An assessment of climate change impacts and adaptation for the Torres Strait Islands, Australia

Adaptive practices are taking place in a range of sectors and regions in Australia in response to existing climate impacts, and in anticipation of future unavoidable impacts. For a rich economy such as Australia’s, the majority of human systems have considerable adaptive capacity. However, the impacts on human systems at the intra-nation level are not homogenous due to their differing levels of exposure, sensitivity and capacity to adapt to climate change. Despite past resilience to changing climates, many Indigenous communities located in remote areas are currently identified as highly vulnerable to climate impacts due to their high level of exposure and sensitivity, but low capacity to adapt. In particular, communities located on low-lying islands have particular vulnerability to sea level rise and increasingly intense storm surges caused by more extreme weather. Several Torres Strait Island community leaders have been increasingly concerned about these issues, and the ongoing risks to these communities’ health and well-being posed by direct and indirect climate impacts. A government agency is beginning to develop short-term and long-term adaptation plans for the region. This work, however, is being developed without adequate scientific assessment of likely ‘climate changed futures.’ This is because the role that anthropogenic climate change has played, or will play, on extreme weather events for this region is not currently clear. This paper draws together regional climate data to enable a more accurate assessment of the islands’ exposure to climate impacts. Understanding the level of exposure and uncertainty around specific impacts is vital to gauge the nature of these islands’ vulnerability, in so doing, to inform decisions about how best to develop anticipatory adaptation strategies over various time horizons, and to address islanders’ concerns about the likely resilience and viability of their communities in the longer term.     

极端天气气候事件变化对荒漠化、土地退化和粮食安全的影响

土地是人类赖以生存的重要资源,在受气候变化影响的同时其状况变化也在气候系统中起着关键作用。IPCC最新发布的气候变化与土地特别报告（SRCCL）系统反映了关于荒漠化、土地退化、可持续土地管理、粮食安全和陆地生态系统碳通量方面的最新科学认知,并探讨了如何进行更加可持续性的土地利用和管理以应对与土地相关的气候变化问题。文中从极端事件变化及其影响的角度,结合SRCCL与其他相关文献,予以分析和总结。结果表明,在全球变暖的背景下,极端天气气候事件的变化已经并将继续影响荒漠化和土地退化进程并对粮食安全造成冲击;而土地对气候系统的反馈作用,又会加剧气候变化并提高极端事件发生的概率和严重程度。面对气候变化尤其是极端事件给土地带来的巨大压力,必须坚持可持续的土地管理,通过减少包括土地和粮食系统在内的所有行业的排放,才有可能实现到21世纪末将全球平均升温控制在相对工业化前水平2℃以内的目标,以减轻气候变化对土地和粮食系统的负面影响。     

Using Protection Motivation Theory to examine information-seeking behaviors on climate change

Many earlier studies concluded that exposure to changes in local weather or extreme weather events prompt public interest in climate change, and in turn raise support for mitigation policies. However, these findings do not square with observations of record-breaking temperatures, and decades of failure to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. To address this conundrum, we use Protection Motivation Theory to form hypotheses on the specific type of climate change-related information that individuals seek during periods of extreme local weather. Using daily-level internet search engine data from Chinese cities, we find that residents are purposeful and rational in seeking information on climate change. Specifically, when faced with high or abnormal temperatures, they are much more likely to seek information to appraise their susceptibility to climate change threats, and evaluate coping responses. On the other hand, due to the lack of direct benefits, they do not seek out information on climate mitigation behaviors. In contrast to earlier studies, our findings suggest that it is unlikely that extreme weather events will prompt support for climate mitigation actions. Instead, as worldwide weather becomes more extreme and unpredictable, it is likely that public’s attention will shift in the direction of adaptation measures.     

Extreme value analysis and the study of climate change

In his paper in Climate Monitor, TML Wigley uses basic probability arguments to illustrate how a slowly changing climate could potentially affect the frequency of extreme events. In the time since the paper appeared, there has been increased interest in assessing how weather extremes may be altered by climate change. Much of the work has been conducted using extreme value analysis, which is the branch of statistics developed specifically to characterize extreme events. This commentary discusses the advantages of an EVA approach and reviews some EVA techniques that have been used to describe climate change’s potential impact on extreme phenomena. Additionally, this commentary illustrates basic EVA techniques in an analysis of temperatures for central England. In parallel to Wigley’s analysis, a time-varying EVA analysis is compared to a stationary one, and furthermore, the trend from the EVA analysis is compared to the trend in means.     

