Teaching Climate Change to Future Teachers Using 'Real' Data: Challenges and Opportunities (Invited)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Petcovic, H. L.; Barone, S.; Fulford, J.

2013-12-01

A climate-literate public is essential to resolving pressing problems related to global change. Future elementary teachers are a critical audience in climate and climate change education, as they will introduce children in early grades (USA grades K-8, children ages 5-14) to fundamentals of the climate system, natural and anthropogenic drivers of climate change, and impacts of global change on human and natural systems. Here we describe challenges we have encountered in teaching topics of the carbon cycle, greenhouse gases, past climate, recent anthropogenic change, and carbon footprints to future elementary teachers. We also describe how we have met (to varying degrees of success) these challenges in an introductory earth science course that is specifically designed for this audience. Two prominent challenges we have encountered are: the complex nature of the scientific content of climate change, and robust misconceptions held by our students about these topics. To address the first challenge, we attempt to adjust the scientific content to a level appropriate for future K-8 teachers, without sacrificing too much accuracy or critical detail. To address the second challenge, we explicitly discuss alternate conceptions of each topic. The use of authentic data sets can also address both of these challenges. Yet incorporating 'real' climate and paleoclimate data into the classroom poses still an additional challenge of instructional design. We use a variety of teaching approaches in our laboratory-based course including student-designed experiments, computer simulations, physical models, and authentic data sets. We have found that students strongly prefer the physical models and experiments, because these are 'hands-on' and perceived as easily adaptable to the K-8 classroom. Students often express dislike for activities that use authentic data sets (for example, an activity using graphs of CO2 and methane concentrations in Vostok ice cores), in particular because they have difficulty interpreting graphs. To respond to this concern, we couple physical models/experiments with data sets in a guided inquiry teaching format in order to satisfy those students who prefer 'hands-on' learning yet tie the models to the real world. Pre/post testing of students shows that this method is effective in most topics, yet future teachers still struggle with identifying natural versus anthropogenic drivers of climate change. We continue to address these challenges in future course modifications.

Addressing climate challenges in developing countries

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Tilmes, Simone; Monaghan, Andrew; Done, James

2012-04-01

Advanced Study Program/Early Career Scientist Assembly Workshop on Regional Climate Issues in Developing Countries; Boulder, Colorado, 19-22 October 2011 The Early Career Scientist Assembly (ECSA) and the Advanced Study Program of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) invited 35 early-career scientists from nearly 20 countries to attend a 3-day workshop at the NCAR Mesa Laboratory prior to the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP) Open Science Conference in October 2011. The goal of the workshop was to examine a range of regional climate challenges in developing countries. Topics included regional climate modeling, climate impacts, water resources, and air quality. The workshop fostered new ideas and collaborations between early-career scientists from around the world. The discussions underscored the importance of establishing partnerships with scientists located in typically underrepresented countries to understand and account for the local political, economic, and cultural factors on which climate change is superimposed.

Climate-Change Science and Policy: What Do We Know? What Should We Do

DTIC Science & Technology

2010-09-06

These briefing charts discuss climate change science and policy including: the essence of the challenge, five myths and their refutations, climate ... change risks and impact going forward, available options, how much mitigation, how soon?, mitigation supply curve and its implications, and the Obama Administration’s strategy.

A climate-compatible approach to development practice by international humanitarian NGOs.

PubMed

Clarke, Matthew; de Cruz, Ian

2015-01-01

If current climate-change predictions prove accurate, non-linear change, including potentially catastrophic change, is possible and the environments in which international humanitarian NGOs operate will change figuratively and literally. This paper proposes that a new approach to development is required that takes changing climate into account. This 'climate-compatible approach' to development is a bleak shift from some of the current orthodox positions and will be a major challenge to international humanitarian NGOs working with the most vulnerable. However, it is necessary to address the challenges and context such NGOs face, and the need to be resilient and adaptive to these changes. © 2014 The Author(s). Disasters © Overseas Development Institute, 2014.

Contemporary group estimates adjusted for climatic effects provide a finer definition of the unknown environmental challenges experienced by growing pigs.

PubMed

Guy, S Z Y; Li, L; Thomson, P C; Hermesch, S

2017-12-01

Environmental descriptors derived from mean performances of contemporary groups (CGs) are assumed to capture any known and unknown environmental challenges. The objective of this paper was to obtain a finer definition of the unknown challenges, by adjusting CG estimates for the known climatic effects of monthly maximum air temperature (MaxT), minimum air temperature (MinT) and monthly rainfall (Rain). As the unknown component could include infection challenges, these refined descriptors may help to better model varying responses of sire progeny to environmental infection challenges for the definition of disease resilience. Data were recorded from 1999 to 2013 at a piggery in south-east Queensland, Australia (n = 31,230). Firstly, CG estimates of average daily gain (ADG) and backfat (BF) were adjusted for MaxT, MinT and Rain, which were fitted as splines. In the models used to derive CG estimates for ADG, MaxT and MinT were significant variables. The models that contained these significant climatic variables had CG estimates with a lower variance compared to models without significant climatic variables. Variance component estimates were similar across all models, suggesting that these significant climatic variables accounted for some known environmental variation captured in CG estimates. No climatic variables were significant in the models used to derive the CG estimates for BF. These CG estimates were used to categorize environments. There was no observable sire by environment interaction (Sire×E) for ADG when using the environmental descriptors based on CG estimates on BF. For the environmental descriptors based on CG estimates of ADG, there was significant Sire×E only when MinT was included in the model (p = .01). Therefore, this new definition of the environment, preadjusted by MinT, increased the ability to detect Sire×E. While the unknown challenges captured in refined CG estimates need verification for infection challenges, this may provide a practical approach for the genetic improvement of disease resilience. © 2017 Blackwell Verlag GmbH.

Preparing Teachers to Support the Development of Climate Literate Students

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Haddad, N.; Ledley, T. S.; Ellins, K. K.; Bardar, E. W.; Youngman, E.; Dunlap, C.; Lockwood, J.; Mote, A. S.; McNeal, K.; Libarkin, J. C.; Lynds, S. E.; Gold, A. U.

2014-12-01

The EarthLabs climate project includes curriculum development, teacher professional development, teacher leadership development, and research on student learning, all directed at increasing high school teachers' and students' understanding of the factors that shape our planet's climate. The project has developed four new modules which focus on climate literacy and which are part of the larger Web based EarthLabs collection of Earth science modules. Climate related themes highlighted in the new modules include the Earth system with its positive and negative feedback loops; the range of temporal and spatial scales at which climate, weather, and other Earth system processes occur; and the recurring question, "How do we know what we know about Earth's past and present climate?" which addresses proxy data and scientific instrumentation. EarthLabs climate modules use two central strategies to help students navigate the multiple challenges inherent in understanding climate science. The first is to actively engage students with the content by using a variety of learning modes, and by allowing students to pace themselves through interactive visualizations that address particularly challenging content. The second strategy, which is the focus of this presentation, is to support teachers in a subject area where few have substantive content knowledge or technical skills. Teachers who grasp the processes and interactions that give Earth its climate and the technical skills to engage with relevant data and visualizations are more likely to be successful in supporting students' understanding of climate's complexities. This presentation will briefly introduce the EarthLabs project and will describe the steps the project takes to prepare climate literate teachers, including Web based resources, teacher workshops, and the development of a cadre of teacher leaders who are prepared to continue leading the workshops after project funding ends.

Global Climate Change - U.S. Economic and National Security Opportunity

DTIC Science & Technology

2009-03-20

The most recent findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) state that the current trajectory of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions...challenges and opportunities for the United States as they balance national security and economic interests. The effects of climate change could act as a...are various opportunities associated with climate change including opening arctic navigational channels and the vast oil and natural gas resources

Building a foundation for continued dialogue between climate science and water resource communities

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Vano, J. A.; Arnold, J.; Clark, M. P.; Gutmann, E. D.; Hamman, J.; Nijssen, B.; Wood, A.

2017-12-01

Research into climate change has led to the development of many global climate models, downscaling techniques, and impacts models. This proliferation of information has resulted in insights into how climate change will impact hydrology that are more robust than any single approach, which is helpful for advancing the science. However, the variety of approaches makes navigating what information to use in water resource planning and management challenging. Each technique has strengths and weaknesses and associated uncertainties, and approaches are always being updated. Here we provide a user-focused, modularly framed guidance that is designed to be expandable and where updates can be targeted. This includes describing dos and don'ts for how to use climate change information in water resource planning and management that can be read at multiple levels. It can provide context for those seeking to understand the general need, opportunities, and challenges of including climate change information. It also provides details (frequently asked questions and examples) and direction to further guidance and resources for those engaged in the technical work. This guidance is intended to provide a foundation for continued dialogue within and between the climate science and application communities, to increase the utility and appropriate use of climate change information.

Participatory Climate Research in a Dynamic Urban Context: Activities of the Consortium for Climate Risk in the Urban Northeast (CCRUN)

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Horton, Radley M.; Bader, Daniel A.; Montalto, Franco; Solecki, William

2016-01-01

The Consortium for Climate Risk in the Urban Northeast (CCRUN), one of ten NOAA-RISAs, supports resilience efforts in the urban corridor stretching from Philadelphia to Boston. Challenges and opportunities include the diverse set of needs in broad urban contexts, as well as the integration of interdisciplinary perspectives. CCRUN is addressing these challenges through strategies including: 1) the development of an integrated project framework, 2) stakeholder surveys, 3) leveraging extreme weather events as focusing opportunities, and 4) a seminar series that enables scientists and stakeholders to partner. While recognizing that the most extreme weather events will always lead to surprises (even with sound planning), CCRUN endeavors to remain flexible by facilitating place-based research in an interdisciplinary context.

Challenges to the Transdisciplinarity of Climate Services: A Coffee Farming Case from Jamaica's Blue Mountains

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Guido, Z.

2017-12-01

Climate information is heralded as helping to build adaptive capacity, improve resource management, and contribute to more effective risk management. However, decision makers often find it challenging to use climate information for reasons attributed to a disconnect between technical experts who produce the information and end users. Consequently, many climate service projects are now applying an end-to-end approach that links information users and producers in the design, development, and delivery of services. This collaboration confronts obstacles that can undermine the objectives of the project. Despite this, few studies in the burgeoning field of climate services have assessed the challenges. To address this gap, I provide a reflective account and analysis of the collaborative challenges experienced in an ongoing, complex four-year project developing climate services for small-scale coffee producers in Jamaica. The project has involved diverse activities, including social data collection, research and development of information tools, periodic engagement with coffee sector representatives, and community-based trainings. Contributions to the project were made routinely by 18 individuals who represent 9 institutions located in three countries. These individuals work for academic and governmental organizations and bring expertise in anthropology, plant pathology, and climatology, among others. In spanning diverse disciplines, large geographic distances, and different cultures, the project team has navigated challenges in communication, problem framing, organizational agendas, disciplinary integration, and project management. I contextualize these experiences within research on transdisciplinary and team science, and share some perspectives on strategies to lessen their impact.

Climate Change Adaptation Challenges and EO Business Opportunities

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lopez-Baeza, Ernesto; Mathieu, Pierre-Philippe; Bansal, Rahul; Del Rey, Maria; Mohamed, Ebrahim; Ruiz, Paz; Signes, Marcos

Climate change is one of the defining challenges of the 21st century, but is no longer a matter of just scientific concern. It encompasses economics, sociology, global politics as well as national and local politics, law, health and environmental security, etc. The challenge of facing the impacts of climate change is often framed in terms of two potential paths that civilization might take: mitigation and adaptation. On the one hand, mitigation involves reducing the magnitude of climate change itself and is composed of emissions reductions and geoengineering. On the other hand and by contrast, adaptation involves efforts to limit our vulnerability to climate change impacts through various measures. It refers to our ability to adjust ourselves to climate change -including climate variability and extremes, to moderate potential damage, to take advantage of opportunities, or to cope with the consequences. Therefore, we are now faced with a double challenge: next to deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions, we also need to adapt to the changing climate conditions. The use of satellites to monitor processes and trends at the global scale is essential in the context of climate change. Earth Observation has the potential to improve our predictive vision and to advance climate models. Space sciences and technologies constitute a significant issue in Education and Public Awareness of Science. Space missions face the probably largest scientific and industrial challenges of humanity. It is thus a fact that space drives innovation in the major breakthrough and cutting edge technological advances of mankind (techniques, processes, new products, … as well as in markets and business models). Technology and innovation is the basis of all space activities. Space agencies offer an entire range of space-related activities - from space science and environmental monitoring to industrial competitiveness and end-user services. More specifically, Earth Observation satellites have a unique global view of planet Earth, providing us -with better data- with consistent and frequent information on the state of our environment at the regional and global scale, also in important but remote areas. Climate Knowledge and Innovation Communities (Climate-KIC), a relatively new initiative from the European Institute of Innovation & Technology (EIT), provides the innovations, entrepreneurship, education and expert guidance needed to shape Europe's climate change agenda. This paper shows some initiatives that the University of Valencia Climate-KIC Education Group is carrying out in collaboration with the Climate-KIC Central Education Lead in the field of space education to foster and encourage students and entrepreneurs to endevour in these new space business opportunities offered by this step forward towards climate change adaptation challenges.

Challenges of Communicating Climate Change in North Dakota: Undergraduate Internship and Collaboration with Middle School Educators

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Mullendore, G. L.; Munski, L.; Kirilenko, A.; Remer, F.; Baker, M.

2012-12-01

In summer 2010, the University of North Dakota (UND) hosted an internship for undergraduates to learn about climate change in both the classroom and group research projects. As a final project, the undergraduates were tasked to present their findings about different aspects of climate change in webcasts that would be later used in middle school classrooms in the region. Interns indicated that participation significantly improved their own confidence in future scholarly pursuits. Also, communicating about climate change, both during the project and afterwards, helped the interns feel more confident in their own learning. Use of webcasts widened the impact of student projects (e.g. YouTube dissemination), and multiple methods of student communication should continue to be an important piece of climate change education initiatives. Other key aspects of the internship were student journaling and group building. Challenges faced included media accessibility and diverse recruiting. Best practices from the UND internship will be discussed as a model for implementation at other universities. Lesson plans that complement the student-produced webcasts and adhere to regional and national standards were created during 2011. Communication between scientists and K-12 education researchers was found to be a challenge, but improved over the course of the project. These lesson plans have been reviewed both during a teacher workshop in January 2012 and by several Master teachers. Although select middle school educators have expressed enthusiasm for testing of these modules, very little hands-on testing with students has occurred. Wide-ranging roadblocks to implementation exist, including the need for adherence to state standards and texts, inadequate access to technology, and generally negative attitudes toward climate change in the region. Feedback from regional educators will be presented, and possible solutions will be discussed. Although some challenges are specific to the Northern Great Plains region, understanding these challenges are important for agencies and universities with goals of national dissemination.

Obama Presents Far-Reaching Climate Plan, Addresses Keystone Pipeline Proposal

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Showstack, Randy

2013-07-01

Stating that climate change "is a challenge that does not pause for partisan gridlock," U.S. President Barack Obama took matters into his own hands and presented a broad-based climate action plan on 25 June. The plan, which relies on existing administrative authority and does not require congressional approval, includes three primary objectives: cutting carbon pollution in the United States, preparing the nation for the impacts of climate change, and leading international efforts to address climate change.

Cascabel prescribed fire long-term watershed study: an opportunity to monitor climate change

Treesearch

Gerald Gottfried; Daniel Neary; Peter Ffolliott; Karen Koestner

2012-01-01

Experimental watershed studies can provide answers to new challenges facing land managers and society including the impacts of fires and climate change on upstream and regional hydrology. The Cascabel Watersheds long-term prescribed fire study provides a unique opportunity to monitor climate change because of its location in an oak savanna situated between deserts or...

Exploring the Role of Future Perspective in Predicting Turkish University Students' Beliefs about Global Climate Change

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ates, Deniz; Teksöz, Gaye; Ertepinar, Hamide

2017-01-01

Recent studies indicate that limited understanding about causes and its potential impacts of climate change and fault beliefs by people across different countries of the world including Turkey is a real challenge. Acceptance of climate change as a real threat, believing its existence, and knowing causes and consequences are very significant for…

The climate-wildfire-air quality system: interactions and feedbacks across spatial and temporal scales

Treesearch

E. Natasha Stavros; Donald McKenzie; Narasimhan Larkin

2014-01-01

Future climate change and its effects on social and ecological systems present challenges for preserving valued ecosystem services, including local and regional air quality. Wildfire is a major source of air-quality impact in some locations, and a substantial contributor to pollutants of concern, including nitrogen oxides and particulate matter, which are regulated to...

Tracing the flow: Climate change actor-networks in Oklahoma secondary science education

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Colston, Nicole Marie

This dissertation reports research about the translation of climate change in science education. Public controversies about climate change education raises questions about the lived experiences of teachers in Oklahoma and the role of science education in increasing public understanding. A mixed methods research design included rhetorical analysis of climate change denial media, key informant interviews with science education stakeholders, and a survey questionnaire of secondary science teachers. Final analysis was further informed by archival research and supplemented by participant observation in state-wide meetings and science teacher workshops. The results are organized into three distinct manuscripts intended for publication across the fields of communication, science education, and climate science. As a whole the dissertation answers the research question, how does manufactured scientific controversy about climate change present specific challenges and characterize negotiations in secondary science education in Oklahoma? Taken together, the findings suggest that manufactured controversy about climate change introduces a logic of non-problematicity, challenges science education policy making, and undermines scientific consensus about global warming.

Development of a Climate Resilience Screening Index (CRSI) ...

EPA Pesticide Factsheets

A Climate Resilience Screening Index is being developed that is applicable at multiple scales for the United States. Those scales include national, state, county and community. The index will be applied at the first three scales and at selected communities. The index was developed in order to explicitly include domains, indicators and metrics addressing environmental, economic and societal aspects of climate resilience. In addition, the index uses indicators and metrics that assess ecosystem, economic, governance and social services at these scales. Finally, we are developing forecasting approaches that can relate intended changes in services and governance to likely levels of changes in the resiliency of communities to climate change impacts. The present challenge is the incorporation of the index, its relationships to governance and the developing forecasting tools into Federal decision-making across US government and into state/county/community decision-making across the US. Governmental acceptance of changes to policies often can be just as challenging as the initial technical acceptance of the index and its relation to climate change. Climate Resilience Index is a requested product by ORD AA and EPA Administrator through SHC Program. Index needed to assess states', counties', and communities' abilities of recovery from climate events. Audience: Internal EPA (Administrator, IO, OLEM, OW and OAR) and external (states, counties and communities). Product

Seasonal Drought Prediction: Advances, Challenges, and Future Prospects

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hao, Zengchao; Singh, Vijay P.; Xia, Youlong

2018-03-01

Drought prediction is of critical importance to early warning for drought managements. This review provides a synthesis of drought prediction based on statistical, dynamical, and hybrid methods. Statistical drought prediction is achieved by modeling the relationship between drought indices of interest and a suite of potential predictors, including large-scale climate indices, local climate variables, and land initial conditions. Dynamical meteorological drought prediction relies on seasonal climate forecast from general circulation models (GCMs), which can be employed to drive hydrological models for agricultural and hydrological drought prediction with the predictability determined by both climate forcings and initial conditions. Challenges still exist in drought prediction at long lead time and under a changing environment resulting from natural and anthropogenic factors. Future research prospects to improve drought prediction include, but are not limited to, high-quality data assimilation, improved model development with key processes related to drought occurrence, optimal ensemble forecast to select or weight ensembles, and hybrid drought prediction to merge statistical and dynamical forecasts.

Climate Change Science, Impacts, Solutions - A Senior Science Course for Post-Secondary Students

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Byrne, J. M.; Little, L. J.; Barnes, C. C.; Mirmasoudi, S.; Mansouri Kouhestani, F.; Reiger, C.; Rodriguez Bueno, R. A.

2015-12-01

The role of humanity in warming the global climate is well defined. The research community has predicted and documented many of the early impacts of climate change. The research literature has extensive assessments of future impacts on environment, cities, agriculture, human health, infrastructure, social and political changes, and the risks of military conflict. Society is facing massive infrastructure redevelopment, protection and possible abandonment due to increasing weather extremes. We have reached the point where science consensus is obvious and the population over much of the developed and developing world understands the urgency - humanity is changing the climate. The challenge is helping people help themselves. People understand there are consequences - they want to know how to minimize those consequences, and how to adapt to minimize the impacts. There is a dire need for a senior level course that addresses the key issues across disciplines. This course should cover a range of topics across many disciplinary boundaries, including: an introduction to the science, politics, health and well-being challenges of climate change; likely changes to personal and community lifestyles; consumption of energy and other resources. Population migration due to climate change impacts is a critical topic. Most important, the course must address the solutions to climate change. The population is demanding the power to address this massive challenge. This course will provide a multimedia curriculum on the impacts and solutions to our climate change dilemma.

Unique challenges facing Southwestern tribes: Chapter 17

USGS Publications Warehouse

Hiza, Margaret; Chief, Karletta; Bemis, Kirk; Gautam, Mahesh; Middleton, Beth Rose; Tsosie, Rebecca

2013-01-01

•\tTribes are taking action to address climate change by instituting climate-change mitigation initiatives, including utility-scale, alternative-energy projects, and energy-conservation projects. Tribes are also evaluating their existing capacity to engage in effective adaptation planning, even though financial and social capital is limited.

Advances in risk assessment for climate change adaptation policy.

PubMed

Adger, W Neil; Brown, Iain; Surminski, Swenja

2018-06-13

Climate change risk assessment involves formal analysis of the consequences, likelihoods and responses to the impacts of climate change and the options for addressing these under societal constraints. Conventional approaches to risk assessment are challenged by the significant temporal and spatial dynamics of climate change; by the amplification of risks through societal preferences and values; and through the interaction of multiple risk factors. This paper introduces the theme issue by reviewing the current practice and frontiers of climate change risk assessment, with specific emphasis on the development of adaptation policy that aims to manage those risks. These frontiers include integrated assessments, dealing with climate risks across borders and scales, addressing systemic risks, and innovative co-production methods to prioritize solutions to climate challenges with decision-makers. By reviewing recent developments in the use of large-scale risk assessment for adaptation policy-making, we suggest a forward-looking research agenda to meet ongoing strategic policy requirements in local, national and international contexts.This article is part of the theme issue 'Advances in risk assessment for climate change adaptation policy'. © 2018 The Author(s).

Advances in risk assessment for climate change adaptation policy

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Adger, W. Neil; Brown, Iain; Surminski, Swenja

2018-06-01

Climate change risk assessment involves formal analysis of the consequences, likelihoods and responses to the impacts of climate change and the options for addressing these under societal constraints. Conventional approaches to risk assessment are challenged by the significant temporal and spatial dynamics of climate change; by the amplification of risks through societal preferences and values; and through the interaction of multiple risk factors. This paper introduces the theme issue by reviewing the current practice and frontiers of climate change risk assessment, with specific emphasis on the development of adaptation policy that aims to manage those risks. These frontiers include integrated assessments, dealing with climate risks across borders and scales, addressing systemic risks, and innovative co-production methods to prioritize solutions to climate challenges with decision-makers. By reviewing recent developments in the use of large-scale risk assessment for adaptation policy-making, we suggest a forward-looking research agenda to meet ongoing strategic policy requirements in local, national and international contexts. This article is part of the theme issue `Advances in risk assessment for climate change adaptation policy'.

