic data and data collected through interviews of 200 households using a structured questionnaire. The survey data was analysed through descriptive statistics using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 12.0. The results of long term climatic data indicated high year-to-year variation in seasonal rainfall with 49.0% and 58% negative anomalies observed in the long and short rainfall seasons respectively. No discernible increasing or decreasing trend in the long- seasonal rainfall was observed over the period of study. However, Long-term temperature data showed high year-to-year variation in annual mean maximum and minimum temperatures with maximum temperature increasing during the period. Long term rainfall data (51 years) showed that 31.4 and 35.3% of the long rains would be classified as good and failed seasons respectively, with the remaining percentage classified as moderate seasons. For the short rains, 15.7 and 43.1 % would be classified as good and failed seasons respectively, with the remaining percentage classified as moderate seasons. Farmers interviewed were able to recollect the past seasons fairly accurately especially the ‘good’ and ‘failed’ seasons which corroborated well with the meteorological records. Indigenous knowledge on weather forecasting was reported by 81% of farmers to be helpful in farming decision making especialy on the types of crops to be planted. A better understanding of farmers’ perceptions of climate change, ongoing adaptation measures, and the decision-making process would important to inform policies aimed at promoting sustainable adaptation of the agricultural sector.

Description: In recent years, the field of climate ethics has grown into a truly multidisciplinary endeavor. Climate ethics scholars are pursuing both normative and positive questions about climate change using many different approaches drawn from a wide diversity of disciplinary and theoretical perspectives. Now, the field stands at a multidisciplinary crossroads, delineated in large part by two interrelated considerations: what are the key research questions most in need of multidisciplinary attention and what can be done to move the insights and implications of climate ethics scholarship into real-world climate decision-making. Here, we identify four directions for near-future climate ethics research that we believe are both in need of further examination and likely to be of interest to a diverse coalition of decision-makers working “on the ground”: geoengineering; scope of ethical consideration; responsibility of actors; and, hazards, vulnerabilities and impacts. Regardless of the specific questions they choose to pursue, multidisciplinary climate ethics researchers should strive to conduct accessible and actionable research that both answers the questions decision-makers are already asking as well as helps shape those questions to make decision-making processes more inclusive and ethically-grounded.

Description: In this article, we assert that developing countries are much better prepared to undertake negotiations at the Conference of the Parties in Paris (CoP21) as compared to CoP15 in Copenhagen. An important element of this is the accumulation of knowledge with respect to the implications of climate change and the ongoing internalization thereof by key institutions in developing countries. The articles in this special issue set forth a set of technical contributions to this improved understanding. We also summarize five major lessons related to uncertainty, extreme events, timing of impacts, the inseparability of the development and climate agendas, and the rate of assimilation of climate and development information in key institutions. They are drawn from the Development Under Climate Change (DUCC) project carried out by UNU-WIDER of which the countries of the Greater Zambeze Valley formed a part. Finally, we outline three areas for future research.

Description: This article reviews the literature on factors and conditions shaping the development and implementation of climate policy at the city level, with a special focus in developing countries. It identifies and analyses three main sets of conditions that are critical for explaining the implementation of urban climate policy: the capacity of municipal governments, the way climate policies are linked (or not) to local issues, and the role of local political actors and factors. The article outlines that there is a tendency in the literature to fall into the ‘everything matters’ trap when analyzing policy implementation. Many reports usually conclude by making long lists of factors that are relevant for the development of local climate policy. In contrast, this review stresses the need for a more ‘configurational’ approach to the study of urban climate policy, which allows for identifying different and alternative configurations of conditions under which climate policies can be successfully advanced and implemented at city level.

Description: Among many potential causes for policymakers’ contention over whether there is a largely unified scientific agreement on global warming and climate change (GWCC), one possible factor, according to the information deficit theory, is that the scientists who testified in congressional hearings might be substantially divided in their views and positions associated with GWCC. To clarify this, we perform content analysis of 1350 testimonies from congressional GWCC hearings over a period of 39 years from 1969 to 2007 and use the data derived from this content analysis to provide an overview of scientist witnesses’ stances on GWCC. The key findings include: (1) among the scientists’ testimonies with an expressed view on whether GWCC is real, a vast majority (86 %) indicates that it is happening; (2) among the scientists’ testimonies with an identified stance on whether GWCC is anthropogenic, a great majority of them (78 %) indicates that GWCC is caused, at least to some degree, by human activity; (3) even under Republican controlled congresses, there is still a supermajority (75 %) - among the scientists’ testimonies with an expressed position on GWCC existence or GWCC cause - that believes that GWCC is real and that GWCC is anthropogenic; (4) most scientists’ testimonies (95 %) endorse pro-action policy to combat GWCC; and (5) the percentages of scientists’ views and positions are consistent across different types of scientist testimony groups. Our findings suggest that the scientific information transmitted to Congress is not substantially different from the general agreement in the climate science community.

Description: Oceanic environmental variables derived from satellites are increasingly being used to predict ecosystem states and climate impacts. Despite the concerted efforts to develop metrics and the urgency to inform policy, management plans, and actions, few metrics have been empirically tested with field data for testing their predictive ability, refinement, and eventual implementation as predictive tools. In this study, the abilities of three variations of a thermal threshold index and a multivariate stress model (MSM) were used to predict coral cover and community susceptibility to bleaching based on a compilation of field data from Indian Ocean reefs across the strong thermal anomaly of 1998. Field data included the relative abundance of coral taxa 10 years before the large-scale temperature anomaly, 2 years after (1999–2000), and during the post-bleaching recovery period (2001–2005) were tested against 1) a multivariate model based on 11 environmental variables used to predict stress or environmental exposure (MSM), 2) estimates of the time until the current mean maximum temperature becomes the mean summer condition (TtT), 3) the Cumulative Thermal Stress (CTS) for the full satellite record, and 4) the 1998 Annual Thermal Stress (1998 ATS). The MSM showed significant fit with the post-1998 cover and susceptibility of the coral community taxa (r 2  = 0.50 and 0.31, respectively). Temperature threshold indices were highly variable and had relatively weak or no significant relationships with coral cover and susceptibility. The ecosystem response of coral reefs to climatic and other disturbances is more complex than predicted by models based largely on temperature anomalies and thresholds only. This implies heterogeneous environmental causes and responses to climate disturbances and warming and predictive models should consider a more comprehensive multiple parameter approach.