从气候变化的新视角理解灾害风险、暴露度、脆弱性和恢复力

不断变化的气候可导致前所未有的极端天气和气候事件。这些事件能否构成灾害,在很大程度上取决于脆弱性和暴露度水平。虽然无法完全消除各种灾害风险,但灾害风险管理和气候变化适应的重点是减少脆弱性和暴露度,并提高对各种潜在极端事件不利影响的恢复力,从而促进社会和经济的可持续发展。全面的灾害风险管理要求更加合理地分配对减灾、灾害管理等方面所付出的努力。过去的主流是强调灾害管理,但目前减灾成为关注焦点和挑战。这种主动积极的灾害风险管理与适应有助于避免未来的风险和灾害,而不仅仅是减少已有的风险和灾害,同时这也是灾害风险管理和气候变化适应更加紧密联系的一个背景。灾害风险管理促进气候变化适应从应对当前的影响中汲取经验,而气候变化适应帮助灾害风险管理更加有效地应对未来变化的条件。     

Agricultural risk management policies under climate uncertainty

Climate change is forecasted to increase the variability of weather conditions and the frequency of extreme events. Due to potential adverse impacts on crop yields it will have implications for demand of agricultural risk management instruments and farmers’ adaptation strategies. Evidence on climate change impacts on crop yield variability and estimates of production risk from farm surveys in Australia, Canada and Spain, are used to analyse the policy choice between three different types of insurance (individual, area-yield and weather index) and ex post payments. The results are found to be subject to strong uncertainties and depend on the risk profile of different farmers and locations; the paper provides several insights on how to analyse these complexities. In general, area yield performs best more often across our countries and scenarios, in particular for the baseline and marginal climate change (without increases in extreme events). However, area yield can be very expensive if farmers have limited information on how climate change affects yields (misalignment in expectations), and particularly so under extreme climate change scenarios. In these more challenging cases, ex post payments perform well to increase low incomes when the risk is systemic like in Australia; Weather index performs well to reduce the welfare costs of risks when the correlation between yields and index is increased by the extreme events. The paper also analyses the robustness of different instruments in the face of limited knowledge of the probabilities of different climate change scenarios; highlighting that this added layer of uncertainty could be overcome to provide sound policy advice under uncertainties introduced by climate change. The role of providing information to farmers on impacts of climate change emerges as a crucial result of this paper as indicated by the significantly higher budgetary expenditures occurring across all instruments when farmers’ expectations are misaligned relative to actual impacts of climate change.     

天气和气候极端事件的变化及其与全球变暖的联系——纪念2002年世界气象日“减低对天气和气候极端事件的脆弱性”

2002年3月23日世界气象日的主题是“减低天气和气候极端事件的脆弱性”。针对这个主题,作者对以下四方面问题作了阐述：（1）天气与气候极端事件以及脆弱性的定义;（2）近百年来全球天气与气候极端事件的变化及其与全球气候变化的关系;（3）未来天气与气候极端事件及其影响的预测;（4）天气与气候极端事件的适应与减缓对策。由于篇幅有限,未介绍中国在这方面的研究。     

Blaming climate change? How Indian mainstream media covered two extreme weather events in 2015

Reporting the links (or lack of them) between human-induced climate change and individual extreme weather events poses a series of challenges for journalists. In recent years, their task has become more complicated by the increase in the number of extreme event attribution (EEA) studies which assess how climate change is affecting the intensity or likelihood of specific weather events. Such studies are complex, contain uncertainties, and can be difficult to explain to a lay audience. Previous scholarship has largely focused on media coverage of extreme events in developed countries, and on the volume of coverage of the links to climate change, without examining references to EEA studies. To help fill this gap, we take India as our case study, and the mainstream media coverage there of the Chennai rainfall event and the heat wave in Andhra Pradesh in 2015. Both events were subject to attribution studies. Amongst our findings are that journalists most commonly used generic phrases to describe the link between such events and climate change; politicians and NGOs often ‘blamed’ climate change without reference to the science; and relevant EEA studies were seldom quoted. Based on our findings, we make some preliminary recommendations for training journalists in India and elsewhere to support accurate reporting of extreme events and their possible linkages to climate change.     