Advances in risk assessment for climate change adaptation policy

PubMed Central

Adger, W. Neil; Brown, Iain; Surminski, Swenja

2018-01-01

Climate change risk assessment involves formal analysis of the consequences, likelihoods and responses to the impacts of climate change and the options for addressing these under societal constraints. Conventional approaches to risk assessment are challenged by the significant temporal and spatial dynamics of climate change; by the amplification of risks through societal preferences and values; and through the interaction of multiple risk factors. This paper introduces the theme issue by reviewing the current practice and frontiers of climate change risk assessment, with specific emphasis on the development of adaptation policy that aims to manage those risks. These frontiers include integrated assessments, dealing with climate risks across borders and scales, addressing systemic risks, and innovative co-production methods to prioritize solutions to climate challenges with decision-makers. By reviewing recent developments in the use of large-scale risk assessment for adaptation policy-making, we suggest a forward-looking research agenda to meet ongoing strategic policy requirements in local, national and international contexts. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Advances in risk assessment for climate change adaptation policy’. PMID:29712800

High School Teachers and Students Knowledge and Views about Climate Change, a Nice NASA Example

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bleicher, R. E.; Lambert, J. L.

2014-12-01

One factor for some Americans being confused about climate change is their lack of understanding its underlying science concepts (Somerville & Hassol, 2011). In spite of this, climate change has been under-emphasized in school curricula (Bardsley & Bardsley, 2007). This is an important challenge for science educators, especially given the increasing public awareness of climate change impacts in their everyday lives (NCADAC, 2013).One way to address this challenge is to involve teachers in professional learning projects with the expectation that their enhanced content and pedagogical knowledge about climate change will transfer into more effective instruction resulting in increased student learning. For teacher educators, this translates into providing vibrant professional learning activities that energize and engage science teachers to develop interesting lessons that stimulate their students to learn important science concepts and develop positive attitudes to science. This study examined content knowledge and views about climate change of 33 high school science teachers and their1050 students who participated in lessons developed in a NASA-funded professional learning project. The teachers participated in a seven-day climate change summer institute and received in-classroom follow-up support throughout the school year. Teacher data sources included a background survey (undergraduate majors, number of years teaching science), science teaching self-efficacy (STEBI-A) scores, Climate Science Inventory of Knowledge (CSIK), and Six-America's Views on Climate Change. Student data included journal entries, and pre-post measures using the CSIK and Six-Americas instruments. T-tests and ANOVA showed that both students and their teachers increased in climate science knowledge. Teachers' views about climate change were more aligned to climate scientists' views. Teachers also increased in their science teaching self-efficacy and those with higher self-efficacy demonstrated higher climate change science knowledge. In addition to these data, the professional learning model and examples of the hands-on activities utilized by teachers will be shared in this presentation. The Logic Model is included below to provide an overall picture of the project.

Learning the Rhythm of the Seasons in the Face of Global Change: Phenological Research in the 21st Century

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Morisette, Jeffrey T.; Richardson, Andrew D.; Knapp, Alan K.; Fisher, Jeremy I.; Graham, Eric A.; Abatzoglou, John; Wilson, Bruce E.; Breshears, David D.; Hanebry, Geoffrey M.; Hanes, Jonathan M.;

A method for screening climate change-sensitive infectious diseases.

PubMed

Wang, Yunjing; Rao, Yuhan; Wu, Xiaoxu; Zhao, Hainan; Chen, Jin

2015-01-14

Climate change is a significant and emerging threat to human health, especially where infectious diseases are involved. Because of the complex interactions between climate variables and infectious disease components (i.e., pathogen, host and transmission environment), systematically and quantitatively screening for infectious diseases that are sensitive to climate change is still a challenge. To address this challenge, we propose a new statistical indicator, Relative Sensitivity, to identify the difference between the sensitivity of the infectious disease to climate variables for two different climate statuses (i.e., historical climate and present climate) in non-exposure and exposure groups. The case study in Anhui Province, China has demonstrated the effectiveness of this Relative Sensitivity indicator. The application results indicate significant sensitivity of many epidemic infectious diseases to climate change in the form of changing climatic variables, such as temperature, precipitation and absolute humidity. As novel evidence, this research shows that absolute humidity has a critical influence on many observed infectious diseases in Anhui Province, including dysentery, hand, foot and mouth disease, hepatitis A, hemorrhagic fever, typhoid fever, malaria, meningitis, influenza and schistosomiasis. Moreover, some infectious diseases are more sensitive to climate change in rural areas than in urban areas. This insight provides guidance for future health inputs that consider spatial variability in response to climate change.

A Method for Screening Climate Change-Sensitive Infectious Diseases

PubMed Central

Wang, Yunjing; Rao, Yuhan; Wu, Xiaoxu; Zhao, Hainan; Chen, Jin

2015-01-01

Climate change is a significant and emerging threat to human health, especially where infectious diseases are involved. Because of the complex interactions between climate variables and infectious disease components (i.e., pathogen, host and transmission environment), systematically and quantitatively screening for infectious diseases that are sensitive to climate change is still a challenge. To address this challenge, we propose a new statistical indicator, Relative Sensitivity, to identify the difference between the sensitivity of the infectious disease to climate variables for two different climate statuses (i.e., historical climate and present climate) in non-exposure and exposure groups. The case study in Anhui Province, China has demonstrated the effectiveness of this Relative Sensitivity indicator. The application results indicate significant sensitivity of many epidemic infectious diseases to climate change in the form of changing climatic variables, such as temperature, precipitation and absolute humidity. As novel evidence, this research shows that absolute humidity has a critical influence on many observed infectious diseases in Anhui Province, including dysentery, hand, foot and mouth disease, hepatitis A, hemorrhagic fever, typhoid fever, malaria, meningitis, influenza and schistosomiasis. Moreover, some infectious diseases are more sensitive to climate change in rural areas than in urban areas. This insight provides guidance for future health inputs that consider spatial variability in response to climate change. PMID:25594780

Climate change and forest trees in the Pacific Northwest: a vulnerability assessment and recommended actions for national forests

Treesearch

A. Bower; W. Devine; C. Aubry

2017-01-01

Climate change presents new challenges to land managers. At stake is our ability to make thoughtful, science-based decisions and to add climate change considerations to our project and management plans. We also must prioritize among the opportunities that can be included in adaptation strategies because funding and time are limited, now more than ever. In 2012, we...

Cyberlearning for Climate Literacy: Challenges and Opportunities

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

McCaffrey, M. S.; Buhr, S. M.; Gold, A. U.; Ledley, T. S.; Mooney, M. E.; Niepold, F.

2010-12-01

Cyberlearning tools provide cost and carbon-efficient avenues for fostering a climate literate society through online engagement with learners. With climate change education becoming a Presidential Priority in 2009, funding for grants from NSF, NASA and NOAA is leading to a new generation of cyberlearning resources that supplement existing online resources. This paper provides an overview of challenges and opportunities relating to the online delivery of high quality, often complex climate science by examining several existing and emerging efforts, including the Climate Literacy and Energy Awareness Network (CLEAN,) a National Science Digital Library Pathway, the development by CIRES Education and Outreach of the Inspiring Climate Education Excellence (ICEE) online course, TERC’s Earth Exploration Toolbook (EET,) DataTools, and EarthLab modules, the NOAA Climate Stewards Education Program (CSEP) that utilizes the NSTA E-Learning Center, online efforts by members of the Federation of Earth Science Information Partners (ESIP), UCAR’s Climate Discovery program, and the Climate Adaptation, Mitigation e-Learning (CAMeL) project. In addition, we will summarize outcomes of the Cyberlearning for Climate Literacy workshop held in Washington DC in the Fall of 2009 and examine opportunities for teachers to develop and share their own lesson plans based on climate-related web resources that currently lack built-in learning activities, assessments or teaching tips.

Biotechnological advances in the genetic improvement of Prunus domestica

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Plum producers world-wide are facing multiple challenges including climate change, reductions in available labor, the need for reduced chemical inputs, the spread of native and exotic pests and pathogens, and consumer demands for improved fruit quality and health benefits. Meeting these challenges ...

Training NOAA Staff on Effective Communication Methods with Local Climate Users

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Timofeyeva, M. M.; Mayes, B.

2011-12-01

Since 2002 NOAA National Weather Service (NWS) Climate Services Division (CSD) offered training opportunities to NWS staff. As a result of eight-year-long development of the training program, NWS offers three training courses and about 25 online distance learning modules covering various climate topics: climate data and observations, climate variability and change, NWS national and local climate products, their tools, skill, and interpretation. Leveraging climate information and expertise available at all NOAA line offices and partners allows delivery of the most advanced knowledge and is a very critical aspect of the training program. NWS challenges in providing local climate services includes effective communication techniques on provide highly technical scientific information to local users. Addressing this challenge requires well trained, climate-literate workforce at local level capable of communicating the NOAA climate products and services as well as provide climate-sensitive decision support. Trained NWS climate service personnel use proactive and reactive approaches and professional education methods in communicating climate variability and change information to local users. Both scientifically-unimpaired messages and amiable communication techniques such as story telling approach are important in developing an engaged dialog between the climate service providers and users. Several pilot projects NWS CSD conducted in the past year applied the NWS climate services training program to training events for NOAA technical user groups. The technical user groups included natural resources managers, engineers, hydrologists, and planners for transportation infrastructure. Training of professional user groups required tailoring the instructions to the potential applications of each group of users. Training technical user identified the following critical issues: (1) Knowledge of target audience expectations, initial knowledge status, and potential use of climate information; (2) Leveraging partnership with climate services providers; and, (3) Applying 3H training approach, where the first H stands for Head (trusted science), the second H stands for Heart (make it easy), and the third H for Hand (support with applications).

Mainstreaming of Climate Change into the Ghanaian Tertiary Educational System

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Nyarko, B. K.

2013-12-01

The impact of Climate Change has a far-reaching implication for economies and people living in the fragile Regions of Africa analysts project that by 2020, between 75 million and 250 million people will be exposed various forms of Climate Change Stresses. Education as a key strategy identified under Agenda 21 has been incorporated into the efforts of various educational institutions as a means of mitigating climate change and enhancing sustainability. Climate Change education offers many opportunities and benefits for educators, researchers, learners, and for wider society, but there are also many challenges, which can hinder the successful mainstreaming of climate change education. The study aims at understanding barriers for Climate Change Education in selected tertiary institutions in Ghana. The study was conducted among Geoscience Departments of the 7 main public universities of Ghana. The transcript analysis identified issues that hinders the mainstreaming of Climate Change, these includes existing levels of knowledge and understanding of the concept of climate change, appreciating the threshold concepts, ineffective teaching of Climate Change and some Departments are slow in embracing Climate Change as a discipline. Hence to develop strategies to mainstream climate change education it is important to recognise that increasing the efficiency and delivery of Climate Change education requires greater attention and coordination of activities and updating the educators knowledge and skill's. Various Ministries should be challenged to develop and integrate climate change into education policies. In the design of curriculum, there is a need to integrate Climate Change Education into curricula without compromising already overstretched programmes of study. There is a need to encourage and enhance innovative teaching approaches such as Problem-based learning (PBL) is an approach that challenges students to learn through engagement in a real problem. Institutions and Educator should be encouraged to undertake co-curricula activities and finding ways to practicalize Climate Change education.

The Future of Water Security in Metropolitan Region of Sao Paulo Through Different Climate Scenarios

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gesualdo, G. C.; Oliveira, P. T. S.; Rodrigues, D. B. B.

2017-12-01

Achieving a balance between water availability and demand is one of the most pressing environmental challenges in the twenty-first century. This challenge is exacerbated by, climate change, which has already affected the water balance of landscapes globally by intensifying runoff, reducing snowpacks, and shifting precipitation regimes. Understanding these changes is crucial to identifying future water availability and developing sustainable management plans, especially in developing countries. Here, we address the developing country water balance challenge by assessing the influence of climate change on the water availability in the Jaguari basin, Southeastern Brazil. The Jaguari basin is one of the main sources of freshwater for 9 million people in the Metropolitan Region of São Paulo. This region represents about 7% of the Brazil's Gross Domestic Product. The critical importance of the water balance challenge in this area has been highlighted recently when a major drought in southeastern Brazil revealed the vulnerability of current water management systems. Still today, the per capita water availability in the region remains severely limited. To help address this water balance challenge, we use a modeling approach to predict future water vulnerabilities of this region under different climate scenarios. Here, we calibrated and validated a lumped conceptual model using HYMOD to evaluate future scenarios using downscaled climate models resulting from HadGEM2-ES and MIROC5 GCMs forced by RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 scenarios. We also present future directions which include bias correction from long-term weather station data and an empirical uncertainty assessment. Our results provide an important overview of climate change impacts on streamflow and future water availability in the Jaguari basin, which can be used to guide the basin`s water security plans and strategies.

Citizenship for a Changing Global Climate: Learning from New Zealand and Norway

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hayward, Bronwyn; Selboe, Elin; Plew, Elizabeth

2015-01-01

Young citizens under the age of 25?years make up just under half of the world's population. Globally, they face new, interrelated problems of dangerous environmental change, including increasing incidence of severe storms associated with a changing climate, and related new threats to human security. Addressing the complex challenge of climate…

Climate services to improve public health.

PubMed

Jancloes, Michel; Thomson, Madeleine; Costa, María Mánez; Hewitt, Chris; Corvalan, Carlos; Dinku, Tufa; Lowe, Rachel; Hayden, Mary

2014-04-25

A high level expert panel discussed how climate and health services could best collaborate to improve public health. This was on the agenda of the recent Third International Climate Services Conference, held in Montego Bay, Jamaica, 4-6 December 2013. Issues and challenges concerning a demand led approach to serve the health sector needs, were identified and analysed. Important recommendations emerged to ensure that innovative collaboration between climate and health services assist decision-making processes and the management of climate-sensitive health risk. Key recommendations included: a move from risk assessment towards risk management; the engagement of the public health community with both the climate sector and development sectors, whose decisions impact on health, particularly the most vulnerable; to increase operational research on the use of policy-relevant climate information to manage climate- sensitive health risks; and to develop in-country capacities to improve local knowledge (including collection of epidemiological, climate and socio-economic data), along with institutional interaction with policy makers.

Farmers' Perceptions of Climate Variability and Factors Influencing Adaptation: Evidence from Anhui and Jiangsu, China

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kibue, Grace Wanjiru; Liu, Xiaoyu; Zheng, Jufeng; zhang, Xuhui; Pan, Genxing; Li, Lianqing; Han, Xiaojun

2016-05-01

Impacts of climate variability and climate change are on the rise in China posing great threat to agriculture and rural livelihoods. Consequently, China is undertaking research to find solutions of confronting climate change and variability. However, most studies of climate change and variability in China largely fail to address farmers' perceptions of climate variability and adaptation. Yet, without an understanding of farmers' perceptions, strategies are unlikely to be effective. We conducted questionnaire surveys of farmers in two farming regions, Yifeng, Jiangsu and Qinxi, Anhui achieving 280 and 293 responses, respectively. Additionally, we used climatological data to corroborate the farmers' perceptions of climate variability. We found that farmers' were aware of climate variability such that were consistent with climate records. However, perceived impacts of climate variability differed between the two regions and were influenced by farmers' characteristics. In addition, the vast majorities of farmers were yet to make adjustments in their farming practices as a result of numerous challenges. These challenges included socioeconomic and socio-cultural barriers. Results of logit modeling showed that farmers are more likely to adapt to climate variability if contact with extension services, frequency of seeking information, household heads' education, and climate variability perceptions are improved. These results suggest the need for policy makers to understand farmers' perceptions of climate variability and change in order to formulate policies that foster adaptation, and ultimately protect China's agricultural assets.

Farmers' Perceptions of Climate Variability and Factors Influencing Adaptation: Evidence from Anhui and Jiangsu, China.

PubMed

Kibue, Grace Wanjiru; Liu, Xiaoyu; Zheng, Jufeng; Zhang, Xuhui; Pan, Genxing; Li, Lianqing; Han, Xiaojun

2016-05-01

Impacts of climate variability and climate change are on the rise in China posing great threat to agriculture and rural livelihoods. Consequently, China is undertaking research to find solutions of confronting climate change and variability. However, most studies of climate change and variability in China largely fail to address farmers' perceptions of climate variability and adaptation. Yet, without an understanding of farmers' perceptions, strategies are unlikely to be effective. We conducted questionnaire surveys of farmers in two farming regions, Yifeng, Jiangsu and Qinxi, Anhui achieving 280 and 293 responses, respectively. Additionally, we used climatological data to corroborate the farmers' perceptions of climate variability. We found that farmers' were aware of climate variability such that were consistent with climate records. However, perceived impacts of climate variability differed between the two regions and were influenced by farmers' characteristics. In addition, the vast majorities of farmers were yet to make adjustments in their farming practices as a result of numerous challenges. These challenges included socioeconomic and socio-cultural barriers. Results of logit modeling showed that farmers are more likely to adapt to climate variability if contact with extension services, frequency of seeking information, household heads' education, and climate variability perceptions are improved. These results suggest the need for policy makers to understand farmers' perceptions of climate variability and change in order to formulate policies that foster adaptation, and ultimately protect China's agricultural assets.

Links between the built environment, climate and population health: interdisciplinary environmental change research in New York City.

PubMed

Rosenthal, Joyce Klein; Sclar, Elliott D; Kinney, Patrick L; Knowlton, Kim; Crauderueff, Robert; Brandt-Rauf, Paul W

2007-10-01

Global climate change is expected to pose increasing challenges for cities in the following decades, placing greater stress and impacts on multiple social and biophysical systems, including population health, coastal development, urban infrastructure, energy demand, and water supplies. Simultaneously, a strong global trend towards urbanisation of poverty exists, with increased challenges for urban populations and local governance to protect and sustain the wellbeing of growing cities. In the context of these 2 overarching trends, interdisciplinary research at the city scale is prioritised for understanding the social impacts of climate change and variability and for the evaluation of strategies in the built environment that might serve as adaptive responses to climate change. This article discusses 2 recent initiatives of The Earth Institute at Columbia University (EI) as examples of research that integrates the methods and objectives of several disciplines, including environmental health science and urban planning, to understand the potential public health impacts of global climate change and mitigative measures for the more localised effects of the urban heat island in the New York City metropolitan region. These efforts embody 2 distinct research approaches. The New York Climate & Health Project created a new integrated modeling system to assess the public health impacts of climate and land use change in the metropolitan region. The Cool City Project aims for more applied policy-oriented research that incorporates the local knowledge of community residents to understand the costs and benefits of interventions in the built environment that might serve to mitigate the harmful impacts of climate change and variability, and protect urban populations from health stressors associated with summertime heat. Both types of research are potentially useful for understanding the impacts of environmental change at the urban scale, the policies needed to address these challenges, and to train scholars capable of collaborative approaches across the social and biophysical sciences.

Advances in desertification and climate change research: Are they accessible for application to enhance adaptive capacity?

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Seely, M.; Dirkx, E.; Hager, C.; Klintenberg, P.; Roberts, C.; von Oertzen, D.

2008-12-01

Sustainable living in arid lands is the goal of many, including local residents, policy-makers and scientists. Research into desertification and climate change has the potential to significantly enhance livelihoods of resident people. It also has the potential to contribute to their capacity for risk reduction, improved natural resources management and adaptation to climatic and other changes in multi-stressor systems. This potential is not frequently realised. To effectively ensure that scientific insights and contemporary technologies are applied, active involvement of and feedback from those who apply and use the benefits offered by science and technology are required. Scientists and technologists have to address the diverse, mainly non-technical, aspects required to understand and cope with endemic climate variability, desertification and climate change. They need to appropriately tailor their approaches to disseminate results, and communicate their findings in a way that can be understood and readily implemented by policy-makers, politicians and communities. At the same time, they must learn from experiences gained through implementation by users at all levels. The challenges of making the necessary connections between the combinatory effects of desertification and climate change and their effective application are explored and tested. It was found that several key factors contribute to making the necessary connections to facilitate application on all levels of research advances. These include translation, information dissemination, communication, communication platforms, boundary organisations and leadership contributing to knowledge, motivation and capacity. The purpose of this paper is to assess research experiences from integrated land and water resource management, the application of renewable energy and energy efficiency, and local-level monitoring of natural resources and their application to the challenges of desertification and climate change. The conclusion of this assessment is the identification and description of a common framework that can be applied to address the challenges of desertification and climate change.

Climate Change: Challenges and Opportunities for United States Pacific Command

DTIC Science & Technology

2012-03-22

NUMBER OF PAGES 19a. NAME OF RESPONSIBLE PERSON a. REPORT UNCLASSIFED b. ABSTRACT UNCLASSIFED c . THIS PAGE UNCLASSIFED UNLIMITED 36...result in a price paid in military terms and human lives in the future.9 Climate Change as a Threat to National Security Joshua Busby , a professor at...willingness to fight those who threaten our expanding notion of national security. Busby includes climate change in this expanded definition of national

Advances in the genetic improvement of Prunus domestica utilizing genetic engineering

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Plum producers world-wide are facing multiple challenges including climate change, reductions in available labor, the need for reduced chemical inputs, the spread of native and exotic pests and pathogens, and consumer demands for improved fruit quality and health benefits. Meeting these challenges ...

U.S. Global Climate Change Impacts Report, Overview of Sectors

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wuebbles, D.

2009-12-01

The assessment of the Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States includes analyses of the potential climate change impacts by sector, including water resources, energy supply and use, transportation, agriculture, ecosystems, human health and society. The resulting findings for the climate change impacts on these sectors are discussed in this presentation, with the effects on water resources discussed separately. Major findings include: Widespread climate-related impacts are occurring now and are expected to increase. Climate changes are already affecting water, energy, transportation, agriculture, ecosystems, and health. These impacts are different from region to region and will grow under projected climate change. Crop and livestock production will be increasingly challenged. Agriculture is considered one of the sectors most adaptable to changes in climate. However, increased heat, pests, water stress, diseases, and weather extremes will pose adaptation challenges for crop and livestock production. Coastal areas are at increasing risk from sea-level rise and storm surge. Sea-level rise and storm surge place many U.S. coastal areas at increasing risk. Energy and transportation infrastructure and other property in coastal areas are very likely to be adversely affected. Threats to human health will increase. Health impacts of climate change are related to heat stress, waterborne diseases, poor air quality, extreme weather events, and diseases transmitted by insects and rodents. Robust public health infrastructure can reduce the potential for negative impacts. Climate change will interact with many social and environmental stresses. Climate change will combine with pollution, population growth, overuse of resources, urbanization, and other social, economic, and environmental stresses to create larger impacts than from any of these factors alone. Thresholds will be crossed, leading to large changes in climate and ecosystems. There are a variety of thresholds in the climate system and ecosystems. These thresholds determine, for example, the presence of sea ice and permafrost, and the survival of species, from fish to insect pests, with implications for society. With further climate change, the crossing of additional thresholds is expected. These and many other findings will be discussed in the presentation.

Identifying Promising Approaches To U.S. Army Institutional Change: A Review Of The Literature On Organizational Culture And Climate

DTIC Science & Technology

The U.S. Army is confronting a number of challenges. It has relatively well- established organizations and procedures for some challenges, such as... deployments . Some soldiers perceptions that seeking help for stress is a sign of weakness complicate these challenges. Other difficult issues pertain to the workplace, including sexual harassment and assault.

Advancing NOAA NWS Arctic Program Development

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Timofeyeva-Livezey, M. M.; Horsfall, F. M. C.; Meyers, J. C.; Churma, M.; Thoman, R.

2016-12-01

Environmental changes in the Arctic require changes in the way the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) delivers hydrological and meteorological information to prepare the region's societies and indigenous population for emerging challenges. These challenges include changing weather patterns, changes in the timing and extent of sea ice, accelerated soil erosion due to permafrost decline, increasing coastal vulnerably, and changes in the traditional food supply. The decline in Arctic sea ice is opening new opportunities for exploitation of natural resources, commerce, tourism, and military interest. These societal challenges and economic opportunities call for a NOAA integrated approach for delivery of environmental information including climate, water, and weather data, forecasts, and warnings. Presently the NOAA Arctic Task Force provides leadership in programmatic coordination across NOAA line offices. National Weather Service (NWS) Alaska Region and the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) provide the foundational operational hydro-meteorological products and services in the Arctic. Starting in 2016, NOAA's NWS will work toward improving its role in programmatic coordination and development through assembling an NWS Arctic Task Team. The team will foster ties in the Arctic between the 11 NWS national service programs in climate, water, and weather information, as well as between Arctic programs in NWS and other NOAA line offices and external partners. One of the team outcomes is improving decision support tools for the Arctic. The Local Climate Analysis Tool (LCAT) currently has more than 1100 registered users, including NOAA staff and technical partners. The tool has been available online since 2013 (http://nws.weather.gov/lcat/ ). The tool links trusted, recommended NOAA data and analytical capabilities to assess impacts of climate variability and climate change at local levels. A new capability currently being developed will enable analysis of sea ice changes in different parts of the Arctic, and allow users to link those change to phases of climate variability such as El Nino Southern Oscillation Arctic Oscillation, etc.