Description: Many land snails are vulnerable to climate change as a consequence of small distribution ranges and poor dispersal. South America is a diverse region in terms of land snail fauna, but studies about the impacts of climate change on molluscan biodiversity are virtually nonexistent. Bioclimatic models provide an important tool to assess how habitat suitability may change in a warming planet. In this study, we examine potential impacts of climate change on a giant land snail ( Megalobulimus sanctipauli ) from the Atlantic Forest to predict future shifts in its potential distribution, and to identify protected areas that may contain suitable habitat for setting conservation priorities. Using a maximum entropy algorithm, we modeled the species’ potential distribution across South America under current climatic conditions and projected the results onto two climate change scenarios for two time frames. A 2.17 % of South America on the Atlantic Forest was predicted to be currently suitable for the species, comprising the border area among Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay. Prognosis of future distribution showed a trend to a northern retraction, but a southern expansion of current potential range. More than 150 protected areas were identified to contain climatically suitable habitat for the species, but on the less optimistic outlook only ~1545 km 2 of protected areas (0.009 % of South America) would remain suitable for the species by the end of the century. Our findings are expected to improve understanding of climate change impacts on native giant land snails and to contribute in conservation efforts on this malacofauna.

Description: Many residents of the Zambezi River Valley are dependent on water-related resources. Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions may cause a significant change to the climate in the Zambezi Basin in the future, but there is much uncertainty about the future climate state. This situation leaves policy makers at a state of urgency to prepare for these changes as well as reduce the impacts of the changes through GHG mitigation strategies. First and foremost, we must better understand the economic sectors most likely impacted and the magnitude of those impacts, given the inherent uncertainty. In this study, we present a suite of models that assess the effects of climate change on water resources for four countries in the Zambezi basin: Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. We use information from a large ensemble (6800) of climate scenarios for two GHG emission policies which represent a distribution of impacts on water-related sectors, considering emissions uncertainty, climate sensitivity uncertainty, and regional climate uncertainty. Two GHG mitigation scenarios are used to understand the effect of global emissions reduction on the River Basin system out to 2050. Under both climate polices, the majority of the basin will likely be drier, except for a portion in the north around Malawi and northern Zambia. Three Key Performance Indicators are used—flood occurrence, unmet irrigation demand, and hydropower generation—to understand the impact channels of climate change effects on the four countries. We find that floods are likely to be worse in Mozambique, irrigation demands are likely to be unmet in Mozambique and Zimbabwe, and hydropower generation is likely to be reduced in Zambia. We also find that the range of possible impacts is much larger under an unconstrained GHG emissions case than under a strict mitigation strategy, suggesting that GHG mitigation would reduce uncertainties about the future climate state, reducing the risks of extreme changes as compared to the unconstrained emissions case.

Description: Future trends in debris flow activity are constructed based on bias-corrected climate change projections using two meteorological proxies: daily precipitation and Convective Available Potential Energy (CAPE) combined with specific humidity for two Alpine areas. Along with a comparison between proxies, future number of days with debris flows are analyzed with respect to different regional and global climate models, Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs), and area for quantile mapping. Two different base periods are also analyzed, as debris flows were observed on only 6 (17) days between 1950 and 1979, yet on 18 (49) days between 1980 and 2009 for Fella River, NE Italy (Barcelonnette, SE French Alps). For both areas, future climate projections vary between no change up to an increase of 6.0 % per decade in days with debris flow occurrences towards the end of 21st century. In Barcelonnette, the base period and proxy have a bigger impact on the future number of debris flow days than the climate model or RCP used. In Fella River, the base period, RCP, and proxy used define the future range. Therefore the selection of proxy, base period and downscaling technique should be carefully considered for future climate change impact studies concerning debris flow activity and associated fast-moving landslides.

Description: Downscaled climate change projections for California, when translated into changes in irrigation water delivery and then into profit from agriculture in the Central Valley, show an increase in conventional measures of variability such as the variance. However, these increases are modest and mask a more pronounced increase in downside risk , defined as the probability of unfavorable outcomes of water supply or profit. This paper describes the concept of downside risk and measures it as it applies to outcomes for Central Valley agriculture projected under four climate change scenarios. We compare the effect of downside risk aversion versus conventional risk aversion or risk neutrality when assessing the impact of climate change on the profitability of Central Valley agriculture. We find that, when downside risk is considered, the assessment of losses due to climate change increases substantially.

Description: The Global Fire Emissions Database (GFED3) and the FAOSTAT Emissions database, containing estimates of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from biomass burning and peat fires, are compared. The two datasets formed the basis for several analyses in the fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC AR5), and thus represent a critical source of information for emissions inventories at national, regional and global level. The two databases differ in their level of computational complexity in estimating emissions. While both use the same burned area information from remote sensing, estimates of available biomass are computed in GFED3 at tier 3 using a complex dynamic vegetation model, while they are computed in FAOSTAT using default, tier 1 parameters from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Over the analysis period 1997–2011, the two methods were found to produce very similar global GHG emissions estimates for each of the five GFED aggregated biomass fire classes: i) Savanna; ii) Woodland; iii) Forest; iv) Deforestation; v) Peatlands; with total emissions ranging 6–8 Gt CO2eq yr -1 . The main differences between the two datasets were found with respect to peat fires, with FAOSTAT showing a lower 1997–1998 peak in emissions compared with GFED3, within an otherwise good agreement for the rest of the study period, when limited to the three tropical countries covered by GFED. Conversely, FAOSTAT global emissions from peat fires, including both boreal and tropical regions, were several times larger than those currently estimated by GFED3. Results show that FAOSTAT activity data and emission estimates for biomass fires offer a robust alternative to the more sophisticated GFED data, representing a valuable resource for national GHG inventory experts, especially in countries where technical and institutional constraints may limit access, generation and maintenance of more complex methodologies and data.

