Modeling climate change feedbacks and adaptation responses: recent approaches and shortcomings

This paper offers a critical review of modeling practice in the field of integrated assessment of climate change and ways forward. Past efforts in integrated assessment have concentrated on developing baseline trajectories of emissions and mitigation scenario analyses. A key missing component in Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs) is the representation of climate impacts and adaptation responses. In this paper, we identify key biases that are introduced when climate impacts and adaptation responses are omitted from the analysis and review the state of modeling studies that attempt to capture these feedbacks. A common problem in these IAM studies is the lack of connection with empirical studies. We therefore also review the state of the empirical work on climate impacts and identify ways that this connection could be improved.     

Informing adaptation responses to climate change through theories of transformation

Transformative actions are increasingly being required to address changes in climate. As an aid to understanding and supporting informed decision-making regarding transformative change, we draw on theories from both the resilience and vulnerability literature to produce the Adaptation Action Cycles concept and applied framework. The resulting Adaptation Action Cycles provides a novel conceptualisation of incremental and transformative adaptation as a continuous process depicted by two concentric and distinct, yet linked, action learning cycles. Each cycle represents four stages in the decision-making process, which are considered to be undertaken over relatively short timeframes. The concept is translated into an applied framework by adopting a contextual, actor-focused suite of questions at each of the four stages. This approach compliments existing theories of transition and transformation by operationalising assessments at the individual and enterprise level. Empirical validation of the concept was conducted by collaborating with members of the Australian wine industry to assess their decisions and actions taken in response to climate change. The contiguous stages represented in the Adaptation Action Cycles aptly reflected the diverse range of decision-making and action pathways taken in recent years by those interviewed. Results suggest that incremental adaptation decision-making processes have distinct characteristics, compared with those used in transformative adaptation. We provide empirical data to support past propositions suggesting dependent relationships operate between incremental and transformative scales of adaptation.     

Agreeing to disagree: uncertainty management in assessing climate change, impacts and responses by the IPCC

Dealing consistently with risk and uncertainty across the IPCC reports is a difficult challenge. Huge practical difficulties arise from the Panel’s scale and interdisciplinary context, the complexity of the climate change issue and its political context. The key question of this paper is if the observed differences in the handling of uncertainties by the three IPCC Working Groups can be clarified. To address this question, the paper reviews a few key issues on the foundations of uncertainty analysis, and summarizes the history of the treatment of uncertainty by the IPCC. One of the key findings is that there is reason to agree to disagree: the fundamental differences between the issues covered by the IPCC’s three interdisciplinary Working Groups, between the type of information available, and between the dominant paradigms of the practitioners, legitimately lead to different approaches. We argue that properly using the IPCC’s Guidance Notes for Lead Authors for addressing uncertainty, adding a pedigree analysis for key findings, and particularly communicating the diverse nature of uncertainty to the users of the assessment would increase the quality of the assessment. This approach would provide information about the nature of the uncertainties in addition to their magnitude and the confidence assessors have in their findings.     

Managing the inconceivable: participatory assessments of impacts and responses to extreme climate change

A comprehensive understanding of the implications of extreme climate change requires an in-depth exploration of the perceptions and reactions of the affected stakeholder groups and the lay public. The project on “Atlantic sea level rise: Adaptation to imaginable worst-case climate change” (Atlantis) has studied one such case, the collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet and a subsequent 5–6 m sea-level rise. Possible methods are presented for assessing the societal consequences of impacts and adaptation options in selected European regions by involving representatives of pertinent stakeholders. Results of a comprehensive review of participatory integrated assessment methods with a view to their applicability in climate impact studies are summarized including Simulation-Gaming techniques, the Policy Exercise method, and the Focus Group technique. Succinct presentations of these three methods are provided together with short summaries of relevant earlier applications to gain insights into the possible design options. Building on these insights, four basic versions of design procedures suitable for use in the Atlantis project are presented. They draw on design elements of several methods and combine them to fit the characteristics and fulfill the needs of addressing the problem of extreme sea-level rise. The selected participatory techniques and the procedure designs might well be useful in other studies assessing climate change impacts and exploring adaptation options.     

