ALBERT

Description: A changing climate and more frequent extreme weather events pose challenges to the oil and gas sector. Identifying how these changes will affect oil and gas extraction, transportation, processing, and delivery, and how these industries can adapt to or mitigate any adverse impacts will be vital to this sector’s supply security. This work presents an overview of the sector’s vulnerability to a changing climate. It addresses the potential for Natech hazards and proposes risk reduction measures, including mitigation and adaptation options. Assessment frameworks to ensure the safety of people, the environment, and investments in the oil and gas sector in the face of climate change are presented and their limitations discussed. It is argued that a comprehensive and systemic analysis framework for risk assessment is needed. The paper concludes that climate change and extreme weather events represent a real physical threat to the oil and gas sector, particularly in low-lying coastal areas and areas exposed to extreme weather events. The sector needs to take climate change seriously, assess its own vulnerability, and take appropriate measures to prevent or mitigate any potentially negative effects.

Description: As the impacts from anthropogenic climate change are increasing globally, people are experiencing dramatic shifts in weather, temperature, wildlife and vegetation patterns, and water and food quality and availability. These changes impact human health and well-being, and resultantly, climate change has been identified as the biggest global health threat of the 21st Century. Recently, research is beginning to indicate that changes in climate, and the subsequent disruption to the social, economic, and environmental determinants of health, may cause increased incidences and prevalence of mental health issues, emotional responses, and large-scale sociopsychological changes. Through a multi-year, community-led, exploratory case study conducted in Rigolet, Nunatsiavut, Labrador, Canada, this research qualitatively explores the impacts of climate change on mental health and well-being in an Inuit context. Drawing from 67 in-depth interviews conducted between January 2010 and October 2010 with community members and local and regional health professionals, participants reported that changes in weather, snow and ice stability and extent, and wildlife and vegetation patterns attributed to climate change were negatively impacting mental health and well-being due to disruptions in land-based activities and a loss of place-based solace and cultural identity. Participants reported that changes in climate and environment increased family stress, enhanced the possibility of increased drug and alcohol usage, amplified previous traumas and mental health stressors, and were implicated in increased potential for suicide ideation. While a preliminary case study, these exploratory findings indicate that climate change is becoming an additional mental health stressor for resource-dependent communities and provide a baseline for further research.

Description: Climate change related impacts, such as increased frequency and intensity of wildfires, higher temperatures, extreme changes to ecosystem processes, forest conversion and habitat degradation are threatening tribal access to valued resources. Climate change is and will affect the quantity and quality of resources tribes depend upon to perpetuate their cultures and livelihoods. Climate impacts on forests are expected to directly affect culturally important fungi, plant and animal species, in turn affecting tribal sovereignty, culture, and economy. This article examines the climate impacts on forests and the resulting effects on tribal cultures and resources. To understand potential adaptive strategies to climate change, the article also explores traditional ecological knowledge and historical tribal adaptive approaches in resource management, and contemporary examples of research and tribal practices related to forestry, invasive species, traditional use of fire and tribal-federal coordination on resource management projects. The article concludes by summarizing tribal adaptive strategies to climate change and considerations for strengthening the federal-tribal relationship to address climate change impacts to forests and tribal valued resources.

Description: Traditional knowledge is increasingly recognized as valuable for adaptation to climate change, bringing scientists and indigenous peoples together to collaborate and exchange knowledge. These partnerships can benefit both researchers and indigenous peoples through mutual learning and mutual knowledge generation. Despite these benefits, most descriptions focus on the social contexts of exchange. The implications of the multiple cultural, legal, risk-benefit and governance contexts of knowledge exchange have been less recognized. The failure to consider these contexts of knowledge exchange can result in the promotion of benefits while failing to adequately address adverse consequences. The purpose of this article is to promote awareness of these issues to encourage their wider incorporation into research, policy, measures to implement free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) and the development of equitable adaptation partnerships between indigenous peoples and researchers.

Description: We employ a single-country dynamically-recursive Computable General Equilibrium model to make health-focussed macroeconomic assessments of three contingent UK Greenhouse Gas (GHG) mitigation strategies, designed to achieve 2030 emission targets as suggested by the UK Committee on Climate Change. In contrast to previous assessment studies, our main focus is on health co-benefits additional to those from reduced local air pollution. We employ a conservative cost-effectiveness methodology with a zero net cost threshold. Our urban transport strategy (with cleaner vehicles and increased active travel) brings important health co-benefits and is likely to be strongly cost-effective; our food and agriculture strategy (based on abatement technologies and reduction in livestock production) brings worthwhile health co-benefits, but is unlikely to eliminate net costs unless new technological measures are included; our household energy efficiency strategy is likely to breakeven only over the long term after the investment programme has ceased (beyond our 20 year time horizon). We conclude that UK policy makers will, most likely, have to adopt elements which involve initial net societal costs in order to achieve future emission targets and longer-term benefits from GHG reduction. Cost-effectiveness of GHG strategies is likely to require technological mitigation interventions and/or demand-constraining interventions with important health co-benefits and other efficiency-enhancing policies that promote internalization of externalities. Health co-benefits can play a crucial role in bringing down net costs, but our results also suggest the need for adopting holistic assessment methodologies which give proper consideration to welfare-improving health co-benefits with potentially negative economic repercussions (such as increased longevity).

Description: Sensitivity to climate change and anthropogenic disturbance is a typical feature of Mediterranean forests, which grow under dynamic and manipulated environmental conditions. In this study, we examine stone pine ( Pinus pinea L.) along the Tyrrhenian coast of Italy to analyse the tree-growth variability on a temporal scale and to evaluate the radial growth response to climate trends over the last century. The analysis of tree ring widths at the decadal and multidecadal scale, which were standardised to remove the age trend, showed primarily significant downward trends and time periods with lower growth rates. Characterised by a clear decline in tree ring widths, the two periods of 20 years from the mid-1920s and the early 1970s appeared to be the least favourables for tree growth. Precipitation was the main factor driving growth, and the effect was cumulative over consecutive years because of the increase in soil water content. Including the current year of ring formation, correlations between decline in precipitation and tree growth were greatest with 3-year precipitation sums. The shifting influence of winter rainfall on tree ring growth toward not significant values during the last decades, together with the lack of significant correlation between the current year’s precipitation and growth decline from the 1970s, might suggest an increasingly dependence on long periods of water supply to utilise the water content stored due to the previous rainy years. The negative effect on tree-growth decline of summer and early-fall temperatures appeared as a forcing influence related to long-term changes in climate rather than high-frequency climate fluctuations.

Description: Climate change impact research needs regional climate scenarios of multiple meteorological variables. Those variables are available from regional climate models (RCMs), but affected by considerable biases. We evaluate the application of an empirical-statistical error correction method, quantile mapping (QM), for a small ensemble of RCMs and six meteorological variables. Annual and monthly biases are reduced to close to zero by QM for all variables in most cases. Exceptions are found, if non-stationarity of the model’s error characteristics occur. Even in the worst cases of non-stationarity, QM clearly improves the biases of raw RCMs. In addition, QM successfully adjusts the distributions of the analysed variables. To approach the question whether time series and inter-variable relationships are still plausible after correction, we evaluate the root-mean-square error (RMSE), autocorrelation and inter-variable correlation. We found improvement or no clear effect in RMSE and autocorrelation, and no clear effect on the correlation between meteorological variables. These results demonstrate that QM retains the quality of the temporal structure in time series and the inter-variable dependencies of RCMs. It has to be emphasised that this cannot be interpreted as an improvement and that deficiencies of the RCMs in those features are retained as well. Our results give some indication for the performance of QM applied to future scenarios, since our evaluation relies on independent calibration and evaluation periods, which are affected by climate variability and change. The effect of non-stationarity, however, can be expected to be larger in far future. We demonstrate the retainment of the RCM’s temporal structure and inter-variable dependencies, and large improvements in biases. This qualifies QM as a valuable, though not perfect, method in the interface between climate models and climate change impact research. Nonetheless, in case of no correlation between re-analysis driven RCM and observation, one should consider that QM does not correct this correlation.

Description: When is it time to adopt different technologies, management strategies, and resource use practices as underlying climate change occurs? We apply risk and decision analysis to test hypotheses about the timing and pace of adaption in response to different profiles of climate change and extremes expressed as yield and income variation for a simulated dryland wheat farm in the United States Great Plains. Climate scenarios include gradual change with typical or increased noise (standard deviation), rapid and large change, and gradual change with extreme events stepped through the simulation. We test decision strategies that might logically be utilized by farmers facing a climate trend that worsens crop enterprise outcomes. Adaptation quickens with the rate of change, especially for decision strategies based on performance thresholds, but is delayed by larger climate variability, especially for decision strategies based on recognizing growing differential between adaptive and non-adaptive performance. Extreme events evoke adaptation sooner than gradual change alone, and in some scenarios extremes evoke premature, inefficient, adaptation.

Description: Climate change is likely to increase the frequency and intensity of water-related hazards on human populations. This has generated security concerns and calls for urgent policy action. However, the simplified narrative that links climate change to security via water and violent conflict is wanting. First, it is not confirmed by empirical evidence. Second, it ignores the varied character and implications of hydro-climatic hazards, the multi-faceted nature of conflict and adaptive action, and crucial intricacies of security. Integrating for the first time research and findings from diverse disciplines, we provide a more nuanced picture of the climate-water-security nexus. We consider findings from the transboundary waters, armed conflict, vulnerability, and political ecology literatures and specify the implications and priorities for policy relevant research. Although the social effects of future hydro-climatic change cannot be safely predicted, there is a good understanding of the factors that aggravate risks to social wellbeing. To reduce vulnerability, pertinent democratic and social/civil security institutions should be strengthened where they exist, and promoted where they are still absent.

Description: Most discussions of impacts of Climate Change have focused on species from temperate or polar regions. Impacts to species inhabiting warm climates are often believed to be small relative to those of species living in cooler climates. However, it is evident that some tropical/sub-tropical species, including some marine megafauna may face potentially serious consequences from a changing climate. For example, larger, warmer oceans may appear to benefit marine wildlife species like cold-sensitive Florida manatees; however, findings regarding the impact of global climate change (GCC) on estuaries and nearshore areas of Florida indicate that predicted impacts of climate change may be detrimental to endangered manatees. An examination of how projected impacts of climate change will affect threats to manatees and their habitat indicates that threats may be exacerbated. The most significant threats to the Florida manatee population, such as cold-stress, watercraft collisions, and harmful algal blooms likely will increase. Habitat is likely to be degraded under future climate scenarios. Alterations to Florida’s marine environment are ongoing, yet current manatee management plans do not consider the impacts of climate change. The ability of manatees to adapt to change will be influenced by the speed of change and the degree to which human activity impedes or alters it. To minimize impacts to species we must recognize the influence GCC may have on populations, and begin to identify and implement ways to slow or reverse negative impacts arising from it.

Description: Due to complexities of creating sea-level rise scenarios, impacts of climate-induced sea-level rise are often produced from a limited number of models assuming a global uniform rise in sea level. A greater number of models, including those with a pattern reflecting regional variations would help to assure reliability and a range of projections, indicating where models agree and disagree. This paper determines how nine new patterned-scaled sea-level rise scenarios (plus the uniform and patterned ensemble mean rises) influence global and regional coastal impacts (wetland loss, dry land loss due to erosion and the expected number of people flooded per year by extreme sea levels). The DIVA coastal impacts model was used under an A1B scenario, and assumed defences were not upgraded as conditions evolved. For seven out of nine climate models, impacts occurred at a proportional rate to global sea-level rise. For the remaining two models, higher than average rise in sea level was projected in northern latitudes or around populated coasts thus skewing global impact projections compared with the ensemble global mean. Regional variability in impacts were compared using the ensemble mean uniform and patterned scenarios: The largest relative difference in impacts occurred around the Mediterranean coast, and the largest absolute differences around low-lying populated coasts, such as south, south-east and east Asia. Uniform projections of sea-level rise impacts remain a useful method to determine global impacts, but improved regional scale models of sea-level rise, particularly around semi-enclosed seas and densely populated low-lying coasts will provide improved regional impact projections and a characterisation of their uncertainties.

Description: Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs) describe alternative outcomes for socioeconomic development. Papers describing the conceptual framework for SSPs refer to challenges to mitigation and to adaptation as fundamental concepts. Identifying which socioeconomic factors are the most important determinants of these challenges, and how to combine them in an internally consistent manner, is critical to scenario design. Here we demonstrate a systematic and traceable approach for identifying and prioritizing scenario elements. In this study, we identify 13 determinants of mitigation and adaptation challenges at a globally aggregated scale based on a survey of 25 experts. In addition, we use 19 expert elicitations and a cross-impact balance analysis to create approximately 1.5 million combinations of trends for these determinants and rank them in terms of internal consistency. Using the 1,000 most consistent combinations, we construct composite metrics for challenges to mitigation and adaptation to uncover distinguishable characteristics for five types of SSPs: those with Low, Medium, and High challenges to both mitigation and adaptation (consistent with SSPs 1–3), and those in which adaptation challenges or mitigation challenges dominate (consistent with SSPs 4–5). We find a distinguishing characteristic for mixed typology SSP4 (low mitigation challenges, high adaptation challenges): High trends for innovation capacity could lower challenges to mitigation but not necessarily challenges to adaptation. We also find that a low trend for quality of governance consistently corresponds to higher challenges to adaptation. These findings are suggestive for future research on the SSPs in particular, while our analytical approach is instructive for scenario development in general.

Description: Politicians who proclaim both their skepticism about global warming and their conservative religious credentials leave the impression that conservative Protestants may be more skeptical about scientists’ claims regarding global warming than others. The history of the relationship between conservative Protestantism and science on issues such as evolution also suggests that there may be increased skepticism. Analyzing the 2006 and 2010 General Social Survey, we find no evidence that conservative Protestantism leads respondents to have less belief in the conclusiveness of climate scientists’ claims. However, a second type of skepticism of climate scientists is an unwillingness to follow scientists’ public policy recommendations. We find that conservative Protestantism does lead to being less likely to want environmental scientists to influence the public policy debate about what to do about climate change. Existing sociological research on the relationship between religion and science suggests that this stance is due to a long-standing social/moral competition between conservative Protestantism and science.

Description: This paper describes the scenario matrix architecture that underlies a framework for developing new scenarios for climate change research. The matrix architecture facilitates addressing key questions related to current climate research and policy-making: identifying the effectiveness of different adaptation and mitigation strategies (in terms of their costs, risks and other consequences) and the possible trade-offs and synergies. The two main axes of the matrix are: 1) the level of radiative forcing of the climate system (as characterised by the representative concentration pathways) and 2) a set of alternative plausible trajectories of future global development (described as shared socio-economic pathways). The matrix can be used to guide scenario development at different scales. It can also be used as a heuristic tool for classifying new and existing scenarios for assessment. Key elements of the architecture, in particular the shared socio-economic pathways and shared policy assumptions (devices for incorporating explicit mitigation and adaptation policies), are elaborated in other papers in this special issue.

Description: American Indian and Alaska Native tribes are uniquely affected by climate change. Indigenous peoples have depended on a wide variety of native fungi, plant and animal species for food, medicine, ceremonies, community and economic health for countless generations. Climate change stands to impact the species and ecosystems that constitute tribal traditional foods that are vital to tribal culture, economy and traditional ways of life. This paper examines the impacts of climate change on tribal traditional foods by providing cultural context for the importance of traditional foods to tribal culture, recognizing that tribal access to traditional food resources is strongly influenced by the legal and regulatory relationship with the federal government, and examining the multi-faceted relationship that tribes have with places, ecological processes and species. Tribal participation in local, regional and national climate change adaption strategies, with a focus on food-based resources, can inform and strengthen the ability of both tribes and other governmental resource managers to address and adapt to climate change impacts.