Description: Involuntary human migration is among the social outcomes of greatest concern in the current era of global climate change. Responding to this concern, a growing number of studies have investigated the consequences of short to medium-term climate variability for human migration using demographic and econometric approaches. These studies have provided important insights, but at the same time have been significantly limited by lack of expertise in the use of climate data, access to cross-national data on migration, and attention to model specification. To address these limitations, we link data on internal and international migration over a 6-year period from 9812 origin households in Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria, Burkina Faso and Senegal to high-resolution gridded climate data from both station and satellite sources. Analyses of these data using several plausible specifications reveal that climate variability has country-specific effects on migration: Migration tends to increase with temperature anomalies in Uganda, tends to decrease with temperature anomalies in Kenya and Burkina Faso, and shows no consistent relationship with temperature in Nigeria and Senegal. Consistent with previous studies, precipitation shows weak and inconsistent relationships with migration across countries. These results challenge generalizing narratives that foresee a consistent migratory response to climate change across the globe.

Description: Changing climate conditions are having an appreciable impact both on the adaptive response of the species growing in urban and peri-urban forests (UPF) and on their evolutionary dynamics. This study sought to chart the evolution and pollen dynamics of major species growing in the La Alhambra peri-urban forest (Granada, Spain) over the last 22 years, to examine correlations with weather-related parameters and to estimate potential trends in the event of future climate change. Findings showed that overall pollen levels have gradually increased over the study period, reflecting both plant species diversification and the ability of Mediterranean species—particularly Pinus and Quercus—to adapt to short-term water stress situations. Nevertheless, the climate conditions expected over the coming years in the Mediterranean region, with considerable increase in winter temperatures and a drop in precipitation by up to 24 % for summer rainfall, there is likely to be a reduction in the intensity of pollen emissions, at least from species with strict environmental requirements. The results confirm that pollen emission is a valuable biological indicator for estimating the adaptive response of various species and the resilience of the forest mass to climate-change events.

Description: Projected climate changes will affect wheat crop production both in the main processes of plant growth and development but also in the occurrences and severities of plant diseases. We assessed the potential infection periods of wheat leaf rust (WLR) at two climatologically different sites in Luxembourg. A threshold-based model, taking hourly values of air temperatures, relative humidity and precipitation during night-time into account, was used for calculating favourable WLR infection days during three periods throughout the cropping season. Field experiments were conducted during the 2003–2013 period at the selected sites. Projected climate data, from a multi model ensemble of regional climate models (spatial resolution 25 km) as well as an additional projection with a higher spatial resolution of 1.3 km, were used for investigating the potential WLR infection periods for two future time spans. Results showed that the infections of WLR were satisfactorily simulated during the development of wheat at both sites for the 2003–2013 period. The probabilities of WLR detection were close to 1 and the critical success index ranged from 0.80 to 0.94 (perfect score = 1 for both). Moreover, the highest proportions of favourable days of WLR infection were simulated during spring and summer at both sites. Regional climate projections showed an increase in temperatures by 1.6 K for 2041–2050 and by 3.7 K for 2091–2100 compared to the reference period 1991–2000. Positive trends in favourable WLR infection conditions occur at both sites more conducive than in the reference period due to projected climatic conditions.

Description: Species climate change vulnerability, their predisposition to be adversely affected, has been assessed for a limited portion of biodiversity. Our knowledge of climate change impacts is often based only on exposure, the magnitude of climatic variation in the area occupied by the species, even if species sensitivity, the species ability to tolerate climatic variations determined by traits, plays a key role in determining vulnerability. We analyse the role of species’ habitat associations, a proxy for sensitivity, in explaining vulnerability for two poorly-known but species-rich taxa in boreal forest, saproxylic beetles and fungi, using three IPCC emissions scenarios. Towards the end of the 21st century we projected an improvement in habitat quality associated with an increase of deadwood, an important resource for species, as a consequence of increased tree growth under high emissions scenarios. However, climate change will potentially reduce habitat suitability for ~9–43 % of the threatened deadwood-associated species. This loss is likely caused by future increase in timber extraction and decomposition rates causing higher deadwood turnover, which have a strong negative effect on boreal forest biodiversity. Our results are species- and scenario-specific. Diversified forest management and restoration ensuring deadwood resources in the landscape would allow the persistence of species whose capacity of delivering important supporting ecosystem services can be undermined by climate change.

Description: An effective climate agreement is urgently required, yet conflict between parties prevails over cooperation. Thanks to advances in science it is now possible to quantify the global carbon budget, the amount of available cumulative CO 2 emissions before crossing the 2 ∘ C threshold (Meinshausen et al. Nature 458(7242):1158–1162, 2009 ). Countries carbon claims, however, exceed this. Historically such situations have been tackled with bankruptcy division rules. We argue that framing climate negotiations as a classical conflicting claims problem (O’Neill Math Soc Sci 2(4):345–371, 1982 ) may provide for an effective climate policy. We analyze the allocation of the global carbon budget among parties claiming the maximum emissions rights possible. Based on the selection of some desirable principles, we propose an efficient and sustainable allocation of the available carbon budget for the period 2000 to 2050 taking into account different risk scenarios.

Description: Research suggests that public divides on climate change may often be rooted in identity processes, driven in part by a motivation to associate with others with similar political and ideological views. In a large split-ballot national survey experiment of 2041 U.S. adults, we explored the role of a non-partisan identity—racial/ethnic majority and minority status—in climate change opinion, in addition to respondents’ political orientation (i.e., ideology and party affiliation). Specifically, we examined respondents’ climate beliefs and policy support, identification with groups that support environmental causes (“environmentalists”), and the sensitivity of these beliefs to other factors known to predict issue polarization (political orientation and issue framing). Results revealed that across all opinion metrics, non-Whites’ views were less politically polarized than those of Whites and were unaffected by exposure to different ways of framing the issue (as “global warming” versus “climate change”). Moreover, non-Whites were reliably less likely to self-identify as environmentalists compared to Whites, despite expressing existence beliefs and support for regulating greenhouse gases at levels comparable to Whites. These findings suggest that racial and ethnic identities can shape core climate change beliefs in previously overlooked ways. We consider implications for public outreach and climate science advocacy.