On the relation between weather-related disaster impacts,vulnerability and climate change

Disasters such as floods, storms, heatwaves and droughts can have enormous implications for health, the environment and economic development. In this article, we address the question of how climate change might have influenced the impact of weather-related disasters. This relation is not straightforward, since disaster burden is not influenced by weather and climate events alone—other drivers are growth in population and wealth, and changes in vulnerability. We normalized disaster impacts, analyzed trends in the data and compared them with trends in extreme weather and climate events and vulnerability, following a 3 by 4 by 3 set-up, with three disaster burden categories, four regions and three extreme weather event categories. The trends in normalized disaster impacts show large differences between regions and weather event categories. Despite these variations, our overall conclusion is that the increasing exposure of people and economic assets is the major cause of increasing trends in disaster impacts. This holds for long-term trends in economic losses as well as the number of people affected. We also found similar, though more qualitative, results for the number of people killed; in all three cases, the role played by climate change cannot be excluded. Furthermore, we found that trends in historic vulnerability tend to be stable over time, despite adaptation measures taken by countries. Based on these findings, we derived disaster impact projections for the coming decades. We argue that projections beyond 2030 are too uncertain, not only due to unknown changes in vulnerability, but also due to increasing non-stationarities in normalization relations.     

Possible impacts of climate change on extreme weather events at local scale in south–central Canada

Synoptic weather typing and regression-based downscaling approaches have become popular in evaluating the impacts of climate change on a variety of environmental problems, particularly those involving extreme impacts. One of the reasons for the popularity of these approaches is their ability to categorize a complex set of meteorological variables into a coherent index, facilitating the projection of changes in frequency and intensity of future daily extreme weather events and/or their impacts. This paper illustrated the capability of the synoptic weather typing and regression methods to analyze climatic change impacts on a number of extreme weather events and environmental problems for south–central Canada, such as freezing rain, heavy rainfall, high-/low-streamflow events, air pollution, and human health. These statistical approaches are helpful in analyzing extreme events and projecting their impacts into the future through three major steps or analysis procedures: (1) historical simulation modeling to identify extreme weather events or their impacts, (2) statistical downscaling to provide station-scale future hourly/daily climate data, and (3) projecting changes in the frequency and intensity of future extreme weather events and their impacts under a changing climate. To realize these steps, it is first necessary to conceptualize the modeling of the meteorology, hydrology and impacts model variables of significance and to apply a number of linear/nonlinear regression techniques. Because the climate/weather validation process is critical, a formal model result verification process has been built into each of these three steps. With carefully chosen physically consistent and relevant variables, the results of the verification, based on historical observations of the outcome variables simulated by the models, show a very good agreement in all applications and extremes tested to date. Overall, the modeled results from climate change studies indicate that the frequency and intensity of future extreme weather events and their impacts are generally projected to significantly increase late this century over south–central Canada under a changing climate. The implications of these increases need be taken into consideration and integrated into policies and planning for adaptation strategies, including measures to incorporate climate change into engineering infrastructure design standards and disaster risk reduction measures. This paper briefly summarized these climate change research projects, focusing on the modeling methodologies and results, and attempted to use plain language to make the results more accessible and interesting to the broader informed audience. These research projects have been used to support decision-makers in south–central Canada when dealing with future extreme weather events under climate change.     

Mapping the shadow of experience of extreme weather events

Climate change will increase the frequency and/or intensity of certain extreme weather events, and perceived experience with extreme weather may influence climate change beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors. However, the aspects of extreme events that influence whether or not people perceive that they have personally experienced them remain unclear. We investigate (1) the correspondence of reported experience of extreme weather events with documented events, and (2) how characteristics of different extreme events shape the geographic area within which people are likely to report they have experienced it—the event’s perceived “shadow of experience.” We overlay geocoded survey responses indicating personal experience with hurricanes, tornadoes, and drought—from a 2012 nationally representative survey (N?=?1,008) of U.S. residents—on maps of recorded event impacts. We find that reported experiences correspond well with recorded event impacts, particularly for hurricanes and tornadoes. Reported experiences were related to event type, proximity, magnitude and duration. The results suggest locations where disaster preparedness efforts and climate change education campaigns could be most effective after an extreme weather event.     

Semiquantitative Assessment of Regional Climate Vulnerability: The North-Rhine Westphalia Study

Climate change will bring about a sea change in environmental conditions worldwide during the 21th century. In particular, most of the extreme events and natural disaster regimes prevailing today will be transformed, thus exposing innumerable natural and socio-economic systems to novel risks that will be difficult to cope with. This crucial component of vulnerability to anthropogenic interference with the climate system is analyzed using powerful pattern recognition methods from statistical physics. The analysis is of intermediate character, with respect to spatial scale and complexity level respectively, and therefore allows a rapid regional assessment for any area of interest. The approach is based on a comprehensive inventory of all those ecological and socioeconomic assets in a region that are significantly sensitive to extreme weather (and climate) events. Advanced cluster analysis techniques are then employed to derive from the inventory a set of thematic maps that succinctly summarize – and visualize – the differential vulnerabilities characteristic of the area in question. This information can prepare decision makers and the general public for the climate change hazards to be faced and facilitates a precautionary climate change risk management. The semiquantitative methodology described and applied here can be easily extended to other aspects of climate change assessment.     