Description: Despite a keen awareness of climate change, northern Indigenous Peoples have had limited participation in climate-change science due to limited access, power imbalances, and differences in worldview. A western science emphasis on facts and an indigenous emphasis on relationships to spiritual and biophysical components indicate important but distinct contributions that each knowledge system can make. Indigenous communities are experiencing widespread thawing of permafrost and coastal erosion exacerbated by loss of protective sea ice. These climate-induced changes threaten village infrastructure, water supplies, health, and safety. Climate-induced habitat changes associated with loss of sea ice and with landscape drying and extensive wildfires interact with northern development to bring both economic opportunities and environmental impacts. A multi-pronged approach to broadening indigenous participation in climate-change research should: 1) engage communities in designing climate-change solutions; 2) create an environment of mutual respect for multiple ways of knowing; 3) directly assist communities in achieving their adaptation goals; 4) promote partnerships that foster effective climate solutions from both western and indigenous perspectives; and 5) foster regional and international networking to share climate solutions.

Description: A reliable public electricity supply depends in part on a reliable electricity grid system to transmit and distribute electrical power from generating stations to consumers. The grid system comprises many components that are exposed to the weather and can experience faults as a result of weather events. As climate change is expected to alter the number and severity of weather events, then the reliability of the grid and hence the reliability of electricity supplies can be affected. This paper reviews the effects of weather events on grid systems, illustrated by reference to experience on the grid systems in Europe and North America. It is shown that the effects on the high voltage transmission networks are different from the effects on lower voltage distribution networks and that generally the most significant extreme weather is high winds. Some remedial measures that can mitigate the effects of weather events are also described.

Description: Extreme weather events and changed climate parameters have impacts on power plants and their connected infrastructures. Therefore, adaptation, especially in the context of a changing climate and a resulting shift in the intensity and frequency of extreme events, is necessary. Thermal power plants are subject to a diversity of extreme weather impacts, making them vulnerable if not adapted. In this paper, the impacts of extreme weather events on thermal power plants are first identified and structured. Then selected adaptation options for thermal power plants are presented. Three major types of adaptation option are identified: adaptation of cooling, infrastructure, and sites. The Supplementary Material introduces a GIS-based (Geographic Information System) decision-support tool for power plant adaptation and planning.

Description: American Indians have unique vulnerabilities to the impacts of climate change because of the links among ecosystems, cultural practices, and public health, but also as a result of limited resources available to address infrastructure needs. On the Crow Reservation in south-central Montana, a Northern Plains American Indian Reservation, there are community concerns about the consequences of climate change impacts for community health and local ecosystems. Observations made by Tribal Elders about decreasing annual snowfall and milder winter temperatures over the 20th century initiated an investigation of local climate and hydrologic data by the Tribal College. The resulting analysis of meteorological data confirmed the decline in annual snowfall and an increase in frost free days. In addition, the data show a shift in precipitation from winter to early spring. The number of days exceeding 90 ˚F (32 ˚C) has doubled in the past century. Streamflow data show a long-term trend of declining discharge. Elders noted that the changes are affecting fish distribution within local streams and plant species which provide subsistence foods. Concerns about warmer summer temperatures also include heat exposure during outdoor ceremonies that involve days of fasting without food or water. Additional community concerns about the effects of climate change include increasing flood frequency and fire severity, as well as declining water quality. The authors call for local research to understand and document current effects and project future impacts as a basis for planning adaptive strategies.

Description: Brown planthopper (BPH), Nilaparvata lugens (Stal.) development studied at six constant temperatures, 19, 22, 25, 28, 31 and 33 ±1 °C on rice plants revealed that developmental period from egg hatching to adult longevity decreased from 46.8 to 18.4 days as temperature increased from 19 to 31 °C. Through regression of development rate on temperature, thermal constant of small nymph (1st-2nd instar), large nymph (3rd–5th instar) and adult were determined to be 126.6, 140.8 and 161.3 degree days (DD), respectively with corresponding development threshold being 8.8, 9.5 and 9.6 °C. A thermal constant-based mechanistic-hemimetabolous-population model was adapted for BPH and linked with InfoCrop, a crop simulation model to simulate climate change impact on both the pest population and crop-pest interactions. The model was validated with field data at New Delhi and Aduthurai (Tamil Nadu, India), ( R 2  = 0.96, RMSE = 1.87 %). Climate-change-impact assessment through coupled BPH-InfoCrop model, in the light of the projected climate-change scenario for Indian subcontinent, showed a decline of 3.5 and 9.3–14 % in the BPH population by 2020 and 2050, respectively, during the rainy season at New Delhi, while the pest population exhibited only a small decline of 2.1–3.5 % during the winter at Aduthurai by 2050. BPH population decline is attributed to reduction in fecundity and survival by simulation model, which otherwise was not possible to account for with an empirical model. Concomitant to its population decline, BPH-induced yield loss also indicated a declining trend with temperature rise. However, the study considered the effect of only CO 2 and temperature rise on the BPH population and crop yield, and not that of probable changes in feeding rate and adaptive capacity of the pest.

Description: Energy efficiency is one of the main options for mitigating climate change. An accurate representation of various mechanisms of energy efficiency is vital for the assessment of its realistic potential. Results of a questionnaire show that the EMF27 models collectively represent known channels of energy efficiency reasonably well, addressing issues of energy efficiency barriers and rebound effects. The majority of models, including general equilibrium models, have an explicit end-use representation for the transportation sector. All participating partial equilibrium models have some capability of reflecting the actual market behavior of consumers and firms. The EMF27 results show that energy intensity declines faster under climate policy than under a baseline scenario. With a climate policy roughly consistent with a global warming of two degrees, the median annual improvement rate of energy intensity for 2010–2030 reaches 2.3 % per year [with a full model range of 1.3–2.9 %/yr], much faster than the historical rate of 1.3 % per year. The improvement rate increases further if technology is constrained. The results suggest that the target of the United Nations’ “Sustainable Energy for All” initiative is consistent with the 2-degree climate change target, as long as there are no technology constraints. The rate of energy intensity decline varies significantly across models, with larger variations at the regional and sectoral levels. Decomposition of the transportation sector down to a service level for a subset of models reveals that to achieve energy efficiency, a general equilibrium model tends to reduce service demands while partial equilibrium models favor technical substitution.

Description: This paper provides an overview of climate change impacts on tribal water resources and the subsequent cascading effects on the livelihoods and cultures of American Indians and Alaska Natives living on tribal lands in the U.S. A hazards and vulnerability framework for understanding these impacts is first presented followed by context on the framework components, including climate, hydrologic, and ecosystem changes (i.e. hazards) and tribe-specific vulnerability factors (socioeconomic, political, infrastructural, environmental, spiritual and cultural), which when combined with hazards lead to impacts. Next regional summaries of impacts around the U.S. are discussed. Although each tribal community experiences unique sets of impacts because of their individual history, culture, and geographic setting, many of the observed impacts are common among different groups and can be categorized as impacts on—1) water supply and management (including water sources and infrastructure), 2) aquatic species important for culture and subsistence, 3) ranching and agriculture particularly from climate extremes (e.g., droughts, floods), 4) tribal sovereignty and rights associated with water resources, fishing, hunting, and gathering, and 5) soil quality (e.g., from coastal and riverine erosion prompting tribal relocation or from drought-related land degradation). The paper finishes by highlighting potentially relevant research questions based on the five impact categories.

Description: The scientific community is now developing a new set of scenarios, referred to as Shared Socio-economic Pathways (SSPs) that will be contrasted along two axes: challenges to mitigation, and challenges to adaptation. This paper proposes a methodology to develop SSPs with a “backwards” approach based on (i) an a priori identification of potential drivers of mitigation and adaptation challenges; (ii) a modelling exercise to transform these drivers into a large set of scenarios; (iii) an a posteriori selection of a few SSPs among these scenarios using statistical cluster-finding algorithms. This backwards approach could help inform the development of SSPs to ensure the storylines focus on the driving forces most relevant to distinguishing between the SSPs. In this illustrative analysis, we find that energy sobriety, equity and convergence prove most important towards explaining future difference in challenges to adaptation and mitigation. The results also demonstrate the difficulty in finding explanatory drivers for a middle scenario (SSP2). We argue that methodologies such as that used here are useful for broad questions such as the definition of SSPs, and could also be applied to any specific decisions faced by decision-makers in the field of climate change.

Description: This study developed an approach to assess the vulnerability to climate change and variability using various group multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) methods and identified the sources of uncertainty in assessments. MCDM methods include the weighted sum method, one of the most common MCDM methods, the technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS), fuzzy-based TOPSIS, TOPSIS in a group-decision environment, and TOPSIS combined with the voting methods (Borda count and Copeland’s methods). The approach was applied to a water-resource system in South Korea, and the assessment was performed at the province level by categorizing water resources into water supply and conservation, flood control and water-quality sectors according to their management objectives. Key indicators for each category were profiled with the Delphi surveys, a series of questionnaires interspersed with controlled opinion feedback. The sectoral vulnerability scores were further aggregated into one composite score for water-resource vulnerability. Rankings among different MCDM methods varied in different degrees, but noticeable differences in the rankings from the fuzzy- and non-fuzzy-based methods suggested that the uncertainty with crisp data, rather widely used, should be acknowledged in vulnerability assessment. Also rankings from the voting-based methods did not differ much from those from non-voting-based (i.e., average-based) methods. Vulnerability rankings varied significantly among the different sectors of the water-resource systems, highlighting the need to assess the vulnerability of water-resource systems according to objectives, even though one composite index is often used for simplicity.

Description: Dramatic climatic change in the Arctic elevates the importance of determining the risk of exposure for people living in vulnerable areas and developing effective adaptation programs. Climate change assessment reports are valuable, and often definitive, sources of information for decision makers when constructing adaptation plans, yet the scope of these reports is too coarse to identify site-specific exposure to the impacts of climate change and adaptation needs. Subsistence hunters and gatherers in the Arctic are valuable knowledge holders of climate-related change in their area. Incorporating both their traditional ecological knowledge and information found in climate science assessment reports can offer adaption planners a deeper understanding of exposure to climate change and local adaptation needs. In this study, we compare information found in assessment reports of climate change in the Arctic with what we have learned from the Alaskans Sharing Indigenous Knowledge project from 2009 to 2012, a research project documenting traditional ecological knowledge in two Native villages in Alaska, Savoonga and Shaktoolik. Content analysis of the interviews with hunters and gatherers reveal the site-specific impacts of climate change affecting these two villages. We find that their traditional ecological knowledge is complimentary and largely corroborates the climate science found in assessment reports. Traditional ecological knowledge, however, is more current to the social and local conditions of the villages, and presents a more unified social and biophysical portrayal of the impacts of climate change. If taken together, these two forms of knowledge can focus adaptation planning on the pertinent needs of the communities in question.

Description: We present projections of winter storm-induced insured losses in the German residential building sector for the 21st century. With this aim, two structurally most independent downscaling methods and one hybrid downscaling method are applied to a 3-member ensemble of ECHAM5/MPI-OM1 A1B scenario simulations. One method uses dynamical downscaling of intense winter storm events in the global model, and a transfer function to relate regional wind speeds to losses. The second method is based on a reshuffling of present day weather situations and sequences taking into account the change of their frequencies according to the linear temperature trends of the global runs. The third method uses statistical-dynamical downscaling, considering frequency changes of the occurrence of storm-prone weather patterns, and translation into loss by using empirical statistical distributions. The A1B scenario ensemble was downscaled by all three methods until 2070, and by the (statistical-) dynamical methods until 2100. Furthermore, all methods assume a constant statistical relationship between meteorology and insured losses and no developments other than climate change, such as in constructions or claims management. The study utilizes data provided by the German Insurance Association encompassing 24 years and with district-scale resolution. Compared to 1971–2000, the downscaling methods indicate an increase of 10-year return values (i.e. loss ratios per return period) of 6–35 % for 2011–2040, of 20–30 % for 2041–2070, and of 40–55 % for 2071–2100, respectively. Convolving various sources of uncertainty in one confidence statement (data-, loss model-, storm realization-, and Pareto fit-uncertainty), the return-level confidence interval for a return period of 15 years expands by more than a factor of two. Finally, we suggest how practitioners can deal with alternative scenarios or possible natural excursions of observed losses.

Description: Liquid fuels will remain valued energy carriers well into any upcoming period when CO 2 reductions are sought. Biofuels are the presumed replacement for the petroleum-based transportation fuels that dominate liquid fuel use. Lifecycle analysis embeds a closed-loop model of biofuel-related carbon flows, making net CO 2 uptake an assumption to be refuted. However, evaluating net CO 2 uptake through dynamic industrial and agriforestry supply chains at real-world commercial scales is extremely difficult. All such estimates carry a great deal of doubt and cannot be verified empirically. A different perspective follows by anchoring analysis in the certainty that end-use CO 2 emissions from biofuels are essentially the same as those of the petroleum fuels they replace. A first-order model of the globally coupled bio- and fossil-fuel system reveals conditions for biofuel use to provide an atmospheric benefit. No benefit occurs in the energy sectors where biofuels are used, but rather must be found elsewhere in locations of carbon absorption or retention. The implication is that climate mitigation efforts should focus on such locations and include any mechanisms through which net uptake (an enhanced sink or verifiable offset) can be achieved by biological, chemical, geological or other means. Although biofuels can play a mitigation role when certain conditions are met, deemphasizing biofuel production in favor of terrestrial carbon management may offer more immediate and effective ways to counterbalance the CO 2 emitted when using carbon-based liquid fuels of any origin. Climate policies for transportation fuels should be reconsidered accordingly.

Description: ENSO teleconnections imply anomalous weather conditions, causing yield shortages, price fluctuations, and civil unrest. We estimate ENSO’s effect on U.S. county-level corn yield distributions and find that temperature and precipitation alone are not sufficient to summarize the effect of global climate on agriculture. We find that acreage-weighted aggregate impacts mask considerable spatial heterogeneity at the county-level for the mean, variance, and downside risk of corn yields. Impacts for mean yields range from − 24 to 33 % for El Niño and − 25 to 36 % for La Niña, with the geographical center of losses shifting from the Eastern to Western corn belt. ENSO’s effect on the variance of crop yields is highly localized and is not representative of a variance-preserving shift. We also find that downside risk impacts are large and spatially correlated across counties.

Description: It is generally agreed that the risk of catastrophic climate change can only be reduced if agents cooperate to reduce greenhouse gas emissions over the course of the 21st Century. Previous economic experiments have suggested that sufficient cooperation can often be achieved providing individuals are adequately and convincingly informed of the consequences of their actions and the stakes involved. However, this previous work, has not allowed for the fact that in the real world agents vary in both: (1) their resources to mitigate climate change, and (2) the consequences that they face from climate change. We develop and expand the protocol of previous economic experiments to investigate the introduction of such combined asymmetries. We find that when inequality in resources is combined with a greater relative risk for poorer members, cooperation collapses, with tragic consequences. This is because the rich invest proportionally less into preventing climate change when they are less at risk. We also find, through the use of a post-game questionnaire, that those individuals who were more skeptical about climate change in the real world cooperated less in our games. Insofar as such experiments can be trusted as a guide to either people’s everyday behaviour or the interactions of nation states, these results suggest that voluntary cooperation to avoid climate catastrophe in the real world is likely to be hard to achieve.