Description: This paper updates the SCVI (Socio-Climatic Vulnerability Index) maps developed by Torres et al. ( 2012 ) for Brazil, by using the new Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5) projections and more recent 2010 social indicators data. The updated maps differ significantly from their earlier versions in two main ways. First, they show that heavily populated metropolitan areas – namely Belo Horizonte, Brasília, Salvador, Manaus, Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo – and a large swath of land across the states of São Paulo, Minas Gerais and Bahia now have the highest SCVI values, that is, their populations are the most vulnerable to climate change in the country. Second, SCVI values for Northeast Brazil are considerably lower compared to the previous index version. An analysis of the causes of such difference reveals that changes in climate projections between CMIP3 and CMIP5 are responsible for most of the change between the different SCVI values and spatial distribution, while changes in social indicators have less influence, despite recent countrywide improvements in social indicators as a result of aggressive anti-poverty programs. These results raise the hypothesis that social reform alone may not be enough to decrease people’s vulnerability to future climatic changes. Whereas the coarse spatial resolution and relatively simplistic formulation of the SCVI may limit how useful these maps are at informing decision-making at the local level, they can provide a valuable input for large-scale policies on climate change adaptation such as those of the Brazilian National Policy on Climate Change Adaptation.

Description: Future flood risk in Europe is likely to increase due to a combination of climatic and socio-economic drivers. Effective adaptation strategies need to be implemented to limit the impact of river flooding on population and assets. This research builds upon a recently developed flood risk assessment framework at European scale to explore the benefits of adaptation against extreme floods. The effect of implementing four different adaptation measures is simulated in the modeling framework. Measures include the rise of flood protections, reduction of the peak flows through water retention, reduction of vulnerability and relocation to safer areas. Their sensitivity is assessed in several configurations under a high-end global warming scenario over the time range 1976–2100. Results suggest that the future increase in expected damage and population affected by river floods can be compensated through different configurations of adaptation measures. The adaptation efforts should favor measures targeted at reducing the impacts of floods, rather than trying to avoid them. Conversely, adaptation plans only based on rising flood protections have the effect of reducing the frequency of small floods and exposing the society to less-frequent but catastrophic floods and potentially long recovery processes.

Description: A sample of 1226 students at the University of the South Pacific, the premier tertiary institution in the Pacific Islands, answered a range of questions intended to understand future island decision-makers’ attitudes towards Nature and concern about climate change. Questions asking about church attendance show that the vast majority of participants have spiritual values that explain their feelings of connectedness to Nature which in turn may account for high levels of pessimism about the current state of the global/Pacific environment. Concern about climate change as a future livelihood stressor in the Pacific region is ubiquitous at both societal and personal levels. While participants exhibited a degree of understanding matching objective rankings about the vulnerability of their home islands/countries, a spatial optimism bias was evident in which ‘other places’ were invariably regarded as ‘worse’. Through their views on climate change concern, respondents also favoured a psychological distancing of environmental risk in which ‘other places’ were perceived as more exposed than familiar ones. Influence from spirituality is implicated in both findings. Most interventions intended to reduce exposure to environmental risk and to enable effective and sustainable adaptation to climate change in the Pacific Islands region have failed to acknowledge influences on decisionmaking of spirituality and connectedness to Nature. Messages that stress environmental conservation and stewardship, particularly if communicated within familiar and respected religious contexts, are likely to be more successful than secular ones.

Description: We present a newly developed, annually resolved tree-ring cellulose δ 18 O chronology for the southeastern Tibetan Plateau (TP) from Sikkim larch ( Larix griffithii ), spanning between 1684 and 2012. Comparisons with local and regional climate data reveal strong positive correlations with monthly sunshine hours, temperature and daily temperature amplitude as well as strong negative correlations with relative humidity, vapor pressure, rain days per month and cloud cover of August. Relationships with local and regional tree-ring δ 18 O chronologies are stable and highly significant. Over the 20th century, we find no long-term climatic trends. This is consistent with other tree-ring δ 18 O chronologies of other tree species south of the Himalayas, but contrasts with results from isotope studies north of the Himalayas. This suggests stable macroclimatic flow patterns throughout the last centuries for the southern tree stands. In terms of large-scale climate dynamics, we find evidence of a significant 30-year wave influencing our tree-ring oxygen chronology, most probably induced by the Indian Ocean Dipole and influencing tree-ring oxygen isotope chronologies along the southeastern Himalaya and the southeastern rim of the TP. This pattern is spatially and temporarily consistent among the chronologies and has apparently strengthened during the last century. During periods of strong positive dipole mode activity, the dipole mode index shows positive correlations with the δ 18 O of tree-rings on the southeastern TP.

Description: 〈h3〉Abstract〈/h3〉 〈p〉In this paper, we aim to understand how transition towards sustainability processes might arise and develop in a post-conflict country. We analyse the case of the development of renewable energy in Lebanon to understand how green initiatives might emerge, without a prior master plan in a country that was torn by war. We focus on the structured action being developed in cooperation with the UNDP to enable Lebanon to fulfil its international commitment of achieving a 12% target of renewable energy in its energy mix by 2020. The process began in 2010 with the installation of photovoltaic systems in the capital Beirut. This initiative has led to the creation of what appears to be today a viable business ecosystem which makes the 12% a target that seems within reach. We analyse this “success” using a sociotechnical approach with a neo-institutional perspective. We show that the support of international agencies in post-conflict reconstruction modifies radically the dynamic evolution of sociotechnical regimes and links the transition context to the different phases leading to the institutionalization of a new technology. Finally, we propose a framework based on a critical interpretation of the multi-level perspective for the sustainability transition process in post-conflict countries.〈/p〉

Description: 〈h3〉Abstract〈/h3〉 〈p〉This paper describes five sets of regions intended for use in summarizing extreme weather over Earth’s land areas from a climate perspective. The sets differ in terms of their target size: ∼10 Mm〈sup〉2〈/sup〉, ∼5 Mm〈sup〉2〈/sup〉, ∼2 Mm〈sup〉2〈/sup〉, ∼0.5 Mm〈sup〉2〈/sup〉, and ∼0.1 Mm〈sup〉2〈/sup〉 (where 1 Mm〈sup〉2〈/sup〉= 1 million km〈sup〉2〈/sup〉). The regions are based on political/economic divisions, and hence are intended to be primarily aligned with geographical domains of decision-making and disaster response rather than other factors such as climatological homogeneity. This paper describes the method for defining these sets of regions; provides the final definitions of the regions; and performs some comparisons across the five sets and other available regional definitions with global land coverage, according to climatological and non-climatological properties.〈/p〉