Challenges and Opportunities for Advancing Work on Climate Change and Public Health.

PubMed

Gould, Solange; Rudolph, Linda

2015-12-09

Climate change poses a major threat to public health. Strategies that address climate change have considerable potential to benefit health and decrease health inequities, yet public health engagement at the intersection of public health, equity, and climate change has been limited. This research seeks to understand the barriers to and opportunities for advancing work at this nexus. We conducted semi-structured in-depth interviews (N = 113) with public health and climate change professionals and thematic analysis. Barriers to public health engagement in addressing climate change include individual perceptions that climate change is not urgent or solvable and insufficient understanding of climate change's health impacts and programmatic connections. Institutional barriers include a lack of public health capacity, authority, and leadership; a narrow framework for public health practice that limits work on the root causes of climate change and health; and compartmentalization within and across sectors. Opportunities include integrating climate change into current public health practice; providing inter-sectoral support for climate solutions with health co-benefits; and using a health frame to engage and mobilize communities. Efforts to increase public health sector engagement should focus on education and communications, building leadership and funding, and increasing work on the shared root causes of climate change and health inequities.

Challenges and Opportunities for Advancing Work on Climate Change and Public Health

PubMed Central

Gould, Solange; Rudolph, Linda

2015-01-01

Climate change poses a major threat to public health. Strategies that address climate change have considerable potential to benefit health and decrease health inequities, yet public health engagement at the intersection of public health, equity, and climate change has been limited. This research seeks to understand the barriers to and opportunities for advancing work at this nexus. We conducted semi-structured in-depth interviews (N = 113) with public health and climate change professionals and thematic analysis. Barriers to public health engagement in addressing climate change include individual perceptions that climate change is not urgent or solvable and insufficient understanding of climate change’s health impacts and programmatic connections. Institutional barriers include a lack of public health capacity, authority, and leadership; a narrow framework for public health practice that limits work on the root causes of climate change and health; and compartmentalization within and across sectors. Opportunities include integrating climate change into current public health practice; providing inter-sectoral support for climate solutions with health co-benefits; and using a health frame to engage and mobilize communities. Efforts to increase public health sector engagement should focus on education and communications, building leadership and funding, and increasing work on the shared root causes of climate change and health inequities. PMID:26690194

Climate Change Challenges for Extension Educators: Technical Capacity and Cultural Attitudes

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Becerra, Terrie A.; Middendorf, Gerad; Campbell, Amber; Tomlinson, Peter

2016-01-01

We surveyed Extension educators in the southern Great Plains about their attitudes and beliefs regarding climate change, their interactions with constituents surrounding climate change, and challenges they face in engaging constituents on the topic of climate change. Production-oriented and sociocultural challenges in meeting constituents'…

Curriculum Change and Climate Change: Inside outside Pressures in Higher Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Fahey, Shireen J.

2012-01-01

In higher education today, institutions are facing a number of challenges--including the challenge to create future-proof graduates. Higher education institutions have a particular mandate to develop future leaders and decision-makers capable of understanding and providing solutions to complex, global issues. Education programmes that focus on…

Needed: A New Generation of Problem Solvers

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

McArthur, John W.; Sachs, Jeffrey

2009-01-01

Amid the global economic crisis dominating policy makers' recent attention, the world faces many other equal if not greater long-term challenges that will require concerted and highly skilled policy efforts in coming years. Those interwoven challenges include the mitigation of climate change, the control of emerging diseases, the reduction of…

Living on a flammable planet: interdisciplinary, cross-scalar and varied cultural lessons, prospects and challenges.

PubMed

Roos, Christopher I; Scott, Andrew C; Belcher, Claire M; Chaloner, William G; Aylen, Jonathan; Bird, Rebecca Bliege; Coughlan, Michael R; Johnson, Bart R; Johnston, Fay H; McMorrow, Julia; Steelman, Toddi

2016-06-05

Living with fire is a challenge for human communities because they are influenced by socio-economic, political, ecological and climatic processes at various spatial and temporal scales. Over the course of 2 days, the authors discussed how communities could live with fire challenges at local, national and transnational scales. Exploiting our diverse, international and interdisciplinary expertise, we outline generalizable properties of fire-adaptive communities in varied settings where cultural knowledge of fire is rich and diverse. At the national scale, we discussed policy and management challenges for countries that have diminishing fire knowledge, but for whom global climate change will bring new fire problems. Finally, we assessed major fire challenges that transcend national political boundaries, including the health burden of smoke plumes and the climate consequences of wildfires. It is clear that to best address the broad range of fire problems, a holistic wildfire scholarship must develop common agreement in working terms and build across disciplines. We must also communicate our understanding of fire and its importance to the media, politicians and the general public.This article is part of the themed issue 'The interaction of fire and mankind'. © 2016 The Author(s).

Living on a flammable planet: interdisciplinary, cross-scalar and varied cultural lessons, prospects and challenges

PubMed Central

Chaloner, William G.; Aylen, Jonathan; Bird, Rebecca Bliege; Coughlan, Michael R.; Johnson, Bart R.; Johnston, Fay H.; Steelman, Toddi

2016-01-01

Living with fire is a challenge for human communities because they are influenced by socio-economic, political, ecological and climatic processes at various spatial and temporal scales. Over the course of 2 days, the authors discussed how communities could live with fire challenges at local, national and transnational scales. Exploiting our diverse, international and interdisciplinary expertise, we outline generalizable properties of fire-adaptive communities in varied settings where cultural knowledge of fire is rich and diverse. At the national scale, we discussed policy and management challenges for countries that have diminishing fire knowledge, but for whom global climate change will bring new fire problems. Finally, we assessed major fire challenges that transcend national political boundaries, including the health burden of smoke plumes and the climate consequences of wildfires. It is clear that to best address the broad range of fire problems, a holistic wildfire scholarship must develop common agreement in working terms and build across disciplines. We must also communicate our understanding of fire and its importance to the media, politicians and the general public. This article is part of the themed issue ‘The interaction of fire and mankind’. PMID:27216517

How school climate relates to chronic absence: A multi-level latent profile analysis.

PubMed

Van Eck, Kathryn; Johnson, Stacy R; Bettencourt, Amie; Johnson, Sarah Lindstrom

2017-04-01

Chronic absence is a significant problem in schools. School climate may play an important role in influencing chronic absence rates among schools, yet little research has evaluated how school climate constructs relate to chronic absence. Using multilevel latent profile analysis, we evaluated how profiles of student perceptions of school climate at both the student and school level differentiated school-level rates of chronic absence. Participants included 25,776 middle and high school students from 106 schools who completed a district administered school climate survey. Students attended schools in a large urban school district where 89% of 6th through 12th grade students were African-American and 61% were eligible for the federally subsidized school meals program. Three student-level profiles of perceptions of school climate emerged that corresponded to "positive," "moderate," and "negative" climate. Two predominant patterns regarding the distribution of these profiles within schools emerged that corresponded to the two school-level profiles of "marginal climate" and "climate challenged" schools. Students reporting "moderate" and "negative" climate in their schools were more likely to attend schools with higher chronic absence rates than students reporting that their school had "positive" climate. Likewise, "climate challenged" schools had significantly higher chronic absence rates than "marginal climate" schools. These results suggest that school climate shares an important relation with chronic absence among adolescent students attending urban schools. Implications for prevention and intervention programs are discussed. Copyright © 2016 Society for the Study of School Psychology. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Does Climate Literacy Matter? A Case Study of U.S. Students' Level of Concern about Anthropogenic Global Warming

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bedford, Daniel

2016-01-01

Educators seeking to address global warming in their classrooms face numerous challenges, including the question of whether student opinions about anthropogenic global warming (AGW) can change in response to increased knowledge about the climate system. This article analyzes survey responses from 458 students at a primarily undergraduate…

Strategies for reducing the impacts of surface transportation on global climate change : a synthesis of policy research and state and local mitigation strategies

DOT National Transportation Integrated Search

2009-03-01

Climate change is likely to have more impact on the future of surface transportation than any other issue. The challenges and implications for surface transportation and for state DOTs include: the need to support major GHG reductions, the need to me...

New solutions for climate network visualization

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Nocke, Thomas; Buschmann, Stefan; Donges, Jonathan F.; Marwan, Norbert

2016-04-01

An increasing amount of climate and climate impact research methods deals with geo-referenced networks, including energy, trade, supply-chain, disease dissemination and climatic tele-connection networks. At the same time, the size and complexity of these networks increases, resulting in networks of more than hundred thousand or even millions of edges, which are often temporally evolving, have additional data at nodes and edges, and can consist of multiple layers even in real 3D. This gives challenges to both the static representation and the interactive exploration of these networks, first of all avoiding edge clutter ("edge spagetti") and allowing interactivity even for unfiltered networks. Within this presentation, we illustrate potential solutions to these challenges. Therefore, we give a glimpse on a questionnaire performed with climate and complex system scientists with respect to their network visualization requirements, and on a review of available state-of-the-art visualization techniques and tools for this purpose (see as well Nocke et al., 2015). In the main part, we present alternative visualization solutions for several use cases (global, regional, and multi-layered climate networks) including alternative geographic projections, edge bundling, and 3-D network support (based on CGV and GTX tools), and implementation details to reach interactive frame rates. References: Nocke, T., S. Buschmann, J. F. Donges, N. Marwan, H.-J. Schulz, and C. Tominski: Review: Visual analytics of climate networks, Nonlinear Processes in Geophysics, 22, 545-570, doi:10.5194/npg-22-545-2015, 2015

Energy, Weatherization and Indoor Air Quality

EPA Pesticide Factsheets

Climate change presents many challenges, including the production of severe weather events. These events and efforts to minimize their effects through weatherization can adversely affect indoor environments.

'Changing climate, changing health, changing stories' profile: using an EcoHealth approach to explore impacts of climate change on inuit health.

PubMed

Harper, S L; Edge, V L; Cunsolo Willox, A

2012-03-01

Global climate change and its impact on public health exemplify the challenge of managing complexity and uncertainty in health research. The Canadian North is currently experiencing dramatic shifts in climate, resulting in environmental changes which impact Inuit livelihoods, cultural practices, and health. For researchers investigating potential climate change impacts on Inuit health, it has become clear that comprehensive and meaningful research outcomes depend on taking a systemic and transdisciplinary approach that engages local citizens in project design, data collection, and analysis. While it is increasingly recognised that using approaches that embrace complexity is a necessity in public health, mobilizing such approaches from theory into practice can be challenging. In 2009, the Rigolet Inuit Community Government in Rigolet, Nunatsiavut, Canada partnered with a transdisciplinary team of researchers, health practitioners, and community storytelling facilitators to create the Changing Climate, Changing Health, Changing Stories project, aimed at developing a multi-media participatory, community-run methodological strategy to gather locally appropriate and meaningful data to explore climate-health relationships. The goal of this profile paper is to describe how an EcoHealth approach guided by principles of transdisciplinarity, community participation, and social equity was used to plan and implement this climate-health research project. An overview of the project, including project development, research methods, project outcomes to date, and challenges encountered, is presented. Though introduced in this one case study, the processes, methods, and lessons learned are broadly applicable to researchers and communities interested in implementing EcoHealth approaches in community-based research.

Adaptation Challenges in Complex River Basins: Lessons Learned and Unlearned for the Colorado

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Pulwarty, R. S.

2008-12-01

Climate variations affect the function and operation of existing water infrastructure - including hydropower, structural flood defenses, drainage and irrigation systems - as well as water management practices in support of efficiency and environmental needs. Selected basins around the world, including the Colorado, show agreements in model projections of increasing aridity. Adverse effects of climate change on freshwater systems aggravate the impacts of other stresses, such as population growth, changing economic activity, land-use change and urbanization and most importantly upstream-downstream winners and losers. Thus current water management practices may not be robust enough to cope with the impacts of climate change on water supply reliability. In many locations, water management does not even satisfactorily cope with current climate variability, so that large flood and drought-related environmental and economic damages occur on seasonal to decadal timescales. The recently released IPCC Technical Paper notes that adaptation procedures and risk management practices that incorporate projected hydrological changes with related uncertainties are being developed in some countries and regions.In this presentation we will review the challenges and lessons provided in drought and water resources management and optimization in the context of climate variability and projected change in the Western U.S., the European Union (including the Iberian Peninsula), the Murray-Darling Basin, and elsewhere. Since the release of the IPCC report several of the authors (including the presenter) have held meetings on comparative assessments of adaptation and its challenges in interstate and international river basins. As a first step, improved incorporation of information about current climate variability into water-related management could assist adaptation to longer-term climate change impacts. Future adaptations include technical changes that improve water use efficiency, demand management (e.g. through metering and pricing), and institutional changes that improve the tradability of water rights. The co-evolution of climate history and adaptation did not start with the release of IPCC scenarios. The development of the Colorado River Basin was itself influenced by water resources planners from around the world (including the Middle East) in the late 1800s. As such lessons identified, but not always learned, abound. These hold considerable promise for water savings and the reallocation of water to highly valued uses. Supply-side strategies generally involve increases in storage capacity, abstraction from watercourses, and water transfers. Integrated water resources management provides an important governance framework to achieve adaptation measures across socio-economic, environmental and administrative systems. However, several paradoxes in water management and governance mitigate against the effectiveness of scientific information for meeting short term needs in the context of reducing longer-term vulnerabilities and for providing water to meet environmental needs. Consequently a complete analysis of the effects of climate change on human water uses would consider cross-sector interactions, including the impacts of changes in water use efficiency and intentional transfers of the use of water from one sector to another.

Climate services for society: origins, institutional arrangements, and design elements for an evaluation framework

PubMed Central

Vaughan, Catherine; Dessai, Suraje

2014-01-01

Climate services involve the generation, provision, and contextualization of information and knowledge derived from climate research for decision making at all levels of society. These services are mainly targeted at informing adaptation to climate variability and change, widely recognized as an important challenge for sustainable development. This paper reviews the development of climate services, beginning with a historical overview, a short summary of improvements in climate information, and a description of the recent surge of interest in climate service development including, for example, the Global Framework for Climate Services, implemented by the World Meteorological Organization in October 2012. It also reviews institutional arrangements of selected emerging climate services across local, national, regional, and international scales. By synthesizing existing literature, the paper proposes four design elements of a climate services evaluation framework. These design elements include: problem identification and the decision-making context; the characteristics, tailoring, and dissemination of the climate information; the governance and structure of the service, including the process by which it is developed; and the socioeconomic value of the service. The design elements are intended to serve as a guide to organize future work regarding the evaluation of when and whether climate services are more or less successful. The paper concludes by identifying future research questions regarding the institutional arrangements that support climate services and nascent efforts to evaluate them. PMID:25798197

Climate services for society: origins, institutional arrangements, and design elements for an evaluation framework.

PubMed

Vaughan, Catherine; Dessai, Suraje

2014-09-01

Climate services involve the generation, provision, and contextualization of information and knowledge derived from climate research for decision making at all levels of society. These services are mainly targeted at informing adaptation to climate variability and change, widely recognized as an important challenge for sustainable development. This paper reviews the development of climate services, beginning with a historical overview, a short summary of improvements in climate information, and a description of the recent surge of interest in climate service development including, for example, the Global Framework for Climate Services, implemented by the World Meteorological Organization in October 2012. It also reviews institutional arrangements of selected emerging climate services across local, national, regional, and international scales. By synthesizing existing literature, the paper proposes four design elements of a climate services evaluation framework. These design elements include: problem identification and the decision-making context; the characteristics, tailoring, and dissemination of the climate information; the governance and structure of the service, including the process by which it is developed; and the socioeconomic value of the service. The design elements are intended to serve as a guide to organize future work regarding the evaluation of when and whether climate services are more or less successful. The paper concludes by identifying future research questions regarding the institutional arrangements that support climate services and nascent efforts to evaluate them.

Opportunities and Challenges for the Contribution of Citizen Science to High-Quality, Traceable Indicators of Biodiversity in the Context of Climate Change

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Weltzin, J. F.

2014-12-01

Indicators of climate change are designed to communicate key aspects of the status and trends of the physical climate, climate impacts, vulnerabilities, and preparedness to inform both decision makers and the public. The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) provides a suite of "Indicators of Climate Change" and the US Global Change Research Program delivers indicators via its "Global Change Information System" (GCIS). The process of research, development and delivery of appropriate indicators of linked to climate change faces challenges including but not limited to (1) lack of data for relevant variables across longitudinal time scales with a defined relationship to climate variation or change, (2) sufficient density and distribution of data across spatial scales to support indicator development for researchers, natural resource managers and decision-makers, and (3) limited engagement of intended stakeholders who may not understand how the data were derived or the potential application of the indicator to their domain. Recent advances in the field of public participation in scientific research (PPSR), also known as "citizen science," represents a potential innovation in monitoring, research, information management and public engagement that can address several of these challenges. Citizen science datasets already available can be decades long and collected at many sites across broad spatial scales; by their nature, they create direct engagement with stakeholders and the public. For example, bird distribution data collected by citizen scientists participating in the continental-scale Christmas Bird Count since 1900 are used in EPA's indicator for "Bird Wintering Ranges." Similarly, plant leafing data collected across the nation since 1956 are combined with meteorological data to create a modeled indicator of plant leafing dates for the GCIS. This presentation will focus on (1) challenges to the development of ecological indicators of biodiversity linked to environmental variation and climate change, (2) how citizen science can address these challenges within suitable domains or disciplines, and (3) minimal requirements for citizen science projects to maximize their contribution to the production of high-quality, traceable indicators of biodiversity.

Global Climate Change and the Mitigation Challenge

EPA Science Inventory

Book edited by Frank Princiotta titled Global Climate Change--The Technology Challenge Transparent modeling tools and the most recent literature are used, to quantify the challenge posed by climate change and potential technological remedies. The chapter examines forces driving ...

Synthesizing late Holocene paleoclimate reconstructions: Lessons learned, common challenges, and implications for future research

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Rodysill, J. R.

2017-12-01

Proxy-based reconstructions provide vital information for developing histories of environmental and climate changes. Networks of spatiotemporal paleoclimate information are powerful tools for understanding dynamical processes within the global climate system and improving model-based predictions of the patterns and magnitudes of climate changes at local- to global-scales. Compiling individual paleoclimate records and integrating reconstructed climate information in the context of an ensemble of multi-proxy records, which are fundamental for developing a spatiotemporal climate data network, are hindered by challenges related to data and information accessibility, chronological uncertainty, sampling resolution, climate proxy type, and differences between depositional environments. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) North American Holocene Climate Synthesis Working Group has been compiling and integrating multi-proxy paleoclimate data as part of an ongoing effort to synthesize Holocene climate records from North America. The USGS North American Holocene Climate Synthesis Working Group recently completed a late Holocene hydroclimate synthesis for the North American continent using several proxy types from a range of depositional environments, including lakes, wetlands, coastal marine, and cave speleothems. Using new age-depth relationships derived from the Bacon software package, we identified century-scale patterns of wetness and dryness for the past 2000 years with an age uncertainty-based confidence rating for each proxy record. Additionally, for highly-resolved North American lake sediment records, we computed average late Holocene sediment deposition rates and identified temporal trends in age uncertainty that are common to multiple lakes. This presentation addresses strengths and challenges of compiling and integrating data from different paleoclimate archives, with a particular focus on lake sediments, which may inform and guide future paleolimnological studies.

Extreme Weather and Climate: Workshop Report

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Sobel, Adam; Camargo, Suzana; Debucquoy, Wim; Deodatis, George; Gerrard, Michael; Hall, Timothy; Hallman, Robert; Keenan, Jesse; Lall, Upmanu; Levy, Marc;

Uncertainty Management in Remote Sensing of Climate Data. Summary of A Workshop

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

McConnell, M.; Weidman, S.

2009-01-01

Great advances have been made in our understanding of the climate system over the past few decades, and remotely sensed data have played a key role in supporting many of these advances. Improvements in satellites and in computational and data-handling techniques have yielded high quality, readily accessible data. However, rapid increases in data volume have also led to large and complex datasets that pose significant challenges in data analysis (NRC, 2007). Uncertainty characterization is needed for every satellite mission and scientists continue to be challenged by the need to reduce the uncertainty in remotely sensed climate records and projections. The approaches currently used to quantify the uncertainty in remotely sensed data, including statistical methods used to calibrate and validate satellite instruments, lack an overall mathematically based framework.

The Increase of Exotic Zoonotic Helminth Infections: The Impact of Urbanization, Climate Change and Globalization.

PubMed

Gordon, Catherine A; McManus, Donald P; Jones, Malcolm K; Gray, Darren J; Gobert, Geoffrey N

2016-01-01

Zoonotic parasitic diseases are increasingly impacting human populations due to the effects of globalization, urbanization and climate change. Here we review the recent literature on the most important helminth zoonoses, including reports of incidence and prevalence. We discuss those helminth diseases which are increasing in endemic areas and consider their geographical spread into new regions within the framework of globalization, urbanization and climate change to determine the effect these variables are having on disease incidence, transmission and the associated challenges presented for public health initiatives, including control and elimination. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The impacts of climate change on the annual cycles of birds

PubMed Central

Carey, Cynthia

2009-01-01

Organisms living today are descended from ancestors that experienced considerable climate change in the past. However, they are currently presented with many new, man-made challenges, including rapid climate change. Migration and reproduction of many avian species are controlled by endogenous mechanisms that have been under intense selection over time to ensure that arrival to and departure from breeding grounds is synchronized with moderate temperatures, peak food availability and availability of nesting sites. The timing of egg laying is determined, usually by both endogenous clocks and local factors, so that food availability is near optimal for raising young. Climate change is causing mismatches in food supplies, snow cover and other factors that could severely impact successful migration and reproduction of avian populations unless they are able to adjust to new conditions. Resident (non-migratory) birds also face challenges if precipitation and/or temperature patterns vary in ways that result in mismatches of food and breeding. Predictions that many existing climates will disappear and novel climates will appear in the future suggest that communities will be dramatically restructured by extinctions and changes in range distributions. Species that persist into future climates may be able to do so in part owing to the genetic heritage passed down from ancestors who survived climate changes in the past. PMID:19833644

The Nanchang communication about the potential for the implementation of conservation practices for climate change mitigation and adaptation to achieve food security in the 21st century

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Several recent peer reviewed manuscripts have reported on the great challenges humanity is confronting during the XXI century, including a changing climate, depletion of water resources from groundwater and/or snow caps sources that are needed for agricultural production, deforestation, desertificat...

Responsibilities of the Occupational and Environmental Medicine Provider in the Treatment and Prevention of Climate Change-Related Health Problems.

PubMed

Perkison, William B; Kearney, Gregory D; Saberi, Pouné; Guidotti, Tee; McCarthy, Ronda; Cook-Shimanek, Margaret; Pensa, Mellisa A; Nabeel, Ismail

2018-02-01

: Workers are uniquely susceptible to the health hazards imposed by environmental changes. Occupational and environmental medicine (OEM) providers are at the forefront of emerging health issues pertaining to working populations including climate change, and must be prepared to recognize, respond to, and mitigate climate change-related health effects in workers. This guidance document from the American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine focuses on North American workers health effects that may occur as a result of climate change and describes the responsibilities of the OEM provider in responding to these health challenges.

