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.     

How well do integrated assessment models simulate climate change?

Integrated assessment models (IAMs) are regularly used to evaluate different policies of future emissions reductions. Since the global costs associated with these policies are immense, it is vital that the uncertainties in IAMs are quantified and understood. We first demonstrate the significant spread in the climate system and carbon cycle components of several contemporary IAMs. We then examine these components in more detail to understand the causes of differences, comparing the results with more complex climate models and earth system models (ESMs), where available. Our results show that in most cases the outcomes of IAMs are within the range of the outcomes of complex models, but differences are large enough to matter for policy advice. There are areas where IAMs would benefit from improvements (e.g. climate sensitivity, inertia in climate response, carbon cycle feedbacks). In some cases, additional climate model experiments are needed to be able to tune some of these improvements. This will require better communication between the IAM and ESM development communities.     

How do people update? The effects of local weather fluctuations on beliefs about global warming

Global warming has become a controversial public policy issue in spite of broad scientific consensus that it is real and that human activity is a contributing factor. It is likely that public consensus is also needed to support policies that might counteract it. It is therefore important to understand how people form and update their beliefs about climate change. Using unique survey data on beliefs about the occurrence of the effects of global warming, I estimate how local temperature fluctuations influence what individuals believe about these effects. I find that some features of the updating process are consistent with rational updating. I also test explicitly for the presence of several heuristics known to affect belief formation and find strong evidence for representativeness, some evidence for availability, and no evidence for spreading activation. I find that very short-run temperature fluctuations (1 day–2 weeks) have no effect on beliefs about the occurrence of global warming, but that longer-run fluctuations (1 month–1 year) are significant predictors of beliefs. Only respondents with a conservative political ideology are affected by temperature abnormalities.     

How do Canadian media report climate change impacts on health? A newspaper review

Climatic Change - Research on climate change media coverage is growing. Few studies, however, have investigated how the media portrays climate change impacts on human health. This review,...     

Do weather fluctuations cause people to seek information about climate change?

Learning about the causes and consequences of climate change can be an important avenue for supporting mitigation policy and efficient adaptation. This paper uses internet search activity data, a distinctly revealed preference approach, to examine if local weather fluctuations cause people to seek information about climate change. The results suggest that weather fluctuations do have an effect on climate change related search behavior, however not always in ways that are consistent with the projected impacts of climate change. While search activity increases with extreme heat in summer and extended periods of no rainfall and declines in extreme cold in winter, search activity also increases with colder winter and spring average temperatures. Some of the surprising results are magnified when heterogeneity by political ideology and educational attainment in responsiveness is modeled, which could suggest that different people have different perceptions about what types of weather define climate change or that climate science deniers seek information through Google. However, the results also indicate that for all groups in the political and educational spectrum, there exist weather events consistent with the predicted impacts of climate change that elicit increased information seeking.     

How harmful are restrictions on adapting to climate change?

The dominant assumption in economic models of climate policy remains that adaptation will be implemented in an optimal manner. There are, however, several reasons why optimal levels of adaptation may not be attainable. This paper investigates the effects of suboptimal levels of adaptation caused by different types of adaptation restrictions, on the composition and level of climate change costs and on welfare. We find that especially restrictions to the effectiveness of adaptation at more extreme levels of climate change can be very harmful. Furthermore we show that the potential of mitigation to offset suboptimal adaptation varies from being essential in case adaptation becomes ineffective at higher temperature increases, to being largely ineffective in case of short-term inaction. However, in all cases the short-term recommendation is to increase mitigation levels slightly above what is normally recommended, and to keep mitigation policies flexible enough to be able to respond when adaptation restrictions become more prominent. It is clear that by reducing adaptation restrictions, in combination with adjusting the optimal level of mitigation may keep the costs of adaptation restrictions limited, and thus generally it is very harmful to ignore existing restrictions on adaptation when devising (efficient) climate policies.     

How robust are global conservation priorities to climate change?