Description: 〈h3〉Abstract〈/h3〉 〈p〉Elevated atmospheric CO〈sub〉2〈/sub〉 concentration alters vegetation growth and composition, increases plant water use efficiency (〈em〉WUE〈/em〉), and changes surface water balance. These changes and their differences between wet and dry climate are studied at a mid-latitude experiment site in the Loess Plateau of China. The study site, the Jinghe River basin (JRB), covers an area of 43,216 km〈sup〉2〈/sup〉 and has a semiarid climate in the north and a semi-humid climate in the south. Two simulations from 1965 to 2012 are made using a site-calibrated Lund–Potsdam–Jena dynamic global vegetation model: one with the observed rise of the atmospheric CO〈sub〉2〈/sub〉 from 319.7–391.2 ppmv, and the other with a fixed CO〈sub〉2〈/sub〉 at the level of 1964 (318.9 ppmv). Analyses of the model results show that the elevated atmospheric CO〈sub〉2〈/sub〉 promotes growth of woody vegetation (trees) and causes a 6.0% increase in basin-wide net primary production (〈em〉NPP〈/em〉). The 〈em〉NPP〈/em〉 increase uses little extra water however because of higher 〈em〉WUE〈/em〉. Further examination of the surface water budget reveals opposite CO〈sub〉2〈/sub〉 effects between semiarid and semi-humid climates in the JRB. In the semiarid climate, plants sustain growth in higher CO〈sub〉2〈/sub〉 because of the higher level of intracellular CO〈sub〉2〈/sub〉 and therefore 〈em〉WUE〈/em〉, thus consuming more water and causing a greater decrease of surface runoff than in the fixed-lower CO〈sub〉2〈/sub〉 case. In the semi-humid climate, 〈em〉NPP〈/em〉 also increases but by a smaller amount than in the semiarid climate. Plant transpiration (〈em〉E〈/em〉〈sub〉〈em〉T〈/em〉〈/sub〉) and total evapotranspiration (〈em〉E〈/em〉) decrease in the elevated CO〈sub〉2〈/sub〉 environment, yielding the increase of runoff. This asymmetry of the effects of elevated atmospheric CO〈sub〉2〈/sub〉 exacerbates drying in the semiarid climate and enhances wetness in the semi-humid climate. Furthermore, plant 〈em〉WUE〈/em〉 (=〈em〉NPP〈/em〉/〈em〉E〈/em〉〈sub〉〈em〉T〈/em〉〈/sub〉) is found to be nearly invariant to climate but primarily a function of the atmospheric CO〈sub〉2〈/sub〉 concentration, a result suggesting a strong constraint of atmospheric CO〈sub〉2〈/sub〉 on biophysical properties of the Earth system.〈/p〉

Description: 〈h3〉Abstract〈/h3〉 〈p〉We developed three tree-ring width chronologies of Chinese white pine (〈em〉Pinus armandii〈/em〉) along an altitudinal gradient on the same slope of the northern Funiu Mountain, central China. Chronological statistics indicate that there are higher mean sensitivity (M.S.) and standard deviation (S.D.) at high-altitude site while higher signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and expressed population signal (EPS) at low-altitude site. Correlation analyses between chronologies and climate factors indicate that temperature is the main limiting factor, and discrepant response on tree growth exists at different altitudes. Mean and maximum temperatures in May have significant negative correlations with tree growth at mid and high altitudes, while all temperatures in April show significant positive correlations at high altitude and minimum temperature in August shows significant positive correlation at low-altitude site. It is evident that the limit of temperatures in April and May to tree growth strengthened with increasing altitude. Tree growth also shows significant positive correlations with precipitation in May at high altitude, with precipitation from prior December to current February and scPDSI (self-calibrating Palmer Drought Severity Index) from prior July to current February and May at mid altitude and relative humidity in February and June and scPDSI in current June at low-altitude site. Stability of climate–growth responses by moving correlation analyses shows continuous significant negative correlations with mean and maximum temperature in May and significant positive correlation with precipitation in May at high and low altitudes since 2000 but discontinuously significant negative correlation with precipitation in July–September before 2003 and discontinuously significant positive correlation with precipitation from prior December to current February after 1995. The strong significant positive correlations with scPDSI from prior November to current June since 1990 may indicate that temperature had induced drought stress on tree radial growth at mid-altitude site.〈/p〉

Description: 〈h3〉Abstract〈/h3〉 〈p〉Despite broad scientific consensus on climate change, public views may not always correspond with scientific findings. Understanding public perceptions of climate change is thus crucial to both identifying problems and delivering solutions. Investigations of climate change that integrate instrumental records and people’s perceptions in the Himalayas are scarce and fragmentary compared to other regions of the world. We analyzed nationally representative data (〈em〉n〈/em〉 = 5060) of local peoples’ perception of climate change in Nepal, and assessed annual and seasonal trends of temperature and precipitation, onsets of seasons, and trends of climate extremes, based on gridded climate datasets. We firstly used quantitative and spatial techniques to compare local perceptions and the instrumentally observed trends of climate variables. We then examined the possible association of demographic variables, place attachment, regional differences, and prior understanding of climate change with the accuracy of people’s perceptions. Instrumental evidence showed consistent warming, increasing hot days and nights, and increasing annual precipitation, wet spells, heavy precipitation and decreasing dry spells in Nepal. Our results indicate that locals accurately perceived the shifts in temperature but their perceptions of precipitation change did not converge with the instrumental records. We suggest that, in future as exposure to changes in weather, particularly extreme events, continues, people may become more likely to detect change which corresponds with observed trends. With some new methodological insights gained through integrating community perceptions with observed climate data, the results of this study provides valuable information to support policies to reduce climate-related risk and enhance climate change adaptation.〈/p〉