Climate challenges, vulnerabilities, and food security

PubMed Central

Nelson, Margaret C.; Ingram, Scott E.; Dugmore, Andrew J.; Streeter, Richard; Peeples, Matthew A.; McGovern, Thomas H.; Hegmon, Michelle; Arneborg, Jette; Brewington, Seth; Spielmann, Katherine A.; Simpson, Ian A.; Strawhacker, Colleen; Comeau, Laura E. L.; Torvinen, Andrea; Madsen, Christian K.; Hambrecht, George; Smiarowski, Konrad

2016-01-01

This paper identifies rare climate challenges in the long-term history of seven areas, three in the subpolar North Atlantic Islands and four in the arid-to-semiarid deserts of the US Southwest. For each case, the vulnerability to food shortage before the climate challenge is quantified based on eight variables encompassing both environmental and social domains. These data are used to evaluate the relationship between the “weight” of vulnerability before a climate challenge and the nature of social change and food security following a challenge. The outcome of this work is directly applicable to debates about disaster management policy. PMID:26712017

Climate challenges, vulnerabilities, and food security.

PubMed

Nelson, Margaret C; Ingram, Scott E; Dugmore, Andrew J; Streeter, Richard; Peeples, Matthew A; McGovern, Thomas H; Hegmon, Michelle; Arneborg, Jette; Kintigh, Keith W; Brewington, Seth; Spielmann, Katherine A; Simpson, Ian A; Strawhacker, Colleen; Comeau, Laura E L; Torvinen, Andrea; Madsen, Christian K; Hambrecht, George; Smiarowski, Konrad

2016-01-12

This paper identifies rare climate challenges in the long-term history of seven areas, three in the subpolar North Atlantic Islands and four in the arid-to-semiarid deserts of the US Southwest. For each case, the vulnerability to food shortage before the climate challenge is quantified based on eight variables encompassing both environmental and social domains. These data are used to evaluate the relationship between the "weight" of vulnerability before a climate challenge and the nature of social change and food security following a challenge. The outcome of this work is directly applicable to debates about disaster management policy.

Examining Challenges Related to the Production of Actionable Climate Knowledge for Adaptation Decision-Making: A Focus on Climate Knowledge System Producers

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ernst, K.; Preston, B. L.; Tenggren, S.; Klein, R.; Gerger-Swartling, Å.

2017-12-01

Many challenges to adaptation decision-making and action have been identified across peer-reviewed and gray literature. These challenges have primarily focused on the use of climate knowledge for adaptation decision-making, the process of adaptation decision-making, and the needs of the decision-maker. Studies on climate change knowledge systems often discuss the imperative role of climate knowledge producers in adaptation decision-making processes and stress the need for producers to engage in knowledge co-production activities and to more effectively meet decision-maker needs. While the influence of climate knowledge producers on the co-production of science for adaptation decision-making is well-recognized, hardly any research has taken a direct approach to analyzing the challenges that climate knowledge producers face when undertaking science co-production. Those challenges can influence the process of knowledge production and may hinder the creation, utilization, and dissemination of actionable knowledge for adaptation decision-making. This study involves semi-structured interviews, focus groups, and participant observations to analyze, identify, and contextualize the challenges that climate knowledge producers in Sweden face as they endeavor to create effective climate knowledge systems for multiple contexts, scales, and levels across the European Union. Preliminary findings identify complex challenges related to education, training, and support; motivation, willingness, and culture; varying levels of prioritization; professional roles and responsibilities; the type and amount of resources available; and professional incentive structures. These challenges exist at varying scales and levels across individuals, organizations, networks, institutions, and disciplines. This study suggests that the creation of actionable knowledge for adaptation decision-making is not supported across scales and levels in the climate knowledge production landscape. Additionally, enabling the production of actionable knowledge for adaptation decision-making requires multi-level effort beyond the individual level.

(Climate) Change in young people's minds - From categories towards interconnections between the anthroposphere and natural sphere.

PubMed

Körfgen, Annemarie; Keller, Lars; Kuthe, Alina; Oberrauch, Anna; Stötter, Hans

2017-02-15

The grand challenges of the 21st century will increasingly require societies to reconsider the pathways taken thus far. Engagement with climate change is of ever-growing importance to young people. They will be confronted with the effects of climate change throughout their entire lives and, as future decision-makers, they will vitally shape societal developments. Education will thus play a crucial role in the transformation to a sustainable society. In terms of awareness-raising, an important first step in preparing young people for the challenges of the 21st century is to understand what content is connected with climate change. As complex challenges, such as climate change, demand ways of thinking that go beyond categories, interconnections between the anthroposphere and the natural sphere have to be taken into consideration. This study provides an insight into the questions and topics young people develop whilst becoming involved in climate change in an in-school learning setting and in an out-of-school learning setting (a high mountain environment). The analysis focuses on the question of in which spheres students predominantly make their thematic choices and how far the interconnections between different spheres are formed. Our results show that the choice of the learning setting influences the topics students connect with climate change. Interconnections between sub-spheres of the anthroposphere and natural sphere are made only occasionally. These findings serve as a basis for reconsidering the content and foundation of climate change communication with young people. We recommend that climate change educational programmes should include phases that allow the following: a) involvement with climate change issues related to single spheres in the first phase, and b) consideration of the interconnections between spheres when becoming involved with climate change issues in the second phase. As the educational setting can considerably influence the focus of the learning process, it should be chosen thoughtfully. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Tipping Points and Balancing Acts: Grand Challenges and Synergistic Opportunities of Integrating Research and Education, Science and Solutions

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

McCaffrey, M. S.; Stroeve, J. C.

2011-12-01

The "Grand Challenges" to address Global Change identified by the International Council for Science (ICSU) and its partners through the Earth System Sustainability Initiative-improving forecasting, enhancing and integrating observation systems, confining and minimizing global environmental change, responding effectively to change, as well as innovating and evaluating these efforts-require an integrative approach that engages and inspires society in general and young people in particular. What are some of the effective strategies-and stumbling blocks-in being able to make Earth System science and related sustainability efforts relevant and practical to non-technical audiences? Recent climate education projects have pioneered new strategies toward linking and infusing research with education, science with solutions. For example, the Climate Literacy and Energy Awareness Network (CLEAN), a National Science Digital Library Pathway funded by NSF, has approached this integral approach by "closing the loop" between climate and energy topics, identifying and annotating high quality online resources relating to the carbon cycle and related topics. The Inspiring Climate Education Excellence (ICEE) project, funded by NASA, offers professional development for teachers that infuses climate science with solutions as an emerging "best practice" while being sensitive to the emotional, psychological and political aspects of avoiding "gloom and doom" on one hand or advocating for particular policy solutions on another. Other examples includes NASA's climate website (http://climate.nasa.gov ), which serves as a robust, engaging portal for climate research and data, especially for educators. The recent PBS series Earth: The Operators' Manual and related book and website are other recent example of how climate science research, education and solutions can be incorporated in a way that is appealing and informative. The Alliance for Climate Education (ACE) has given assemblies in thousands of US high schools that integrate climate science and solutions in a way that inspires and informs youth, and similar programs exist internationally. Other approaches to prepare vulnerable communities, especially young people, for natural hazards and human-induced environmental change include programs such as Plan International's "Child Centered Disaster Risk Reduction- Building Resilience Through Participation," and their "Weathering the Storm" project, focusing on integrating the needs of teenage girls with climate change adaptation and risk reduction. While minimizing global environmental and climate change is crucial, these and related programs that weave research with education, science with solutions offer the potential for addressing the "Grand Challenges" by better preparing for societal and environmental tipping points through a more balanced and integrated approach to addressing change."

Grand challenges in understanding the interplay of climate and land changes

USGS Publications Warehouse

Liu, Shuguang; Bond-Lamberty, Ben; Boysen, Lena R.; Ford, James D.; Fox, Andrew; Gallo, Kevin; Hatfield, Jerry L.; Henebry, Geoffrey M.; Huntington, Thomas G.; Liu, Zhihua; Loveland, Thomas R.; Norby, Richard J.; Sohl, Terry L.; Steiner, Allison L.; Yuan, Wenping; Zhang, Zhao; Zhao, Shuqing

2017-01-01

Half of Earth’s land surface has been altered by human activities, creating various consequences on the climate and weather systems at local to global scales, which in turn affect a myriad of land surface processes and the adaptation behaviors. This study reviews the status and major knowledge gaps in the interactions of land and atmospheric changes and present 11 grand challenge areas for the scientific research and adaptation community in the coming decade. These land-cover and land-use change (LCLUC)-related areas include 1) impacts on weather and climate, 2) carbon and other biogeochemical cycles, 3) biospheric emissions, 4) the water cycle, 5) agriculture, 6) urbanization, 7) acclimation of biogeochemical processes to climate change, 8) plant migration, 9) land-use projections, 10) model and data uncertainties, and, finally, 11) adaptation strategies. Numerous studies have demonstrated the effects of LCLUC on local to global climate and weather systems, but these putative effects vary greatly in magnitude and even sign across space, time, and scale and thus remain highly uncertain. At the same time, many challenges exist toward improved understanding of the consequences of atmospheric and climate change on land process dynamics and services. Future effort must improve the understanding of the scale-dependent, multifaceted perturbations and feedbacks between land and climate changes in both reality and models. To this end, one critical cross-disciplinary need is to systematically quantify and better understand measurement and model uncertainties. Finally, LCLUC mitigation and adaptation assessments must be strengthened to identify implementation barriers, evaluate and prioritize opportunities, and examine how decision-making processes work in specific contexts.

Managing flood risks in the Mekong Delta: How to address emerging challenges under climate change and socioeconomic developments.

PubMed

Hoang, Long Phi; Biesbroek, Robbert; Tri, Van Pham Dang; Kummu, Matti; van Vliet, Michelle T H; Leemans, Rik; Kabat, Pavel; Ludwig, Fulco

2018-02-24

Climate change and accelerating socioeconomic developments increasingly challenge flood-risk management in the Vietnamese Mekong River Delta-a typical large, economically dynamic and highly vulnerable delta. This study identifies and addresses the emerging challenges for flood-risk management. Furthermore, we identify and analyse response solutions, focusing on meaningful configurations of the individual solutions and how they can be tailored to specific challenges using expert surveys, content analysis techniques and statistical inferences. Our findings show that the challenges for flood-risk management are diverse, but critical challenges predominantly arise from the current governance and institutional settings. The top-three challenges include weak collaboration, conflicting management objectives and low responsiveness to new issues. We identified 114 reported solutions and developed six flood management strategies that are tailored to specific challenges. We conclude that the current technology-centric flood management approach is insufficient given the rapid socioecological changes. This approach therefore should be adapted towards a more balanced management configuration where technical and infrastructural measures are combined with institutional and governance resolutions. Insights from this study contribute to the emerging repertoire of contemporary flood management solutions, especially through their configurations and tailoring to specific challenges.

Challenges for Sustainable Land Management through Climate-Smart Agriculture

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Dougill, Andrew; Stringer, Lindsay

2017-04-01

There are increasing pushes for agricultural land management to be both sustainable and climate-smart (in terms of increasing productivity, building resilience to climate change and enhancing carbon storage). Climate-smart agriculture initiatives include conservation agriculture, based on minimum soil disturbance, permanent soil cover and crop rotation, and agroforestry. Such efforts address key international goals of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) and United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), but as yet have not seen widespread uptake. Based on analyses of different project interventions from across a range of southern African countries, we outline the inter-related challenges that are preventing adoption of climate-smart agriculture initiatives. We then identify routes to building multi-stakeholder partnerships and empowering communities through participatory monitoring with the aim of increasing uptake of such sustainable land management practices. Good practice examples remain largely restricted to local-level project interventions with significant donor (or private-sector) support, aligned to short-term community priorities relating to access to inputs or reduced labour requirements. Scaling-up to district- and national-level initiatives is yet to be widely successful due to problems of: limited policy coherence; a lack of communication between stakeholders at different levels; and limited understanding of long-term benefits associated with changes in agricultural practices. We outline opportunities associated with improved communication of climate information, empowerment of district-level adaptation planning and diversification of agricultural livelihood strategies as key routes to guide farmers towards more sustainable, and climate-smart, land management practices. Recent experiences in Malawi, which has experienced significant floods and an El Niño drought year in the last two years, are used to empirically illustrate the extent of the remaining challenges in moving from 'win-win' conceptualisations to implementing significant changes in land management practices.

Gender and climate change in the Indian Hindu-Kush Himalayas: global threats, local vulnerabilities

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ogra, M. V.; Badola, R.

2014-11-01

Global climate change has numerous implications for members of mountain communities who feel the impacts in both physical and social dimensions. In the Western Himalayas of India, a majority of residents maintain a livelihood strategy that includes a combination of subsistence or small-scale agriculture, seasonal pastoral migration, male out-migration, and localized natural resource extraction. Particularly under conditions of heavy male outmigration, but throughout the region, mountain women play a key role in providing labor and knowledge related to the management of local natural resources, yet often lack authority in related political and economic decision-making processes. This gap has important implications for addressing the impacts of climate change: while warming temperatures, irregular patterns of precipitation and snowmelt, and changing biological systems present challenges to the viability of these traditional livelihood portfolios throughout the region, mountain women increasingly face new challenges in their roles as household managers that have not adequately been emphasized in larger scale planning for climate change adaptation and mitigation. These challenges are complex in nature, and are shaped not only by gender issues but also interacting factors such as class, caste, ethnicity, and age (among others). In this paper, we review the main arguments behind the discursive gender/climate change nexus, discuss the implications for gendered vulnerabilities and transformation of adaptive capacities in the region, and suggest ways that researchers and policymakers seeking to promote "climate justice" can benefit from the incorporation of gender-based perspectives and frameworks.

Dynamic Undergraduate Climate Change Affinity Program: University of Delaware Climate Program for Undergraduates (CPUG)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Merrill, J.

2017-12-01

Multidisciplinary undergraduate climate change education is critical for students entering any sector of the workforce. The University of Delaware has developed a new interdisciplinary affinity program—UD Climate Program for Undergraduates (CPUG)—open to undergraduate students of all majors to provide a comprehensive educational experience designed to educate skilled climate change problem-solvers for a wide range of professional careers. The program is designed to fulfill all General Education requirements, and includes a residential community commitment and experiential learning in community outreach and problem solving. Seminars will introduce current popular press and research materials and provide practice in confirming source credibility, communications training, and psychological support, as well as team building. As undergraduates, members of the UD CPUG team will define, describe, and develop a solution or solutions for a pressing local climate challenge that has the potential for global impact. The choice of a challenge and approach to addressing it will be guided by the student's advisor. Students are expected to develop a practical, multidisciplinary solution to address the challenge as defined, using their educational and experiential training. Solutions will be presented to the UD community during the spring semester of their senior year, as a collaborative team solution, with enhancement through individual portfolios from each team member. The logic model, structure, curricular and co-curricular supports for the CPUG will be provided. Mechanisms of support available through University administration will also be discussed.

The impact of climate change on infectious disease transmission: perceptions of CDC health professionals in Shanxi Province, China.

PubMed

Wei, Junni; Hansen, Alana; Zhang, Ying; Li, Hong; Liu, Qiyong; Sun, Yehuan; Xue, Shulian; Zhao, Shufang; Bi, Peng

2014-01-01

There have been increasing concerns about the challenge of emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases due to climate change, especially in developing countries including China. Health professionals play a significant role in the battle to control and prevent infectious diseases. This study therefore aims to investigate the perceptions and attitudes of health professionals at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in different levels in China, and to consider adaptation measures to deal with the challenge of climate change. In 2013, a cross-sectional questionnaire survey was undertaken among 314 staff in CDCs in Shanxi Province, China, whose routine work involves disease control and prevention. Data were analyzed using descriptive methods and logistic regression. A majority of the CDC staff were aware of the health risks from climate change, especially its impacts on infectious disease transmission in their jurisdictions, and believed climate change might bring about both temporal and spatial change in transmission patterns. It was thought that adaptation measures should be established including: strengthening/improving currently existing disease surveillance systems and vector monitoring; building CDC capacity in terms of infrastructure and in-house health professional training; development and refinement of relevant legislation, policies and guidelines; better coordination among various government departments; the involvement of the community in infectious disease interventions; and collaborative research with other institutions. This study provides a snapshot of the understanding of CDC staff regarding climate change risks relevant to infectious diseases and adaptation in China. Results may help inform future efforts to develop adaptation measures to minimize infectious disease risks due to climate change.

Joint Knowledge Generation Between Climate Science and Infrastructure Engineering

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Stoner, A. M. K.; Hayhoe, K.; Jacobs, J. M.

2015-12-01

Over the past decade the engineering community has become increasingly aware of the need to incorporate climate projections into the planning and design of sensitive infrastructure. However, this is a task that is easier said than done. This presentation will discuss some of the successes and hurdles experiences through the past year, from a climate scientist's perspective, working with engineers in infrastructure research and applied engineering through the Infrastructure & Climate Network (ICNet). Engineers rely on strict building codes and ordinances, and can be the subject of lawsuits if those codes are not followed. Matters are further complicated by the uncertainty inherent to climate projections, which include short-term natural variability, as well as the influence of scientific uncertainty and even human behavior on the rate and magnitude of change. Climate scientists typically address uncertainty by creating projections based on multiple models following different future scenarios. This uncertainty is difficult to incorporate into engineering projects, however, due to the fact that they cannot build two different bridges, one allowing for a lower amount of change, and another for a higher. More often than not there is a considerable difference between the costs of building two such bridges, which means that available funds often are the deciding factor. Discussions of climate science are often well received with engineers who work in the research area of infrastructure; going a step further, however, and implementing it in applied engineering projects can be challenging. This presentation will discuss some of the challenges and opportunities inherent to collaborations between climate scientists and transportation engineers, drawing from a range of studies including truck weight restrictions on roads during the spring thaw, and bridge deck performance due to environmental forcings.

Remote-sensing based approach to forecast habitat quality under climate change scenarios.

PubMed

Requena-Mullor, Juan M; López, Enrique; Castro, Antonio J; Alcaraz-Segura, Domingo; Castro, Hermelindo; Reyes, Andrés; Cabello, Javier

2017-01-01

As climate change is expected to have a significant impact on species distributions, there is an urgent challenge to provide reliable information to guide conservation biodiversity policies. In addressing this challenge, we propose a remote sensing-based approach to forecast the future habitat quality for European badger, a species not abundant and at risk of local extinction in the arid environments of southeastern Spain, by incorporating environmental variables related with the ecosystem functioning and correlated with climate and land use. Using ensemble prediction methods, we designed global spatial distribution models for the distribution range of badger using presence-only data and climate variables. Then, we constructed regional models for an arid region in the southeast Spain using EVI (Enhanced Vegetation Index) derived variables and weighting the pseudo-absences with the global model projections applied to this region. Finally, we forecast the badger potential spatial distribution in the time period 2071-2099 based on IPCC scenarios incorporating the uncertainty derived from the predicted values of EVI-derived variables. By including remotely sensed descriptors of the temporal dynamics and spatial patterns of ecosystem functioning into spatial distribution models, results suggest that future forecast is less favorable for European badgers than not including them. In addition, change in spatial pattern of habitat suitability may become higher than when forecasts are based just on climate variables. Since the validity of future forecast only based on climate variables is currently questioned, conservation policies supported by such information could have a biased vision and overestimate or underestimate the potential changes in species distribution derived from climate change. The incorporation of ecosystem functional attributes derived from remote sensing in the modeling of future forecast may contribute to the improvement of the detection of ecological responses under climate change scenarios.

A review of multi-risk methodologies for natural hazards: Consequences and challenges for a climate change impact assessment.

PubMed

Gallina, Valentina; Torresan, Silvia; Critto, Andrea; Sperotto, Anna; Glade, Thomas; Marcomini, Antonio

2016-03-01

This paper presents a review of existing multi-risk assessment concepts and tools applied by organisations and projects providing the basis for the development of a multi-risk methodology in a climate change perspective. Relevant initiatives were developed for the assessment of multiple natural hazards (e.g. floods, storm surges, droughts) affecting the same area in a defined timeframe (e.g. year, season, decade). Major research efforts were focused on the identification and aggregation of multiple hazard types (e.g. independent, correlated, cascading hazards) by means of quantitative and semi-quantitative approaches. Moreover, several methodologies aim to assess the vulnerability of multiple targets to specific natural hazards by means of vulnerability functions and indicators at the regional and local scale. The overall results of the review show that multi-risk approaches do not consider the effects of climate change and mostly rely on the analysis of static vulnerability (i.e. no time-dependent vulnerabilities, no changes among exposed elements). A relevant challenge is therefore to develop comprehensive formal approaches for the assessment of different climate-induced hazards and risks, including dynamic exposure and vulnerability. This requires the selection and aggregation of suitable hazard and vulnerability metrics to make a synthesis of information about multiple climate impacts, the spatial analysis and ranking of risks, including their visualization and communication to end-users. To face these issues, climate impact assessors should develop cross-sectorial collaborations among different expertise (e.g. modellers, natural scientists, economists) integrating information on climate change scenarios with sectorial climate impact assessment, towards the development of a comprehensive multi-risk assessment process. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Remote-sensing based approach to forecast habitat quality under climate change scenarios

PubMed Central

Requena-Mullor, Juan M.; López, Enrique; Castro, Antonio J.; Alcaraz-Segura, Domingo; Castro, Hermelindo; Reyes, Andrés; Cabello, Javier

2017-01-01

As climate change is expected to have a significant impact on species distributions, there is an urgent challenge to provide reliable information to guide conservation biodiversity policies. In addressing this challenge, we propose a remote sensing-based approach to forecast the future habitat quality for European badger, a species not abundant and at risk of local extinction in the arid environments of southeastern Spain, by incorporating environmental variables related with the ecosystem functioning and correlated with climate and land use. Using ensemble prediction methods, we designed global spatial distribution models for the distribution range of badger using presence-only data and climate variables. Then, we constructed regional models for an arid region in the southeast Spain using EVI (Enhanced Vegetation Index) derived variables and weighting the pseudo-absences with the global model projections applied to this region. Finally, we forecast the badger potential spatial distribution in the time period 2071–2099 based on IPCC scenarios incorporating the uncertainty derived from the predicted values of EVI-derived variables. By including remotely sensed descriptors of the temporal dynamics and spatial patterns of ecosystem functioning into spatial distribution models, results suggest that future forecast is less favorable for European badgers than not including them. In addition, change in spatial pattern of habitat suitability may become higher than when forecasts are based just on climate variables. Since the validity of future forecast only based on climate variables is currently questioned, conservation policies supported by such information could have a biased vision and overestimate or underestimate the potential changes in species distribution derived from climate change. The incorporation of ecosystem functional attributes derived from remote sensing in the modeling of future forecast may contribute to the improvement of the detection of ecological responses under climate change scenarios. PMID:28257501

Data driven approaches vs. qualitative approaches in climate change impact and vulnerability assessment.

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zebisch, Marc; Schneiderbauer, Stefan; Petitta, Marcello

2015-04-01

In the last decade the scope of climate change science has broadened significantly. 15 years ago the focus was mainly on understanding climate change, providing climate change scenarios and giving ideas about potential climate change impacts. Today, adaptation to climate change has become an increasingly important field of politics and one role of science is to inform and consult this process. Therefore, climate change science is not anymore focusing on data driven approaches only (such as climate or climate impact models) but is progressively applying and relying on qualitative approaches including opinion and expertise acquired through interactive processes with local stakeholders and decision maker. Furthermore, climate change science is facing the challenge of normative questions, such us 'how important is a decrease of yield in a developed country where agriculture only represents 3% of the GDP and the supply with agricultural products is strongly linked to global markets and less depending on local production?'. In this talk we will present examples from various applied research and consultancy projects on climate change vulnerabilities including data driven methods (e.g. remote sensing and modelling) to semi-quantitative and qualitative assessment approaches. Furthermore, we will discuss bottlenecks, pitfalls and opportunities in transferring climate change science to policy and decision maker oriented climate services.