Sufferer and cause: Indian livestock and climate change

Climate change poses formidable challenge to the development of livestock sector in India. The anticipated rise in temperature between 2.3 and 4.8°C over the entire country together with increased precipitation resulting from climate change is likely to aggravate the heat stress in dairy animals, adversely affecting their productive and reproductive performance, and hence reducing the total area where high yielding dairy cattle can be economically reared. Given the vulnerability of India to rise in sea level, the impact of increased intensity of extreme events on the livestock sector would be large and devastating for the low-income rural areas. The predicted negative impact of climate change on Indian agriculture would also adversely affect livestock production by aggravating the feed and fodder shortages. The livestock sector which will be a sufferer of climate change is itself a large source of methane emissions, an important greenhouse gas. In India, although the emission rate per animal is much lower than the developed countries, due to vast livestock population the total annual methane emissions are about 9–10 Tg from enteric fermentation and animal wastes.     

北京市能源系统气候变化脆弱性分析与适应建议

1951-2014年,北京市年平均气温以0.37℃/10a的速度上升,且热岛效应强度和范围增大。随着北京城市化发展,气候变化给北京市能源系统带来的额外压力也趋于显著。本研究着重分析了气候变化条件下能源系统的脆弱性。研究结果表明,气候变化下北京市能源系统的脆弱性主要表现在高温天气条件下,电力需求负荷超过电力供应系统设计最大负荷;低温条件下,天然气供应短缺;极端天气给能源生产、能源供应和能源运输造成威胁。针对北京市能源系统的脆弱性,借鉴国际经验,提出了北京市能源系统提升气候变化适应能力的短期战略和长期战略,并分别从政策、技术和管理方面提出了短期战略的适应建议。     

Health and climatic hazards: Framing social research on vulnerability,response and adaptation

Floods, windstorms, drought and wildfires have major implications for human health. To date, conceptual advances in analysis of vulnerability and adaptation to climatic hazards from the environmental and social sciences have not been widely applied in terms of health, though key progress is being made particularly in relation to climate change. This paper seeks to take this conceptual grounding further, examining how key themes relate to health concerns, exploring connections with existing health literatures, and developing an organising framework to aid analysis of how vulnerability to health impacts varies within society and how actors make decisions and take action in relation to climatic hazards and health. Social science research on this theme is challenging in part because of the complex mechanisms that link hazard events to health outcomes, and the many-layered factors that shape differential vulnerability and response within changing societal and environmental contexts (including the dual effect of hazards on human health and health systems, and the combination of ‘external’, ‘personal’ and ‘internal’ elements of vulnerability). Tracing a ‘health impact pathway’ from hazard event through health risk effects to health outcomes can provide a research tool with which to map out where the different factors that contribute to vulnerability/coping capacity come into effect.     

California’s local health agencies and the state’s climate adaptation strategy

A changing climate will exacerbate many of the problems currently faced by California’s public health institutions. The public health impacts of climate change include: an increase in extreme heat events and associated increases in heat-related morbidity and mortality, increases in the frequency and severity of air pollution episodes, shifts in the range and incidence of vector-borne diseases, increases in the severity of wildfire, increased risks of drought and flooding, and other extreme events. This article assesses the readiness of California’s public health institutions to cope with the changes that will accompany a changing climate and how they relate to strategies laid out in the state’s Climate Adaptation Strategy. County-level health offices are the front line actors to preserve public health in the face of numerous threats, including climate change. Survey results show that local health officers in California believe that climate change is a serious threat to public health, but feel that they lack the funding and resources to reduce this risk. Local health agencies also have a number of tools in place that will be helpful for preparing for a changing climate.     