Russian industry responses to climate change: the case of the metals and mining sector

Globally, the metals and mining sector is a major contributor to GHG emissions. Climate change also poses significant challenges for the industry in a number of ways, including risks to infrastructure and equipment, transport routes and the cost of energy supplies. The sector is of particular importance to Russia, and yet very little is known about how the sector positions itself in relation to this key issue. This article conducts an in-depth look at the response of the Russian metals and mining sector to climate change. It looks at the key actors, their willingness to engage with the issue of climate change, preferred policy options and the strategies adopted to further their interests. The role of companies, prominent individuals and business associations is considered. The evidence suggests that, although there is widespread acceptance of climate change as a phenomenon, there is significant variation within the sector, with some companies proactive on climate policy, and others more reluctant. Different responses are attributed to reputational factors and the disproportionate influence of international and domestic policy developments on companies. Russian coal companies, directly threatened by any international attempts to reduce coal consumption, display the strongest opposition to efforts aimed at curbing emissions. The Russian government, far from thinking of transitioning to a low carbon future, is vigorously trying to expand the coal industry.

Key policy insights

• Understanding how Russia’s domestic position on climate policy is formed is fundamental for understanding the factors driving its international engagement on climate policy.

• The Russian government has no plans to phase out coal and is instead actively seeking to expand the coal industry. This highlights the obstacles to Russia’s commitment to climate policy at both the domestic and international levels.

• The socio-economic consequences of climate policy for the Russian coal industry are a key consideration for the government, with some regions heavily dependent on the industry for employment and electricity generation.

     

Framing the way to relate climate extremes to climate change

The atmospheric and ocean environment has changed from human activities in ways that affect storms and extreme climate events. The main way climate change is perceived is through changes in extremes because those are outside the bounds of previous weather. The average anthropogenic climate change effect is not negligible, but nor is it large, although a small shift in the mean can lead to very large percentage changes in extremes. Anthropogenic global warming inherently has decadal time scales and can be readily masked by natural variability on short time scales. To the extent that interactions are linear, even places that feature below normal temperatures are still warmer than they otherwise would be. It is when natural variability and climate change develop in the same direction that records get broken. For instance, the rapid transition from El Ni?o prior to May 2010 to La Ni?a by July 2010 along with global warming contributed to the record high sea surface temperatures in the tropical Indian and Atlantic Oceans and in close proximity to places where record flooding subsequently occurred. A commentary is provided on recent climate extremes. The answer to the oft-asked question of whether an event is caused by climate change is that it is the wrong question. All weather events are affected by climate change because the environment in which they occur is warmer and moister than it used to be.     

Amplifiers, filters and geomorphic responses to climate change in Kentucky rivers

Efforts to predict responses to climate change and to interpret modern or paleoclimate indicators are influenced by several levels of potential amplifiers, which increase or exaggerate climate impacts, and/or filters, which reduce or mute impacts. With respect to geomorphic responses and indicators, climate forcings are partly mediated by ecological, hydrological, and other processes which may amplify or filter impacts on surface processes and landforms. Then, geomorphic responses themselves may be threshold-dominated or dynamically unstable, producing disproportionately large and long-lived responses to climate changes or disturbances. Or, responses may be dynamically stable, whereby resistance or resilience of geomorphic systems minimizes the effects of changes. Thus a given geomorphic response to climate could represent (at least) two levels of amplification and/or filtering. An example is given for three fluvial systems in Kentucky, U.S.A, the Kentucky, Green, and Big South Fork Rivers. Climate impacts in the early Quaternary were amplified by glacially-driven reorganization of the ancestral Ohio River system to the North, and by dynamical instability in the down-cutting response of rivers incising plateau surfaces. Effects of more recent climate changes, however, have been filtered to varying extents. Using alluvial terraces as an example, the study rivers show distinctly different responses to climate forcings. The lower Green River has extensive, well-developed terraces recording several episodes of aggradation and downcutting, while the Big South Fork River has no alluvial terraces. The Kentucky River is intermediate, with limited preservation of relatively recent terraces. The differences can be explained in terms of differences among the rivers in (1) filtering effects of constraints on fluvial responses imposed by strongly incised, steep-walled bedrock controlled valleys; and (2) amplifier effects of periodic damming of lower river reaches by glaciofluvial outwash.     