Climate information for public health: the role of the IRI climate data library in an integrated knowledge system.

PubMed

del Corral, John; Blumenthal, M Benno; Mantilla, Gilma; Ceccato, Pietro; Connor, Stephen J; Thomson, Madeleine C

2012-09-01

Public health professionals are increasingly concerned about the potential impact of climate variability and change on health outcomes. Protecting public health from the vagaries of climate requires new working relationships between the public health sector and the providers of climate data and information. The Climate Information for Public Health Action initiative at the International Research Institute for Climate and Society (IRI) is designed to increase the public health community's capacity to understand, use and demand appropriate climate data and climate information to mitigate the public health impacts of the climate. Significant challenges to building the capacity of health professionals to use climate information in research and decision-making include the difficulties experienced by many in accessing relevant and timely quality controlled data and information in formats that can be readily incorporated into specific analysis with other data sources. We present here the capacities of the IRI climate data library and show how we have used it to build an integrated knowledge system in the support of the use of climate and environmental information in climate-sensitive decision-making with respect to health. Initiated as an aid facilitating exploratory data analysis for climate scientists, the IRI climate data library has emerged as a powerful tool for interdisciplinary researchers focused on topics related to climate impacts on society, including health.

The Pacific RANET Project

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Postawko, S.; Ah Poe, A.; Morrissey, M.

2004-12-01

There are few places in the world more vulnerable to the effects of climate variability and change than the island nations of the tropical Pacific Ocean. The region also faces great challenges in communicating the issues related to climate to the general population. Lack of communications infrastructure, multiple languages, and knowledgeable personnel to deliver information, are all challenges for these countries. However, a recently developed international consortium is taking the first steps to addressing these challenges. The RANET (RAdio and interNET communications) project was originally developed for the countries of Africa, with initial funding from NOAA, to make weather, climate, and other environmental information more accessible to remote and resource-poor communities. The program is now expanding into Asia and the Pacific. RANET works to build telecommunication bridges between scientific-based products and remote communities that could benefit from such information.?The RANET project in the Pacific is a consortium of partners from the Pacific Island nations, the U.S., New Zealand, Australia, and others. Coordination of the project is loosely overseen by a Steering Committee, made up of representatives from the various interested partners. For regions where the appropriate technology exists (which includes the capital cities of nearly all of the island states of the Pacific), information is downloaded via a digital satellite receiver. This can then be broadcast within a country by many means, including Community FM Radio stations. The information distributed includes technical information needed by meteorological and related services to improve their own products and services, as well as a second level of information designed to serve communities, including weather forecasts, bulletins, warnings, etc. The primary challenge at this time is developing content that is both relevant and understandable to these remote communities. While some information will be common to all countries, it will be necessary to have more location-specific information as well. In addition to education of the general population, it is hoped that making weather, climate, and environmental information more accessible will encourage students from the islands into the study of these areas in their tertiary education.

Encouraging climate-friendly behaviors through a community energy challenge: The effects of information, feedback, and shared stories

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wolske, Kimberly S.

Research suggests that changes in household behavior can play a significant role in mitigating climate change. While surveys indicate that many Americans care about climate change and believe something should be done to reduce it, a number of real and perceived barriers prevent them from acting on that concern. This research investigated two strategies to promote engagement in climate-friendly behaviors: (1) providing feedback about the positive impact of participants' energy-saving efforts on their carbon footprint; and (2) sharing stories about other participants' conservation successes. A random sample of residents in a Midwest college town were invited to participate in a month-long community Energy Challenge that asked households to try to reduce their carbon footprint by 2 percent. Participants were randomly assigned to one of three treatment groups: monthly feedback, weekly feedback, and weekly feedback + stories. All participants received a booklet that gave procedural guidance and estimated carbon savings for 34 behaviors related to personal transportation, household energy use, and dietary choices. In addition, all participants were asked to track their efforts in an online log. For participants in the weekly feedback conditions, these logs estimated their total carbon savings for each week of the challenge. Weekly e-mails were sent to all groups to encourage completion of the logs. For participants in the weekly feedback + stories condition, these reminders included anecdotes about other participants' conservation experiences. Overall, the results suggest that the basic format of the Energy Challenge provided a supportive setting for developing new climate-friendly behaviors and increasing existing ones. The majority of participants (78 percent), regardless of treatment condition, achieved the Energy Challenge goal, with a median carbon savings of 6 percent. For some participants, weekly feedback helped reduce perceived barriers related to driving less and the perception that conserving requires sacrifice. Participants who had less prior conservation experience as well as those who received weekly feedback were more likely to engage in a broader set of climate-friendly behaviors. Finally, results from a follow-up survey suggest that most participants maintained the behaviors they adopted one month after the Energy Challenge ended.

Participatory Climate Research in a Dynamic Urban Context

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Horton, R. M.

2016-12-01

The Consortium for Climate Risk in the Urban Northeast (CCRUN), one of ten NOAA-RISA's, supports resilience efforts in the urban corridor stretching from Philadelphia to Boston. Challenges and opportunities include the diverse set of needs in broad urban contexts, as well as the integration of interdisciplinary perspectives. CCRUN is addressing these challenges through 1) stakeholder surveys, 2) webinar series that enable scientists to engage with stakeholders, 3) leveraging extreme events as focusing opportunities, and 4) the development of an integrated project framework. Moving forward, increasing extreme events can lead to unexpected detours, and further effort is needed around facilitating place-based research in an interdisciplinary context.

The 2015 National School Climate Survey: The Experiences of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Youth in Our Nation's Schools. Executive Summary

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kosciw, Joseph G.; Greytak, Emily A.; Giga, Noreen M.; Villenas, Christian; Danischewski, David J.

2016-01-01

The Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) "National School Climate Survey" is our flagship report on the school experiences of LGBTQ youth in schools, including the extent of the challenges that they face at school and the school-based resources that support LGBTQ students' well-being. The survey has consistently indicated…

The 2015 National School Climate Survey: The Experiences of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Youth in Our Nation's Schools

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kosciw, Joseph G.; Greytak, Emily A.; Giga, Noreen M.; Villenas, Christian; Danischewski, David J.

2016-01-01

The Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) "National School Climate Survey" is our flagship report on the school experiences of LGBTQ youth in schools, including the extent of the challenges that they face at school and the school-based resources that support LGBTQ students' well-being. The survey has consistently indicated…

The 2015 National Security Strategy: Authorities, Changes, Issues for Congress

DTIC Science & Technology

2016-02-26

climate change ;  ensure access to shared spaces (expanding cyberspace and including outer space and air and maritime security); and  increase global...hand, one could conclude that these, along with confronting climate change , convey both a wider range of national security challenges in terms of...The 2015 National Security Strategy: Authorities, Changes , Issues for Congress Nathan J. Lucas, Coordinator Section Research Manager Kathleen

NOAA and the NRC America's Climate Choices Study

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Koblinsky, C. J.

2010-12-01

The Department of Commerce Appropriations Act of 2008 (Public Law 110-161) called for NOAA to execute an agreement with the National Academy of Sciences to: “…investigate and study the serious and sweeping issues relating to global climate change and make recommendations regarding what steps must be taken and what strategies must be adopted in response to global climate change, including the science and technology challenges thereof.” This led to the America’s Climate Choices study by the National Academy of Sciences. Consequently, NOAA has fully supported financially and endorsed the approach by the Academy. More recently, NOAA has proposed the formation of a Climate Service. Many of the recommendations from the America’s Climate Choices study address the foundations and future needs for climate science and services. In this presentation, I will describe how NOAA’s work in climate services is aligned with some of the recommendations in the America’s Climate Choices study.

Advancing the adaptive capacity of social-ecological systems to absorb climate extremes

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Thonicke, Kirsten; Bahn, Michael; Bardgett, Richard; Bloemen, Jasper; Chabay, Ilan; Erb, Karlheinz; Giamberini, Mariasilvia; Gingrich, Simone; Lavorel, Sandra; Liehr, Stefan; Rammig, Anja

2017-04-01

The recent and projected increases in climate variability and the frequency of climate extremes are posing a profound challenge to society and the biosphere (IPCC 2012, IPCC 2013). Climate extremes can affect natural and managed ecosystems more severely than gradual warming. The ability of ecosystems to resist and recover from climate extremes is therefore of fundamental importance for society, which strongly relies on their ability to supply provisioning, regulating, supporting and cultural services. Society in turn triggers land-use and management decisions that affect ecosystem properties. Thus, ecological and socio-economic conditions are tightly coupled in what has been referred to as the social-ecological system. For ensuring human well-being in the light of climate extremes it is crucial to enhance the resilience of the social-ecological system (SES) across spatial, temporal and institutional scales. Stakeholders, such as resource managers, urban, landscape and conservation planners, decision-makers in agriculture and forestry, as well as natural hazards managers, require an improved knowledge base for better-informed decision making. To date the vulnerability and adaptive capacity of SESs to climate extremes is not well understood and large uncertainties exist as to the legacies of climate extremes on ecosystems and on related societal structures and processes. Moreover, we lack empirical evidence and incorporation of simulated future ecosystem and societal responses to support pro-active management and enhance social-ecological resilience. In our presentation, we outline the major research gaps and challenges to be addressed for understanding and enhancing the adaptive capacity of SES to absorb and adapt to climate extremes, including acquisition and elaboration of long-term monitoring data and improvement of ecological models to better project climate extreme effects and provide model uncertainties. We highlight scientific challenges and discuss conceptual and observational gaps that need to be overcome to advance this inter- and transdisciplinary topic.

How the National Estuary Programs Address Environmental Issues

EPA Pesticide Factsheets

Estuaries face many challenges including, alteration of natural hydrologic flows, aquatic nuisance species, climate change, declines in fish and wildlife populations, habitat loss and degradation, nutrient loads, pathogens, stormwater and toxics.

Teaching climate change: A 16-year record of introducing undergraduates to the fundamentals of the climate system and its complexities

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Winckler, G.; Pfirman, S. L.; Hays, J. D.; Schlosser, P.; Ting, M.

2011-12-01

Responding to climate change challenges in the near and far future, will require a wide range of knowledge, skills and a sense of the complexities involved. Since 1995, Columbia University and Barnard College have offered an undergraduate class that strives to provide students with some of these skills. The 'Climate System' course is a component of the three-part 'Earth Environmental Systems' series and provides the fundamentals needed for understanding the Earth's climate system and its variability. Being designed both for science majors and non-science majors, the emphasis of the course is on basic physical explanations, rather than mathematical derivations of the laws that govern the climate system. The course includes lectures, labs and discussion. Laboratory exercises primarily explore the climate system using global datasets, augmented by hands-on activities. Course materials are available for public use at http://eesc.columbia.edu/courses/ees/climate/camel_modules/ and http://ncseonline.org/climate/cms.cfm?id=3783. In this presentation we discuss the experiences, challenges and future demands of conveying the science of the Earth's Climate System and the risks facing the planet to a wide spectrum of undergraduate students, many of them without a background in the sciences. Using evaluation data we reflect how the course, the students, and the faculty have evolved over the past 16 years as the earth warmed, pressures for adaptation planning and mitigation measures increased, and public discourse became increasingly polarized.

Holistic uncertainty analysis in river basin modeling for climate vulnerability assessment

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Taner, M. U.; Wi, S.; Brown, C.

2017-12-01

The challenges posed by uncertain future climate are a prominent concern for water resources managers. A number of frameworks exist for assessing the impacts of climate-related uncertainty, including internal climate variability and anthropogenic climate change, such as scenario-based approaches and vulnerability-based approaches. While in many cases climate uncertainty may be dominant, other factors such as future evolution of the river basin, hydrologic response and reservoir operations are potentially significant sources of uncertainty. While uncertainty associated with modeling hydrologic response has received attention, very little attention has focused on the range of uncertainty and possible effects of the water resources infrastructure and management. This work presents a holistic framework that allows analysis of climate, hydrologic and water management uncertainty in water resources systems analysis with the aid of a water system model designed to integrate component models for hydrology processes and water management activities. The uncertainties explored include those associated with climate variability and change, hydrologic model parameters, and water system operation rules. A Bayesian framework is used to quantify and model the uncertainties at each modeling steps in integrated fashion, including prior and the likelihood information about model parameters. The framework is demonstrated in a case study for the St. Croix Basin located at border of United States and Canada.

Managing for climate change on protected areas: An adaptive management decision making framework.

PubMed

Tanner-McAllister, Sherri L; Rhodes, Jonathan; Hockings, Marc

2017-12-15

Current protected area management is becoming more challenging with advancing climate change and current park management techniques may not be adequate to adapt for effective management into the future. The framework presented here provides an adaptive management decision making process to assist protected area managers with adapting on-park management to climate change. The framework sets out a 4 step process. One, a good understanding of the park's context within climate change. Secondly, a thorough understanding of the park management systems including governance, planning and management systems. Thirdly, a series of management options set out as an accept/prevent change style structure, including a systematic assessment of those options. The adaptive approaches are defined as acceptance of anthropogenic climate change impact and attempt to adapt to a new climatic environment or prevention of change and attempt to maintain current systems under new climatic variations. Last, implementation and monitoring of long term trends in response to ecological responses to management interventions and assessing management effectiveness. The framework addresses many issues currently with park management in dealing with climate change including the considerable amount of research focussing on 'off-reserve' strategies, and threats and stress focused in situ park management. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Climate Education: Empowering Today's Youth to Meet Tomorrow's Challenges

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Schreiner, Camilla; Henriksen, Ellen K.; Kirkeby Hansen, Pal J.

2005-01-01

An enhanced greenhouse effect, leading to global warming and associated changes in the climate system, is arguably one of the greatest environmental challenges facing humankind in the 21st century. The challenge extends to the scientific, political, economic and ethical domains of the human enterprise. The science of climate change involves…

Presentation of uncertainties on web platforms for climate change information

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Nocke, Thomas; Wrobel, Markus; Reusser, Dominik

2014-05-01

Climate research has a long tradition, however there is still uncertainty about the specific effects of climate change. One of the key tasks is - beyond discussing climate change and its impacts in specialist groups - to present these to a wider audience. In that respect, decision-makers in the public sector as well as directly affected professional groups require to obtain easy-to-understand information. These groups are not made up of specialist scientists. This gives rise to the challenge that the scientific information must be presented such that it is commonly understood, however, the complexity of the science behind needs to be incorporated. In particular, this requires the explicit representation of spatial and temporal uncertainty information to lay people. Within this talk/poster we survey how climate change and climate impact uncertainty information is presented on various climate service web-based platforms. We outline how the specifics of this medium make it challenging to find adequate and readable representations of uncertainties. First, we introduce a multi-step approach in communicating the uncertainty basing on a typology of uncertainty distinguishing between epistemic, natural stochastic, and human reflexive uncertainty. Then, we compare existing concepts and representations for uncertainty communication with current practices on web-based platforms, including own solutions within our web platforms ClimateImpactsOnline and ci:grasp. Finally, we review surveys on how spatial uncertainty visualization techniques are conceived by untrainded users.

Remote sensing applications of wildland fire and air quality in China

Treesearch

John J. Qu; Xianjun Hao; Yongqiang Liu; Allen R. Riebau; Haoruo Yi; Xianlin Qin

2009-01-01

As one of the most populous and geographically largest countries, China faces many problems including industrial growth, economic sustainability, food security, climate change, and air pollution. Interwoven with these challenges,...

A Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) on Climate Change

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Somerville, R. C. J.

2015-12-01

A climate change MOOC is a way to reach a global audience of many thousands of students. What was it like to teach climate change to an invisible class over the Internet, and how well did it work? The need to educate many people about climate change seems obvious. Climate change is one of the most important existential issues of our time. Sound science can inform wise policy, and coping successfully with climate change is surely an urgent global challenge that requires scientific input and a scientifically informed public. Today many scientists have opportunities to communicate what science has learned about climate and climate change. Yet being a scientific expert on these subjects does not necessarily mean having the skills to communicate effectively to a broad audience. Like learning to ski or to drive a car skillfully, learning to communicate climate science well takes time and effort. The MOOC format has its own special challenges. Effective communication should always resemble a conversation rather than a monologue, but a conversation can be difficult when the teacher will never see or hear from the great majority of students in the class. In addition, a well-funded and effective professional disinformation campaign has been successful in sowing widespread confusion about climate change. As a result, many people mistakenly think climate change science is unreliable or is controversial within the expert community. One can expect that some of the students taking the MOOC will have been influenced by this sort of erroneous information. Thus, one appealing topic to include in a MOOC on climate change is to give useful guidelines for recognizing and rejecting junk science and disinformation. This talk will describe one climate scientist's first-person participation in teaching a climate change MOOC.

Climate Change in U.S. South Atlantic, Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean Fisheries Regions

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Roffer, M. A.; Hernandez, D. L.; Lamkin, J. T.; Pugliese, R.; Reichert, M.; Hall, C.

2016-02-01

A review of the recent evidence that climate change is affecting marine ecosystems in the U.S. fishery management zones of the South Atlantic, Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean regions will be presented. This will include affects on the living marine resources (including fish, invertebrates, marine mammals and turtles), fisheries, habitat and people. Emphasis will be given on the effects that impact managed species and the likely new challenges that they present to fishery managers. The evidence is being derived from the results of the "Climate Variability and Fisheries Workshop: Setting Research Priorities for the Gulf of Mexico, South Atlantic, and Caribbean Regions," October 26-28, 2015 in St. Petersburg Beach, Florida. Commonalities and regional differences will be presented in terms of how climate variability is likely to impact distribution, catch, catchability, socioeconomics, and management.

Recent Challenges Facing US Government Climate Science Access and Application

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Goldman, G. T.; Carter, J. M.; Licker, R.

2017-12-01

Climate scientists have long faced politicization of their work, especially those working within the US federal government. However, political interference in federal government climate change science has escalated in the current political era with efforts by political actors to undermine and disrupt infrastructure supporting climate science. This has included funding changes, decreased access to climate science information on federal agency websites, restrictions on media access to scientific experts within the government, and rolling back of science-based policies designed to incorporate and respond to climate science findings. What are the impacts of such changes for both the climate science community and the broader public? What can be done to ensure that access to and application of climate change-related research to policy decisions continues? We will summarize and analyze the state of climate change research and application in the US government. The impacts of political interference in climate change science as well as opportunities the scientific community has to support climate science in the US government, will be discussed.

Subsurface Thermal Energy Storage for Improved Air Conditioning Efficiency

DTIC Science & Technology

2016-11-01

current cost liability is the potential for several significant structural changes at DoD facilities around the world. These challenges include... climate , with an average high temperature of 90 degrees in July, and an average low temperature of 39 in January. The annual average temperature is 65.6...in new systems. The first three steps are recommended for every geothermal system installed in cooling dominated areas ( climatically hot areas such

The CO2nnect activities

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Eugenia, Marcu

2014-05-01

Climate change is one of the biggest challenges we face today. A first step is the understanding the problem, more exactly what is the challenge and the differences people can make. Pupils need a wide competencies to meet the challenges of sustainable development - including climate change. The CO2nnect activities are designed to support learning which can provide pupils the abilities, skills, attitudes and awareness as well as knowledge and understanding of the issues. The project "Together for a clean and healthy world" is part of "The Global Educational Campaign CO2nnect- CO2 on the way to school" and it was held in our school in the period between February and October 2009. It contained a variety of curricular and extra-curricular activities, adapted to students aged from 11 to 15. These activities aimed to develop in students the necessary skills to understanding man's active role in improving the quality of the environment, putting an end to its degrading process and to reducing the effects of climate changes caused by the human intervention in nature, including transport- a source of CO2 pollution. The activity which I propose can be easily adapted to a wide range of age groups and linked to the curricula of many subjects: - Investigate CO2 emissions from travel to school -Share the findings using an international database -Compare and discuss CO2 emissions -Submit questions to a climate- and transport expert -Partner with other schools -Meet with people in your community to discuss emissions from transport Intended learning outcomes for pupils who participate in the CO2nnect campaign are: Understanding of the interconnected mobility- and climate change issue climate change, its causes and consequences greenhouse-gas emissions from transport and mobility the interlinking of social, environmental, cultural and economic aspects of the local transport system how individual choices and participation can contribute to creating a more sustainable development Skills and abilities actively participate in local democratic processes interact with local decision-makers collaborate with researchers and generate reliable information create innovative proposals and suggest alternatives for a more sustainable society use ICT and the internet interactively for partnership and data analysis act and think autonomously Awareness sensitivity and awareness of the effect of transport on climate change and the sustainability issues raised by climate change awareness that each person has a role in climate change, including CO2 emissions from transport Attitudes and values develop concern about the climate change issue, its causes and impacts develop motivation to participate in decision-making for a more sustainable society realize that they have opportunities to help create a more sustainable society, both as individuals and through common actions

Monitoring and Predicting the African Climate for Food Security

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Thiaw, W. M.

2015-12-01

Drought is one of the greatest challenges in Africa due to its impact on access to sanitary water and food. In response to this challenge, the international community has mobilized to develop famine early warning systems (FEWS) to bring safe food and water to populations in need. Over the past several decades, much attention has focused on advance risk planning in agriculture and water. This requires frequent updates of weather and climate outlooks. This paper describes the active role of NOAA's African Desk in FEWS. Emphasis is on the operational products from short and medium range weather forecasts to subseasonal and seasonal outlooks in support of humanitarian relief programs. Tools to provide access to real time weather and climate information to the public are described. These include the downscaling of the U.S. National Multi-model Ensemble (NMME) to improve seasonal forecasts in support of Regional Climate Outlook Forums (RCOFs). The subseasonal time scale has emerged as extremely important to many socio-economic sectors. Drawing from advances in numerical models that can now provide a better representation of the MJO, operational subseasonal forecasts are included in the African Desk product suite. These along with forecasts skill assessment and verifications are discussed. The presentation will also highlight regional hazards outlooks basis for FEWSNET food security outlooks.

Co-Producing Accessible Climate Knowledge: Case Study of a Scientific Challenge

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bourqui, M.; Charriere, M. K. M.; Bolduc, C.

2016-12-01

This talk presents the process of and the lessons learned from a scientific challenge where climate scientists re-framed their research for the general public in interaction with members of the general public. This challenge was organized by Climanosco in the context of its launch in the fall 2015 and is due to end in September 2016. It led to the publication of 11 articles from scientific authors spanning 7 countries and engaged the participation of 24 members of the general public. The process of interaction between scientists and members of the general public took place along an extended peer-review process which included on-line community discussions and non-scientific review reports. Details of this interaction, as perceived by the participants and evaluated by a survey, will be discussed in this talk. On the longer term this co-production of accessible climate knowledge, which represents the main goal of the non-profit association Climanosco, is meant to serve as a reliable, research-based source, the decision makers but also the journalists, teachers and communities around the world.

Effective Strategies for Talking about Climate Change in the Classroom

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Busch, K. C.; Osborne, Jonathan

2014-01-01

Teaching about climate science presents some unique challenges. Unlike many other science topics, mitigation and adaptation to climate change will require students to take action. This article outlines five major challenges to communicating about climate change in the classroom, drawing on research in environmental psychology: scepticism,…

Assessment of Coastal Governance for Climate Change Adaptation in Kenya

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ojwang, Lenice; Rosendo, Sergio; Celliers, Louis; Obura, David; Muiti, Anastasia; Kamula, James; Mwangi, Maina

2017-11-01

The coastline of Kenya already experiences effects of climate change, adding to existing pressures such as urbanization. Integrated coastal management (ICM) is increasingly recognized as a key policy response to deal with the multiple challenges facing coastal zones, including climate change. It can create an enabling governance environment for effective local action on climate change by facilitating a structured approach to dealing with coastal issues. It encompasses the actions of a wide range of actors, including local governments close to people and their activities affected by climate change. Functioning ICM also offers opportunities for reducing risks and building resilience. This article applied a modified capitals approach framework (CAF), consisting of five "capitals," to assess the status of county government capacity to respond to climate change within the context of coastal governance in three county governments in Kenya. The baseline was defined in terms of governance relating to the implementation of the interrelated policy systems of ICM and coastal climate change adaptation (CCA). The CAF framework provided a systematic approach to building a governance baseline against which to assess the progress of county governments in responding to climate change. It identified gaps in human capacity, financial resource allocation to adaptation and access to climate change information. Furthermore, it showed that having well-developed institutions, including regulatory frameworks at the national level can facilitate but does not automatically enable adaptation at the county level.