Description: There is growing concern that the higher temperatures expected with climate change will exacerbate drought extent, duration and severity by enhancing evaporative demand. Temperature-based estimates of potential evapotranspiration (PET) are popular for many eminently practical reasons and have served well in many research and management settings. However, a number of recent publications have questioned whether it is appropriate to use temperature-based PET estimates for long-term evaporative demand and drought projections, demonstrating that PET does not always track temperature. Where precipitation changes are modest, methodologically driven differences in the magnitude or direction of PET trends could lead to contrasting drought projections. Here I calculate PET by three methods (Hamon, Priestley-Taylor and Penman) and evaluate whether different techniques introduce disparities in the sign of PET change, the degree of model agreement, or the magnitude of those changes. Changes in temperature-based Hamon PET were more significantly and consistently positive than trends in PET estimated by other methods, and where methods agreed that summer PET would increase, trends in temperature-based PET were often larger in magnitude. The discrepancies in PET trends appear to derive from regional changes in incoming shortwave radiation, wind speed and humidity -- phenomena simpler equations cannot capture. Because multiple variables can influence trends in PET, it may be more justifiable to use data-intensive methods, where the source(s) of uncertainty can be identified, rather than using simpler methods that could mask important trends.

Description: Cities are increasingly aware of the need to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to changes in weather patterns leading to the production of urban climate change plans. The few existing systematic studies of these plans have focused on either adaptation or mitigation issues, and are typically based on surveys completed by city officials rather than analysis of documented evidence. To gain insight into the status of adaptation and mitigation action across the UK, climate change documents from 30 urban areas (representing ~28 % of the UK’s population) were analysed. An Urban Climate Change Preparedness Score, which could be applied to other urban areas outside the UK, has been devised for comparative analysis. This analysis characterizes progress against (i) Assessment, (ii) Planning, (iii) Action, and (iv) Monitoring, for both adaptation and mitigation. The Preparedness Score allows a quantitative comparison of climate change strategies across the urban areas analysed. This methodology can be transferred to other countries and makes an international comparison of urban areas and their climate change adaptation and mitigation plans possible. We found that all areas acknowledge climate change being a threat and that adaptation and mitigation planning and action is required. However, two urban areas did not have official adaptation or mitigation plans. Typically, mitigation activities across all cities were more advanced than adaptation plans. Emissions reduction targets ranged from 10 %–80 % with differing baselines, timeframes and scopes, for defining and meeting these targets. Similar variability was observed across adaptation plans. Several reasons for these differences are considered, but particularly notable is that a combination of incentives and regulation seem to stimulate more comprehensive strategies and action in many urban areas.

Description: In this paper, we assessed the technological feasibility and economic viability of the mid-term (until 2050) GHG emission reduction target required for stabilization of radiative forcing at 2.6 W/m2. Given the apparent uncertainty surrounding the future deployment of nuclear and CCS technologies, we intensively investigated emission reduction scenarios without nuclear and CCS. The analysis using AIM/Enduse[Global] shows the emission reduction target is technologically feasible, but the cost for achieving the target becomes very high if nuclear and CCS options are limited. The main reason for the cost rise is that additional investment for expensive technologies is required in order to compensate for emission increases in the steel, cement and power generation sectors in the absence of CCS. On the other hand, if material efficiency improvement measures, such as material substitution, efficient use of materials and recycling, are taken, the cost of achieving the emission reduction target is significantly reduced. The result indicates the potentially important role of material efficiency improvement in curbing the cost of significant GHG emission reductions without depending on nuclear and CCS.

Description: The RoSE (Roadmaps to Sustainable Energy Futures) project provides a coordinated, model-based analysis to manage the transition from carbon intensive to low carbon economies using several global integrated assessment models to explore different GHG stabilization scenarios. China TIMES provides a detailed description of the Chinese energy system that can be used to check the realism of transition scenarios for China against global models. A reference scenario with China’s target of lowering its carbon intensity by 40–45 % by 2020 compared to the 2005 level is considered, and 12 carbon constraint scenarios with different levels of carbon intensity reduction beyond 2020 are simulated by China TIMES. The results of carbon emissions pathways and energy system transitions in different scenarios are analyzed. The results from China TIMES are compared to those for both the reference and carbon policy scenarios (550 ppm CO2eq and 450 ppm CO2eq stabilization targets) for four global models, GCAM, IPAC, REMIND, and WITCH. The differences in decarbonizaton pathways across models are mainly attributed to different model structures and modeling approaches, different reference scenario definitions, different policy targets, differences in model assumptions concerning technology availability and techno-economic characteristics of the technologies, and differences in the estimation of the energy demand response to climate policy. The path towards low carbon development for China includes challenges and opportunities. Substantial efforts may be required to transform the economic development mode, to speed up innovation, R&D, and deployment of advanced low carbon technologies, to strengthen institutions, to advocate low carbon lifestyles, and to enhance international cooperation.

Description: This study investigates the use of bioenergy for achieving stringent climate stabilization targets and it analyzes the economic drivers behind the choice of bioenergy technologies. We apply the integrated assessment framework REMIND-MAgPIE to show that bioenergy, particularly if combined with carbon capture and storage (CCS) is a crucial mitigation option with high deployment levels and high technology value. If CCS is available, bioenergy is exclusively used with CCS. We find that the ability of bioenergy to provide negative emissions gives rise to a strong nexus between biomass prices and carbon prices. Ambitious climate policy could result in bioenergy prices of 70 $/GJ (or even 430 $/GJ if bioenergy potential is limited to 100 EJ/year), which indicates a strong demand for bioenergy. For low stabilization scenarios with BECCS availability, we find that the carbon value of biomass tends to exceed its pure energy value. Therefore, the driving factor behind investments into bioenergy conversion capacities for electricity and hydrogen production are the revenues generated from negative emissions, rather than from energy production. However, in REMIND modern bioenergy is predominantly used to produce low-carbon fuels, since the transport sector has significantly fewer low-carbon alternatives to biofuels than the power sector. Since negative emissions increase the amount of permissible emissions from fossil fuels, given a climate target, bioenergy acts as a complement to fossils rather than a substitute. This makes the short-term and long-term deployment of fossil fuels dependent on the long-term availability of BECCS.

Description: The sustainability of social-ecological systems depends on river flows being maintained within a range to which those systems are adapted. In order to determine the extent of this natural range of variation, we assess ecological flow thresholds and the occurrence of potentially damaging flood events to society in the context of the Lower Brahmaputra river basin. The ecological flow threshold was calculated using twenty-two ‘Range of Variability (RVA)’ parameters, considering the range between ± 1 standard deviation from the mean of the natural flow. Damaging flood events were calculated using flood frequency analysis of Annual Maxima series and using the flood classification of Bangladesh. The climate change impacts on future river flow were calculated by using a weighted ensemble analysis of twelve global circulation models (GCMs) outputs driving a large-scale hydrologic model. The simulated climate change induced altered flow regime of the Lower Brahmaputra River Basin was then investigated and compared with the calculated threshold flows. The results demonstrate that various parameters including the monthly mean of low flow (January, February and March) and high flow (June, July and August) periods, the 7-day average minimum flow, and the yearly maximum flow will exceed the threshold conditions by 1956–1995 under the business-as-usual A1B and A2 future scenarios. The results have a number of policy level implications for government agencies of the Lower Brahmaputra River Basin, specifically for Bangladesh. The calculated thresholds may be used as a good basis for negotiations with other riparian countries of the basin. The methodological approach presented in this study can be applied to other river basins and provide a useful basis for transboundary water resources management.

Description: We present new tree-ring width, δ 13 C, and δ 18 O chronologies from the Koksu site (49°N, 86° E, 2,200 m asl), situated in the Russian Altai. A strong temperature signal is recorded in the tree-ring width (June-July) and stable isotope (July-August) chronologies, a July precipitation signal captured by the stable isotope data. To investigate the nature of common climatic patterns, our new chronologies are compared with previously published tree-ring and stable isotope data from other sites in the Altai region. The temperature signal preserved in the conifer trees is strongly expressed at local and regional scales for all studied sites, resulting in even stronger temperature and precipitation signals in combined average chronologies compared to separate chronologies. This enables the reconstruction of June-July and July-August temperatures for the last 200 years using tree-ring and stable carbon isotopes. A July precipitation reconstruction based on oxygen isotopic variability recorded in tree-rings can potentially improve the understanding of hydrological changes and the occurrence of extreme events in the Russian Altai.

Description: The US climate movement has failed to create the political support needed to pass significant climate policy. It is time to reassess climate advocacy. To develop a strategy for philanthropy to strengthen climate engagement, I interviewed over 40 climate advocates,more than a dozen representatives from the foundation community, and a dozen academics. My assessment led me to conclude that climate advocates have focused too narrowly on specific policy goals and insufficiently on influencing the larger political landscape. I suggest four ways to improve climate advocacy: 1) Increase focus on medium and longer-term goals; 2) Start with people and not carbon; 3) Focus more on values and less on science; and 4) Evaluate what works and share what we learn. To accomplish these strategies, social scientists and advocates must work together to build a culture of learning. Meanwhile, philanthropy must empower experimentation and incentivize knowledge sharing.

Description: We study the possible effects of urbanization on the rise of air temperature in Saudi Arabia for the period 1981–2010. The effects of variations in elevation and marine temperature on the air temperature trend are also investigated. Surface air temperature data are analyzed for 24 sites which are mostly located at the airports across the country. The population data for the current (2010) and earlier (2004 and 1992) censuses are used for the nearest cities where the observation sites are located. A national average is calculated using two different approaches (simple averaging and weighted according to area for 1985–2010 when all stations are available) which gives trends of 0.60 and 0.51 °C/decade respectively, both significant at the 99 % level. We find no link between the temperature increase and population increase nor with elevation at the 24 sites which are mostly located in the urban effected area but not at the city centers. This suggests that the rise in air temperature is not likely due to urbanization changes resulting from the population increases.

Description: The case of the Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe exemplifies tribal vulnerabilities as a result of climate change. Preliminary socio-economic data and analysis reveal that the tribe’s vulnerability to climate change is related to cultural and economic dependence on Pyramid Lake, while external socio-economic vulnerability factors influence adaptive capacity and amplify potential impacts. Reduced water supplies as a consequence of climate change would result in a compounded reduction of inflows to Pyramid Lake, thus potentially impacting the spawning and sustenance of a cultural livelihood, the endangered cui-ui fish ( Chasmistes cujus ). Meanwhile, limited economic opportunities and dwindling federal support constrain tribal adaptive capacity. Factors that contribute to tribal adaptive capacity include: sustainability-based values, technical capacity for natural resource management, proactive initiatives for the control of invasive-species, strong external scientific networks, and remarkable tribal awareness of climate change.

Description: To prevent the loss of biodiversity in northern Central America, which is one of 34 global biodiversity hotspots, the Mesoamerican Biological Corridor, a network of protected parks and reserves has been proposed. While on-going deforestation to croplands and pastures outside the protected regions is likely to effect the dry season precipitation over the regenerated and extant forests in the proposed protected regions, global climate change driven precipitation changes may also be a significant factor, at least at some locations. This study compares the effects of land cover change to the effects of elevated greenhouse gas concentrations on precipitation in the proposed areas of the Mesoamerican Biological Corridor network. Using 5 consecutive dry season simulations of the effects of land cover change that included dry, wet and normal years, and using statistically downscaled global climate model (GCM) precipitation from the fourth assessment report (AR4), a larger expanse of the proposed protected regions was found more sensitive to precipitation decreases due to land cover changes. Two specific protected regions however stand out: the Maya Highlands and some areas of the Maya lowlands that were more sensitive to global climate change driven precipitation decreases. In these protected regions it is likely that irrespective of local policies the climate change signal would dominate.

Description: Tribal communities in the United States, particularly in coastal areas, are being forced to relocate due to accelerated rates of sea level rise, land erosion, and/or permafrost thaw brought on by climate change. Forced relocation and inadequate governance mechanisms and budgets to address climate change and support adaptation strategies may cause loss of community and culture, health impacts, and economic decline, further exacerbating tribal impoverishment and injustice. Sovereign tribal communities around the US, however, are using creative strategies to counter these losses. Taking a human rights approach, this article looks at communities’ advocacy efforts and strategies in dealing with climate change, displacement, and relocation. Case studies of Coastal Alaska and Louisiana are included to consider how communities are shaping their own relocation efforts in line with their cultural practices and values. The article concludes with recommendations on steps for moving forward toward community-led and government-supported resettlement programs.

Description: The Nooksack Indian Tribe (Tribe) inhabits the area around Deming, Washington, in the northwest corner of the state. The Tribe is dependent on various species of Pacific salmonids that inhabit the Nooksack River for ceremonial, commercial, and subsistence purposes. Of particular importance to the Tribe are spring Chinook salmon. Since European arrival, the numbers of fish that return to spawn have greatly diminished because of substantial loss of habitat primarily due to human-caused alteration of the watershed. Although direct counts are not available, it is estimated that native salmonid runs are less than 8 % of the runs in the late 1800’s. In addition, climate change has caused and will continue to cause an increase in winter flows, earlier snowmelt, decrease in summer baseflows, and an increase in water temperatures that exceed the tolerance levels, and in some cases lethal levels, of several Pacific salmonid species. The headwaters of the Nooksack River originate from glaciers on Mount Baker that have experienced significant changes over the last century due to climate change. Melt from the glaciers is a major source of runoff during the low-flow critical summer season, and climate change will have a direct effect on the magnitude and timing of stream flow in the Nooksack River. Understanding these changes is necessary to protect the Pacific salmonid species from the harmful effects of climate change. All nine salmonid species that inhabit the Nooksack River will be adversely affected by reduced summer flows and increased temperatures. The most important task ahead is the planning for, and implementation of, habitat restoration prior to climate change becoming more threatening to the survival of these important fish species. The Tribe has been collaboratively working with government agencies and scientists on the effects of climate change on the hydrology of the Nooksack River. The extinction of salmonids from the Nooksack River is unacceptable to the Tribe since it is dependent on these species and the Tribe is place-based and cannot relocate to areas where salmon will survive.

Description: Understanding vulnerability to the impacts of global environmental change and identifying adaptation measures to cope with these impacts require localized investigations that can help find actual and exact answers to the questions about who and what are vulnerable, to what are they vulnerable, how vulnerable are they, what are the causes of their vulnerability, and what responses can lessen their vulnerability. People living in forests are highly dependent on forest goods and services, and are vulnerable to forest changes both socially and economically. In the Congo basin, climate change effects on forest ecosystems are predicted to amplify the existing pressure on food security urging expansion of current agricultural lands at the expense of forest, biodiversity loss and socioeconomic stresses. The paper aimed at exploring vulnerability and adaptation needs to climate change of local communities in the humid forest zone of Cameroon. Field work was conducted in two forest communities in Lekié and in Yokadouma in the Center and Eastern Regions of Cameroon respectively. The assessment was done using a series of approaches including a preparatory phase, fieldwork proper, and validation of the results. Results show that: (a) the adverse effects of climate conditions to which these communities are exposed are already being felt and exerting considerable stress on most of their livelihoods resources; (b) drought, changing seasons, erratic rain patterns, heavy rainfall and strong winds are among the main climate-related disturbances perceived by populations in the project sites; (c) important social, ecological and economic processes over the past decades seemed to have shaped current vulnerability in the sites; (d) Some coping and adaptive strategies used so far are outdated; and specific adaptation needs are identified and suggestions for facilitating their long-term implementations provided.