Description: 〈h3〉Abstract〈/h3〉 〈p〉Scholars and practitioners are increasingly promoting so-called nature-based approaches for urban climate change adaptation. There is widespread consensus that they both support and require transdisciplinary approaches, notably by involving citizens in the change process and finding innovative ways to unite different actors’ efforts and capacities. However, there is little empirical evidence regarding the actual value of citizen involvement to sustainability in this field. Against this background, this paper examines whether (or not) current forms and conditions of citizen involvement help to create a platform to support nature-based solutions and ensure a transformative adaptation process. The results show that under current conditions, citizen engagement often hampers sustainable outcomes. In fact, current structures and mechanisms for mainstreaming nature and climate considerations into sectoral planning are limited and, furthermore, neglect citizen involvement. In addition, there is a blind spot with respect to personal spheres of transformation toward sustainability regarding citizens, civil servants, and decision-makers. Key constraints are power structures and the lack of cognitive/emotional and relational capacities required for improved democratic governance. If we are to tap into the potential of nature-based solutions to increase climate adaptation governance, we need targeted financial and human resources, and greater capacity to overcome current constraints and support all levels and phases of mainstreaming, notably planning, implementation, monitoring, and learning.〈/p〉

Description: 〈h3〉Abstract〈/h3〉 〈p〉In the last decade, instigated by the Paris agreement and United Nations Climate Change Conferences (COP22 and COP23), the efforts to limit temperature increase to 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels are expanding. The required reductions in greenhouse gas emissions imply a massive decarbonization worldwide with much involvement of regions, cities, businesses, and individuals in addition to the commitments at the national levels. Improving end-use efficiency is emphasized in previous IPCC reports (IPCC 〈span〉2014〈/span〉). Serving as the primary ‘agents of change’ in the transformative process towards green economies, households have a key role in global emission reduction. Individual actions, especially when amplified through social dynamics, shape green energy demand and affect investments in new energy technologies that collectively can curb regional and national emissions. However, most energy-economics models—usually based on equilibrium and optimization assumptions—have a very limited representation of household heterogeneity and treat households as purely rational economic actors. This paper illustrates how computational social science models can complement traditional models by addressing this limitation. We demonstrate the usefulness of behaviorally rich agent-based computational models by simulating various behavioral and climate scenarios for residential electricity demand and compare them with the business as usual (SSP2) scenario. Our results show that residential energy demand is strongly linked to personal and social norms. Empirical evidence from surveys reveals that social norms have an essential role in shaping personal norms. When assessing the cumulative impacts of these behavioral processes, we quantify individual and combined effects of social dynamics and of carbon pricing on individual energy efficiency and on the aggregated regional energy demand and emissions. The intensity of social interactions and learning plays an equally important role for the uptake of green technologies as economic considerations, and therefore in addition to carbon-price policies (top-down approach), implementing policies on education, social and cultural practices can significantly reduce residential carbon emissions.〈/p〉

Description: 〈h3〉Abstract〈/h3〉 〈p〉There is increasing evidence that climate change is impacting not just total amounts of precipitation, but its temporal dynamics as well. While previous studies have identified the importance that the temporal distribution of daily rainfall has on crop production, climate models often do not represent these distributions consistently with observed trends. The objectives of this study are to (1) evaluate the relationship between rainfall variability and yields for economically important crops in the upper Southeastern United States and (2) assess the potential impact that incorporating observed trends in rainfall variability has on yield projections under future climate change. This study develops statistical models of historic crop yields for five crops, finding that an explanatory variable related to daily rainfall variability, the wet-day Gini coefficient (GC), has a statistically significant negative relationship with crop yields in all cases. These models are then used to estimate the impacts of climate change using an ensemble of downscaled general circulation model (GCM) projections and scenarios that include a continuation of observed GC trends. Most downscaled GCMs evaluated do not project changes in GC consistent with observed trends, and scenarios that assume a continuation of observed trends result in projected yields that are up to 5.8% lower than those directly based on GCM projections. While additional research is needed in the climate science community to better understand how rainfall variability may change in the future, this should be mirrored in the impacts community so that agricultural impact assessments incorporate these potentially important changes.〈/p〉

Description: 〈h3〉Abstract〈/h3〉 〈p〉Weather and climate extremes cause significant economic damages and fatalities. Over the last few decades, the frequency of these disasters and their economic damages have significantly increased in the USA. The prediction of the future evolution of these damages and their relation to global warming and US economic growth is essential for deciding on cost-efficient mitigation pathways. Here we show using a probabilistic extreme value statistics framework that both the increase in US Gross Domestic Product per capita and global warming are significant covariates in probabilistically modeling the increase in economic damages. We also provide evidence that the Pacific Decadal Oscillation affects the number of fatalities. Using the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change scenarios, we estimate the potential future economic risks. We find that by 2060, the extreme risks (as measured by 200-year effective return level) will have increased by 3–5.4 times. The damage costs due to extreme risks are projected to be between 0.1 and 0.7% of US Gross Domestic Product by 2060 and could reach 5–16% by 2100.〈/p〉

Description: 〈h3〉Abstract〈/h3〉 〈p〉Earth Hour is a globally celebrated environmental campaign that is aimed at converting bystanders into active participants in the combat against climate change. Although it has become a global movement, to date, few studies have investigated the motivations behind people’s participation in Earth Hour. The present study fills this gap by examining Earth Hour participation through the integration of the identity perspective and the theory of planned behavior (TPB). We argue that environmental self-identity and humanity identity motivate people to participate in Earth Hour via the pathways identified in the TPB. We tested our model by conducting a survey in Hong Kong (〈em〉N〈/em〉 = 239). Results from a series of mediation analysis revealed that Earth Hour–specific attitude, subjective norm, perceived behavioral control, and moral norm were positively associated with behavioral intention, which in turn predicted actual participation. Further, we found that environmental self-identity and humanity identity were positively associated with attitude and moral norm, which in turn predicted behavioral intention. These results demonstrate the viability of integrating the identity perspective and the TPB to understand people’s performance of specific pro-environmental behavior, including participation in collective action that aims to convert unconcerned individuals into active participants in environmental endeavors (i.e., conversionary collective action), such as Earth Hour. This integrated model can tell researchers and environmental practitioners not only which behavior-specific factors determine people’s behavior but also how these behavior-specific factors arise in the first place.〈/p〉