International conservation organisations have identified priority areas for biodiversity conservation. These global-scale prioritisations affect the distribution of funds for conservation interventions. As each organisation has a different focus, each prioritisation scheme is determined by different decision criteria and the resultant priority areas vary considerably. However, little is known about how the priority areas will respond to the impacts of climate change. In this paper, we examined the robustness of eight global-scale prioritisations to climate change under various climate predictions from seven global circulation models. We developed a novel metric of the climate stability for 803 ecoregions based on a recently introduced method to estimate the overlap of climate envelopes. The relationships between the decision criteria and the robustness of the global prioritisation schemes were statistically examined. We found that decision criteria related to level of endemism and landscape fragmentation were strongly correlated with areas predicted to be robust to a changing climate. Hence, policies that prioritise intact areas due to the likely cost efficiency, and assumptions related to the potential to mitigate the impacts of climate change, require further examination. Our findings will help determine where additional management is required to enable biodiversity to adapt to the impacts of climate change.     

Changes to the drivers of fire weather with a warming climate – a case study of southeast Tasmania

Projected changes to the global climate system have great implications for the incidence of large infrequent fires in many regions. Here we examine the synoptic-scale and local-scale influences on the incidence of extreme fire weather days and consider projections of the large-scale mean climate to explore future fire weather projections. We focus on a case study region with periodic extreme fire dangers; southeast Tasmania, Australia. We compare the performance of a dynamically downscaled regional climate model with Global Climate Model outputs as a tool for examining the local-scale influences while accounting for high regional variability. Many of the worst fires in Tasmania and the southeast Australian region are associated with deep cold fronts and strong prefrontal winds. The downscaled simulations reproduce this synoptic type with greater fidelity than a typical global climate model. The incidence of systems in this category is projected to increase through the century under a high emission scenario, driven mainly by an increase in the temperature of air masses, with little change in the strength of the systems. The regional climate model projected increase in frequency is smaller than for the global climate models used as input, with a large model range and natural variability. We also demonstrate how a blocking Foehn effect and topographic channelling contributed to the extreme conditions during an extreme fire weather day in Tasmania in January 2013. Effects such as these are likely to contribute to high fire danger throughout the century. Regional climate models are useful tools that enable various meteorological drivers of fire danger to be considered in projections of future fire danger.     

The new national climate change documents of Mexico: what do the regional climate change scenarios represent?

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.     

Is climate change a driver of armed conflict?

The world is generally becoming less violent, but the debate on climate change raises the specter of a new source of instability and conflict. In this field, the policy debate is running well ahead of its academic foundation—and sometimes even contrary to the best evidence. Although comparative research on security implications of climate change is rapidly expanding, major gaps in knowledge still exist. Taken together, extant studies provide mostly inconclusive insights, with contradictory or weak demonstrated effects of climate variability and change on armed conflict. This article reviews the empirical literature on short-term climate/environmental change and intrastate conflict, with special attention to possible insecurity consequences of precipitation and temperature anomalies and weather-related natural disasters. Based on this assessment, it outlines priorities for future research in this area.     

Selling climate change? The limitations of social marketing as a strategy for climate change public engagement

Social marketing is the systematic application of marketing concepts and techniques to achieve specific behavioural goals relevant to the social good. Social marketing approaches are becoming increasingly popular among governmental and non-governmental actors seeking to engage the public on climate change. The effectiveness of social marketing in achieving specific behavioural goals is empirically well-supported. However, in the first systematic critique of social marketing as a strategy for engaging the public on climate change, we present evidence that social marketing alone is insufficient to build support for the more ambitious policy changes and interventions that constitute a proportional response to climate change. In some circumstances, social marketing approaches may even be counterproductive. We describe some alternative approaches for engaging the public, which may provide governmental and non-governmental actors with additional or preferable tools for promoting public engagement with climate change. Given the scale of the challenge, it seems critical that those seeking to engage the public are equipped with the most effective strategies available - a goal that this paper seeks to contribute to. We conclude that acknowledging the limitations of social marketing - and exploring alternative methods of engaging the public - is an urgent task for climate change communication researchers and practitioners.     