Institutional adaptation to climate change: Flood responses at the municipal level in Norway

The article examines the role institutions play in climate adaptation in Norway. Using examples from two municipalities in the context of institutional responses to floods, we find, first, that the institutional framework for flood management in Norway gives weak incentives for proactive local flood management. Second, when strong local political and economic interests coincide with national level willingness to pay and provide support, measures are often carried out rapidly at the expense of weaker environmental interests. Third, we find that new perspectives on flood management are more apparent at the national than the municipal level, as new perspectives are filtered by local power structures. The findings have important implications for vulnerability and adaptation to climate change in terms of policy options and the local level as the optimal level for adaptation.     

Policy responses to rapid climate change: An epistemological critique of dominant approaches

This paper reviews existing policy responses to rapid climate change and examines possible assumptions that underpin those responses. The analysis demonstrates that current policy responses to rapid climate change make unwarranted epistemological and ethical assumptions. Specifically, we argue that the assumptions about the possibility of predicting the climate system including tipping points linked to utilitarian ethical assumptions in the form of cost–benefit analysis are open to contestation and should be subject to global public debate. The paper considers alternative normative approaches and briefly proposes complementary policy responses.     

Household and community responses to impacts of climate change in the rural hills of Nepal

The research was designed to answer how households and local communities in rural Nepal are responding to the impacts of climate change. Using four villages as case study units, a mixed method approach was adopted in a multi-scaled process carried out at community, district and national levels. The research found that adaptation practices being adopted differ according to household well-being and are largely governed by access to education, information and resources within the community. Responses such as livelihood and income diversification, internal migration, share cropping, taking consumption loans, use of alternative energy and use of bio-pesticides were found to mostly vary according to well-being status of the interviewees. Development of adaptation plans, strategies and support mechanisms should take account of the different adaptation practices and needs of households. If such individual situations are not considered, adaptation responses may be ineffective or even be maladaptive and increase vulnerability. The research also found that the autonomous, unplanned and reactive nature of adaptation practices chosen by rural communities can contribute to further inequity and unequal power relations. The knowledge generated from this research contributes to understanding of how climate change contributes to vulnerability, but also how local practices and lack of an effective climate policy or response measures may magnify the effects of many existing drivers of vulnerability in terms of maladaptation and increasing social inequalities.     

Paper 3. impacts and responses to climate change in forests of the mink region

The adaptability of forests in the U.S. midwest to a changing climate is assessed. The forests of Missouri are simulated with a forest-gap model, a stochastic model of the annual growth and mortality of trees within mixed-species forest plots. The development of representative forest plots under an analog climate like that of the 1930s is compared to development under baseline climate conditions. With no management response, average forest biomass in the region declines by 11% within ten years, primarily due to moisture-stress induced mortality. Longer term declines in forest productivity on the order of 30% are simulated. A variety of possible management responses through planting or harvesting practices were evaluated. None of these adaptations appear to be practical, although the salvage harvest of stressed trees would offset the economifc losses associated with the early mortality. An investigation of anticipated trends in the broader forest products sector suggests that opportunities for further adaptation to offset the decline in primary productivity of this region's forest are quite limited. However, a shift to wood powered electrical generation in the region might justify a level of management that would allow some adaptation to the analog climate change.Acknowledgments: Support from the U.S. Department of Energy through the Pacific Northwest Laboratory is gratefully acknowledged. We thank Alan Solomon for providing the FORENA forest simulation model.     

湖南气候对全球气候变化的响应

利用湖南省96个台站1960—2010年逐日气象观测资料,在进行均一性检验和订正的基础上对湖南省气候变化事实进行检测分析。结果表明:湖南气候与全球气候变化一致,呈现以变暖为主要特征的变化,且变暖存在季节、地域上的差异,冬、春、秋气温变暖趋势显著,增暖幅度最大的区域在湘北地区;对气候变暖响应敏感的要素主要是与平均气温、冬季气温相关密切的要素,如季平均气温、年平均最低气温、活动积温等;湖南气温在突变时间上具有较好的时间逻辑关系;湖南降水量无显著趋势变化,但极端降水增加,地域性差异明显,湖南东部地区降水量呈现明显增加趋势,日降水量大于等于100 mm的日数呈显著增加趋势;湖南日照时数、风速、相对湿度均呈现显著减少的变化趋势。     