Description: 〈h3〉Abstract〈/h3〉 〈p〉The finance sector’s response to pressures around climate change has emphasized disclosure, notably through the recommendations of the Financial Stability Board’s Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD). The implicit assumption—that if risks are fully revealed, finance will respond rationally and in ways aligned with the public interest—is rooted in the “efficient market hypothesis” (EMH) applied to the finance sector and its perception of climate policy. For low carbon investment, particular hopes have been placed on the role of institutional investors, given the apparent matching of their assets and liabilities with the long timescales of climate change. We both explain theoretical frameworks (grounded in the “three domains”, namely satisficing, optimizing, and transforming) and use empirical evidence (from a survey of institutional investors), to show that the EMH is unsupported by either theory or evidence: it follows that transparency alone will be an inadequate response. To some extent, transparency can address behavioural biases (first domain characteristics), and improving pricing and market efficiency (second domain); however, the strategic (third domain) limitations of EMH are more serious. We argue that whilst transparency can help, on its own it is a very long way from an adequate response to the challenges of ‘aligning institutional climate finance’.〈/p〉

Description: 〈h3〉Abstract〈/h3〉 〈p〉Small community businesses bear the brunt of climate change impacts. Studies of the vulnerability and resilience of such businesses predominantly focus on firm-level characteristics and organizational issues. This paper addresses the lack of individual-level considerations. It explores an analytical approach that draws upon the concepts of social capital and sense of place for understanding community businesses’ resilience to extreme weather. An empirical study was conducted to investigate whether and how the attributes of these concepts are related to adaptation practice. This study is based on a structured questionnaire survey of community businesses at various locations around the Pearl River Estuary that are exposed to storm surges. The findings partially support the hypothesis that action is more likely to be taken when social capital is strong. Community businesses are more likely to adopt adaptation strategies when their owners or operators perceive a higher level of social expectation, but are less likely to do so when they have better relationships with the people around them. This study indicated the potential for moral hazard driven by good social relationships and supported the understanding of small community businesses as firms and social agents in responding to climate change impacts. There is a need for recognizing the social dimensions of small businesses’ rationality in their adaptation and hazard adjustment, and strengthening their engagement with community-based adaptation through social institutions.〈/p〉

Description: 〈h3〉Abstract〈/h3〉 〈p〉This paper deals with the analysis of the temperatures in a group of 29 stations located in twelve European countries by looking at the coefficients in a linear time trend regression model and allowing for long memory patterns in the error term. The results indicate that long memory is present in practically all cases, and the time trend coefficients are statistically significant in the majority of the cases implying evidence of increasing warming trends. This pattern is particularly noticeable in the case of several stations located across Italy and France, which might be related with micro climates affecting these regions.〈/p〉

Description: 〈h3〉Abstract〈/h3〉 〈p〉Yak is an integral part of the livelihood of highlanders in Indian Eastern Himalaya where only subsistence agriculture is possible due to its difficult terrain and harsh climate. The tribal households of Lachen and Lachung in North Sikkim rear yaks at an altitude of 3000 to 5000 m in semi-pastoral system which is highly dependent on temperature and snowfall pattern. Any change in climatic factors is expected to affect the yaks and livelihood of the yak herders. Hence, an explorative study was conducted to understand how the pastoral yak rearing system is changing in the region with change in climate. The estimated temperature increment was 0.03–0.04 °C/annum which is corroborated by herders’ perceptions. They observed that the amount of snowfall has receded, especially in lower altitudes and the snowfall period shifted from November–December to January–March. The commencement of upward migration of yak herders advanced by 15–30 days due to increase in March temperature and the migration span extended by 45 days now. The downward migration is restricted to mid alleviation (2750–3000 m) now which was earlier about 2000 m whereas the upward migration has gone up farther about 500 m due to increasing temperature and unavailability of quality pasture. The study revealed that the pastoral yak rearing in North Sikkim is transforming to cope the impending climate change. However, to reduce the vulnerability of yak, research and extension efforts/policies should be concentrated on fodder production and pasture management suiting to the awaiting climate change.〈/p〉

Description: 〈p〉In the discussion of Eq. (1), reference is made to an example calculation of the metric that should have been provided in the right-hand panel of Fig. 1.〈/p〉

Description: 〈h3〉Abstract〈/h3〉 〈p〉A set of 28 simulations from five regional climate models are used in this study to assess the Great Lakes’ water supply from 1953 to 2100 following emissions scenarios RCP4.5 and 8.5 with a focus on bi-weekly changes in the means and extremes of hydrological variables. Models are first evaluated by comparing annual cycles of precipitation, runoff, evaporation and net basin supply (NBS) with observations. Trends in mean values are then studied for each variable using Theil-Sen’s statistical test. Changes in extreme conditions are analyzed using generalized extreme values distributions for a reference period (1971–2000) and two future periods (2041–2070 and 2071–2100). Ensemble trend results show evaporation increases of 136 and 204 mm (RCP4.5 and RCP8.5) over the Great Lakes between 1953 and 2100. Precipitation increases by 83 and 140 mm and runoff increases by 68 and 135 mm. Trends are not equally distributed throughout the year as seasonal changes differ greatly. As a result, Great Lakes net basin supply is expected to increase in winter and spring and decrease in summer. Over the entire year, NBS increases of 14 and 70 mm are projected for scenarios RCP4.5 and 8.5 respectively by the year 2100. An analysis of extreme values reveals that precipitation and NBS maxima increase by 11 to 27% and 1 to 9% respectively, while NBS minima decrease by 18 to 29% between 1971–2000 and 2041–2100.〈/p〉

Description: 〈h3〉Abstract〈/h3〉 〈p〉How much finance should be provided to support climate change adaptation and by whom? How should it be allocated, and on what basis? Over the years, various actors have expressed different normative expectations on climate finance. Which of these expectations are being met and which are not; why, and with what consequences? Have new norms and rules emerged, which remain contested? This article takes stock of the first 25+ years of adaptation finance under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and seeks to understand whether adaptation finance has become more justly governed and delivered over the past quarter century. We distinguish among three “eras” of adaptation finance: (1) the early years under the UNFCCC (1992–2008); (2) the Copenhagen shift (2009–2015); and (3) the post-Paris era (2016–2018). For each era, we systematically review the justice issues raised by evolving expectations and rules over the provision, distribution, and governance of adaptation finance. We conclude by outlining future perspectives for adaptation finance and their implications for climate justice.〈/p〉