Simulating changes in ecosystem structure and composition in response to climate change: a case study focused on tropical nitrogen-fixing trees (Invited)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Medvigy, D.; Levy, J.; Xu, X.; Batterman, S. A.; Hedin, L.

2013-12-01

Ecosystems, by definition, involve a community of organisms. These communities generally exhibit heterogeneity in their structure and composition as a result of local variations in climate, soil, topography, disturbance history, and other factors. Climate-driven shifts in ecosystems will likely include an internal re-organization of community structure and composition and as well as the introduction of novel species. In terms of vegetation, this ecosystem heterogeneity can occur at relatively small scales, sometimes of the order of tens of meters or even less. Because this heterogeneous landscape generally has a variable and nonlinear response to environmental perturbations, it is necessary to carefully aggregate the local competitive dynamics between individual plants to the large scales of tens or hundreds of kilometers represented in climate models. Accomplishing this aggregation in a computationally efficient way has proven to be an extremely challenging task. To meet this challenge, the Ecosystem Demography 2 (ED2) model statistically characterizes a distribution of local resource environments, and then simulates the competition between individuals of different sizes and species (or functional groupings). Within this framework, it is possible to explicitly simulate the impacts of climate change on ecosystem structure and composition, including both internal re-organization and the introduction of novel species or functional groups. This presentation will include several illustrative applications of the evolution of ecosystem structure and composition under climate change. One application pertains to the role of nitrogen-fixing species in tropical forests. Will increasing CO2 concentrations increase the demand for nutrients and perhaps give a competitive edge to nitrogen-fixing species? Will potentially warmer and drier conditions make some tropical forests more water-limited, reducing the demand for nitrogen, thereby giving a competitive advantage to non-nitrogen-fixing species? Will the response of nitrogen-fixing species to climate change be sensitive to local disturbance histories?

Challenges in the development of very high resolution Earth System Models for climate science

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Rasch, Philip J.; Xie, Shaocheng; Ma, Po-Lun; Lin, Wuyin; Wan, Hui; Qian, Yun

2017-04-01

The authors represent the 20+ members of the ACME atmosphere development team. The US Department of Energy (DOE) has, like many other organizations around the world, identified the need for an Earth System Model capable of rapid completion of decade to century length simulations at very high (vertical and horizontal) resolution with good climate fidelity. Two years ago DOE initiated a multi-institution effort called ACME (Accelerated Climate Modeling for Energy) to meet this an extraordinary challenge, targeting a model eventually capable of running at 10-25km horizontal and 20-400m vertical resolution through the troposphere on exascale computational platforms at speeds sufficient to complete 5+ simulated years per day. I will outline the challenges our team has encountered in development of the atmosphere component of this model, and the strategies we have been using for tuning and debugging a model that we can barely afford to run on today's computational platforms. These strategies include: 1) evaluation at lower resolutions; 2) ensembles of short simulations to explore parameter space, and perform rough tuning and evaluation; 3) use of regionally refined versions of the model for probing high resolution model behavior at less expense; 4) use of "auto-tuning" methodologies for model tuning; and 5) brute force long climate simulations.

Cold-water coral carbonate mounds as unique palaeo-archives: the Plio-Pleistocene Challenger Mound record (NE Atlantic)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Thierens, M.; Browning, E.; Pirlet, H.; Loutre, M.-F.; Dorschel, B.; Huvenne, V. A. I.; Titschack, J.; Colin, C.; Foubert, A.; Wheeler, A. J.

2013-08-01

Through the interplay of a stabilising cold-water coral framework and a dynamic sedimentary environment, cold-water coral carbonate mounds create distinctive centres of bio-geological accumulation in often complex (continental margin) settings. The IODP Expedition 307 drilling of the Challenger Mound (eastern Porcupine Seabight; NE Atlantic) not only retrieved the first complete developmental history of a coral carbonate mound, it also exposed a unique, Early-Pleistocene sedimentary sequence of exceptional resolution along the mid-latitudinal NE Atlantic margin. In this study, a comprehensive assessment of the Challenger Mound as an archive of Quaternary palaeo-environmental change and long-term coral carbonate mound development is presented. New and existing environmental proxy records, including clay mineralogy, planktonic foraminifer and calcareous nannofossil biostratigraphy and assemblage counts, planktonic foraminifer oxygen isotopes and siliciclastic particle-size, are thereby discussed within a refined chronostratigraphic and climatic context. Overall, the development of the Challenger Mound shows a strong affinity to the Plio-Pleistocene evolution of the Northern Hemisphere climate system, albeit not being completely in phase with it. The two major oceanographic and climatic transitions of the Plio-Pleistocene - the Late Pliocene/Early Pleistocene intensification of continental ice-sheet development and the mid-Pleistocene transition to the more extremely variable and more extensively glaciated late Quaternary - mark two major thresholds in Challenger Mound development: its Late Pliocene (>2.74 Ma) origin and its Middle-Late Pleistocene to recent decline. Distinct surface-water perturbations (i.e. water-mass/polar front migrations, productivity changes, melt-water pulses) are identified throughout the sequence, which can be linked to the intensity and extent of ice development on the nearby British-Irish Isles since the earliest Pleistocene. Glaciation-induced shifts in surface-water primary productivity are thereby proposed to fundamentally control cold-water coral growth, which in turn influences on-mound sediment accumulation and, hence, coral carbonate mound development throughout the Pleistocene. As local factors, such as proximal ice-sheet dynamics and on-mound changes in cold-water coral density, significantly affected the development of the Challenger Mound, they can potentially explain the nature of its palaeo-record and its offsets with the periodicities of global climate variability. On the other hand, owing to this unique setting, a regionally exceptional, high-resolution palaeo-record of Early Pleistocene (ca 2.6 to 2.1 Ma) environmental change (including early British-Irish ice-sheet development), broadly in phase with the 41 ka-paced global climate system, is preserved in the lower Challenger Mound. All in all, the Challenger Mound record highlights the wider relevance of coral carbonate mound archives and their potential to capture unique records from dynamic (continental margin) environments.

Detection and attribution of climate extremes in the observed record

DOE PAGES

Easterling, David R.; Kunkel, Kenneth E.; Wehner, Michael F.; ...

2016-01-18

We present an overview of practices and challenges related to the detection and attribution of observed changes in climate extremes. Detection is the identification of a statistically significant change in the extreme values of a climate variable over some period of time. Issues in detection discussed include data quality, coverage, and completeness. Attribution takes that detection of a change and uses climate model simulations to evaluate whether a cause can be assigned to that change. Additionally, we discuss a newer field of attribution, event attribution, where individual extreme events are analyzed for the express purpose of assigning some measure ofmore » whether that event was directly influenced by anthropogenic forcing of the climate system.« less

The Impact of Climate Change on Infectious Disease Transmission: Perceptions of CDC Health Professionals in Shanxi Province, China

PubMed Central

Wei, Junni; Hansen, Alana; Zhang, Ying; Li, Hong; Liu, Qiyong; Sun, Yehuan; Xue, Shulian; Zhao, Shufang; Bi, Peng

2014-01-01

There have been increasing concerns about the challenge of emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases due to climate change, especially in developing countries including China. Health professionals play a significant role in the battle to control and prevent infectious diseases. This study therefore aims to investigate the perceptions and attitudes of health professionals at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in different levels in China, and to consider adaptation measures to deal with the challenge of climate change. In 2013, a cross-sectional questionnaire survey was undertaken among 314 staff in CDCs in Shanxi Province, China, whose routine work involves disease control and prevention. Data were analyzed using descriptive methods and logistic regression. A majority of the CDC staff were aware of the health risks from climate change, especially its impacts on infectious disease transmission in their jurisdictions, and believed climate change might bring about both temporal and spatial change in transmission patterns. It was thought that adaptation measures should be established including: strengthening/improving currently existing disease surveillance systems and vector monitoring; building CDC capacity in terms of infrastructure and in-house health professional training; development and refinement of relevant legislation, policies and guidelines; better coordination among various government departments; the involvement of the community in infectious disease interventions; and collaborative research with other institutions. This study provides a snapshot of the understanding of CDC staff regarding climate change risks relevant to infectious diseases and adaptation in China. Results may help inform future efforts to develop adaptation measures to minimize infectious disease risks due to climate change. PMID:25285440

Partnering International Universities to Enhance Climate Literacy through Interdisciplinary, Cross-Cultural Learning

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

North, L. A.; Polk, J.; Strenecky, B.

2015-12-01

The climate change phenomenon will present complex, far-reaching challenges and opportunities, which will require leaders well-versed in interdisciplinary learning and international understanding. In an effort to develop the next generation of future leaders prepared for these challenges and opportunities, faculty from Western Kentucky University (WKU) and the University of Akureyri (UNAK), Iceland partnered to co-teach a course in climate change science and communication in Iceland. Students from both Institutions participated in the course to further enhance the cross-learning opportunity presented to the students. The 11-day course stationed out of three cities in Iceland, including Reykjavík, Vik, and Akureyri, the Icelandic gateway to the Arctic. In addition to undertaking field experiences such as hiking on glaciers, exploring ice caves, and touring geothermal plants, the group also hosted forums to discuss climate change with members of the Icelandic community, and completed The $100 Solution™ service-learning projects. A culminating point of the study abroad experience was a presentation by the students to persons from the University of Akureyri and representatives from the neighboring Icelandic communities about what they had learned about climate change science and communication during their travels. Through this experience, students were able to share their knowledge, which in turn gave them a deeper understanding of the issues they were learning throughout the study abroad program. In short, the program combined interdisciplinary learning, service-learning, and international understanding toward the goal of preparing the leaders of tomorrow with the skills to address climate change challenges.

Food security and marine capture fisheries: characteristics, trends, drivers and future perspectives

PubMed Central

Garcia, Serge M.; Rosenberg, Andrew A.

2010-01-01

World population is expected to grow from the present 6.8 billion people to about 9 billion by 2050. The growing need for nutritious and healthy food will increase the demand for fisheries products from marine sources, whose productivity is already highly stressed by excessive fishing pressure, growing organic pollution, toxic contamination, coastal degradation and climate change. Looking towards 2050, the question is how fisheries governance, and the national and international policy and legal frameworks within which it is nested, will ensure a sustainable harvest, maintain biodiversity and ecosystem functions, and adapt to climate change. This paper looks at global fisheries production, the state of resources, contribution to food security and governance. It describes the main changes affecting the sector, including geographical expansion, fishing capacity-building, natural variability, environmental degradation and climate change. It identifies drivers and future challenges, while suggesting how new science, policies and interventions could best address those challenges. PMID:20713390

Nation-building policies in Timor-Leste: disaster risk reduction, including climate change adaptation.

PubMed

Mercer, Jessica; Kelman, Ilan; do Rosario, Francisco; de Deus de Jesus Lima, Abilio; da Silva, Augusto; Beloff, Anna-Maija; McClean, Alex

2014-10-01

Few studies have explored the relationships between nation-building, disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation. Focusing on small island developing states, this paper examines nation-building in Timor-Leste, a small island developing state that recently achieved independence. Nation-building in Timor-Leste is explored in the context of disaster risk reduction, which necessarily includes climate change adaptation. The study presents a synopsis of Timor-Leste's history and its nation-building efforts as well as an overview of the state of knowledge of disaster risk reduction including climate change adaptation. It also offers an analysis of significant gaps and challenges in terms of vertical and horizontal governance, large donor presence, data availability and the integration of disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation for nation-building in Timor-Leste. Relevant and applicable lessons are provided from other small island developing states to assist Timor-Leste in identifying its own trajectory out of underdevelopment while it builds on existing strengths. © 2014 The Author(s). Disasters © Overseas Development Institute, 2014.

Multidisciplinary approaches to climate change questions

USGS Publications Warehouse

Middleton, Beth A.; LePage, Ben A.

2011-01-01

Multidisciplinary approaches are required to address the complex environmental problems of our time. Solutions to climate change problems are good examples of situations requiring complex syntheses of ideas from a vast set of disciplines including science, engineering, social science, and the humanities. Unfortunately, most ecologists have narrow training, and are not equipped to bring their environmental skills to the table with interdisciplinary teams to help solve multidisciplinary problems. To address this problem, new graduate training programs and workshops sponsored by various organizations are providing opportunities for scientists and others to learn to work together in multidisciplinary teams. Two examples of training in multidisciplinary thinking include those organized by the Santa Fe Institute and Dahlem Workshops. In addition, many interdisciplinary programs have had successes in providing insight into climate change problems including the International Panel on Climate Change, the Joint North American Carbon Program, the National Academy of Science Research Grand Challenges Initiatives, and the National Academy of Science. These programs and initiatives have had some notable success in outlining some of the problems and solutions to climate change. Scientists who can offer their specialized expertise to interdisciplinary teams will be more successful in helping to solve the complex problems related to climate change.

Integrated approaches to climate-crop modelling: needs and challenges.

PubMed

Betts, Richard A

2005-11-29

This paper discusses the need for a more integrated approach to modelling changes in climate and crops, and some of the challenges posed by this. While changes in atmospheric composition are expected to exert an increasing radiative forcing of climate change leading to further warming of global mean temperatures and shifts in precipitation patterns, these are not the only climatic processes which may influence crop production. Changes in the physical characteristics of the land cover may also affect climate; these may arise directly from land use activities and may also result from the large-scale responses of crops to seasonal, interannual and decadal changes in the atmospheric state. Climate models used to drive crop models may, therefore, need to consider changes in the land surface, either as imposed boundary conditions or as feedbacks from an interactive climate-vegetation model. Crops may also respond directly to changes in atmospheric composition, such as the concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO2), ozone (03) and compounds of sulphur and nitrogen, so crop models should consider these processes as well as climate change. Changes in these, and the responses of the crops, may be intimately linked with meteorological processes so crop and climate models should consider synergies between climate and atmospheric chemistry. Some crop responses may occur at scales too small to significantly influence meteorology, so may not need to be included as feedbacks within climate models. However, the volume of data required to drive the appropriate crop models may be very large, especially if short-time-scale variability is important. Implementation of crop models within climate models would minimize the need to transfer large quantities of data between separate modelling systems. It should also be noted that crop responses to climate change may interact with other impacts of climate change, such as hydrological changes. For example, the availability of water for irrigation may be affected by changes in runoff as a direct consequence of climate change, and may also be affected by climate-related changes in demand for water for other uses. It is, therefore, necessary to consider the interactions between the responses of several impacts sectors to climate change. Overall, there is a strong case for a much closer coupling between models of climate, crops and hydrology, but this in itself poses challenges arising from issues of scale and errors in the models. A strategy is proposed whereby the pursuit of a fully coupled climate-chemistry-crop-hydrology model is paralleled by continued use of separate climate and land surface models but with a focus on consistency between the models.

Birmingham Urban Climate Laboratory (BUCL): Experiences, Challenges and Applications of an Urban Temperature Network

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Muller, Catherine; Chapman, Lee; Young, Duick; Grimmond, Sue; Cai, Xiaoming

2013-04-01

The Birmingham Urban Climate Laboratory (BUCL) has recently been established by the University of Birmingham. BUCL is an in-situ, real-time urban network that will incorporate 3 nested networks - a wide-array of 25 weather stations, a dense array of 131 low-cost air temperature sensors and a fine-array of temperature sensor across the city-centre (50/km^2) - with the primary aim of monitoring air temperatures across a morphologically-heterogeneous urban conurbation for a variety of applications. During its installation there have been a number of challenges to overcome, including siting equipment in suitable urban locations, ensuring that the measurements were 'representative' of the local-scale climate, managing a large, near real-time data set and implementing QA/QC procedures. From these experiences, the establishment of a standardised urban meteorological network metadata protocol has been proposed in order to improve data quality, to ensure the end-user has access to all the supplementary information they would require for conducting valid analyses and to encourage the adequate recording and documentation of any changes to in-situ urban networks over time. This paper will provide an introduction to the BUCL in-situ network, give an overview of the challenges and experiences gained from its implementation, and finally discuss the proposed applications of the network, including its use in remote sensing observations of urban temperatures, as well as health and infrastructure applications.

More than a thousand words: Helping science speak for itself (Invited)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hassol, S. J.; Somerville, R. C.; Hussin, D. R.

2013-12-01

Our community has awakened to the complex challenges of communicating about climate change when much more than the science is at issue. Our awareness now includes cultural and psychological issues, and it is critical to continue this focus. At the same time, most people still say they need more information about the science, and so we are challenged to deliver that information in more accessible and effective ways. We are experimenting with some new strategies and techniques at our website, climatecommunication.org. We recently created ten narrated, animated videos that visualize important aspects of climate science. These range from explaining the iconic Keeling Curve to addressing how we know the recent warming is human-induced, to an overview of actions that can stabilize climate affordably. These videos provide a kind of 'guided tour' through what can otherwise be difficult-to-understand scientific graphs. Through other video resources on our site, including answers to common questions and biographical videos of our science advisors, we illuminate the fascinating process of science and portray scientists as the interesting, multi-faceted people they are. This can help challenge the stereotype of scientists, and enhance trust by revealing that scientists share many values and concerns with their fellow citizens. In this talk, we explore the resources available on climatecommunication.org, and discuss our ideas for combining accurate science with effective techniques for communicating with the public.

Key Concepts for and Assessment of an Undergraduate Class that Engages Engineering Students in Climate Change Grand Challenge

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Powers, S. E.; DeWaters, J.; Dhaniyala, S.

2015-12-01

Engineers must take a leading role in addressing the challenges of mitigating climate change and adapting to the inevitable changes that our world is facing. Yet climate change classes targeting engineering students are scarce. Technical education must focus on the problem formulation and solutions that consider multiple, complex interactions between engineered systems and the Earth's climate system and recognize that transformation raises societal challenges, including trade-offs among benefits, costs, and risks. Moreover, improving engineering students' climate science literacy will require strategies that also inspire students' motivation to work toward their solution. A climate science course for engineers has been taught 5 semesters as part of a NASA Innovations in Climate Education program grant (NNXlOAB57A). The basic premise of this project was that effective instruction must incorporate scientifically-based knowledge and observations and foster critical thinking, problem solving, and decision-making skills. Lecture, in-class cooperative and computer-based learning and a semester project provide the basis for engaging students in evaluating effective mitigation and adaptation solutions. Policy and social issues are integrated throughout many of the units. The objective of this presentation is to highlight the content and pedagogical approach used in this class that helped to contribute to significant gains in engineering students' climate literacy and critical thinking competencies. A total of 89 students fully participated in a pre/post climate literacy questionnaire. As a whole, students demonstrated significant gains in climate-related content knowledge (p<0.001), affect (p<0.001), and behavior (p=0.002). Mean post scores were above a 'passing' cutoff (70%) for all three subscales. Assessment of semester project reports with a critical thinking rubric showed that the students did an excellent job of formulating problem statements and solutions in a manner that incorporated a multidimensional systems perspective. These skills are sometimes foreign to technically focused, number crunching engineering students, but are critical for using their engineering skills and profession to address climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies.

Understanding Student Cognition about Complex Earth System Processes Related to Climate Change

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

McNeal, K. S.; Libarkin, J.; Ledley, T. S.; Dutta, S.; Templeton, M. C.; Geroux, J.; Blakeney, G. A.

2011-12-01

The Earth's climate system includes complex behavior and interconnections with other Earth spheres that present challenges to student learning. To better understand these unique challenges, we have conducted experiments with high-school and introductory level college students to determine how information pertaining to the connections between the Earth's atmospheric system and the other Earth spheres (e.g., hydrosphere and cryosphere) are processed. Specifically, we include psychomotor tests (e.g., eye-tracking) and open-ended questionnaires in this research study, where participants were provided scientific images of the Earth (e.g., global precipitation and ocean and atmospheric currents), eye-tracked, and asked to provide causal or relational explanations about the viewed images. In addition, the students engaged in on-line modules (http://serc.carleton.edu/eslabs/climate/index.html) focused on Earth system science as training activities to address potential cognitive barriers. The developed modules included interactive media, hands-on lessons, links to outside resources, and formative assessment questions to promote a supportive and data-rich learning environment. Student eye movements were tracked during engagement with the materials to determine the role of perception and attention on understanding. Students also completed a conceptual questionnaire pre-post to determine if these on-line curriculum materials assisted in their development of connections between Earth's atmospheric system and the other Earth systems. The pre-post results of students' thinking about climate change concepts, as well as eye-tracking results, will be presented.

Bridging Climate Change Resilience and Mitigation in the Electricity Sector Through Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency: Emerging Climate Change and Development Topics for Energy Sector Transformation

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Cox, Sarah L; Hotchkiss, Elizabeth L; Bilello, Daniel E

Reliable, safe, and secure electricity is essential for economic and social development and a necessary input for many sectors of the economy. However, electricity generation and associated processes make up a significant portion of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions contributing to climate change. Furthermore, electricity systems are vulnerable to climate change impacts - both short-term events and changes over the longer term. This vulnerability presents both near-term and chronic challenges in providing reliable, affordable, equitable, and sustainable energy services. Within this context, developing countries face a number of challenges in the energy sector, including the need to reliably meet growingmore » electricity demand, lessen dependence on imported fuels, expand energy access, and improve stressed infrastructure for fuel supply and electricity transmission. Energy efficiency (EE) and renewable energy (RE) technical solutions described in this paper can bridge action across climate change mitigation and resilience through reducing GHG emissions and supporting electric power sector adaptation to increasing climate risk. Integrated planning approaches, also highlighted in this paper, play an integral role in bringing together mitigation and resilience action under broader frameworks. Through supporting EE and RE deployment and integrated planning approaches, unique to specific national and local circumstances, countries can design and implement policies, strategies, and sectoral plans that unite development priorities, climate change mitigation, and resilience.« less

Trends in historical mercury deposition inferred from lake sediment cores across a climate gradient in the Canadian High Arctic.