Description: The national version of FUND3.6 is used to backcast the impacts of climate change to the 20th century and extrapolate to the 21st century. Carbon dioxide fertilization of crops and reduced energy demand for heating are the main positive impacts. Climate change had a negative effect on water resources and, in most years, human health. Most countries benefitted from climate change until 1980, but after that the trend is negative for poor countries and positive for rich countries. The global average impact was positive in the 20th century. In the 21st century, impacts turn negative in most countries, rich and poor. Energy demand, water resources, biodiversity and sea level rise are the main negative impacts; the impacts of climate change on human health and agriculture remain positive until 2100.

Description: “Grand Paris” is a study carried out by ten teams of researchers and city planners in the aim of putting forward general guidelines for Paris urban area’s evolution by 2030. All the teams suggest making the area “greener” in some way, to combat climate warming by CO 2 sequestration. Our team also shows that extending the nearby forests by 30 %, favouring short farm-to-consumer circuits and using lighter coloured building materials will decrease the urban heat island, reducing the mortality during heat waves as well as the need for air-conditioning. These results lead us to reverse the way of thinking urban planning: the geographic and natural aspects should replace the urban infrastructure as a driver for planning urban development. This new strategy allows city changes on quite a large scale, that will have a favourable impact in terms of economics, leisure activities, greenhouse gas emissions and the local microclimate.

Description: This paper addresses deficiencies of stochastic Weather Generators (WGs) in terms of reproduction of low-frequency variability and extremes, as well as the unanticipated effects of changes to precipitation occurrence under climate change scenarios on secondary variables. A new weather generator (named IWG) is developed in order to resolve such deficiencies and improve WGs performance. The proposed WG is composed of three major components, including a stochastic rainfall model able to reproduce realistic rainfall series containing extremes and inter-annual monthly variability, a multivariate daily temperature model conditioned to the rainfall occurrence, and a suitable multi-variate monthly generator to fit the low-frequency variability of daily maximum and minimum temperature series. The performance of IWG was tested by comparing statistical characteristics of the simulated and observed weather data, and by comparing statistical characteristics of the simulated runoff outputs by a daily rainfall-runoff model fed by the generated and observed weather data. Furthermore, IWG outputs are compared with those of the well-known LARS-WG weather generator. The tested characteristics are a variety of different daily statistics, low-frequency variability, and distribution of extremes. It is concluded that the performance of the IWG is acceptable, better than LARS-WG in the majority of tests, especially in reproduction of extremes and low-frequency variability of weather and runoff series.

Description: The assessment of potential impacts of climate change is progressing from taxonomies and enumeration of the magnitude of potential direct effects on individuals, societies, species, and ecosystems according to a limited number of metrics toward a more integrated approach that also encompasses the vast range of human response to experience and risk. Recent advances are both conceptual and methodological, and include analysis of some consequences of climate change that were heretofore intractable. In this article, I review a selection of these developments and represent them through a handful of illustrative cases. A key characteristic of the emerging areas of interest is a focus on understanding how human responses to direct impacts of climate change may cause important indirect and sometimes distant impacts. This realization underscores the need to develop integrated approaches for assessing and modeling impacts in an evolving socioeconomic and policy context.

Description: This paper studies the effects of mitigation and adaptation on coastal flood impacts. We focus on a scenario that stabilizes concentrations at 450 ppm-CO 2 -eq leading to 42 cm of global mean sea-level rise in 1995–2100 (GMSLR) and an unmitigated one leading to 63 cm of GMSLR. We also consider sensitivity scenarios reflecting increased tropical cyclone activity and a GMSLR of 126 cm. The only adaptation considered is upgrading and maintaining dikes. Under the unmitigated scenario and without adaptation, the number of people flooded reaches 168 million per year in 2100. Mitigation reduces this number by factor 1.4, adaptation by factor 461 and both options together by factor 540. The global annual flood cost (including dike upgrade cost, maintenance cost and residual damage cost) reaches US$ 210 billion per year in 2100 under the unmitigated scenario without adaptation. Mitigation reduces this number by factor 1.3, adaptation by factor 5.2 and both options together by factor 7.8. When assuming adaptation, the global annual flood cost relative to GDP falls throughout the century from about 0.06 % to 0.01–0.03 % under all scenarios including the sensitivity ones. From this perspective, adaptation to coastal flood impacts is meaningful to be widely applied irrespective of the level of mitigation. From the perspective of a some less-wealthy and small island countries, however, annual flood cost can amount to several percent of national GDP and mitigation can lower these costs significantly. We conclude that adaptation and mitigation are complimentary policies in coastal areas.

Description: Northeast China (NEC) is one of the major agricultural production areas in China and also an obvious region of climate warming. We were motivated to investigate the impacts of climate warming on the northern limits of maize planting. Additionally, we wanted to assess how spatial shifts in the cropping system impact the maize yields in NEC. To understand these impacts, we used the daily average air temperature data in 72 weather stations and regional experiment yield data from Jilin Province. Averaged across NEC, the annual air temperature increased by 0.38 °C per decade. The annual accumulated temperature above 10 °C (AAT10) followed a similar trend, increased 66 °C d per decade from 1961 to 2007, which caused a northward expansion of the northern limits of maize. The warming enabled early-maturing maize hybrids to be sown in the northern areas of Heilongjiang Province where it was not suitable for growing maize before the warming. In the southern areas of Heilongjiang Province and the eastern areas of Jilin Province, the early-maturing maize hybrids could be replaced by the middle-maturing hybrids with a longer growing season. The maize in the northern areas of Liaoning Province was expected to change from middle-maturing to late-maturing hybrids. Changing the hybrids led to increase the maize yield. When the early-maturing hybrids were replaced by middle-maturing hybrids in Jilin Province, the maize yields would increase by 9.8 %. Similarly, maize yields would increase by 7.1 % when the middle-maturing hybrids were replaced by late-maturing hybrids.

Description: Federally-recognized tribes must adapt to many ecological challenges arising from climate change, from the effects of glacier retreat on the habitats of culturally significant species to how sea leave rise forces human communities to relocate. The governmental and social institutions supporting tribes in adapting to climate change are often constrained by political obstructions, raising concerns about justice. Beyond typical uses of justice, which call attention to violations of formal rights or to considerations about the degree to which some populations may have caused anthropogenic climate change, a justice framework should guide how leaders, scientists and professionals of all heritages and who work with or for federally-recognized tribes understand what actions are morally essential for supporting tribes’ adaptation efforts. This paper motivates a shift to a forward-looking framework of justice. The framework situates justice within the systems of responsibilities that matter to tribes and many others, which range from webs of inter-species relationships to government-to-government partnerships. Justice is achieved when these systems of responsibilities operate in ways that support the continued flourishing of tribal communities.

Description: This paper offers some thoughts on the value added of new economic estimates of climate change damages. We begin with a warning to beware of analyses that are so narrow that they miss a good deal of the important economic ramifications of the full suite of manifestations of climate change. Our second set of comments focuses attention on one of the most visible products of integrated assessment modeling—estimates of the social cost of carbon which we take as one example of aggregate economic indicators that have been designed to summarize climate risk in policy deliberations. Our point is that these estimates are so sensitive to a wide range of parameters that improved understanding of economic damages across many (if not all) climate sensitive sectors may offer only limited value added. Having cast some doubt on the ability of improved estimates of economic damages to increase the value of economic damage estimates in integrated assessment modeling designed to inform climate policy deliberations, we offer an alternative approach—describing implicitly a research agenda that could (a) effectively inform mitigation decisions while, at the same time, (b) providing economic estimates for aggregate indicators like the social cost of carbon.

Description: Peacebuilding countries are concentrated in areas of heightened vulnerability to climate change impacts, and almost certainly lack the capacity to manage these impacts. In spite of this overlap, climate change adaptation and mitigation projects are typically excluded from peacebuilding activities. This is particularly alarming given that many analysts believe climate change will trigger, amplify or perpetuate humanitarian crises, population displacement, political extremism and violent conflict in the regions in which most peacebuilding operations take place. This paper investigates opportunities for integrating climate change into peacebuilding. It identifies three obstacles to this integration—the lack of climate change tools and policies that can be easily introduced into typical peacebuilding programming; the skepticism and complacency of the donor community; and tensions between the objectives and timeframes of peacebuilding and those of climate change response. The paper then examines opportunities to integrate climate change into four principal programmatic areas of peacebuilding—socio-economic recovery, politics and governance, security and rule of law, and human rights—and concludes that more attention needs to be given to these opportunities in order to build resilience and reduce the likelihood of more daunting and costly challenges in the future.

Description: It has recently been highlighted that the economic value of climate change mitigation depends sensitively on the slim possibility of extreme warming. This insight has been obtained through a focus on the fat upper tail of the climate sensitivity probability distribution. However, while climate sensitivity is undoubtedly important, what ultimately matters is transient temperature change. A focus on transient temperature change stresses the interplay of climate sensitivity with other physical uncertainties, notably effective heat capacity. In this paper we present a conceptual analysis of the physical uncertainties in economic models of climate mitigation, leading to an empirical application of the DICE model, which investigates the interaction of uncertainty in climate sensitivity and the effective heat capacity. We expand on previous results exploring the sensitivity of economic evaluations to the tail of the climate sensitivity distribution alone, and demonstrate that uncertainty about the system’s effective heat capacity also plays a very important role. We go on to discuss complementary avenues of economic and scientific research that may help provide a better combined understanding of the physical and economic processes associated with a rapidly warming world.

Description: The Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model is used to simulate the long-term effect of urbanization on regional climate, especially the East Asian monsoon. Besides land use change from urbanization, anthropogenic heat release is an important factor for the urban climate and environment, so these two factors are included in the simulation. Two experiments were designed and executed for the 10-year period. Urbanization is not considered in one experiment, and in the other, urban land use and anthropogenic heat release are comprehensively investigated. Comparison of the two runs shows that urbanization mainly decreases low-cloud cover across most of East China, and nearly all surface energy fluxes increase except those of latent heat and upward shortwave. Based on a multiyear average, the urbanization reduced summer precipitation in urban agglomerations, but the interannual variability is very large. Local upwelling airflow is strengthened by urbanization; however, additional precipitation was not produced because of a decline of surface moisture in urban agglomeration areas. From 850 hPa circulation change and the East Asian monsoon index, the summer monsoon is strengthened slightly and the winter monsoon is always weakened by large-scale urbanization.

Description: This paper discusses the role and relevance of the shared socioeconomic pathways (SSPs) and the new scenarios that combine SSPs with representative concentration pathways (RCPs) for climate change impacts, adaptation, and vulnerability (IAV) research. It first provides an overview of uses of social–environmental scenarios in IAV studies and identifies the main shortcomings of earlier such scenarios. Second, the paper elaborates on two aspects of the SSPs and new scenarios that would improve their usefulness for IAV studies compared to earlier scenario sets: (i) enhancing their applicability while retaining coherence across spatial scales, and (ii) adding indicators of importance for projecting vulnerability. The paper therefore presents an agenda for future research, recommending that SSPs incorporate not only the standard variables of population and gross domestic product, but also indicators such as income distribution, spatial population, human health and governance.

Description: The role of sea surface temperature anomalies (SSTAs) in the Atlantic and eastern Pacific and high-frequency atmospheric variability from the Pacific during the 1993 and 2008 Midwest floods is investigated with a regional climate model. The SSTAs insignificantly modulate Midwest rainfall during the 1993 flood, but enhance precipitation during the 2008 peak flood by strengthening the southern portion of the Great Plains low-level jet, enhancing moisture transport from the Gulf of Mexico into the Midwest. This work suggests that while North Atlantic SST strongly controls Midwest decadal drought and pluvial periods, it plays a minimal or secondary role in modulating extreme flood events lasting weeks to months. A negative Pacific/North American (PNA) teleconnection marked the peak of both floods, suggesting a link between extreme Midwest warm season rainfall and high-frequency PNA variations. Simulations that apply a 10-day low-pass filter to the western lateral boundary condition indicate that interactions between the eddy and time-mean flow played a significant, but counterintuitive role, during the 1993 flood. Although above normal Pacific cyclone activity was observed to trigger heavy Midwest precipitation, the synoptic eddies also indirectly influenced rainfall by modifying the time-mean circulation. Simulations show that eddies from the Pacific dampened the positive rainfall anomalies by weakening vertically integrated moisture transport and upper level divergence anomalies over the Midwest.

Description: Several works reported wind-wave climate changes at Buenos Aires Province continental shelf. The aim of this work is to investigate the impact of these changes in the coastal processes of the region. This study is carried out by means of visual wave parameters gathered at the surf zone of Pinamar and by a conveniently implemented and validated numerical wave model (SWAN). Numerical results corresponding to a grid point located 30 km off Pinamar show a significant increase of wave heights from the S and SSE directions and in the frequency of occurrence of waves coming from the S, SSE and E. It is shown that these slight offshore appreciated trends would not have significant effects on the breaker heights observed at the surf zone at Pinamar. On the contrary, the slight positive trend observed offshore in the frequency of occurrence could be affecting the incidence of waves onshore, producing an increase in the number of cases of normal incidence at the surf zone and, consequently, a significant decrease in the alongshore wave energy flux assessed at Pinamar. This reduction in the alongshore wave energy flux could be responsible for some coastal changes detected in the region as, for instance, the remarkable shortening of Punta Rasa spit located 70 km northward Pinamar.

Description: The terms “weather extremes” and “climate extremes” are widely used in meteorology, often in relation to climate change. This paper reviews the empirical investigations into parallel changes in extreme events and climate change published in recent years and looks at their relevance for the global energy system. Empirical investigation into the correlation of extremes with global warming covers five groups: changes in temperature, precipitation, wind (storm) extremes, tropical and extra-tropical circulation phenomena. For temperature extremes, extensive analyses demonstrate that extreme hot days and nights will likely become more frequent, and extreme cold days and nights less frequent. Intense precipitation events will likely become more frequent in most continental regions. Scientific confidence in the trends of the frequency, duration, and intensity of tropical cyclones, is still low. A poleward shift is observed for extratropical cyclones, whereas no convincing tendencies of many smaller-scale phenomena, for example, tornados, or hail, can yet be detected. All these extremes have serious implications for the energy sector.

Description: Many studies have observed changes in the frequency and intensity of precipitation extremes and floods during the last decade(s). Natural variability by climate oscillations partly determines the observed evolution of precipitation extremes. Based on a technique for the identification and analysis of changes in extremes, this paper shows that precipitation extremes have oscillatory behaviour at multidecadal time scales. The analysis is based on a unique dataset of 108 years of 10-minute precipitation intensities at Uccle (Brussels), not affected by instrumental changes. We also checked the consistency of the findings with long precipitation records at 724 stations across Europe and the Middle East. The past 100 years show for northwestern Europe, both in winter and summer, larger and more precipitation extremes around the 1910s, 1950–1960s, and more recently during the 1990s–2000s. The oscillations for southwestern Europe are anti-correlated with these of northwestern Europe, thus with oscillation highs in the 1930–1940s and 1970s. The precipitation oscillation peaks are explained by persistence in atmospheric circulation patterns over the North Atlantic during periods of 10 to 15 years.

Description: We investigate major results of the NARCCAP multiple regional climate model (RCM) experiments driven by multiple global climate models (GCMs) regarding climate change for seasonal temperature and precipitation over North America. We focus on two major questions: How do the RCM simulated climate changes differ from those of the parent GCMs and thus affect our perception of climate change over North America, and how important are the relative contributions of RCMs and GCMs to the uncertainty (variance explained) for different seasons and variables? The RCMs tend to produce stronger climate changes for precipitation: larger increases in the northern part of the domain in winter and greater decreases across a swath of the central part in summer, compared to the four GCMs driving the regional models as well as to the full set of CMIP3 GCM results. We pose some possible process-level mechanisms for the difference in intensity of change, particularly for summer. Detailed process-level studies will be necessary to establish mechanisms and credibility of these results. The GCMs explain more variance for winter temperature and the RCMs for summer temperature. The same is true for precipitation patterns. Thus, we recommend that future RCM-GCM experiments over this region include a balanced number of GCMs and RCMs.