Description: 〈h3〉Abstract〈/h3〉 〈p〉The field of climate services has arisen rapidly out of a desire to enable climate science to meet the information needs of society to respond to climate variability and change. In order for knowledge to be “usable” for decision-making, in the field of climate adaptation and beyond, it must meet the criteria of credibility, salience, and legitimacy (Cash et al., PNAS 100:8086–8091, 〈span〉2003〈/span〉). Deliberate “co-production” of knowledge between “producers” and “users” has the potential to increase usability for decision-making and policy in some contexts. While co-production is increasingly advanced as an instrumental approach to facilitate the production of usable climate services, such efforts have paid scant attention to the role of power relations. In this article, we bring together literature on 〈em〉normative〈/em〉 approaches to co-production—which treats co-production as an instrumental means to an end—with 〈em〉analytical〈/em〉 interpretations of co-production within the field of Science and Technology Studies to examine efforts to develop usable climate services in Tanzania. We show that without reflexive processes that are explicitly attentive to power dynamics, normative co-production within climate services development can serve to reinforce, rather than overcome, power imbalances among actors.〈/p〉

Description: 〈h3〉Abstract〈/h3〉 〈p〉The worldwide rise of climate skeptical political leaders endangers sorely needed political efforts to mitigate climate change. In addition, climate skepticism expressed by the political elites may spread to the electorate, thus ultimately affecting mitigation actions at the population level. It is crucial to better understand the psychological mechanisms underlying elite influences on public opinion formation and polarization. Here we show how affective processes contribute to these top-down influences using longitudinal data in the context of the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Findings revealed a general decrease in climate change beliefs immediately after the presidential election (November 2016). We moreover found an increase in positive emotions and a decrease in negative emotions toward the Republican Party after the election of President Trump. Most importantly, the positive emotional shift towards the Republican Party mediated the decrease in climate change beliefs: Individuals with pronounced increases in positive emotions toward the Republican Party most strongly reduced their belief in climate change after the presidential election. The effect was intensified among Republican partisans, pointing towards a mechanism underlying political polarization. Using data based on a major real-world political event, our findings illustrate how partisans update their beliefs by referring to the positions of relevant political authorities. We moreover demonstrate how emotions drive top-down influences of political leaders on partisans’ opinions and beliefs. Finally, our findings reveal how intensified emotions can contribute to the aggravation of the public climate change divide.〈/p〉

Description: 〈h3〉Abstract〈/h3〉 〈p〉For aiming to keep global warming well-below 2 °C and pursue efforts to limit it to 1.5 °C, as set out in the Paris Agreement, a full-fledged assessment of negative emission technologies (NETs) that remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere is crucial to inform science-based policy making. With the Paris Agreement in mind, we re-analyse available scenario evidence to understand the roles of NETs in 1.5 °C and 2 °C scenarios and, for the first time, link this to a systematic review of findings in the underlying literature. In line with previous research, we find that keeping warming below 1.5 °C requires a rapid large-scale deployment of NETs, while for 2 °C, we can still limit NET deployment substantially by ratcheting up near-term mitigation ambition. Most recent evidence stresses the importance of future socio-economic conditions in determining the flexibility of NET deployment and suggests opportunities for hedging technology risks by adopting portfolios of NETs. Importantly, our thematic review highlights that there is a much richer set of findings on NETs than commonly reflected upon both in scientific assessments and available reviews. In particular, beyond the common findings on NETs underpinned by dozens of studies around early scale-up, the changing shape of net emission pathways or greater flexibility in the timing of climate policies, there is a suite of “niche and emerging findings”, e.g. around innovation needs and rapid technological change, termination of NETs at the end of the twenty-first century or the impacts of climate change on the effectiveness of NETs that have not been widely appreciated. Future research needs to explore the role of climate damages on NET uptake, better understand the geophysical constraints of NET deployment (e.g. water, geological storage, climate feedbacks), and provide a more systematic assessment of NET portfolios in the context of sustainable development goals.〈/p〉

Description: 〈h3〉Abstract〈/h3〉 〈p〉Climate services seek the timely production and delivery of useful climate information to decision-makers, yet there continues to be a reported ‘usability gap’. To address this, many have advocated the coproduction of climate services between knowledge producers, providers and users, with a tendency to focus on tailoring information products to user needs, with less attention towards the service environment itself. In service management and service marketing fields, this is referred to as the ‘servicescape’ and is shown to influence behavioural intention, value creation and perceived service quality. In an effort to facilitate cross-disciplinary learning, this research asks whether climate services can learn from other service-based research in public administration/management, service management and service marketing. Performing a semi-deductive literature review, this perspective article examines themes of coproduction and servicescapes, and identifies relevant topics for future climate services research around the added value of service-dominant logic, the subjective experience of users’ interaction with servicescapes, and empowerment of users as co-producers of value. This is an important first step in promoting further cross-disciplinary learning to advance both scholarship and operational delivery of climate services.〈/p〉

Description: 〈h3〉Abstract〈/h3〉 〈p〉The global incidence of very intense cyclones has increased in recent decades with climate projections signaling that this trend will intensify. To what degree can vulnerability to extreme weather events be mitigated by access to a rural livelihoods program, particularly with regard to the impacts on women? This paper addresses this question through a natural experiment arising from two independent but overlapping sources of variation: exposure to a devastating cyclone that occurred in the Bay of Bengal region of India and the staggered rollout of a rural livelihoods intervention. Comparisons from household surveys across communities more or less exposed to the storm before and after the introduction of the program reveal that the storm led to significant reductions in overall household expenditure, and that these reductions were indeed the largest for women, adding to the emerging evidence for the frequently-posed hypothesis that women bear the brunt of the effects of disasters on overall household consumption. Participation in the livelihoods program mitigated some of the reductions in household nonfood expenditure and women’s consumption, but not on food expenditure. These results from a densely populated region whose topography makes it particularly vulnerable to storms can inform future policy approaches and aid in modeling the impact of these policies on the effects of climate change.〈/p〉