PubMed

Korosi, Jennifer B; Griffiths, Katherine; Smol, John P; Blais, Jules M

2018-06-02

Recent climate change may be enhancing mercury fluxes to Arctic lake sediments, confounding the use of sediment cores to reconstruct histories of atmospheric deposition. Assessing the independent effects of climate warming on mercury sequestration is challenging due to temporal overlap between warming temperatures and increased long-range transport of atmospheric mercury following the Industrial Revolution. We address this challenge by examining mercury trends in short cores (the last several hundred years) from eight lakes centered on Cape Herschel (Canadian High Arctic) that span a gradient in microclimates, including two lakes that have not yet been significantly altered by climate warming due to continued ice cover. Previous research on subfossil diatoms and inferred primary production indicated the timing of limnological responses to climate warming, which, due to prevailing ice cover conditions, varied from ∼1850 to ∼1990 for lakes that have undergone changes. We show that climate warming may have enhanced mercury deposition to lake sediments in one lake (Moraine Pond), while another (West Lake) showed a strong signal of post-industrial mercury enrichment without any corresponding limnological changes associated with warming. Our results provide insights into the role of climate warming and organic carbon cycling as drivers of mercury deposition to Arctic lake sediments. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

A big data approach for climate change indicators processing in the CLIP-C project

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

D'Anca, Alessandro; Conte, Laura; Palazzo, Cosimo; Fiore, Sandro; Aloisio, Giovanni

2016-04-01

Defining and implementing processing chains with multiple (e.g. tens or hundreds of) data analytics operators can be a real challenge in many practical scientific use cases such as climate change indicators. This is usually done via scripts (e.g. bash) on the client side and requires climate scientists to take care of, implement and replicate workflow-like control logic aspects (which may be error-prone too) in their scripts, along with the expected application-level part. Moreover, the big amount of data and the strong I/O demand pose additional challenges related to the performance. In this regard, production-level tools for climate data analysis are mostly sequential and there is a lack of big data analytics solutions implementing fine-grain data parallelism or adopting stronger parallel I/O strategies, data locality, workflow optimization, etc. High-level solutions leveraging on workflow-enabled big data analytics frameworks for eScience could help scientists in defining and implementing the workflows related to their experiments by exploiting a more declarative, efficient and powerful approach. This talk will start introducing the main needs and challenges regarding big data analytics workflow management for eScience and will then provide some insights about the implementation of some real use cases related to some climate change indicators on large datasets produced in the context of the CLIP-C project - a EU FP7 project aiming at providing access to climate information of direct relevance to a wide variety of users, from scientists to policy makers and private sector decision makers. All the proposed use cases have been implemented exploiting the Ophidia big data analytics framework. The software stack includes an internal workflow management system, which coordinates, orchestrates, and optimises the execution of multiple scientific data analytics and visualization tasks. Real-time workflow monitoring execution is also supported through a graphical user interface. In order to address the challenges of the use cases, the implemented data analytics workflows include parallel data analysis, metadata management, virtual file system tasks, maps generation, rolling of datasets, and import/export of datasets in NetCDF format. The use cases have been implemented on a HPC cluster of 8-nodes (16-cores/node) of the Athena Cluster available at the CMCC Supercomputing Centre. Benchmark results will be also presented during the talk.

Challenges and a checklist for biodiversity conservation in fire-prone forests: perspecitves from the Pacific Northwest of USA and Southeastern Australia

Treesearch

Thomas A. Spies; David B. Lindenmayer; A. Malcolm Gill; Scott L. Stephens; James K. Agee

2012-01-01

Conserving biodiversity in fire-prone forest ecosystems is challenging for several reasons including differing and incomplete conceptual models of fire-related ecological processes, major gaps in ecological and management knowledge, high variability in fire behavior and ecological responses to fires, altered fire regimes as a result of land-use history and climate...

Teaching climate change: Pressures and practice in the middle school science classroom

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Crayne, Jennifer A.

What are middle school science teachers teaching their students about climate change? And why? This qualitative study examined the experience of middle school science teachers from western Oregon, finding that while participating teachers accept the science of climate change and express concern about it, many teachers are reluctant to make the topic a priority in their classrooms. When they do include the subject, teachers frequently address "both sides." They also report that students have persistent doubts and misconceptions about climate change. What accounts for these trends? I argue that the way teachers address climate change is a result of complex interactions between structural pressures, emotional pressures, and cultural pressures. I conclude that, in order to promote the inclusion of sound climate science instruction in public schools, advocates of climate change education need to address challenges at all these levels: structural, emotional, and cultural.

Climate Change and Water Resources Management: A Federal Perspective

USGS Publications Warehouse

Brekke, Levi D.; Kiang, Julie E.; Olsen, J. Rolf; Pulwarty, Roger S.; Raff, David A.; Turnipseed, D. Phil; Webb, Robert S.; White, Kathleen D.

2009-01-01

Many challenges, including climate change, face the Nation's water managers. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has provided estimates of how climate may change, but more understanding of the processes driving the changes, the sequences of the changes, and the manifestation of these global changes at different scales could be beneficial. Since the changes will likely affect fundamental drivers of the hydrological cycle, climate change may have a large impact on water resources and water resources managers. The purpose of this interagency report prepared by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), Bureau of Reclamation (Reclamation), and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is to explore strategies to improve water management by tracking, anticipating, and responding to climate change. This report describes the existing and still needed underpinning science crucial to addressing the many impacts of climate change on water resources management.

Next-Generation Climate Modeling Science Challenges for Simulation, Workflow and Analysis Systems

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Koch, D. M.; Anantharaj, V. G.; Bader, D. C.; Krishnan, H.; Leung, L. R.; Ringler, T.; Taylor, M.; Wehner, M. F.; Williams, D. N.

2016-12-01

We will present two examples of current and future high-resolution climate-modeling research that are challenging existing simulation run-time I/O, model-data movement, storage and publishing, and analysis. In each case, we will consider lessons learned as current workflow systems are broken by these large-data science challenges, as well as strategies to repair or rebuild the systems. First we consider the science and workflow challenges to be posed by the CMIP6 multi-model HighResMIP, involving around a dozen modeling groups performing quarter-degree simulations, in 3-member ensembles for 100 years, with high-frequency (1-6 hourly) diagnostics, which is expected to generate over 4PB of data. An example of science derived from these experiments will be to study how resolution affects the ability of models to capture extreme-events such as hurricanes or atmospheric rivers. Expected methods to transfer (using parallel Globus) and analyze (using parallel "TECA" software tools) HighResMIP data for such feature-tracking by the DOE CASCADE project will be presented. A second example will be from the Accelerated Climate Modeling for Energy (ACME) project, which is currently addressing challenges involving multiple century-scale coupled high resolution (quarter-degree) climate simulations on DOE Leadership Class computers. ACME is anticipating production of over 5PB of data during the next 2 years of simulations, in order to investigate the drivers of water cycle changes, sea-level-rise, and carbon cycle evolution. The ACME workflow, from simulation to data transfer, storage, analysis and publication will be presented. Current and planned methods to accelerate the workflow, including implementing run-time diagnostics, and implementing server-side analysis to avoid moving large datasets will be presented.

The engineering options for mitigating the climate impacts of aviation.

PubMed

Williams, Victoria

2007-12-15

Aviation is a growing contributor to climate change, with unique impacts due to the altitude of emissions. If existing traffic growth rates continue, radical engineering solutions will be required to prevent aviation becoming one of the dominant contributors to climate change. This paper reviews the engineering options for mitigating the climate impacts of aviation using aircraft and airspace technologies. These options include not only improvements in fuel efficiency, which would reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, but also measures to reduce non-CO2 impacts including the formation of persistent contrails. Integrated solutions to optimize environmental performance will require changes to airframes, engines, avionics, air traffic control systems and airspace design. While market-based measures, such as offset schemes and emissions trading, receive growing attention, this paper sets out the crucial role of engineering in the challenge to develop a 'green air traffic system'.

Data informatics for the Detection, Characterization, and Attribution of Climate Extremes

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Collins, W.; Wehner, M. F.; O'Brien, T. A.; Paciorek, C. J.; Krishnan, H.; Johnson, J. N.; Prabhat, M.

2015-12-01

The potential for increasing frequency and intensity of extremephenomena including downpours, heat waves, and tropical cyclonesconstitutes one of the primary risks of climate change for society andthe environment. The challenge of characterizing these risks is thatextremes represent the "tails" of distributions of atmosphericphenomena and are, by definition, highly localized and typicallyrelatively transient. Therefore very large volumes of observationaldata and projections of future climate are required to quantify theirproperties in a robust manner. Massive data analytics are required inorder to detect individual extremes, accumulate statistics on theirproperties, quantify how these statistics are changing with time, andattribute the effects of anthropogenic global warming on thesestatistics. We describe examples of the suite of techniques the climate communityis developing to address these analytical challenges. The techniquesinclude massively parallel methods for detecting and trackingatmospheric rivers and cyclones; data-intensive extensions togeneralized extreme value theory to summarize the properties ofextremes; and multi-model ensembles of hindcasts to quantify theattributable risk of anthropogenic influence on individual extremes.We conclude by highlighting examples of these methods developed by ourCASCADE (Calibrated and Systematic Characterization, Attribution, andDetection of Extremes) project.

Indigenous Health and Climate Change

PubMed Central

2012-01-01

Indigenous populations have been identified as vulnerable to climate change. This framing, however, is detached from the diverse geographies of how people experience, understand, and respond to climate-related health outcomes, and overlooks nonclimatic determinants. I reviewed research on indigenous health and climate change to capture place-based dimensions of vulnerability and broader determining factors. Studies focused primarily on Australia and the Arctic, and indicated significant adaptive capacity, with active responses to climate-related health risks. However, nonclimatic stresses including poverty, land dispossession, globalization, and associated sociocultural transitions challenge this adaptability. Addressing geographic gaps in existing studies alongside greater focus on indigenous conceptualizations on and approaches to health, examination of global–local interactions shaping local vulnerability, enhanced surveillance, and an evaluation of policy support opportunities are key foci for future research. PMID:22594718

Integrated approaches to climate–crop modelling: needs and challenges

PubMed Central

A. Betts, Richard

2005-01-01

This paper discusses the need for a more integrated approach to modelling changes in climate and crops, and some of the challenges posed by this. While changes in atmospheric composition are expected to exert an increasing radiative forcing of climate change leading to further warming of global mean temperatures and shifts in precipitation patterns, these are not the only climatic processes which may influence crop production. Changes in the physical characteristics of the land cover may also affect climate; these may arise directly from land use activities and may also result from the large-scale responses of crops to seasonal, interannual and decadal changes in the atmospheric state. Climate models used to drive crop models may, therefore, need to consider changes in the land surface, either as imposed boundary conditions or as feedbacks from an interactive climate–vegetation model. Crops may also respond directly to changes in atmospheric composition, such as the concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO2), ozone (O3) and compounds of sulphur and nitrogen, so crop models should consider these processes as well as climate change. Changes in these, and the responses of the crops, may be intimately linked with meteorological processes so crop and climate models should consider synergies between climate and atmospheric chemistry. Some crop responses may occur at scales too small to significantly influence meteorology, so may not need to be included as feedbacks within climate models. However, the volume of data required to drive the appropriate crop models may be very large, especially if short-time-scale variability is important. Implementation of crop models within climate models would minimize the need to transfer large quantities of data between separate modelling systems. It should also be noted that crop responses to climate change may interact with other impacts of climate change, such as hydrological changes. For example, the availability of water for irrigation may be affected by changes in runoff as a direct consequence of climate change, and may also be affected by climate-related changes in demand for water for other uses. It is, therefore, necessary to consider the interactions between the responses of several impacts sectors to climate change. Overall, there is a strong case for a much closer coupling between models of climate, crops and hydrology, but this in itself poses challenges arising from issues of scale and errors in the models. A strategy is proposed whereby the pursuit of a fully coupled climate–chemistry–crop–hydrology model is paralleled by continued use of separate climate and land surface models but with a focus on consistency between the models. PMID:16433093

A Social Science Guide for Communication on Climate Change

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

St John, C.; Marx, S.; Markowitz, E.

2014-12-01

Researchers from the Center for Research on Environmental Decisions (CRED) published "The Psychology of Climate Change Communication: A Guide for Scientists, Journalists, Educators, Political Aides, and the Interested Public" in 2009. This landmark guide provided climate change communicators a synthesis of the social science research that was pertinent to understanding how people think about climate change and how the practice could be improved. In the fall of 2014 this guide will be rereleased, with a new title, and in a partnership between CRED and ecoAmerica. The updated guide addresses how and why Americans respond in certain ways to climate change and explains how communicators can apply best practices to their own work. The guide, which includes research from a range of social science fields including psychology, anthropology, communications, and behavioral economics, is designed to be useful for experienced and novice communicators alike. Included in the guide are strategies to boost engagement, common mistakes to avoid, and best practices that organizations around the world have used to meaningfully engage individuals and groups on climate change. The proposed presentation will provide an overview of the main findings and tips from the 2014 climate change communication guide. It will provide a deeper look at a few of the key points that are crucial for increasing audience engagement with climate change including understanding how identity shapes climate change, how to lead with solutions, and how to bring the impacts of climate change close to home. It will highlight tips for motivating positive behavior change that will lead people down the path toward solutions. Finally, it will address the benefits and challenges associated with producing a communication guide and insight into synthesizing social science research findings into a usable format for a variety of audiences.

Visualization of uncertainties and forecast skill in user-tailored seasonal climate predictions for agriculture

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sedlmeier, Katrin; Gubler, Stefanie; Spierig, Christoph; Flubacher, Moritz; Maurer, Felix; Quevedo, Karim; Escajadillo, Yury; Avalos, Griña; Liniger, Mark A.; Schwierz, Cornelia

2017-04-01

Seasonal climate forecast products potentially have a high value for users of different sectors. During the first phase (2012-2015) of the project CLIMANDES (a pilot project of the Global Framework for Climate Services led by WMO [http://www.wmo.int/gfcs/climandes]), a demand study conducted with Peruvian farmers indicated a large interest in seasonal climate information for agriculture. The study further showed that the required information should by precise, timely, and understandable. In addition to the actual forecast, two complex measures are essential to understand seasonal climate predictions and their limitations correctly: forecast uncertainty and forecast skill. The former can be sampled by using an ensemble of climate simulations, the latter derived by comparing forecasts of past time periods to observations. Including uncertainty and skill information in an understandable way for end-users (who are often not technically educated) poses a great challenge. However, neglecting this information would lead to a false sense of determinism which could prove fatal to the credibility of climate information. Within the second phase (2016-2018) of the project CLIMANDES, one goal is to develop a prototype of a user-tailored seasonal forecast for the agricultural sector in Peru. In this local context, the basic education level of the rural farming community presents a major challenge for the communication of seasonal climate predictions. This contribution proposes different graphical presentations of climate forecasts along with possible approaches to visualize and communicate the associated skill and uncertainties, considering end users with varying levels of technical knowledge.

Story telling and social action: engaging young people to act on climate change

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Cordero, E.

2014-12-01

The realization that well designed graphs and clearly worded summaries were not enough to spur the public and policy makers towards an appropriate understanding of our planet encouraged me to search for other ways to share climate stories with the general public. After co-authoring a popular book on food and climate change and giving many talks to the general public, it struck me that young people were largely missing from the dialogue, and little meaningful progress was being made to design effective solutions. I then started working with faculty and students from the Film and Animation Departments at San Jose State University to develop stories about climate change that would be engaging to younger audiences. The result was the Green Ninja Project, based around the Green Ninja, a superhero who focuses on solutions to climate change using humor and silliness to soften what can be a somewhat challenging topic. The Project includes a) The Green Ninja Show - a series of YouTube videos (over 1,000,000 views) highlighting actions young people can take to reduce climate change, b) The Green Ninja Film Festival where students tell their own climate solutions stories, and c) a collection of educational resources that help teachers bring climate science topics into their classroom using hands-on activities. A key component to this work is promoting social action experiences, so that young people can understand how their actions can make a difference. Based on these experiences, I will provide my own reflections on the challenges and opportunities of communicating climate change with young people.

Meeting the Energy-Climate Challenge

DTIC Science & Technology

2010-04-21

e.g., cogeneration , wind, some biofuels incl waste-to- energy . • The “win-win” approaches will not be enough. Adequate mitigation will...Meeting the  Energy ‐Climate Challenge John P. Holdren Science and Technology Advisor to President Obama and Director...DATE 2010 2. REPORT TYPE 3. DATES COVERED 00-00-2010 to 00-00-2010 4. TITLE AND SUBTITLE Meeting the Energy -Climate Challenge 5a. CONTRACT

A Culturally Relevant Teacher Professional Development for Teaching Climate Change to Native American Students

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kern, Anne Liu; Honwad, Sameer; McLain, Ed

2017-01-01

The science of climate change is a complex subject to teach. Teachers find climate change a challenging topic to teach due to a myriad of reasons. Gayford, 2010 describes some of the challenges teachers face while teaching climate change science as "first, the controversial nature of the topic; second, it does not relate well to the normal…

Fun Teaching: The Key to the Future Climatology

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Mulvey, G.

2016-12-01

In general meteorology is a science of immediate impact. What will the weather be tomorrow or next week? Climatology and climate change is the science of our long range past and future. Decisions made in the past, now, and in the future on climate change issues did and will continue to impact the global climate. It is essential that current and future generations understand the causes of climate change to make informed decisions regarding individual and government actions needed to mitigate human impacts on the future climate. The university challenge is make climatology an exciting and dynamic adventure into the past, present and future. Instructor and supporting organizations have stepped outside the "old yellow notes" approach to enable students to progress beyond remember, understand, and apply; to analyze, evaluate and create. Responding to this instructional challenge by shifting instructional techniques and tools to a new paradigm does not happen overnight. The instructional strategies to make this jump are known in general, but not in specific. This paper deals with examples of how to translate the instructional strategies into practice in ways that are fun for students and instructors. Techniques to be described include interactive discussions, debates and team challenges, such as: - Describing continental climates during past geological periods - In-class teams debates on legislature to control/modify human CO2 releases Low or no cost teaching aids such as video clips, demonstrations, specimens, and experiments will be described with outcomes and resources interest. Some examples to be discussed are - Tree cookies, cross sections - Ocean core smear slide samples of diatoms, foraminifera, etc. - Ice pack/glacial melt experiments - Glacial flow and interpreting glacial ice cores experiment - Field trips to observe geological strata and geological samples - Storytelling - the shared experiences of each instructor

Biophysical impacts of climate-smart agriculture in the Midwest United States

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

The potential impacts of climate change in the Midwest United States present unprecedented challenges to regional agriculture. In response to these challenges, a variety of climate-smart agricultural methodologies have been proposed to retain or improve crop yields, reduce agricultural greenhouse ga...

Key challenges and priorities for modelling European grasslands under climate change.

PubMed

Kipling, Richard P; Virkajärvi, Perttu; Breitsameter, Laura; Curnel, Yannick; De Swaef, Tom; Gustavsson, Anne-Maj; Hennart, Sylvain; Höglind, Mats; Järvenranta, Kirsi; Minet, Julien; Nendel, Claas; Persson, Tomas; Picon-Cochard, Catherine; Rolinski, Susanne; Sandars, Daniel L; Scollan, Nigel D; Sebek, Leon; Seddaiu, Giovanna; Topp, Cairistiona F E; Twardy, Stanislaw; Van Middelkoop, Jantine; Wu, Lianhai; Bellocchi, Gianni

2016-10-01

Grassland-based ruminant production systems are integral to sustainable food production in Europe, converting plant materials indigestible to humans into nutritious food, while providing a range of environmental and cultural benefits. Climate change poses significant challenges for such systems, their productivity and the wider benefits they supply. In this context, grassland models have an important role in predicting and understanding the impacts of climate change on grassland systems, and assessing the efficacy of potential adaptation and mitigation strategies. In order to identify the key challenges for European grassland modelling under climate change, modellers and researchers from across Europe were consulted via workshop and questionnaire. Participants identified fifteen challenges and considered the current state of modelling and priorities for future research in relation to each. A review of literature was undertaken to corroborate and enrich the information provided during the horizon scanning activities. Challenges were in four categories relating to: 1) the direct and indirect effects of climate change on the sward 2) climate change effects on grassland systems outputs 3) mediation of climate change impacts by site, system and management and 4) cross-cutting methodological issues. While research priorities differed between challenges, an underlying theme was the need for accessible, shared inventories of models, approaches and data, as a resource for stakeholders and to stimulate new research. Developing grassland models to effectively support efforts to tackle climate change impacts, while increasing productivity and enhancing ecosystem services, will require engagement with stakeholders and policy-makers, as well as modellers and experimental researchers across many disciplines. The challenges and priorities identified are intended to be a resource 1) for grassland modellers and experimental researchers, to stimulate the development of new research directions and collaborative opportunities, and 2) for policy-makers involved in shaping the research agenda for European grassland modelling under climate change. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Climate analogues suggest limited potential for intensification of production on current croplands under climate change

PubMed Central

Pugh, T.A.M.; Müller, C.; Elliott, J.; Deryng, D.; Folberth, C.; Olin, S.; Schmid, E.; Arneth, A.

2016-01-01

Climate change could pose a major challenge to efforts towards strongly increase food production over the coming decades. However, model simulations of future climate-impacts on crop yields differ substantially in the magnitude and even direction of the projected change. Combining observations of current maximum-attainable yield with climate analogues, we provide a complementary method of assessing the effect of climate change on crop yields. Strong reductions in attainable yields of major cereal crops are found across a large fraction of current cropland by 2050. These areas are vulnerable to climate change and have greatly reduced opportunity for agricultural intensification. However, the total land area, including regions not currently used for crops, climatically suitable for high attainable yields of maize, wheat and rice is similar by 2050 to the present-day. Large shifts in land-use patterns and crop choice will likely be necessary to sustain production growth rates and keep pace with demand. PMID:27646707

A design for a sustained assessment of climate forcings and feedbacks on land use land cover change

USGS Publications Warehouse

Loveland, Thomas; Mahmood, Rezaul

2014-01-01

Land use and land cover change (LULCC) significantly influences the climate system. Hence, to prepare the nation for future climate change and variability, a sustained assessment of LULCC and its climatic impacts needs to be undertaken. To address this objective, not only do we need to determine contemporary trends in land use and land cover that affect, or are affected by, weather and climate but also identify sectors and regions that are most affected by weather and climate variability. Moreover, it is critical that we recognize land cover and regions that are most vulnerable to climate change and how end-use practices are adapting to climate change. This paper identifies a series of steps that need to be undertaken to address these key items. In addition, national-scale institutional capabilities are identified and discussed. Included in the discussions are challenges and opportunities for collaboration among these institutions for a sustained assessment.

Species-specific responses of Late Quaternary megafauna to climate and humans

PubMed Central

Lorenzen, Eline D.; Nogués-Bravo, David; Orlando, Ludovic; Weinstock, Jaco; Binladen, Jonas; Marske, Katharine A.; Ugan, Andrew; Borregaard, Michael K.; Gilbert, M. Thomas P.; Nielsen, Rasmus; Ho, Simon Y. W.; Goebel, Ted; Graf, Kelly E.; Byers, David; Stenderup, Jesper T.; Rasmussen, Morten; Campos, Paula F.; Leonard, Jennifer A.; Koepfli, Klaus-Peter; Froese, Duane; Zazula, Grant; Stafford, Thomas W.; Aaris-Sørensen, Kim; Batra, Persaram; Haywood, Alan M.; Singarayer, Joy S.; Valdes, Paul J.; Boeskorov, Gennady; Burns, James A.; Davydov, Sergey P.; Haile, James; Jenkins, Dennis L.; Kosintsev, Pavel; Kuznetsova, Tatyana; Lai, Xulong; Martin, Larry D.; McDonald, H. Gregory; Mol, Dick; Meldgaard, Morten; Munch, Kasper; Stephan, Elisabeth; Sablin, Mikhail; Sommer, Robert S.; Sipko, Taras; Scott, Eric; Suchard, Marc A.; Tikhonov, Alexei; Willerslev, Rane; Wayne, Robert K.; Cooper, Alan; Hofreiter, Michael; Sher, Andrei; Shapiro, Beth; Rahbek, Carsten; Willerslev, Eske

2014-01-01

Despite decades of research, the roles of climate and humans in driving the dramatic extinctions of large-bodied mammals during the Late Quaternary remain contentious. We use ancient DNA, species distribution models and the human fossil record to elucidate how climate and humans shaped the demographic history of woolly rhinoceros, woolly mammoth, wild horse, reindeer, bison and musk ox. We show that climate has been a major driver of population change over the past 50,000 years. However, each species responds differently to the effects of climatic shifts, habitat redistribution and human encroachment. Although climate change alone can explain the extinction of some species, such as Eurasian musk ox and woolly rhinoceros, a combination of climatic and anthropogenic effects appears to be responsible for the extinction of others, including Eurasian steppe bison and wild horse. We find no genetic signature or any distinctive range dynamics distinguishing extinct from surviving species, underscoring the challenges associated with predicting future responses of extant mammals to climate and human-mediated habitat change. PMID:22048313

Climate Analogues Suggest Limited Potential for Intensification of Production on Current Croplands Under Climate Change

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Pugh, T. A. M.; Mueller, C.; Elliott, J.; Deryng, D.; Folberth, C.; Olin, S.; Schmid, E.; Arneth, A.