Description: Assessments of the benefits of climate change mitigation—and thus of the appropriate stringency of greenhouse gas emissions abatement—depend upon ethical, legal, and political economic considerations. Global climate change mitigation is often represented as a repeated prisoners’ dilemma in which the net benefits of sustained global cooperation exceed the net benefits of uncooperative unilateral action for any given actor. Global cooperation can be motivated either by circumspection—a decision to account for the damages one’s own actions inflict upon others—or by the expectation of reciprocity from others. If the marginal global benefits of abatement are approximately constant in total abatement, the domestically optimal price approaches the global cooperative optimum linearly with increasing circumspection and reciprocity. Approximately constant marginal benefits are expected if climate damages are quadratic in temperature and if the airborne fraction of carbon emissions is constant. If, on the other hand, damages increase with temperature faster than quadratically or carbon sinks weaken significantly with increasing CO 2 concentrations, marginal benefits will decline with abatement. In this case, the approach to the global optimum is concave and less than full circumspection and/or reciprocity can lead to optimal domestic abatement close to the global optimum.

Description: The freight and logistics sector is of significant importance as an enabler and driver of the global economy, but it is also inherently vulnerable to hazardous weather. Despite this, there is currently no quantitative assessment of how climate change may affect the sector. This paper applies multidisciplinary climate change impact assessment tools and conceptual frameworks to the road freight sector of Great Britain in order to identify potential future weather-related safety issues. Relationships between weather and freight accidents are determined using road accident data and meteorological observations, which are then used with climate change scenarios to arrive at projections of possible impacts across the regions of Great Britain. Included in the study are industry perceptions of future trends within the sector and wider economy which many affect freight’s exposure and sensitivity to weather. These are elicited through interviews and an iterative expert Delphi study. Hence, unlike many other climate change impact assessments, this innovative study takes into account the potentially significant impact of socio-economic change (including institutional and operational). The results show that summer precipitation and winter ice-related accidents are likely to decrease across most of the country, whereas winter rain-related accidents are projected to increase. However, it is postulated that some of the impacts of climate change will be modified by reflexive behavioural change on the part of the driver and either institutional adaptation or complacency on the part of the road authorities. The paper concludes by framing the study in a range of future scenarios outlining how the socio-economic environment could influence the road transport network and how it is used, modifying the impact of climate change.

Description: The overall global-scale consequences of climate change are dependent on the distribution of impacts across regions, and there are multiple dimensions to these impacts. This paper presents a global assessment of the potential impacts of climate change across several sectors, using a harmonised set of impacts models forced by the same climate and socio-economic scenarios. Indicators of impact cover the water resources, river and coastal flooding, agriculture, natural environment and built environment sectors. Impacts are assessed under four SRES socio-economic and emissions scenarios, and the effects of uncertainty in the projected pattern of climate change are incorporated by constructing climate scenarios from 21 global climate models. There is considerable uncertainty in projected regional impacts across the climate model scenarios, and coherent assessments of impacts across sectors and regions therefore must be based on each model pattern separately; using ensemble means, for example, reduces variability between sectors and indicators. An example narrative assessment is presented in the paper. Under this narrative approximately 1 billion people would be exposed to increased water resources stress, around 450 million people exposed to increased river flooding, and 1.3 million extra people would be flooded in coastal floods each year. Crop productivity would fall in most regions, and residential energy demands would be reduced in most regions because reduced heating demands would offset higher cooling demands. Most of the global impacts on water stress and flooding would be in Asia, but the proportional impacts in the Middle East North Africa region would be larger. By 2050 there are emerging differences in impact between different emissions and socio-economic scenarios even though the changes in temperature and sea level are similar, and these differences are greater in 2080. However, for all the indicators, the range in projected impacts between different climate models is considerably greater than the range between emissions and socio-economic scenarios.

Description: Climate stabilization efforts must integrate the actions of many socio-economic sectors to be successful in meeting climate stabilization goals, such as limiting atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) concentration to be less than double the pre-industrial levels. Estimates of the costs and benefits of stabilization policies are often informed by Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs) of the climate and the economy. These IAMs are highly non-linear with many parameters that abstract globally integrated characteristics of environmental and socio-economic systems. Diagnostic analyses of IAMs can aid in identifying the interdependencies and parametric controls of modeled stabilization policies. Here we report a comprehensive variance-based sensitivity analysis of a doubled-CO 2 stabilization policy scenario generated by the globally-aggregated Dynamic Integrated model of Climate and the Economy (DICE). We find that neglecting uncertainties considerably underestimates damage and mitigation costs associated with a doubled-CO 2 stabilization goal. More than ninety percent of the states-of-the-world (SOWs) sampled in our analysis exceed the damages and abatement costs calculated for the reference case neglecting uncertainties (1.2 trillion 2005 USD, with worst case costs exceeding $60 trillion). We attribute the variance in these costs to uncertainties in the model parameters relating to climate sensitivity, global participation in abatement, and the cost of lower emission energy sources.

Description: In the 9th century BC, Assyrians based in northern Iraq started a relentless process of expansion that within two centuries would see them controlling most of the ancient Near East. Traditional explanations for the decline of the Neo-Assyrian Empire in the 7th century BC have emphasized the role of military conflict, and especially the destruction of the Assyrian capital, Nineveh, by a coalition of Babylonian and Median forces in 612 BC. However, it remains unclear how the Assyrian state, the most powerful military machine of its age and the largest empire the Old World had ever seen up to that time, declined so quickly. In this paper, we highlight two potential factors which may have had some influence upon the Assyrian decline that have not been previously explored. The first is a major increase in the population of the Assyrian heartland area at the dawn of the 7th century BC, which substantially reduced the drought resilience of the region. The second factor is an episode of severe drought affecting large portions of the Near East during the mid-7th century BC. We propose a series of testable hypotheses which detail how the combination of these two factors may have contributed to the development of considerable economic and political instability within the Assyrian Empire, and argue that these demographic and climatic factors played a significant role in its demise.

Description: Cap-and-trade, a regulatory instrument widely used to constrain greenhouse gas and other pollution, has recently been criticized for producing only small amounts of intended emission reductions. This paper looks at the empirical record of cap-and-trade since the beginning in 1995, and shows that emission targets have almost always been easier and cheaper to reach than expected. The five main reasons are generous targets, changes in economic output, fuel price movements, innovation, and complementary emission reduction policies. Overall, this failure to predict mitigation potentials may relate to a psychological “end of history bias,” whereby policymakers, industry, and analysts think that less change will happen in the future than has demonstrably happened in the past. Consequently, more abatement is possible and at lower costs than generally thought, rendering the prices of emission permits hard to predict. For climate research, the findings imply that emission scenarios assuming ever-increasing pollution prices may benefit from integrating recent experience with cap-and-trade regulations. In policy terms, mechanisms such as floor prices need to be considered to guarantee emission reductions under uncertainty.

Description: Existing studies in the context of assessing vulnerability to climate variability and change delineate, rather inadequately, interconnected interactions occurring within the climate-human-environment interaction space. Besides, studies documenting stakeholders’ perceptions regarding climate change induced vulnerabilities are limited in terms of providing indicators for decision-making. This paper aims at constructing a livelihood vulnerability index for climate variability and change capturing interconnected interactions based on peoples’ perceptions while providing indicators for evidence based decision-making. A semi-quantitative fuzzy cognitive mapping (FCM) approach has been deployed to capture peoples’ perceptions of climate induced perturbations and adaptations. This approach helps quantify stakeholders’ perspectives while capturing interconnected interactions in order to estimate livelihood vulnerability to climate variability and change of poor agro-pastoralists in the Bhilwara, a district in Western India. Combining the FCM approach with a sustainable livelihood framework warrants an understanding of assets sensitive to climate variability and change along with those serving as adaptive capacities. The findings of this study confirm that financial and natural assets are most susceptible to harm while organisational and financial assets provide resilience against climate variability and change. The results suggest that livelihood vulnerability of agro-pastoralists lie in the range of being ‘vulnerable’ to climate variability and change while varying across three seasons summer, winter, and rainfall.

Description: Recent literature, the US Global Change Research Program’s National Climate Assessment, and recent events, such as Hurricane Sandy, highlight the need to take better account of both storm surge and sea-level rise (SLR) in assessing coastal risks of climate change. This study combines three models—a tropical cyclone simulation model; a storm surge model; and a model for economic impact and adaptation—to estimate the joint effects of storm surge and SLR for the US coast through 2100. The model is tested using multiple SLR scenarios, including those incorporating estimates of dynamic ice-sheet melting, two global greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation policy scenarios, and multiple general circulation model climate sensitivities. The results illustrate that a large area of coastal land and property is at risk of damage from storm surge today; that land area and economic value at risk expands over time as seas rise and as storms become more intense; that adaptation is a cost-effective response to this risk, but residual impacts remain after adaptation measures are in place; that incorporating site-specific episodic storm surge increases national damage estimates by a factor of two relative to SLR-only estimates, with greater impact on the East and Gulf coasts; and that mitigation of GHGs contributes to significant lessening of damages. For a mid-range climate-sensitivity scenario that incorporates dynamic ice sheet melting, the approach yields national estimates of the impacts of storm surge and SLR of $990 billion through 2100 (net of adaptation, cumulative undiscounted 2005$); GHG mitigation policy reduces the impacts of the mid-range climate-sensitivity estimates by $84 to $100 billion.

Description:    The sequence of extreme September sea ice extent minima over the past decade suggests acceleration in the response of the Arctic sea ice cover to external forcing, hastening the ongoing transition towards a seasonally open Arctic Ocean. This reflects several mutually supporting processes. Because of the extensive open water in recent Septembers, ice cover in the following spring is increasingly dominated by thin, first-year ice (ice formed during the previous autumn and winter) that is vulnerable to melting out in summer. Thinner ice in spring in turn fosters a stronger summer ice-albedo feedback through earlier formation of open water areas. A thin ice cover is also more vulnerable to strong summer retreat under anomalous atmospheric forcing. Finally, general warming of the Arctic has reduced the likelihood of cold years that could bring about temporary recovery of the ice cover. Events leading to the September ice extent minima of recent years exemplify these processes. Content Type Journal Article Pages 1-23 DOI 10.1007/s10584-011-0101-1 Authors Julienne C. Stroeve, National Snow and Ice Data Center, Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, University of Colorado, Boulder, Boulder CO, USA Mark C. Serreze, National Snow and Ice Data Center, Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, University of Colorado, Boulder, Boulder CO, USA Marika M. Holland, National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO, USA Jennifer E. Kay, National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO, USA James Malanik, Colorado Center for Astrodynamics Research, University of Colorado, Boulder, Boulder CO, USA Andrew P. Barrett, National Snow and Ice Data Center, Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, University of Colorado, Boulder, Boulder CO, USA Journal Climatic Change Online ISSN 1573-1480 Print ISSN 0165-0009

Description:    In this paper, change-points in time series of annual extremes in temperature and precipitation in the Zhujiang River Basin are analyzed with the CUSUM test. The data cover the period 1961–2007 for 192 meteorological stations. Annual indicators are analyzed: mean temperature, maximum temperature, warm days, total precipitation, 5-day maximum precipitation, and dry days. Significant change-points (1986/87, 1997/98, 1968/69, and 2003/04) are detected in the time series of most of the indicators. The change-point in 1986/87 is investigated in more detail. Most stations with this change-point in temperature indicators are located in the eastern and coastal areas of the basin. Stations with this change-point in dry days are located in the western area. The means and trends of the temperature indicators increase in the entire basin after 1986/87. The highest magnitudes can be found at the coast and delta. Decreasing (increasing) tendencies in total and 5-day maximum precipitation (dry days) are mostly observed in the western and central regions. The detected change-points can be explained by changes in the indices of the Western Pacific subtropical high and the East Asian summer monsoon as well as by change-points in wind directions. In years when the indices simultaneously increase and decrease (indices taking reverse directions to negative and positive) higher annual temperatures and lower annual precipitation occur in the Zhujiang River Basin. The high station density and data quality are very useful for spatially assessing change-points of climatic extreme events. The relation of the change points to large-scale oscillation can provide valuable data for planning adaptation measures against climate risks, e.g. for flood control, disaster preparedness, and water resource management. Content Type Journal Article Pages 1-17 DOI 10.1007/s10584-011-0123-8 Authors Thomas Fischer, National Climate Center, China Meteorological Administration, 46, Zhongguancun Nandajie, Haidian, Beijing, 100 081 People’s Republic of China Marco Gemmer, National Climate Center, China Meteorological Administration, 46, Zhongguancun Nandajie, Haidian, Beijing, 100 081 People’s Republic of China Lüliu Liu, National Climate Center, China Meteorological Administration, 46, Zhongguancun Nandajie, Haidian, Beijing, 100 081 People’s Republic of China Buda Su, National Climate Center, China Meteorological Administration, 46, Zhongguancun Nandajie, Haidian, Beijing, 100 081 People’s Republic of China Journal Climatic Change Online ISSN 1573-1480 Print ISSN 0165-0009

Description:    One of the major tasks of climate models is the description of precipitation characteristics. Many complex physical mechanisms are involved, and the corresponding parameterizations lead to more important differences among models for both present climate and climate change conditions than what is obtained for temperature analysis. Extreme precipitation events are more scarce, and therefore, differences are even larger. These processes are very relevant for impact studies, both when dealing with heavy precipitation events and also with drought conditions or dry spell description. But studies focused on dry spell analysis have received much less attention, compared with the ones related to large precipitation conditions. Present climate conditions already indicate important risks related to aridity over many areas of the world, and they are projected to be increased for future climate conditions. One good example of a region with these kind of risks is the Iberian Peninsula, where agricultural and socioeconomic impacts of water supply deficits are already a very relevant feature. The modeling results indicate that future climate will increase the mean and largest dry periods over most of the Iberian Peninsula, with a gradient of increase that is larger on the south and smaller on the north, therefore increasing the latitudinal contrast with respect to present climate. Regional features over certain basins and coasts are reproduced by the regional models, but not for the global climate model. Thus, future climate conditions point to a more severe hydrological stresses over several regions in the Iberian Peninsula. Content Type Journal Article Pages 1-10 DOI 10.1007/s10584-011-0114-9 Authors Enrique Sánchez, Facultad de Ciencias del Medio Ambiente, Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha (UCLM), Toledo, Spain Marta Domínguez, Instituto de Ciencias Ambientales (ICAM), Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha (UCLM), Toledo, Spain Raquel Romera, Instituto de Ciencias Ambientales (ICAM), Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha (UCLM), Toledo, Spain Noelia López de la Franca, Instituto de Ciencias Ambientales (ICAM), Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha (UCLM), Toledo, Spain Miguel Angel Gaertner, Facultad de Ciencias del Medio Ambiente, Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha (UCLM), Toledo, Spain Clemente Gallardo, Instituto de Ciencias Ambientales (ICAM), Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha (UCLM), Toledo, Spain Manuel Castro, Facultad de Ciencias del Medio Ambiente, Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha (UCLM), Toledo, Spain Journal Climatic Change Online ISSN 1573-1480 Print ISSN 0165-0009