Modeling effects of climate change on Yakima River salmonid habitats

We evaluated the potential effects of two climate change scenarios on salmonid habitats in the Yakima River by linking the outputs from a watershed model, a river operations model, a two-dimensional (2D) hydrodynamic model, and a geographic information system (GIS). The watershed model produced a discharge time series (hydrograph) in two study reaches under three climate scenarios: a baseline (1981–2005), a 1-°C increase in mean air temperature (plus one scenario), and a 2-°C increase (plus two scenario). A river operations model modified the discharge time series with Yakima River operational rules, a 2D model provided spatially explicit depth and velocity grids for two floodplain reaches, while an expert panel provided habitat criteria for four life stages of coho and fall Chinook salmon. We generated discharge-habitat functions for each salmonid life stage (e.g., spawning, rearing) in main stem and side channels, and habitat time series for baseline, plus one (P1) and plus two (P2) scenarios. The spatial and temporal patterns in salmonid habitats differed by reach, life stage, and climate scenario. Seventy-five percent of the 28 discharge-habitat responses exhibited a decrease in habitat quantity, with the P2 scenario producing the largest changes, followed by P1. Fry and spring/summer rearing habitats were the most sensitive to warming and flow modification for both species. Side channels generally produced more habitat than main stem and were more responsive to flow changes, demonstrating the importance of lateral connectivity in the floodplain. A discharge-habitat sensitivity analysis revealed that proactive management of regulated surface waters (i.e., increasing or decreasing flows) might lessen the impacts of climate change on salmonid habitats.     

Modeling the effects of climate change on water resources - a review

Hydrologic models provide a framework in which to conceptualize and investigate the relationships between climate and water resources. A review of current studies that assess the impacts of climate change using hydrologic models indicates a number of problem areas common to the variety of models applied. These problem areas include parameter estimation, scale, model validation, climate scenario generation, and data. Research needs to address these problems include development of (1) a more physically based understanding of hydrologic processes and their interactions; (2) parameter measurement and estimation techniques for application over a range of spatial and temporal scales; (3) quantitative measures of uncertainty in model parameters and model results; (4) improved methodologies of climate scenario generation; (5) detailed data sets in a variety of climatic and physiographic regions; and (6) modular modeling tools to provide a framework to facilitate interdisciplinary research. Solutions to these problems would significantly improve the capability of models to assess the effects of climate change.The U.S. Government right to retain a non-exclusive, royalty-free license in and to any copyright is acknowledged.     

Perceptions of climate and climate change by Amazonian communities

The Amazon region has been undergoing profound transformations since the late ‘70s through forest degradation, land use changes and effects of global climate change. The perception of such changes by local communities is important for risk analysis and for subsequent societal decision making. In this study, we compare and contrast observations and perceptions of climate change by selected Amazonian communities particularly vulnerable to alterations in precipitation regimes. Two main points were analysed: (i) the notion of changes in the annual climate cycle and (ii) the notion of changes in rainfall patterns. About 72% of the sampled population reports perceptions of climate changes, and there is a robust signal of increased perception with age. Other possible predictive parameters such as gender, fishing frequency and changes in/planning of economic activities do not appear overall as contributing to perceptions. The communities’ perceptions of the changes in 2013–2014 were then compared to earlier results (2007–2008), providing an unprecedented cohort study of the same sites. Results show that climate change perceptions and measured rainfall variations differ across the basin. It was only in the southern part of the Amazon that both measured and perceived changes in rainfall patterns were consistent with decreased precipitation. However, the perception of a changing climate became more widespread and frequently mentioned, signalling an increase in awareness of climate risk.     

Weaponizing vulnerability to climate change

As scores of climate change adaptation measures are implemented around the world, there have been growing calls among academics and practitioners to also address the processes that underpin human vulnerability to climate change. However, there is mounting evidence that adaptation and vulnerability are linked, such that ostensibly adaptive responses can have negative consequences and augment people’s vulnerability. We analyzed several climate change responses at various scales and developed a typology of five discrete but related modes by which the vulnerability of already vulnerable populations is being [re]produced. Crucially, this work suggests that for at least one of these modes, the vulnerability of other groups is perversely inverted, such that relatively secure populations perceive themselves to be at risk. The cases we present illustrate that people’s vulnerability is being used against them, or put another way, is being weaponized―exacerbating their precarity by excluding them from much needed and due assistance, while directing resources instead to bolstering the well-being of those already well-positioned to respond to climate threats. Our typology provides a theoretical intervention by illustrating how climate vulnerability and security are co-produced, as well as a practical tool to help decision makers to adopt more just and equitable climate policies.