The first climate refugees? Contesting global narratives of climate change in Tuvalu

Climate change effects such as sea-level rise are almost certain. What these outcomes mean for different populations, however, is far less certain. Climate change is both a narrative and material phenomenon. In so being, understanding climate change requires broad conceptualisations that incorporate multiple voices and recognise the agency of vulnerable populations. In climate change discourse, climate mobility is often characterised as the production of ‘refugees’, with a tendency to discount long histories of ordinary mobility among affected populations. The case of Tuvalu in the Pacific juxtaposes migration as everyday practice with climate refugee narratives. This climate-exposed population is being problematically positioned to speak for an entire planet under threat. Tuvaluans are being used as the immediate evidence of displacement that the climate change crisis narrative seems to require. Those identified as imminent climate refugees are being held up like ventriloquists to present a particular (western) ‘crisis of nature’. Yet Tuvaluan conceptions of climate challenges and mobility practices show that more inclusive sets of concepts and tools are needed to equitably and effectively approach and characterise population mobility.     

A permafrost warming in a cooling Antarctica?

The magnitude and even direction of recent Antarctic climate change is still debated because the paucity of long and complete instrumental data records. While along Antarctic Peninsula a strong warming coupled with large retreat of glaciers occurred, in continental Antarctica a cooling was recently detected. Here, the first existing permafrost data set longer than 10 years recorded in continental Antarctica is presented. Since 1997 summer ground surface temperature showed a strong warming trend (0.31°C per year) although the air temperature was almost stable. The summer ground surface temperature increase seemed to be influenced mainly by the increase of the total summer radiation as confirmed also by the increase of the summer thawing degree days. In the same period the active layer exhibited a thickening trend (1 cm per year) comparable with the thickening rates observed in several Arctic locations where air warming occurred. At all the investigated depths permafrost exhibited an increase of mean annual temperature of approximately 0.1°C per year. The dichotomy between active layer thickness and air temperature trends can produce large unexepected and unmodelled impacts on ecosystems and CO₂ balance.     

Hidden climate change – urban meteorology and the scales of real weather

This paper discusses the scale at which the weather is experienced and modified by human activities in urban environment. The climates of built-up areas differ from their non-urban counterparts in many aspect: wind-flows, radiation, humidity, precipitation and air quality all change in the presence of human settlement, transforming each city into a singularity within its regional weather system. Yet this pervasive category of anthropogenic climate change has always tended to be hidden and difficult to discern. The paper first describes the sequence of discovery of the urban heat island since the early nineteenth century, and the emergence and consolidation of a scientific field devoted to the climatology of cities. This is followed by a discussion of various attempts to apply knowledge of climatic factors to the design and management of settlement. We find that real-world application of urban climatology has met with limited success. However, the conclusion suggests that global climate change gives a new visibility and practical relevance to urban-scale climate science.     

Māori environmental knowledge of local weather and climate change in Aotearoa – New Zealand

The ability of Māori to understand, record and forecast weather and climate has been an important factor in successfully responding to past weather and climatic change in New Zealand. Through interacting with local environments over the centuries Māori have developed a wealth of environmental knowledge, with the lessons learnt having been incorporated into traditional and modern practices of agriculture, fishing, medicine, education and conservation. In partnership with the tribal group Te Whānau-ā-Apanui, NIWA’s Māori Research and Development Unit (Te Kuwaha o Taihoro Nukurangi) have initiated a pilot project to identify and document Māori environmental knowledge (MEK) of weather and climate in New Zealand. Using a Kaupapa Māori based research approach and semi-directive interviewing, an intimate understanding of local weather and climate was demonstrated by elders from Te Whānau-ā-Apanui. This knowledge includes the use of a vast indigenous nomenclature for local weather and climate phenomenon, the oral recording of weather and climate based events and trends, and the identification of environmental indicators to forecast weather and climate. Learning from this knowledge provides an opportunity to understand what has helped Māori adapt to weather and climate variability in the past. It also provides clues on how to enhance present day Māori and western scientific understanding of local weather and climate in New Zealand. An erratum to this article can be found at     

Who determines transformational change in development and climate finance?

