An architecture for government action on adaptation to climate change. An editorial comment

An architecture of government adaptation programs is presented. Components include leadership, institutional organization, stakeholder involvement, climate change information, appropriate use of decision analysis techniques, explicit consideration of barriers to adaptation, funding for adaptation, technology development and diffusion, and adaptation research. This architecture is a useful heuristic for identifying, evaluating, and reevaluating the needs of decision makers as they improve management of climate-sensitive resources in a changing environment.     

Mainstreaming adaptation to climate change in Least Developed Countries (LDCs)

Abstract

The Least Developed Countries (LDCs) are a group of 49 of the world's poorest countries. They have contributed least to the emission of greenhouse gases (GHGs) but they are most vulnerable to the effects of climate change. This is due to their location in some of the most vulnerable regions of the world and their low capacities to adapt to these changes. Adaptation to climate change has become an important policy priority in the international negotiations on climate change in recent years. However, it has yet to become a major policy issue within developing countries, especially the LDCs. This article focuses on two LDCs, namely Bangladesh and Mali, where progress has been made regarding identifying potential adaptation options. For example, Bangladesh already has effective disaster response systems, and strategies to deal with reduced freshwater availability, and Mali has a well-developed programme for providing agro-hydro-meteorological assistance to communities in times of drought. However, much remains to be done in terms of mainstreaming adaptation to climate change within the national policymaking processes of these countries. Policymakers need targeting and, to facilitate this, scientific research must be translated into appropriate language and timescales.     

Subject index-volumes 46–49 (1989)

Subject index-volumes 46–49 (1989)     

The role of the university in interdisciplinary global change research: Structural constraints and the potential for change. An editorial

Adapted from Global Change: Newsletter of. the Project for the Integrated Study of Global Change, University of Michigan Vol. 1, No. 4, November/December 1991, pp. 6–7.     

Differentiating (historic) responsibilities for climate change

Following the conclusion of the official work of the Ad Hoc Group for the Modelling and Assessment of Contributions to Climate Change (MATCH), this article considers the politically more sensitive aspect of the Brazilian proposal, namely the issue of differentiating (historic) responsibility for, and not merely (causal) contribution to climate change. Its aim is (1) to highlight the fact that, while related, the two issues (‘contribution to’ and ‘responsibility for’) are fundamentally different and should not be confused, and (2) to propose a methodology for calculating shares of responsibility as opposed to the shares in causal contribution arrived at through the MATCH results. Two conceptions of responsibility (‘strict’ or ‘limited’) are applied in order to operationalize the notion of ‘respective capabilities’ given in Article 3.1 of the UNFCCC. The key message resulting from the calculations is that causal contribution—while an important indicator of (environmental) relevance to the problem—must not be confused with the moral responsibility for it. The rather large difference between the responsibilities at the two extremes of the scale under both conceptions gives pause for thought as to what sorts of burdens can justly be demanded in any application of the UNFCCC principle of common but differentiated responsibilities, whether in the context of the Brazilian proposal or beyond.     

Preface to Special Issue on the National Report to the IUGG Centennial by CNC-IAMAS(2011–2018)

正The 27th General Assembly of the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics(IUGG), which also marks the 100 th anniversary of IUGG, will be held during 8–18 July 2019 in Montréal, Canada. The Chinese National Committee(CNC)for the International Association of Meteorology and Atmospheric Sciences(IAMAS) has a more than 30-year tradition of     

Paper 2. agricultural impacts of and responses to climate change in the Missouri-Iowa-Nebraska-Kansas (MINK) region

The climate of the 1930s was used as an analog of the climate that might occur in Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska and Kansas (the MINK region) as a consequence of global warming. The analog climate was imposed on the agriculture of the region under technological and economic conditions prevailing in 1984/87 and again under a scenario of conditions that might prevail in 2030. The EPIC model of Williamset al. (1984), modified to allow consideration of the yield enhancing effects of CO₂ enrichment, was used to evaluate the impacts of the analog climate on the productivity and water use of some 50 representative farm enterprises. Before farm level adjustments and adaptations to the changed climate, and absent CO₂ enrichment (from 350 to 450 ppm), production of corn, sorghum and soybeans was depressed by the analog climate in about the same percent under both current and 2030 conditions. Production of dryland wheat was unaffected. Irrigated wheat production actually increased. Farm level adjustments using low-cost currently available technologies, combined with CO₂ enrichment, eliminated about 80% of the negative impact of the analog climate on 1984/87 baseline crop production. The same farm level adjustments, plus new technologies developed in response to the analog climate, when combined with CO₂ enrichment, converted the negative impact on 2030 crop production to a small increase. The analog climate would have little direct effect on animal production in MINK. The effect, if any, would be by way of the impact on production of feed-grains and soybeans. Since this impact would be small after on-farm adjustments and CO₂ enrichment, animal production in MINK would be little affected by the analog climate.     