Description:    In this paper we argue that the financial provisions of the Copenhagen Accord, if used primarily to mitigate greenhouse gas (GHGs) emissions, could compensate the lack of more energetic action on the domestic mitigation side. In order to maximize the mitigation potential, the Copenhagen Green Climate Fund (CGCF) should be transformed into the International Bank for Emissions Allowance Acquisition (IBEAA) envisaged by Bradford ( 2008 ). We estimate that 50 percent of the CGCF in 2020 (50 US billions) could finance from 2.1 to 3.3 Gt CO2-eq emission reductions, depending on the domestic mitigation effort of Annex I and Non-Annex I countries. We construct a matrix that shows the level of GHGs emissions in 2020 under all possible combinations of abatement pledges and international mitigation financing, thus highlighting a rich set of options to reach the same level of GHGs emissions in 2020. Content Type Journal Article Pages 1-20 DOI 10.1007/s10584-011-0125-6 Authors Carlo Carraro, University of Venice and Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei, Dorsoduro 3246, 30123 Venezia, Italy Emanuele Massetti, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei and Euro-Mediterranean Center for Climate Change, C.so Magenta 63, 20123 Milan, Italy Journal Climatic Change Online ISSN 1573-1480 Print ISSN 0165-0009

Description:    The availability of electric power is an important prerequisite for the development or maintenance of high living standards. Global change, including socio-economic change and climate change, is a challenge for those who have to deal with the long-term management of thermoelectric power plants. Power plants have lifetimes of several decades. Their water demand changes with climate parameters in the short and medium term. In the long term, the water demand will change as old units are retired and new generating units are built. The present paper analyses the effects of global change and options for adapting to water shortages for power plants in the German capital Berlin in the short and long term. The interconnection between power plants, i.e. water demand, and water resources management, i.e. water availability, is described. Using different models, scenarios of socio-economic and climate change are analysed. One finding is that by changing the cooling system of power plants from a once-through system to a closed-circuit cooling system the vulnerability of power plants can be reduced considerably. Such modified cooling systems also are much more robust with respect to the effects of climate change and declining streamflows due to human activities in the basin under study. Notwithstanding the possible adaptations analysed for power plants in Berlin, increased economic costs are expected due to declining streamflows and higher water temperatures. Content Type Journal Article Pages 1-21 DOI 10.1007/s10584-011-0110-0 Authors Hagen Koch, Hydrology and Water Resources Management, Brandenburg University of Technology Cottbus, P.O. Box 101 344, 03013 Cottbus, Germany Stefan Vögele, Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH, Institute of Energy Research - Systems Analysis and Technology Evaluation (IEF-STE), 52425 Jülich, Germany Michael Kaltofen, DHI-WASY GmbH, Branch Office Dresden, Comeniusstraße 109, 01309 Dresden, Germany Uwe Grünewald, Hydrology and Water Resources Management, Brandenburg University of Technology Cottbus, P.O. Box 101 344, 03013 Cottbus, Germany Journal Climatic Change Online ISSN 1573-1480 Print ISSN 0165-0009

Description:    The importance of ecological management for reducing the vulnerability of biodiversity to climate change is increasingly recognized, yet frameworks to facilitate a structured approach to climate adaptation management are lacking. We developed a conceptual framework that can guide identification of climate change impacts and adaptive management options in a given region or biome. The framework focuses on potential points of early climate change impact, and organizes these along two main axes. First, it recognizes that climate change can act at a range of ecological scales. Secondly, it emphasizes that outcomes are dependent on two potentially interacting and countervailing forces: (1) changes to environmental parameters and ecological processes brought about by climate change, and (2) responses of component systems as determined by attributes of resistance and resilience. Through this structure, the framework draws together a broad range of ecological concepts, with a novel emphasis on attributes of resistance and resilience that can temper the response of species, ecosystems and landscapes to climate change. We applied the framework to the world’s largest remaining Mediterranean-climate woodland, the ‘Great Western Woodlands’ of south-western Australia. In this relatively intact region, maintaining inherent resistance and resilience by preventing anthropogenic degradation is of highest priority and lowest risk. Limited, higher risk options such as fire management, protection of refugia and translocation of adaptive genes may be justifiable under more extreme change, hence our capacity to predict the extent of change strongly impinges on such management decisions. These conclusions may contrast with similar analyses in degraded landscapes, where natural integrity is already compromised, and existing investment in restoration may facilitate experimentation with higher risk options. Content Type Journal Article Pages 1-22 DOI 10.1007/s10584-011-0092-y Authors Suzanne M. Prober, CSIRO Climate Adaptation National Research Flagship and CSIRO Ecosystem Sciences, Private Bag 5, PO Wembley, WA 6913, Australia Kevin R. Thiele, Department of Environment and Conservation, Science Division, LMB 104, Bentley Delivery Centre, Perth, WA 6983, Australia Philip W. Rundel, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California, Box 951405, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1405, USA Colin J. Yates, Department of Environment and Conservation, Science Division, LMB 104, Bentley Delivery Centre, Perth, WA 6983, Australia Sandra L. Berry, Fenner School of Environment and Society, The Australian National University, Acton, ACT 0200, Australia Margaret Byrne, Department of Environment and Conservation, Science Division, LMB 104, Bentley Delivery Centre, Perth, WA 6983, Australia Les Christidis, National Marine Science Centre, Southern Cross University, Coffs Harbour, NSW 2450, Australia Carl R. Gosper, CSIRO Climate Adaptation National Research Flagship and CSIRO Ecosystem Sciences, Private Bag 5, PO Wembley, WA 6913, Australia Pauline F. Grierson, School of Plant Biology, University of Western Australia, 35 Stirling Hwy, Crawley, WA 6009, Australia Kristina Lemson, Centre for Ecosystem Management, School of Natural Sciences, Edith Cowan University, Joondalup, WA 6027, Australia Tom Lyons, Centre of Excellence for Climate Change Woodland and Forest Health, School of Environmental Science, Murdoch University, South St, Murdoch, WA 6150, Australia Craig Macfarlane, CSIRO Climate Adaptation National Research Flagship and CSIRO Ecosystem Sciences, Private Bag 5, PO Wembley, WA 6913, Australia Michael H. O’Connor, CSIRO Climate Adaptation National Research Flagship and CSIRO Ecosystem Sciences, Private Bag 5, PO Wembley, WA 6913, Australia John K. Scott, CSIRO Climate Adaptation National Research Flagship and CSIRO Ecosystem Sciences, Private Bag 5, PO Wembley, WA 6913, Australia Rachel J. Standish, School of Plant Biology, University of Western Australia, 35 Stirling Hwy, Crawley, WA 6009, Australia William D. Stock, Centre for Ecosystem Management, School of Natural Sciences, Edith Cowan University, Joondalup, WA 6027, Australia Eddie J. B. van Etten, Centre for Ecosystem Management, School of Natural Sciences, Edith Cowan University, Joondalup, WA 6027, Australia Grant W. Wardell-Johnson, Curtin Institute for Biodiversity and Climate, Curtin University, GPO BoxU1987, Perth, WA 6845, Australia Alexander Watson, The Wilderness Society, City West Lotteries House, 2 Delhi Street, West Perth, WA 6005, Australia Journal Climatic Change Online ISSN 1573-1480 Print ISSN 0165-0009

Description:    On the island of Ameland (The Netherlands), natural gas has been extracted from a dune and salt marsh natural area since 1986. This has caused a soil subsidence of c. 1–25 cm, which can be used as a model to infer effects of future sea level rise. The aims of our study were (a) to relate the changes in the vegetation, and more specifically, in plant diversity, during the extraction period to soil subsidence and weather fluctuations, and (b) to use these relations to predict future changes due to the combination of ongoing soil subsidence and climate change. We characterised climate change as increases in mean sea level, storm frequency and net precipitation. Simultaneous observations were made of vegetation composition, elevation, soil chemistry, net precipitation, groundwater level, and flooding frequency over the period 1986–2001. By using multiple regression the changes in the vegetation could be decomposed into (1) an oscillatory component due to fluctuations in net precipitation, (2) an oscillatory component due to incidental flooding, (3) a monotonous component due to soil subsidence, and (4) a monotonous component not related to any measured variable but probably due to eutrophication. The changes were generally small during the observation period, but the regression model predicts large changes by the year 2100 that are almost exclusively due to sea level rise. However, although sea level rise is expected to cause a loss of species, this does not necessarily lead to a loss of conservancy value. Content Type Journal Article Pages 1-22 DOI 10.1007/s10584-011-0118-5 Authors Han F. van Dobben, Alterra, Wageningen UR, POB 47, 6700AA Wageningen, The Netherlands Pieter A. Slim, Alterra, Wageningen UR, POB 47, 6700AA Wageningen, The Netherlands Journal Climatic Change Online ISSN 1573-1480 Print ISSN 0165-0009

Description:    The durability of concrete is determined largely by its deterioration over time which is affected by the environment. Climate change may alter this environment, causing an acceleration of deterioration processes that will affect the safety and serviceability of concrete infrastructure in Australia, U.S., Europe, China and elsewhere. This investigation of concrete deterioration under changing climate in Australia uses Monte-Carlo simulation of results from General Circulation Models (GCMs) and considers high greenhouse gas emission scenarios representing the A1FI schemes of the IPCC. We present the implications of climate change for the durability of concrete structures, in terms of changes in probability of reinforcement corrosion initiation and corrosion induced damage at a given calendar year between 2000 and 2100 across Australia. Since the main driver to increased concrete deterioration is CO 2 concentration and temperature, then increases in damage risks observed in Australia are likely to be observed in other concrete infrastructure internationally. The impact of climate change on the deterioration cannot be ignored, but can be addressed by new approaches in design. Existing concrete structures, for which design has not considered the effects of changing climate may deteriorate more rapidly than originally planned. Content Type Journal Article Pages 1-17 DOI 10.1007/s10584-011-0124-7 Authors Xiaoming Wang, CSIRO Climate Adaptation Flagship, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), P O Box 56, Graham Rd, Highett, Victoria 3190, Australia Mark G. Stewart, Centre of Infrastructure Performance and Reliability, The University of Newcastle, Newcastle, New South Wales 2308, Australia Minh Nguyen, CSIRO Climate Adaptation Flagship, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), P O Box 56, Graham Rd, Highett, Victoria 3190, Australia Journal Climatic Change Online ISSN 1573-1480 Print ISSN 0165-0009

Description: Interdisciplinarity: are we there yet? Content Type Journal Article Pages 1-8 DOI 10.1007/s10584-011-0108-7 Authors Andy Reisinger, New Zealand Agricultural Greenhouse Gas Research Centre, Palmerston North, New Zealand Journal Climatic Change Online ISSN 1573-1480 Print ISSN 0165-0009

Description:    The last decade has witnessed an increase in the application of historical records (historical and documentary) in developing a more complete understanding of high-magnitude flood frequency; but little consideration has been given to the additional information that documentary accounts contain, particularly relating to flood seasonality. This paper examines the methods and approaches available in long-term flood seasonality analysis and applies them to the River Ouse (Yorkshire) in Northern England since AD 1600. A detailed historical flood record is available for the City of York consisting of annual maxima flood levels since AD 1877, with documentary accounts prior to this. A detailed analysis of long-term flood seasonality requires confidence in the accuracy and completeness of flood records; as a result the augmented flood series are analysed using three strategies: firstly, considering all recorded floods since AD 1600; secondly, through detailed analysis of the more complete record since AD 1800; and finally, applying a threshold to focus on high-magnitude flood events since AD 1800. The results identify later winter flooding, particularly in the second half of the twentieth century, with a notable reduction in summer flood events at York during the twentieth century compared to previous centuries. Flood generating mechanisms vary little between the periods considered, with a general pattern of stability in the ratio of floods incorporating a snowmelt component. Content Type Journal Article Pages 1-23 DOI 10.1007/s10584-011-0117-6 Authors Neil Macdonald, Department of Geography, School of Environmental Sciences, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, L69 7ZT UK Journal Climatic Change Online ISSN 1573-1480 Print ISSN 0165-0009

Description:    Much literature argues that natural selection has conserved mechanisms that spontaneously abort fetuses, particularly males, least likely to survive in prevailing environmental conditions including cold ambient temperature. These reports imply the hypothesis that males in gestation during relatively warm periods who confront relatively cold climates in early life live, on average, shorter lives than other males. We estimate the effect of warm-to-cold temperature shifts on the observed lifespan at age one of males born in Sweden from 1850 through 1915. We test this hypothesis using annual cohort lifespan at age 1 year for Swedish males from 1850 to 1915. For our independent variable, we score a series “1” for birth cohorts that experienced relatively warm temperatures in utero but relatively cold temperatures from age 1 through 4 years, and “0” for other cohorts. We use time-series methods, which adjust the data to remove autocorrelation, to estimate the association between these variables. Consistent with theory, males in gestation during relatively warm times who encounter relatively cold temperatures in early life have a shorter lifespan than other males. The association survives adjustment for the longevity of females as well as the main effect of temperatures during gestation and early life. Our findings imply that the increased frequency and amplitude of temperature shifts expected from climate change could influence which humans survive gestation and how long they live. Content Type Journal Article Pages 1-11 DOI 10.1007/s10584-011-0119-4 Authors Ralph A. Catalano, School of Public Health, University of California, 50 University Hall, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA Tim A. Bruckner, Program in Public Health and Planning, Policy and Design, University of California, Irvine, CA 92617, USA Kirk R. Smith, School of Public Health, University of California, 50 University Hall, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA Katherine B. Saxton, School of Public Health, University of California, 50 University Hall, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA Journal Climatic Change Online ISSN 1573-1480 Print ISSN 0165-0009

Description:    In this study we analyzed climate and crop yields data from Indian cardamom hills for the period 1978–2007 to investigate whether there were significant changes in weather elements, and if such changes have had significant impact on the production of spices and plantation crops. Spatial and temporal variations in air temperatures (maximum and minimum), rainfall and relative humidity are evident across stations. The mean air temperature increased significantly during the last 30 years; the greatest increase and the largest significant upward trend was observed in the daily temperature. The highest increase in minimum temperature was registered for June (0.37°C/18 years) at the Myladumpara station. December and January showed greater warming across the stations. Rainfall during the main monsoon months (June–September) showed a downward trend. Relative humidity showed increasing and decreasing trends, respectively, at the cardamom and tea growing tracts. The warming trend coupled with frequent wet and dry spells during the summer is likely to have a favorable effect on insect pests and disease causing organisms thereby pesticide consumption can go up both during excess rainfall and drought years. The incidence of many minor pest insects and disease pathogens has increased in the recent years of our study along with warming. Significant and slight increases in the yield of small cardamom ( Elettaria cardamomum M.) and coffee ( Coffea arabica ), respectively, were noticed in the recent years.; however the improvement of yield in tea ( Thea sinensis ) and black pepper ( Piper nigrum L.) has not been seen in our analysis. Content Type Journal Article Pages 1-17 DOI 10.1007/s10584-011-0115-8 Authors Muthusamy Murugan, School of Natural Sciences and Engineering, National Institute of Advanced Studies, Indian Institute of Science campus, Bangalore, 560 012 India Paddu Krishnappa Shetty, School of Natural Sciences and Engineering, National Institute of Advanced Studies, Indian Institute of Science campus, Bangalore, 560 012 India Raju Ravi, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, 560012 India Aavudai Anandhi, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, 560012 India Arulappan Joseph Rajkumar, Central Plantation Crops Research Institute, Kayangulam, 690533 India Journal Climatic Change Online ISSN 1573-1480 Print ISSN 0165-0009