The language of transformational change is increasingly applied to climate policy, and particularly in climate finance. Transformational change in this context is used with respect to low-carbon development futures, with the emphasis on mitigation and GHG metrics. But, for many developing countries, climate policy is embedded in a larger context of sustainable development objectives, defined through a national process. Viewed thus, there is a potential tension between mitigation-focused transformation and nationally driven sustainable development. We explore this tension in the context of operationalizing the Green Climate Fund (GCF), which has to deal with the fundamental tension between country ownership and transformational change. In relation to climate finance, acceptance of diverse interpretations of transformation are essential conditions for avoiding risk of transformational change becoming a conditionality on development. We further draw lessons from climate governance and the development aid literature. The article examines how in the case of both the Clean Development Mechanism and Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions, there has been limited success in achieving both development objectives and ‘nationally appropriate’ mitigation. The development aid literature points to process-based approaches as a possible alternative, but there are limitations to this approach.

Policy relevance

The concept of transformational change has gained prominence in climate finance. The conundrum facing the GCF is that it seeks to support transformational change in the climate realm, in a context where countries may have competing priorities. Balancing or even transcending this tension is a fundamental design challenge for the GCF. A primary focus on mitigation, particularly if metrics of performance are tied exclusively to GHG reduction, raise concerns about diluting ownership by recipient countries and evokes concerns of conditionality or worse. The literature on development assistance has explored options notably conditions on process and adequate capacity, and suggests that there are no short cuts to building domestic ownership. Actors on climate change need to avoid the risk that transformational change is perceived as, and becomes, an imposed condition. The risk that transformation change, operationalized in the context of unequal power relations, becomes an imposition on development, needs to be avoided.     

Does leadership promote cooperation in climate change mitigation policy?

In the run-up to the Copenhagen negotiations, commentators, politicians and the public had great expectations of some state taking the lead towards a new global climate deal. Is there something in such a call for leadership? In two steps, this article provides an empirically informed answer to that question. The first part develops a theoretical account of the relation between leadership and cooperation in international climate change mitigation policy (ICCMP). Starting from a five-dimensional leadership account and a simple game-theoretical analysis of the impediments to cooperation, it is predicted that (1) increased leadership facilitates cooperation in ICCMP and (2) different leadership modes contribute to cooperation in varying degrees. The second part tests these hypotheses: a new leadership index measures the extent to which the EU exhibited leadership at the negotiations of the Conference of the Parties (COP) between 1995 and 2008. This positively correlates with the level of cooperation arrived at. The result also holds for four out of five leadership modes.     

Will climate change exacerbate water stress in Central Asia?

Millions of people in the geopolitically important region of Central Asia depend on water from snow- and glacier-melt driven international rivers, most of all the Syr Darya and Amu Darya. The riparian countries of these rivers have experienced recurring water allocation conflicts ever since the Soviet Union collapsed. Will climate change exacerbate water stress and thus conflicts? We have developed a coupled climate, land-ice and rainfall-runoff model for the Syr Darya to quantify impacts and show that climatic changes are likely to have consequences on runoff seasonality due to earlier snow-melt. This will increase water stress in unregulated catchments because less water will be available for irrigation in the summer months. Threats from geohazards, above all glacier lake outbursts, are likely to increase as well. The area at highest risk is the densely populated, agriculturally productive, and politically unstable Fergana Valley. Targeted infrastructural developments will be required in the region. If the current mismanagement of water and energy resources can be replaced with more effective resource allocation mechanisms through the strengthening of transboundary institutions, Central Asia will be able to successfully address these future climate-related challenges.