Special Issue Introduction: Adding insult to injury: Climate change and the inequities of climate intervention

Climate change will injure vulnerable communities. In response, coordinated global action has emerged to mitigate climate change, to gauge and map climate-related risks, and to plan for adaptation, which in turn has opened new avenues of funding, power, knowledge and opportunity. The identification of climate risks, analysis and diffusion of ‘impact’ scenarios, incorporation of carbon into economic regimes, and interventions to enhance adaptive capacity will necessarily be experienced differently by different groups. As climate-related crises produce winners and losers, so may discourses and plans made to avert such crises. In the process both the bio-physical events and the social responses shape and reshape social stratification and the distribution of risk. They produce new inequalities and needs for new kinds of responses to guard against injustice. From the emergence of desalination water projects and contested water access, to relocation planning in the Arctic and the South Pacific due to sea-level rise, to increasingly centralized forest management; mitigation and adaptation responses and interventions create their own critical outcomes. This essay and the articles in this special issue examine some new opportunities and risks associated with climate-change discourses and interventions. This special issue shows that vulnerable communities may be at risk of material injury following climate change or climate change intervention; and, be further insulted and injured by lack of representation and recognition, and by misrecognition as simplified, stereotyped victims in local, national and international climate conversations. Using a mixture of theoretical insight and case study research, this collection of articles explores the injuries of climate change as it applies to both direct physical stress scenarios and exposure to adaptation and mitigation policies and planning, as well as the discursive insults of being discounted, stereotyped, or ignored.     

Preface to the Special Issue on the “Forecast and Evaluation of Meteorological Disasters”(FEMD)

<正>Meteorological disasters usually exert huge impacts on the development of both human society and the economy.According to statistics from the United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction,the annual mean economic loss caused by meteorological disasters accounts for 3%–6% of the total amount of global GDP.China is a country that has been     

Preface to the Special Issue on the National Report to the 28th IUGG General Assembly by CNC-IAMAS(2019-2022)

<正>The 28th General Assembly of the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics(IUGG) will be held on 11–20 July2023 in Berlin, Germany. The Chinese National Committee(CNC) for the International Association of Meteorology and Atmospheric Sciences(IAMAS) has invited leading Chinese scientists to review the progress and achievements in meteorology and atmospheric sciences in China since 2019,     

气候变化国家评估报告（Ⅲ）：中国应对气候变化对策的综合评价

 回顾了国际社会应对气候变化的进程，对国内外的碳排放状况、中国减缓碳排放的技术潜力、中国减缓碳排放的宏观影响、全球减缓气候变化的公平性与国际合作行动等问题进行了分析与评估。提出了中国减缓气候变化的思路与对策，指出在全球应对气候变化的形势下，中国要积极适应国际政治、经济及贸易格局变动的趋势，将减缓气候变化对策纳入国家经济与社会发展战略与规划之中，促进国家经济和社会的全面、协调和可持续发展。     

The future that may (or may not) come: How framing changes responses to uncertainty in climate change communications

Communicating possible effects of climate change inevitably involves uncertainty. Because people are generally averse to uncertainty, this activity has the potential to undermine effective action more than stimulate it. The present research considered how framing climate change predictions differently might moderate the tendency for uncertainty to undermine individual action. Two studies (Ns = 88 and 120) show that higher uncertainty combined with a negative frame (highlighting possible losses) decreased individual intentions to behave environmentally. However when higher uncertainty was combined with a positive frame (highlighting the possibility of losses not materializing) this produced stronger intentions to act. Study 2 revealed that these effects of uncertainty were mediated through feelings of efficacy. These results suggest that uncertainty is not an inevitable barrier to action, provided communicators frame climate change messages in ways that trigger caution in the face of uncertainty.     

台风“鲇鱼”(1013)路径突变过程的成因分析

利用NCEP提供的GFS(Global Forecast System)再分析资料,对2010年西北太平洋最强台风“鲇鱼”(1013)路径突变的成因开展诊断分析,研究其影响系统、引导气流的演变特征等,并运用CPS(Cyclone Phase Space)方法对其生命史中的热力结构演变过程进行定量描述,重点分析路径突变前后各因子的变化。结果表明,“鲇鱼”移入南海后,冷空气南侵导致其热力结构发生变化,台风环流右侧较暖,此时引导气流微弱,“趋暖”运动占主导,首先引起路径向右偏转,随后引导气流转为西南气流并逐渐增强,在二者共同作用下,“鲇鱼”路径持续右转,逐渐向东北方向移动,完成路径突变。