Description:    This paper synthesizes the results from the model intercomparison exercise among regionalized global energy-economy models conducted in the context of the RECIPE project. The economic adjustment effects of long-term climate policy are investigated based on the cross-comparison of the intertemporal optimization models ReMIND-R and WITCH as well as the recursive dynamic computable general equilibrium model IMACLIM-R. A number of robust findings emerge. If the international community takes immediate action to mitigate climate change, the costs of stabilizing atmospheric CO 2 concentrations at 450 ppm (roughly 530–550 ppm-e) discounted at 3% are estimated to be 1.4% or lower of global consumption over the twenty-first century. Second best settings with either a delay in climate policy or restrictions to the deployment of low-carbon technologies can result in substantial increases of mitigation costs. A delay of global climate policy until 2030 would render the 450 ppm target unachievable. Renewables and CCS are found to be the most critical mitigation technologies, and all models project a rapid switch of investments away from freely emitting energy conversion technologies towards renewables, CCS and nuclear. Concerning end use sectors, the models consistently show an almost full scale decarbonization of the electricity sector by the middle of the twenty-first century, while the decarbonization of non-electric energy demand, in particular in the transport sector remains incomplete in all mitigation scenarios. The results suggest that assumptions about low-carbon alternatives for non-electric energy demand are of key importance for the costs and achievability of very low stabilization scenarios. Content Type Journal Article Pages 1-29 DOI 10.1007/s10584-011-0105-x Authors Gunnar Luderer, Research Domain III: Sustainable Solutions, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, P.O. Box 60 12 03, 14412 Potsdam, Germany Valentina Bosetti, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei, CESifo and Euro-Mediterranean Centre for Climate Change, Milan, Italy Michael Jakob, Research Domain III: Sustainable Solutions, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, P.O. Box 60 12 03, 14412 Potsdam, Germany Marian Leimbach, Research Domain III: Sustainable Solutions, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, P.O. Box 60 12 03, 14412 Potsdam, Germany Jan C. Steckel, Research Domain III: Sustainable Solutions, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, P.O. Box 60 12 03, 14412 Potsdam, Germany Henri Waisman, Centre International de Recherche sur l’Environment et le Dévelopment, Paris, France Ottmar Edenhofer, Research Domain III: Sustainable Solutions, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, P.O. Box 60 12 03, 14412 Potsdam, Germany Journal Climatic Change Online ISSN 1573-1480 Print ISSN 0165-0009

Description:    Accelerated sea level rise (SLR) in the twenty-first century will result in unprecedented coastal recession, threatening billions of dollars worth of coastal developments and infrastructure. Therefore, we cannot continue to depend on the highly uncertain coastal recession estimates obtained via the simple, deterministic method (Bruun rule) that has been widely used over the last 50 years. Furthermore, the emergence of risk management style coastal planning frameworks is now requiring probabilistic (rather than deterministic, single value) estimates of coastal recession. This paper describes the development and application of a process based model (PCR model) which provides probabilistic estimates of SLR driven coastal recession. The PCR model is proposed as a more appropriate and defensible method for determining coastal recession due to SLR for planning purposes in the twenty-first century and beyond. Content Type Journal Article Pages 1-14 DOI 10.1007/s10584-011-0107-8 Authors Roshanka Ranasinghe, Department of Water Engineering, UNESCO-IHE, PO Box 3015 DA, Delft, Netherlands David Callaghan, School of Civil Engineering, University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD 4072 Australia Marcel J. F. Stive, Department of Civil Eng and Geoscience, Delft University of Technology, 2628 CN Delft, Netherlands Journal Climatic Change Online ISSN 1573-1480 Print ISSN 0165-0009

Description:    Observations have shown that the Indian Ocean is consistently warming and its warm pool is expanding, particularly in the recent decades. This paper attempts to investigate the reason behind these observations. Under global warming scenario, it is expected that the greenhouse gas induced changes in air–sea fluxes will enhance the warming. Surprisingly, it is found that the net surface heat fluxes over Indian Ocean warm pool (IOWP) region alone cannot explain the consistent warming. The warm pool area anomaly of IOWP is strongly correlated with the sea surface height anomaly, suggesting an important role played by the ocean advection processes in warming and expansion of IOWP. The structure of lead/lag correlations further suggests that Oceanic Rossby waves might be involved in the warming. Using heat budget analysis of several Ocean data assimilation products, it is shown that the net surface heat flux (advection) alone tends to cool (warm) the Ocean. Based on above observations, we propose an ocean-atmosphere coupled positive feedback mechanism for explaining the consistent warming and expansion of IOWP. Warming over IOWP induces an enhancement of convection in central equatorial Indian ocean, which causes anomalous easterlies along the equator. Anomalous easterlies in turn excite frequent Indian ocean Dipole events and cause anti-cyclonic wind stress curl in south-east and north-east equatorial Indian ocean. The anomalous wind stress curl triggers anomalous downwelling oceanic Rossby waves, thereby deepening the thermocline and resulting in advection of warm waters towards western Indian ocean. This acts as a positive feedback and results in more warming and westward expansion of IOWP. Content Type Journal Article Pages 1-11 DOI 10.1007/s10584-011-0121-x Authors Suryachandra A. Rao, Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, Dr. Homi Bhabha Road, Pashan, Pune 411 008, India Ashish R. Dhakate, Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, Dr. Homi Bhabha Road, Pashan, Pune 411 008, India Subodh K. Saha, Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, Dr. Homi Bhabha Road, Pashan, Pune 411 008, India Somnath Mahapatra, Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, Dr. Homi Bhabha Road, Pashan, Pune 411 008, India Hemantkumar S. Chaudhari, Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, Dr. Homi Bhabha Road, Pashan, Pune 411 008, India Samir Pokhrel, Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, Dr. Homi Bhabha Road, Pashan, Pune 411 008, India Sobhan K. Sahu, Pukyong National University, Busan, South Korea Journal Climatic Change Online ISSN 1573-1480 Print ISSN 0165-0009

Description:    Given the severe impacts of extreme heat on natural and human systems, we attempt to quantify the likelihood that rising greenhouse gas concentrations will result in a new, permanent heat regime in which the coolest warm-season of the 21st century is hotter than the hottest warm-season of the late 20th century. Our analyses of global climate model experiments and observational data reveal that many areas of the globe are likely to permanently move into such a climate space over the next four decades, should greenhouse gas concentrations continue to increase. In contrast to the common perception that high-latitude areas face the most accelerated response to global warming, our results demonstrate that in fact tropical areas exhibit the most immediate and robust emergence of unprecedented heat, with many tropical areas exhibiting a 50% likelihood of permanently moving into a novel seasonal heat regime in the next two decades. We also find that global climate models are able to capture the observed intensification of seasonal hot conditions, increasing confidence in the projection of imminent, permanent emergence of unprecedented heat. Content Type Journal Article Pages 1-10 DOI 10.1007/s10584-011-0112-y Authors Noah S. Diffenbaugh, Department of Environmental Earth System Science and Woods Institute for the Environment, Stanford University, 473 Via Ortega, Stanford, CA 94305-4216, USA Martin Scherer, Department of Environmental Earth System Science and Woods Institute for the Environment, Stanford University, 473 Via Ortega, Stanford, CA 94305-4216, USA Journal Climatic Change Online ISSN 1573-1480 Print ISSN 0165-0009

Description:    Development of long tree-ring records is an important task in paleoclimate studies. Here we presented a five-century long reconstruction of summer (June to August) temperature based on a tree ring-width chronology of Picea brachytyla var. complanata originating from the Hengduan Mountains of China. Climate-growth response analysis showed that summer temperature was the main climatic factor limiting tree-ring growth in the study area. The reconstructed summer temperature accounted for 47.6% of the variance in actual temperature during their common period A.D. 1958–2002. Analysis of the temperature reconstruction showed that major warm periods occurred in the A.D. 1710s–1750s, 1850s, 1920s–1950s and 1990s to present, whereas cold intervals occurred in the A.D. 1630s–1680s, 1790s–1800s, 1860s–1880s and 1950s–1980s, respectively. The low-frequency variation of the reconstruction agreed fairly well with tree-ring reconstructed temperature from nearby regions and with records of glacier fluctuations in the surrounding high mountains, suggesting that our reconstructed summer temperature was reliable, and could aid in the evaluation of regional climate variability. Content Type Journal Article Pages 1-13 DOI 10.1007/s10584-011-0111-z Authors Zong-Shan Li, Laboratory of Vegetation and Environmental Change, Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100093 China Qi-Bin Zhang, Laboratory of Vegetation and Environmental Change, Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100093 China Keping Ma, Laboratory of Vegetation and Environmental Change, Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100093 China Journal Climatic Change Online ISSN 1573-1480 Print ISSN 0165-0009

Description:    Given predictions of increased intensity and frequency of heat waves, it is important to study the effect of high temperatures on human mortality and morbidity. Many studies focus on heat wave-related mortality; however, heat-related morbidity is often overlooked. The goals of this study are to examine the historical observed relationship between temperature and morbidity (illness), and explore the extent to which observed historical relationships could be used to generate future projections of morbidity under climate change. We collected meteorological, air pollution, and hospital admissions data in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, for the years 1989–2005, and employed a generalized additive model (GAM) to quantify the relationship between morbidity (as measured by hospital admissions) and high temperatures with adjustment for the effects of potential confounders. We also estimated temperature threshold values for different causes of hospital admissions and then quantified the associated percent increase of admissions per degree above the threshold. Finally, the future impact of higher temperatures on admissions for the years 2059–2075 was examined. Our results show that five causes of admission (endocrine, genitourinary, renal, accidental, and self-harm) and three age groups (15–64, 75–84, 〉85 years) were affected by high temperatures. Future projections indicate a larger number of days above the current temperature threshold leading to an increase in admissions. Our results indicate that climate change may increase heat-related hospital admissions in the US urban mid-West and that health systems should include heat wave planning. Content Type Journal Article Pages 1-18 DOI 10.1007/s10584-011-0120-y Authors Bo Li, Department of Statistics, Purdue University, 150 N. University Street, West Lafayette, IN 47907-2067, USA Steve Sain, Institute of Mathematics Applied to Geosciences, National Center for Atmospheric Research, P.O. Box 3000, Boulder, CO 80307-3000, USA Linda O. Mearns, Institute of Mathematics Applied to Geosciences, National Center for Atmospheric Research, P.O. Box 3000, Boulder, CO 80307-3000, USA Henry A. Anderson, Wisconsin Division of Public Health, PO Box 2659, Madison, WI 53701, USA Sari Kovats, Department of Social and Environmental Health Research, Faculty of Public Health and Policy, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, 15-17 Tavistock Place, London, WC1H 9SH UK Kristie L. Ebi, IPCC Working Group II, Technical Support Unit, Carnegie Institution for Science, 260 Panama Street, Stanford, CA 94305, USA Marni Y. V. Bekkedal, Wisconsin Division of Public Health, PO Box 2659, Madison, WI 53701, USA Marty S. Kanarek, Department of Population Health Sciences, University of Wisconsin (at Madison), 1710 University Avenue, Madison, WI 53726, USA Jonathan A. Patz, Nelson Institute, Center for Sustainability and the Global Environment (SAGE), University of Wisconsin (at Madison), 1710 University Avenue, Madison, WI 53726, USA Journal Climatic Change Online ISSN 1573-1480 Print ISSN 0165-0009

Description:    This paper presents a review of the methodology applied for generating the regional climate change scenarios utilized in important National Documents of Mexico, such as the Fourth National Communication to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the Fourth National Report to the Convention on Biological Diversity and The Economics of Climate Change in Mexico. It is shown that these regional climate change scenarios, which are one of the main inputs to support the assessments presented in these documents, are an example of the erroneous use of statistical downscaling techniques. The arguments presented here imply that the work based on such scenarios should be revised and therefore, these documents are inadequate for supporting national decision- making. Content Type Journal Article Pages 1-18 DOI 10.1007/s10584-011-0100-2 Authors Francisco Estrada, Centro de Ciencias de la Atmósfera, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico, D.F. 04510, Mexico Benjamín Martínez-López, Centro de Ciencias de la Atmósfera, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico, D.F. 04510, Mexico Cecilia Conde, Centro de Ciencias de la Atmósfera, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico, D.F. 04510, Mexico Carlos Gay-García, Centro de Ciencias de la Atmósfera, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico, D.F. 04510, Mexico Journal Climatic Change Online ISSN 1573-1480 Print ISSN 0165-0009

Description:    Climate change impacts food production systems, particularly in locations with large, vulnerable populations. Elevated greenhouse gases (GHG), as well as land cover/land use change (LCLUC), can influence regional climate dynamics. Biophysical factors such as topography, soil type, and seasonal rainfall can strongly affect crop yields. We used a regional climate model derived from the Regional Atmospheric Modeling System (RAMS) to compare the effects of projected future GHG and future LCLUC on spatial variability of crop yields in East Africa. Crop yields were estimated with a process-based simulation model. The results suggest that: (1) GHG-influenced and LCLUC-influenced yield changes are highly heterogeneous across this region; (2) LCLUC effects are significant drivers of yield change; and (3) high spatial variability in yield is indicated for several key agricultural sub-regions of East Africa. Food production risk when considered at the household scale is largely dependent on the occurrence of extremes, so mean yield in some cases may be an incomplete predictor of risk. The broad range of projected crop yields reflects enormous variability in key parameters that underlie regional food security; hence, donor institutions’ strategies and investments might benefit from considering the spatial distribution around mean impacts for a given region. Ultimately, global assessments of food security risk would benefit from including regional and local assessments of climate impacts on food production. This may be less of a consideration in other regions. This study supports the concept that LCLUC is a first-order factor in assessing food production risk. Content Type Journal Article Pages 1-22 DOI 10.1007/s10584-011-0116-7 Authors Nathan Moore, College of Environmental and Resource Sciences, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China Gopal Alagarswamy, CGCEO, Michigan State University, 202 Manly Miles Bldg, East Lansing, MI 48823, USA Bryan Pijanowski, Department of Forestry and Natural Resources, Purdue University, 195 Marsteller St, FORS203, West Lafayette, IN 47906, USA Philip Thornton, International Livestock Research Institute, PO Box 30709, Nairobi, 00100 Kenya Brent Lofgren, Great Lakes Env. Research Lab, 4840 S. State Road, Ann Arbor, MI 48108-9719, USA Jennifer Olson, Communication Arts and Sciences, Michigan State University, 202 Manly Miles Bldg, East Lansing, MI 48823, USA Jeffrey Andresen, CGCEO, Michigan State University, 202 Manly Miles Bldg, East Lansing, MI 48823, USA Pius Yanda, Institute of Resources Assessment, University of Dar Es Salaam, PO Box 35097, Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania Jiaguo Qi, CGCEO, Michigan State University, 202 Manly Miles Bldg, East Lansing, MI 48823, USA Journal Climatic Change Online ISSN 1573-1480 Print ISSN 0165-0009

Description:    We discuss potential transitions of six climatic subsystems with large-scale impact on Europe, sometimes denoted as tipping elements. These are the ice sheets on Greenland and West Antarctica, the Atlantic thermohaline circulation, Arctic sea ice, Alpine glaciers and northern hemisphere stratospheric ozone. Each system is represented by co-authors actively publishing in the corresponding field. For each subsystem we summarize the mechanism of a potential transition in a warmer climate along with its impact on Europe and assess the likelihood for such a transition based on published scientific literature. As a summary, the ‘tipping’ potential for each system is provided as a function of global mean temperature increase which required some subjective interpretation of scientific facts by the authors and should be considered as a snapshot of our current understanding. Content Type Journal Article Pages 1-34 DOI 10.1007/s10584-011-0126-5 Authors Anders Levermann, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Potsdam, Germany Jonathan L. Bamber, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK Sybren Drijfhout, Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute, De Bilt, The Netherlands Andrey Ganopolski, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Potsdam, Germany Winfried Haeberli, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland Neil R. P. Harris, European Ozone Research Coordinating Unit, Department of Chemistry, Cambridge University, Cambridge, UK Matthias Huss, University of Fribourg, Fribourg, Switzerland Kirstin Krüger, Leibniz Institute for Marine Sciences, Kiel, Germany Timothy M. Lenton, College of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Exeter, Exeter, UK Ronald W. Lindsay, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA Dirk Notz, Max-Planck-Institute for Meteorology, Hamburg, Germany Peter Wadhams, Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics, Cambridge University, Cambridge, UK Susanne Weber, Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute, De Bilt, The Netherlands Journal Climatic Change Online ISSN 1573-1480 Print ISSN 0165-0009