极端事件对人类系统的影响

在IPCC特别报告《管理极端事件和灾害风险,推进气候变化适应》中,极端天气气候事件对人类系统的影响是最重要的影响评估内容之一,其评估结果为：极端影响可能缘于极端天气气候事件,但也可能并非极端事件的后果。暴露度和脆弱性是灾害风险的重要决定因素;极端和非极端天气气候事件的严重程度和影响在很大程度上取决于对这些事件的脆弱性和暴露度水平;人居模式、城市化和社会经济状况的变化已经影响观测到的脆弱性和暴露度的变化趋势;无论在发达国家还是发展中国家,沿海人居环境均暴露于极端事件,并受其影响,如小岛屿国家和亚洲大三角洲地区;脆弱人口还包括难民、国内流离失所的人和那些生活在边远地区的人;极端事件将极大地影响与气候联系密切的部门,如水、农业、食物安全、健康和旅游业。     

Multipurpose agroforestry as a climate change resiliency option for farmers: an example of local adaptation in Vietnam

Increasing frequency, intensity and duration of severe weather events are posing major challenges to global food security and livelihoods of rural people. Agriculture has evolved through adaptation to local circumstances for thousands of years. Local experience in responding to severe weather conditions, accumulated over generations and centuries, is valuable for developing adaptation options to current climate change. This study aimed to: (i) identify tree species that reduce vulnerability of cropping systems under climate variability; and (ii) develop a method for rapidly assessing vulnerability and exploring strategies of smallholder farmers in rural areas exposed to climate variability. Participatory Rural Appraisal methods in combination with Geographical Information Systems tools and statistical analysis of meteorological data were used to evaluate local vulnerability to climate change and to investigate local adaptation measures in two selected villages in Vietnam, one of the countries most vulnerable to climate change. The low predictability of severe weather events makes food crops, especially grain production, insecure. This study shows that while rice and rain-fed crops suffered over 40 % yield losses in years of extreme drought or flood, tree-based systems and cattle were less affected. 13 tree species performed well under the harsh local climate conditions in home and forest gardens to provide income, food, feed and other environmental benefits. Thus, this research suggests that maintenance and enhancement of locally evolved agroforestry systems, with high resilience and multiple benefits, can contribute to climate change adaptation.     

The resilience paradox: flooding experience,coping and climate change mitigation intentions

Climate change is projected to increase the frequency, intensity and unpredictability of extreme weather events across the globe and these events are likely to have significant mental health implications. The mental health literature broadly characterises negative emotional reactions to extreme weather experiences as undesirable impacts on wellbeing. Yet, other research in psychology suggests that negative emotional responses to extreme weather are an important motivation for personal action on climate change. This article addresses the intersection of mental health and functional perspectives on negative emotions, with a specific focus on the potential that reduced negative emotional responses to extreme weather may also translate to diminished motivation to undertake climate change mitigation actions – which we term the ‘resilience paradox’. Using survey data gathered in the aftermath of severe flooding across the UK in winter 2013/2014, we present new evidence indicating that self-appraised coping ability moderates the link between flooding experience and negative emotions and thereby attenuates the indirect link between flooding experience and climate change mitigation intentions. We conclude that support for flood victims should extend beyond addressing emotional, physical and financial stresses to include acknowledgement of the involvement of climate change and communication of the need for action to combat future climate risks.

Key policy insights

• Psychological resilience to flooding and other extreme weather events can translate to diminished motivation to mitigate climate change

• Negative emotional reactions need to occur at an optimal level to enable people to respond appropriately to climate risks.

• Flood victims’ subjective appraisal of their ability to cope does not necessarily encompass consideration of the role played by climate change. Therefore, support for victims of extreme weather should include explicit acknowledgement of the involvement of climate change and the need for action to mitigate future climate risks.

     

Attribution matters: Revisiting the link between extreme weather experience and climate change mitigation responses

The literature suggests that extreme weather experiences have potential to increase climate change engagement by influencing the way people perceive the proximity and implications of climate change. Yet, limited attention has been directed at investigating how individual differences in the subjective interpretation of extreme weather events as indications of climate change moderate the link between extreme weather experiences and climate change attitudes. This article contends that subjective attribution of extreme weather events to climate change is a necessary condition for extreme weather experiences to be translated into climate change mitigation responses, and that subjective attribution of extreme weather to climate change is influenced by the psychological and social contexts in which individuals appraise their experiences with extreme weather. Using survey data gathered in the aftermath of severe flooding across the UK in winter 2013/2014, personal experience of this flooding event is shown to only directly predict perceived threat from climate change, and indirectly predict climate change mitigation responses, among individuals who subjectively attributed the floods to climate change. Additionally, subjective attribution of the floods to climate change is significantly predicted by pre-existing climate change belief, political affiliation and perceived normative cues. Attempts to harness extreme weather experiences as a route to engaging the public must be attentive to the heterogeneity of opinion on the attributability of extreme weather events to climate change.