Description:    Water resource management in South Florida faces nearly intractable problems, in part due to weather and climate variability. Rising sea level and coastal storm surge are two phenomena with significant impacts on natural systems, fresh water supplies and flood drainage capability. However, decision support information regarding management of water resources in response to storm surge is not well developed. In an effort to address this need we analyze long term tidal records from Key West, Pensacola and Mayport Florida to extract surge distributions, to which we apply a nonlinear eustatic sea level rise model to project storm surge return levels and periods. Examination of climate connections reveals a statistically significant dependence between surge distributions and the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO). Based on a recent probabilistic model for AMO phase changes, we develop AMO-dependent surge distributions. These AMO-dependent surge projections are used to examine the flood control response of a coastal water management structure as an example of how climate dependent water resource forcings can be used in the formulation of decision support tools. Content Type Journal Article Pages 1-20 DOI 10.1007/s10584-011-0079-8 Authors Joseph Park, Hydrologic and Environmental Systems Modeling, South Florida Water Management District, 3301 Gun Club Rd., West Palm Beach, FL, USA Jayantha Obeysekera, Hydrologic and Environmental Systems Modeling, South Florida Water Management District, 3301 Gun Club Rd., West Palm Beach, FL, USA Michelle Irizarry, Hydrologic and Environmental Systems Modeling, South Florida Water Management District, 3301 Gun Club Rd., West Palm Beach, FL, USA Jenifer Barnes, Hydrologic and Environmental Systems Modeling, South Florida Water Management District, 3301 Gun Club Rd., West Palm Beach, FL, USA Paul Trimble, Hydrologic and Environmental Systems Modeling, South Florida Water Management District, 3301 Gun Club Rd., West Palm Beach, FL, USA Winifred Park-Said, Hydrologic and Environmental Systems Modeling, South Florida Water Management District, 3301 Gun Club Rd., West Palm Beach, FL, USA Journal Climatic Change Online ISSN 1573-1480 Print ISSN 0165-0009

Description:    In the fall of 2009 the City of Satellite Beach (City), Florida, authorized a study designed to assess municipal vulnerability to rising sea level and facilitate discussion of potential adaptation strategies. The project is one of the first in Florida to seriously address the potential consequences of global sea level rise, now forecast to rise a meter or more by the year 2100. Results suggest the tipping point between relatively benign impacts and those that disrupt important elements of the municipal landscape is + 2 ft (0.6 m) above present. Seasonal flooding to an elevation of + 2 ft is forecast to begin around 2050 and thus the City has about 40 years to formulate and implement an adaptation plan. As an initial step, the Comprehensive Planning Advisory Board, a volunteer citizen committee serving as the City’s local planning authority, has recommended a series of updates and revisions to the City’s Comprehensive Plan. If approved by the City Council and Florida’s Department of Community Affairs, the amendments will provide a legal basis for implementing specific policies designed to reduce the City’s vulnerability to sea level rise. Content Type Journal Article Pages 1-21 DOI 10.1007/s10584-011-0086-9 Authors Randall W. Parkinson, RWParkinson Consulting Inc., 2018 Melbourne Court, Suite 205, Melbourne, FL 32901, USA Tara McCue, East Central Florida Regional Planning Council, 309 Cranes Roost Blvd., Suite 2000, Altamonte Springs, FL 32701, USA Journal Climatic Change Online ISSN 1573-1480 Print ISSN 0165-0009

Description:    The sea level history of the northern Gulf of Mexico during recent geologic time has closely followed global eustatic sea level change. Regional effects due to tectonics and glacio-isostasy have been minimal. Over the past several million years the northern Gulf coast, like most stable coastal regions of the globe, has experienced major swings of sea level below and above present level, accompanied by major shifts in shoreline position. During advances of the northern hemisphere ice sheets, sea level dropped by more than 100 m, extending the shoreline in places more than 100 km onto the shelf. For much of the period since the last glacial maximum (LGM), 20,000 years ago, the region has seen rates of sea level rise far in excess of those experienced during the period represented by long-term tide gauges. The regional tide gauge record reveals that sea level has been rising at about 2 mm/year for the past century, while the average rate of rise since the LGM has been 6 mm/year, with some periods of abrupt rise exceeding 40 mm/year. During times of abrupt rise, Gulf of Mexico shorelines were drowned in place and overstepped. The relative stability of modern coastal systems is due primarily to stabilization of sea level approximately 6,000 years ago, resulting in the slow rates of rise experienced during historic time. Recent model projections of sea level rise over the next century and beyond may move northern Gulf coastal environments into a new equilibrium regime, more similar to that experienced during the deglaciation than that which has existed during historic time. Content Type Journal Article Pages 1-17 DOI 10.1007/s10584-011-0077-x Authors Joseph F. Donoghue, Department of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Science, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL 32306, USA Journal Climatic Change Online ISSN 1573-1480 Print ISSN 0165-0009

Description:    We investigate the effects of Hurricane Wilma’s storm surge (23–24 October 2005) on the dominant tree Pinus elliottii var densa (South Florida slash pine) and rare plant species in subtropical pine rocklands of the Lower Florida Keys. We examine the role of elevation on species abundance in 1995 (Hurricane Betsy in 1965), 2005 (Hurricane Georges in 1998), and 2008 (Hurricane Wilma in 2005) to investigate if hurricanes influence abundance by eliminating plants at lower elevation on Big Pine Key, the largest island in the Lower Florida Keys. We compare densities before and after Hurricane Wilma over the 2005–2008 sampling period and examine the role of elevation on changes in pine and rare species densities three years after Hurricane Wilma. We use elevation to assess the impact of hurricanes because elevation determined whether a location was influenced by storm surge (maximum surge of 2 m) in the Lower Florida Keys, where pine rocklands occur at a maximum elevation of 3 m. In 1995 (30 years after a major storm), elevation did not explain the abundance of South Florida slash pine or Chamaecrista lineata , but explained significant variation in abundance of Chamaesyce deltoidea . The latter two species are rare herbaceous plants restricted to pine rocklands. In 2008, 3 years after Hurricane Wilma, the positive relationship between elevation and abundance was strongest for South Florida slash pine, C. deltoidea , and C. lineata . Effects of Hurricane Wilma were not significant for rare species with wider distribution, occurring in plant communities adjacent to pine rocklands and in disturbed rocklands. Our results suggest that hurricanes drive population dynamics of South Florida slash pine and rare species that occur exclusively in pine rocklands at higher elevations. Rare species restricted to pine rocklands showed dramatic declines after Hurricane Wilma and were eliminated at elevations 〈0.5 m. Widely distributed rare species did not show significant changes in density after Hurricane Wilma. Abundance increased with elevation for South Florida slash pine and C. lineata after the hurricane. In an environment influenced by sea level rise, concrete plans to conserve pine ecosystems are warranted. Results from this study will help define conservation strategies by strengthening predictive understanding of plant responses to disturbance in the backdrop of sea level rise. Content Type Journal Article Pages 1-16 DOI 10.1007/s10584-011-0081-1 Authors Sonali Saha, The Institute for Regional Conservation, 22601 SW 152nd Ave., Miami, FL 33170, USA Keith Bradley, The Institute for Regional Conservation, 22601 SW 152nd Ave., Miami, FL 33170, USA Michael S. Ross, Department of Earth & Environment and Southeast Environmental Research Center, Florida International University, University Park/OE148, 11200 SW 8th St, Miami, FL 33199, USA Phillip Hughes, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, 28950 Watson Blvd., Big Pine Key, FL 33043, USA Thomas Wilmers, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, 28950 Watson Blvd., Big Pine Key, FL 33043, USA Pablo L. Ruiz, Southeast Environmental Research Center, Florida International University, 11200 SW 8th St, OE-148, Miami, FL 33199, USA Chris Bergh, The Nature Conservancy, 55 N. Johnson Road, Big Pine Key, FL 33043, USA Journal Climatic Change Online ISSN 1573-1480 Print ISSN 0165-0009

Description:    The State of Florida (USA) is especially threatened by sea level rise due to extensive low elevation coastal habitats (approximately 8,000 km 2  〈 1 m above sea level) where the majority of the human population resides. We used the Sea Level Affecting Marshes Model (SLAMM) simulation to improve understanding of the magnitude and location of these changes for 58,000 ha of the Waccasassa Bay region of Florida’s central Gulf of Mexico coast. To assess how well SLAMM portrays changes in coastal wetland systems resulting from sea level rise, we conducted a hindcast in which we compared model results to 30 years of field plot data. Overall, the model showed the same pattern of coastal forest loss as observed. Prospective runs of SLAMM using 0.64 m, 1 m and 2 m sea level rise scenarios predict substantial changes over this century in the area covered by coastal wetland systems including net losses of coastal forests (69%, 83%, and 99%, respectively) and inland forests (33%, 50%, and 88%), but net gains of tidal flats (17%, 142%, and 3,837%). One implication of these findings at the site level is that undeveloped, unprotected lands inland from the coastal forest should be protected to accommodate upslope migration of this natural community in response to rising seas. At a broader scale, our results suggest that coastal wetland systems will be unevenly affected across the Gulf of Mexico as sea level rises. Species vulnerable to these anticipated changes will experience a net loss or even elimination. Content Type Journal Article Pages 1-23 DOI 10.1007/s10584-011-0084-y Authors Laura Geselbracht, The Nature Conservancy, Florida Chapter, 222 S. Westmonte Drive Suite 300, Altamonte Springs, FL 32714-4269, USA Kathleen Freeman, The Nature Conservancy, Florida Chapter, 222 S. Westmonte Drive Suite 300, Altamonte Springs, FL 32714-4269, USA Eugene Kelly, The Nature Conservancy, Florida Chapter, 222 S. Westmonte Drive Suite 300, Altamonte Springs, FL 32714-4269, USA Doria R. Gordon, The Nature Conservancy, Florida Chapter, 222 S. Westmonte Drive Suite 300, Altamonte Springs, FL 32714-4269, USA Francis E. Putz, Department of Biology, University of Florida, PO BOX 118526, Gainesville, FL 32611-8526, USA Journal Climatic Change Online ISSN 1573-1480 Print ISSN 0165-0009

Description:    Developing appropriate management options for adapting to climate change is a new challenge for land managers, and integration of climate change concepts into operational management and planning on United States national forests is just starting. We established science–management partnerships on the Olympic National Forest (Washington) and Tahoe National Forest (California) in the first effort to develop adaptation options for specific national forests. We employed a focus group process in order to establish the scientific context necessary for understanding climate change and its anticipated effects, and to develop specific options for adapting to a warmer climate. Climate change scientists provided the scientific knowledge base on which adaptations could be based, and resource managers developed adaptation options based on their understanding of ecosystem structure, function, and management. General adaptation strategies developed by national forest managers include: (1) reduce vulnerability to anticipated climate-induced stress by increasing resilience at large spatial scales, (2) consider tradeoffs and conflicts that may affect adaptation success, (3) manage for realistic outcomes and prioritize treatments that facilitate adaptation to a warmer climate, (4) manage dynamically and experimentally, and (5) manage for structure and composition. Specific adaptation options include: (1) increase landscape diversity, (2) maintain biological diversity, (3) implement early detection/rapid response for exotic species and undesirable resource conditions, (4) treat large-scale disturbance as a management opportunity and integrate it in planning, (5) implement treatments that confer resilience at large spatial scales, (6) match engineering of infrastructure to expected future conditions, (7) promote education and awareness about climate change among resource staff and local publics, and (8) collaborate with a variety of partners on adaptation strategies and to promote ecoregional management. The process described here can quickly elicit a large amount of information relevant for adaptation to climate change, and can be emulated for other national forests, groups of national forests with similar resources, and other public lands. As adaptation options are iteratively generated for additional administrative units on public lands, management options can be compared, tested, and integrated into adaptive management. Science-based adaptation is imperative because increasing certainty about climate impacts and management outcomes may take decades. Content Type Journal Article Pages 1-28 DOI 10.1007/s10584-011-0066-0 Authors Jeremy S. Littell, JISAO CSES Climate Impacts Group, University of Washington, Box 355672, Seattle, WA 98195, USA David L. Peterson, U.S. Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station, 400. N. 34th St., Suite 201, Seattle, WA 98103, USA Constance I. Millar, U.S. Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Research Station, 800 Buchanan Street, Albany, CA 94710, USA Kathy A. O’Halloran, U.S. Forest Service, Olympic National Forest, 1835 Black Lake Blvd. SW, Olympia, WA 98512, USA Journal Climatic Change Online ISSN 1573-1480 Print ISSN 0165-0009

Description:    Coastal ecosystems lie at the forefront of sea level rise. We posit that before the onset of actual inundation, sea level rise will influence the species composition of coastal hardwood hammocks and buttonwood ( Conocarpus erectus L.) forests of the Everglades National Park based on tolerance to drought and salinity. Precipitation is the major water source in coastal hammocks and is stored in the soil vadose zone, but vadose water will diminish with the rising water table as a consequence of sea level rise, thereby subjecting plants to salt water stress. A model is used to demonstrate that the constraining effect of salinity on transpiration limits the distribution of freshwater-dependent communities. Field data collected in hardwood hammocks and coastal buttonwood forests over 11 years show that halophytes have replaced glycophytes. We establish that sea level rise threatens 21 rare coastal species in Everglades National Park and estimate the relative risk to each species using basic life history and population traits. We review salinity conditions in the estuarine region over 1999–2009 and associate wide variability in the extent of the annual seawater intrusion to variation in freshwater inflows and precipitation. We also examine species composition in coastal and inland hammocks in connection with distance from the coast, depth to water table, and groundwater salinity. Though this study focuses on coastal forests and rare species of South Florida, it has implications for coastal forests threatened by saltwater intrusion across the globe. Content Type Journal Article Pages 1-28 DOI 10.1007/s10584-011-0082-0 Authors Amartya K. Saha, Southeast Environmental Research Center, Florida International University, 11200 SW 8th Street, Miami, FL 33199, USA Sonali Saha, The Institute for Regional Conservation, 22601 SW 152nd Ave., Miami, FL 33170, USA Jimi Sadle, Everglades National Park, 40001 State Rd. 9336, Homestead, FL 33034-6733, USA Jiang Jiang, Dept. of Biology, University of Miami, 1301 Memorial Drive, Coral Gables, FL 33124, USA Michael S. Ross, Southeast Environmental Research Center and Dept. of Earth and Environment, Florida International University, OE 148, Miami, FL 33199, USA René M. Price, Southeast Environmental Research Center and Dept. of Earth and Environment, Florida International University, OE 148, Miami, FL 33199, USA Leonel S. L. O. Sternberg, Dept. of Biology, University of Miami, 1301 Memorial Drive, Coral Gables, FL 33124, USA Kristie S. Wendelberger, Curriculum for the Environment and Ecology, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, 207 Coates Building CB# 3275, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3275, USA Journal Climatic Change Online ISSN 1573-1480 Print ISSN 0165-0009