2016-01-01

Climate change could pose a major challenge to efforts towards strongly increase food production over the coming decades. However, model simulations of future climate-impacts on crop yields differ substantially in the magnitude and even direction of the projected change. Combining observations of current maximum-attainable yield with climate analogues, we provide a complementary method of assessing the effect of climate change on crop yields. Strong reductions in attainable yields of major cereal crops are found across a large fraction of current cropland by 2050. These areas are vulnerable to climate change and have greatly reduced opportunity for agricultural intensification. However, the total land area, including regions not currently used for crops, climatically suitable for high attainable yields of maize, wheat and rice is similar by 2050 to the present-day. Large shifts in land-use patterns and crop choice will likely be necessary to sustain production growth rates and keep pace with demand.

Climate analogues suggest limited potential for intensification of production on current croplands under climate change

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Pugh, T. A. M.; Müller, C.; Elliott, J.; Deryng, D.; Folberth, C.; Olin, S.; Schmid, E.; Arneth, A.

2016-09-01

Climate change could pose a major challenge to efforts towards strongly increase food production over the coming decades. However, model simulations of future climate-impacts on crop yields differ substantially in the magnitude and even direction of the projected change. Combining observations of current maximum-attainable yield with climate analogues, we provide a complementary method of assessing the effect of climate change on crop yields. Strong reductions in attainable yields of major cereal crops are found across a large fraction of current cropland by 2050. These areas are vulnerable to climate change and have greatly reduced opportunity for agricultural intensification. However, the total land area, including regions not currently used for crops, climatically suitable for high attainable yields of maize, wheat and rice is similar by 2050 to the present-day. Large shifts in land-use patterns and crop choice will likely be necessary to sustain production growth rates and keep pace with demand.

Fighting A Strong Headwind: Challenges in Communicating The Science of Climate Change

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Mann, M. E.

2008-12-01

Communicating science to the public is an intrinsic challenge to begin with. An effective communicator must find ways to translate often technical and complex scientific findings for consumption by an audience unfamiliar with the basic tools and lexicon that scientists themselves take for granted. The challenge is made all the more difficult still when the science has implications for public policy, and the scientists face attack by institutions who judge themselves to be at threat by the implications of scientific findings. Such areas of science include (but certainly are not limited to) evolution, stem cell research, environmental health, and the subject of this talk--climate change. In each of these areas, a highly organized, well funded effort has been mounted to attack the science and the scientists themselves. These attacks are rarely fought in legitimate scientific circles such as the peer-reviewed scientific literature or other scholarly venues, but rather through rhetorically-aimed efforts delivered by media outlets aligned with the views of the attackers, and by politicians and groups closely aligned with special interests. I will discuss various approaches to combating such attacks, drawing upon my own experiences in the public arena with regard to the scientific discourse on climate change.

Climate Change Education Roundtable: A Coherent National Strategy

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Storksdieck, M.; Feder, M.; Climate Change Education Roundtable

2010-12-01

The Climate Change Education (CCE) Roundtable fosters ongoing discussion of the challenges to and strategies for improving public understanding of climate science and climate change among federal agencies, the business community, non-profit, and academic sectors. The CCE Roundtable is provides a critical mechanism for developing a coherent, national strategy to advance climate change education guided by the best available research evidence. Through its meetings and workshops, the roundtable brings together 30 federal and state policymakers, educators, communications and media experts, and members from the business and scientific community. The roundtable includes a number of ex officio members from federal agencies with dedicated interests in climate change education, including officials from the National Science Foundation’s EHR Directorate and its collaborating partner divisions, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the Department of Interior, the Department of Energy, and the Department of Education. The issues that are addressed by the roundtable include: - ways to incorporate knowledge about learning and understanding in developing informative programs and materials for decision-makers who must cope with climate change - the design of educational programs for professionals such as local planners, water managers, and the like, to enable them to better understand the implications of climate change for their decisions - development of training programs for scientists to help them become better communicators to decision-makers about implications of, and solutions to climate change - coordinated and collaborative efforts at the national level between federal agencies and other stakeholders This presenation will describe how the roundtable is fostering a coherent direction for climate change education.

The Long Term Agroecosystem Research Network - Shared research strategy

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Agriculture faces tremendous challenges in meeting multiple societal goals, including a safe and plentiful food supply; climate change adaptation and mitigation; supplying sources of bioenergy; improving water, air, and soil quality; and maintaining biodiversity. The Long Term Agroecosystem Research...

Implications of climate change mitigation for sustainable development

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Jakob, Michael; Steckel, Jan Christoph

2016-10-01

Evaluating the trade-offs between the risks related to climate change, climate change mitigation as well as co-benefits requires an integrated scenarios approach to sustainable development. We outline a conceptual multi-objective framework to assess climate policies that takes into account climate impacts, mitigation costs, water and food availability, technological risks of nuclear energy and carbon capture and sequestration as well as co-benefits of reducing local air pollution and increasing energy security. This framework is then employed as an example to different climate change mitigation scenarios generated with integrated assessment models. Even though some scenarios encompass considerable challenges for sustainability, no scenario performs better or worse than others in all dimensions, pointing to trade-offs between different dimensions of sustainable development. For this reason, we argue that these trade-offs need to be evaluated in a process of public deliberation that includes all relevant social actors.

Bridging the Divide Between Climate and Global Change Science and Education of Public and K-12 Visitors at the National Center for Atmospheric Research

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Foster, S. Q.; Johnson, R. M.; Carbone, L.; Munoz, R.; Eastburn, T.; Ammann, C.; Lu, G.; Richmond, A.; Committee, S.

2004-12-01

The study of climate and global change is an important on-going focus for scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). Programs overseen by the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research Office of Education and Outreach (UCAR-EO) help to translate NCAR's scientific programs, methodologies, and technologies and their societal benefits to over 80,000 visitors to the NCAR Mesa Laboratory each year, including about 10,000 K-12 students. This is currently accomplished through the implementation of an increasingly integrated system of exhibits, guided tours, an audiotour, programs for school groups, and a teachers' guide to the exhibits, which is currently in development. The Climate Discovery Exhibit unveiled in July 2003 and expanded in 2004 offers visitors visually engaging and informative text panels, graphics, artifacts, and interactives describing Sun-Earth connections, dynamic processes that contribute to and mediate climate change, and the Earth's climate history. The exhibit seeks to help visitors to understand why scientists model the global climate system and how information about past and current climate is used to validate models and build scenarios for Earth's future climate. Exhibit-viewers are challenged to ask questions and reflect upon decision making challenges while considering the roles various natural and human-induced factors play in shaping these predictions. With support from NASA and NCAR, a K-12 Teacher's Guide has been developed corresponding the Climate Discovery exhibit's sections addressing the Sun-Earth connection and past climates (the Little Ice Age, in particular). This presentation will review efforts to identify the challenges of communicating with the public and school groups about climate change, while also describing several successful strategies for utilizing visitor questionnaires and interviews to learn how to develop and refine educational resources that will target their interests, bolster their knowledge, and address their misconceptions. Visitors view the exhibit every day of the year on their own, using an audiotour, or with a tour guide. NCAR/UCAR's educational content about climate change is increasingly available to national audiences through the new NCAR EO web site (www.ncar.ucar.edu/eo), Windows to the Universe (www.windows.ucar.edu), UCAR-EO's summer teachers workshops, and sessions at the National Science Teacher Association meetings and other professional education venues.

Military Cooperation Frameworks: Effective Models to Address Transnational Security Challenges of the Asia-Pacific Region

DTIC Science & Technology

2011-05-04

evolving security challenges. Issues such as terrorism, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, impacts of climate change , and the ever...impacts of climate change , and the ever-growing competition for valuable natural resources are a few of the these challenges. As an integral part...destruction, impacts of climate change , and the ever-growing competition for valuable natural resources have resulted in a new set of security

Vector-borne diseases and climate change: a European perspective

PubMed Central

Suk, Jonathan E

2017-01-01

Abstract Climate change has already impacted the transmission of a wide range of vector-borne diseases in Europe, and it will continue to do so in the coming decades. Climate change has been implicated in the observed shift of ticks to elevated altitudes and latitudes, notably including the Ixodes ricinus tick species that is a vector for Lyme borreliosis and tick-borne encephalitis. Climate change is also thought to have been a factor in the expansion of other important disease vectors in Europe: Aedes albopictus (the Asian tiger mosquito), which transmits diseases such as Zika, dengue and chikungunya, and Phlebotomus sandfly species, which transmits diseases including Leishmaniasis. In addition, highly elevated temperatures in the summer of 2010 have been associated with an epidemic of West Nile Fever in Southeast Europe and subsequent outbreaks have been linked to summer temperature anomalies. Future climate-sensitive health impacts are challenging to project quantitatively, in part due to the intricate interplay between non-climatic and climatic drivers, weather-sensitive pathogens and climate-change adaptation. Moreover, globalisation and international air travel contribute to pathogen and vector dispersion internationally. Nevertheless, monitoring forecasts of meteorological conditions can help detect epidemic precursors of vector-borne disease outbreaks and serve as early warning systems for risk reduction. PMID:29149298

Vector-borne diseases and climate change: a European perspective.

PubMed

Semenza, Jan C; Suk, Jonathan E

2018-02-01

Climate change has already impacted the transmission of a wide range of vector-borne diseases in Europe, and it will continue to do so in the coming decades. Climate change has been implicated in the observed shift of ticks to elevated altitudes and latitudes, notably including the Ixodes ricinus tick species that is a vector for Lyme borreliosis and tick-borne encephalitis. Climate change is also thought to have been a factor in the expansion of other important disease vectors in Europe: Aedes albopictus (the Asian tiger mosquito), which transmits diseases such as Zika, dengue and chikungunya, and Phlebotomus sandfly species, which transmits diseases including Leishmaniasis. In addition, highly elevated temperatures in the summer of 2010 have been associated with an epidemic of West Nile Fever in Southeast Europe and subsequent outbreaks have been linked to summer temperature anomalies. Future climate-sensitive health impacts are challenging to project quantitatively, in part due to the intricate interplay between non-climatic and climatic drivers, weather-sensitive pathogens and climate-change adaptation. Moreover, globalisation and international air travel contribute to pathogen and vector dispersion internationally. Nevertheless, monitoring forecasts of meteorological conditions can help detect epidemic precursors of vector-borne disease outbreaks and serve as early warning systems for risk reduction. © FEMS 2017.

Global Climate Change: Some Implications, Opportunities, and Challenges for US Forestry

DOE R&D Accomplishments Database

Marland, G.

1991-06-01

It is widely agreed that the concentration of greenhouse gases in the earth`s atmosphere is increasing, that this increase is a consequence of man`s activities, and that there is significant risk that this will lead to changes in the earth`s climate. The question is now being discussed what, if anything, we should be doing to minimize and/or adapt to changes in climate. Virtually every statement on this matter; from the US Office of Technology Assessment, to the National Academy of Science, to the Nairobi Declaration on Climatic Change, includes some recommendation for planting and protecting forests. In fact, forestry is intimately involved in the climate change debate for several reasons: changing climate patterns will affect existing forests, tropical deforestation is one of the major sources of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, reforestation projects could remove additional carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and there is renewed interest in wood-based or other renewable fuels to replace fossil fuels. Part of the enthusiasm for forestry-related strategies in a greenhouse context is the perception that forests not only provide greenhouse benefits but also serve other desirable social objectives. This discussion will explore the current range of thinking in this area and try to stimulate additional thinking on the rationality of the forestry-based approaches and the challenges posed for US forestry.

Spatial Patterns of Sea Level Variability Associated with Natural Internal Climate Modes

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Han, Weiqing; Meehl, Gerald A.; Stammer, Detlef

Sea level rise (SLR) can exert significant stress on highly populated coastal societies and low-lying island countries around the world. Because of this, there is huge societal demand for improved decadal predictions and future projections of SLR, particularly on a local scale along coastlines. Regionally, sea level variations can deviate considerably from the global mean due to various geophysical processes. These include changes of ocean circulations, which partially can be attributed to natural, internal modes of variability in the complex Earth’s climate system. Anthropogenic influence may also contribute to regional sea level variations. Separating the effects of natural climate modesmore » and anthropogenic forcing, however, remains a challenge and requires identification of the imprint of specific climate modes in observed sea level change patterns. In this article, we review our current state of knowledge about spatial patterns of sea level variability associated with natural climate modes on interannual-to-multidecadal timescales, with particular focus on decadal-to-multidecadal variability. Relevant climate modes and our current state of understanding their associated sea level patterns and driving mechanisms are elaborated separately for the Pacific, the Indian, the Atlantic, and the Arctic and Southern Oceans. We also discuss the issues, challenges and future outlooks for understanding the regional sea level patterns associated with climate modes. Effects of these internal modes have to be taken into account in order to achieve more reliable near-term predictions and future projections of regional SLR.« less

Spatial Patterns of Sea Level Variability Associated with Natural Internal Climate Modes

DOE PAGES

Han, Weiqing; Meehl, Gerald A.; Stammer, Detlef; ...

2016-10-04

Sea level rise (SLR) can exert significant stress on highly populated coastal societies and low-lying island countries around the world. Because of this, there is huge societal demand for improved decadal predictions and future projections of SLR, particularly on a local scale along coastlines. Regionally, sea level variations can deviate considerably from the global mean due to various geophysical processes. These include changes of ocean circulations, which partially can be attributed to natural, internal modes of variability in the complex Earth’s climate system. Anthropogenic influence may also contribute to regional sea level variations. Separating the effects of natural climate modesmore » and anthropogenic forcing, however, remains a challenge and requires identification of the imprint of specific climate modes in observed sea level change patterns. In this article, we review our current state of knowledge about spatial patterns of sea level variability associated with natural climate modes on interannual-to-multidecadal timescales, with particular focus on decadal-to-multidecadal variability. Relevant climate modes and our current state of understanding their associated sea level patterns and driving mechanisms are elaborated separately for the Pacific, the Indian, the Atlantic, and the Arctic and Southern Oceans. We also discuss the issues, challenges and future outlooks for understanding the regional sea level patterns associated with climate modes. Effects of these internal modes have to be taken into account in order to achieve more reliable near-term predictions and future projections of regional SLR.« less

Collaborative Science with Indigenous Knowledge for Climate Solutions: Why, How, and with Whom?

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Maldonado, J.; Lazrus, H.; Gough, B.

2017-12-01

The inherent complexity of climate change requires diverse perspectives to understand and respond to its impacts. The Rising Voices: Collaborative Science with Indigenous Knowledge for Climate Solutions (Rising Voices) program represents a growing network of engaged Indigenous and non-Indigenous scientists committed to cross-cultural and collaborative research and activities to understand and mitigate the impacts of extreme weather and climate change. Five annual Rising Voices workshops have occurred since 2013, engaging hundreds of participants from across Tribal communities, the United States, and internationally over the years. Housed at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, Rising Voices aims to expand how diversity is understood in atmospheric science, to include intellectual diversity stemming from distinct cultural backgrounds. It envisions collaborative research that brings together Indigenous knowledges and science with Western climate and weather sciences in a respectful and inclusive manner to achieve culturally relevant and scientifically robust climate and weather adaptation solutions. The premise of the program and the research and collaborations it produces is that there is an opportunity cost to not involving diverse knowledge systems and observations from varied cultural backgrounds in addressing climate change. We cannot afford that cost given the challenges ahead. This poster presents some of the protocols, methods, challenges, and outcomes of cross-cultural research between Western and Indigenous scientists and communities from across the United States. It also presents some of the recommendations that have emerged from Rising Voices workshops over the past five years.

Spatial Patterns of Sea Level Variability Associated with Natural Internal Climate Modes

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Han, Weiqing; Meehl, Gerald A.; Stammer, Detlef; Hu, Aixue; Hamlington, Benjamin; Kenigson, Jessica; Palanisamy, Hindumathi; Thompson, Philip

2017-01-01

Sea level rise (SLR) can exert significant stress on highly populated coastal societies and low-lying island countries around the world. Because of this, there is huge societal demand for improved decadal predictions and future projections of SLR, particularly on a local scale along coastlines. Regionally, sea level variations can deviate considerably from the global mean due to various geophysical processes. These include changes of ocean circulations, which partially can be attributed to natural, internal modes of variability in the complex Earth's climate system. Anthropogenic influence may also contribute to regional sea level variations. Separating the effects of natural climate modes and anthropogenic forcing, however, remains a challenge and requires identification of the imprint of specific climate modes in observed sea level change patterns. In this paper, we review our current state of knowledge about spatial patterns of sea level variability associated with natural climate modes on interannual-to-multidecadal timescales, with particular focus on decadal-to-multidecadal variability. Relevant climate modes and our current state of understanding their associated sea level patterns and driving mechanisms are elaborated separately for the Pacific, the Indian, the Atlantic, and the Arctic and Southern Oceans. We also discuss the issues, challenges and future outlooks for understanding the regional sea level patterns associated with climate modes. Effects of these internal modes have to be taken into account in order to achieve more reliable near-term predictions and future projections of regional SLR.

The Grand Challenges of WCRP and the Climate Observing System of the Future

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Brasseur, G. P.

2017-12-01

The successful implementation the Paris agreement on climate change (COP21) calls for a well-designed global monitoring system of essential climate variables, climate processes and Earth system budgets. The Grand Challenges implemented by the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP) provide an opportunity to investigate issues of high societal relevance, directly related to sea level rise, droughts, floods, extreme heat events, food security, and fresh water availability. These challenges would directly benefit from a well-designed suite of systematic climate observations. Quantification of the evolution of the global energy, water and carbon budgets as well as the development and the production of near-term and regional climate predictions require that a comprehensive, focused, multi-platform observing system (satellites, ground-based and in situ observations) be established in an international context. This system must be accompanied by the development of climate services that should translate and disseminate scientific outcomes as actionable information for users and stakeholders.

Generating carbon finance through avoided deforestation and its potential to create climatic, conservation and human development benefits.

PubMed

Ebeling, Johannes; Yasué, Maï

2008-05-27

Recent proposals to compensate developing countries for reducing emissions from deforestation (RED) under forthcoming climate change mitigation regimes are receiving increasing attention. Here we demonstrate that if RED credits were traded on international carbon markets, even moderate decreases in deforestation rates could generate billions of Euros annually for tropical forest conservation. We also discuss the main challenges for a RED mechanism that delivers real climatic benefits. These include providing sufficient incentives while only rewarding deforestation reductions beyond business-as-usual scenarios, addressing risks arising from forest degradation and international leakage, and ensuring permanence of emission reductions. Governance may become a formidable challenge for RED because some countries with the highest RED potentials score poorly on governance indices. In addition to climate mitigation, RED funds could help achieve substantial co-benefits for biodiversity conservation and human development. However, this will probably require targeted additional support because the highest biodiversity threats and human development needs may exist in countries that have limited income potentials from RED. In conclusion, how successfully a market-based RED mechanism can contribute to climate change mitigation, conservation and development will strongly depend on accompanying measures and carefully designed incentive structures involving governments, business, as well as the conservation and development communities.

Climate Literacy from the Plains to the Peaks: Challenges in Teaching Climate in Colorado Classrooms

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hafich, K. A.; Martens, W.; Fletcher, H.; MacFerrin, B.; Morrison, D.; Stone, J.; Collins, M. C.; Chastain, M.; Hager, C.; Duncan, E.; Gay, C. J.; Kurz, J. D.; Manning, C. B.; Graves, B. J.; Bloomfield, L.

2015-12-01

Boulder, Colorado is a central hub of climate research and education resources, yet teachers less than two hours away struggle to find relevant climate curriculum and meaningful connections to climate scientists. Learn More About Climate (LMAC), an initiative of the CU-Boulder Office for Outreach and Engagement was created to provide access to the most up-to-date scientific research in a user-friendly way that raises awareness and inspires an informed dialogue about climate change among Coloradans. LMAC produces classroom ready videos highlighting CU climate scientists, offers classroom visits and Skype sessions with scientists, and serves as a hub for the most recent climate news. LMAC recently formed a Teacher Advisory Board made up of eleven K12 teachers from across Colorado spanning rural, suburban, and urban school districts. Given different locations, demographics, and grade levels, each teacher faces different challenges teaching climate. Here we present our work to identify the primary challenges that our teacher advisors have encountered while teaching climate science in their classrooms. Furthermore, we are working to co-create dynamic solutions with the teachers to address these problems using the LMAC platform.

Data Sparsity Considerations in Climate Impact Analysis for the Water Sector (Invited)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Asante, K. O.; Khimsara, P.; Chan, A.

2013-12-01

Scientists and planners are helping governments and communities around the world to prepare for climate change by performing local impact studies and developing adaptation plans. Most studies begin by analyzing global climate models outputs to estimate the magnitude of projected change, assessing vulnerabilities and proposing adaptation measures. In these studies, climate projections from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Data Distribution Centre (DDC) are either used directly or downscaled using regional models. Since climate projections cover the entire global, climate change analysis can be performed for any location. However, selection of climate projections for use in historically data sparse regions presents special challenges. Key questions arise about the impact of historical data sparsity on quality of climate projections, spatial consistency of results and suitability for applications such as water resource planning. In this paper, a water-sector climate study conducted in a data-rich setting in California is compared to a similar study conducted a data-sparse setting in Mozambique. The challenges of selecting projections, performing analysis and interpreting the results for climate adaption planning are compared to illustrate the decision process and challenges encountered in these two very different settings.

Climate change and malaria in Canada: a systems approach.

PubMed

Berrang-Ford, L; Maclean, J D; Gyorkos, Theresa W; Ford, J D; Ogden, N H

2009-01-01

This article examines the potential for changes in imported and autochthonous malaria incidence in Canada as a consequence of climate change. Drawing on a systems framework, we qualitatively characterize and assess the potential direct and indirect impact of climate change on malaria in Canada within the context of other concurrent ecological and social trends. Competent malaria vectors currently exist in southern Canada, including within this range several major urban centres, and conditions here have historically supported endemic malaria transmission. Climate change will increase the occurrence of temperature conditions suitable for malaria transmission in Canada, which, combined with trends in international travel, immigration, drug resistance, and inexperience in both clinical and laboratory diagnosis, may increase malaria incidence in Canada and permit sporadic autochthonous cases. This conclusion challenges the general assumption of negligible malaria risk in Canada with climate change.

Climate, ecosystems, and planetary futures: The challenge to predict life in Earth system models.

PubMed

Bonan, Gordon B; Doney, Scott C

2018-02-02

Many global change stresses on terrestrial and marine ecosystems affect not only ecosystem services that are essential to humankind, but also the trajectory of future climate by altering energy and mass exchanges with the atmosphere. Earth system models, which simulate terrestrial and marine ecosystems and biogeochemical cycles, offer a common framework for ecological research related to climate processes; analyses of vulnerability, impacts, and adaptation; and climate change mitigation. They provide an opportunity to move beyond physical descriptors of atmospheric and oceanic states to societally relevant quantities such as wildfire risk, habitat loss, water availability, and crop, fishery, and timber yields. To achieve this, the science of climate prediction must be extended to a more multifaceted Earth system prediction that includes the biosphere and its resources. Copyright © 2018, American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Climate Change and Malaria in Canada: A Systems Approach

PubMed Central

Berrang-Ford, L.; MacLean, J. D.; Gyorkos, Theresa W.; Ford, J. D.; Ogden, N. H.

2009-01-01

This article examines the potential for changes in imported and autochthonous malaria incidence in Canada as a consequence of climate change. Drawing on a systems framework, we qualitatively characterize and assess the potential direct and indirect impact of climate change on malaria in Canada within the context of other concurrent ecological and social trends. Competent malaria vectors currently exist in southern Canada, including within this range several major urban centres, and conditions here have historically supported endemic malaria transmission. Climate change will increase the occurrence of temperature conditions suitable for malaria transmission in Canada, which, combined with trends in international travel, immigration, drug resistance, and inexperience in both clinical and laboratory diagnosis, may increase malaria incidence in Canada and permit sporadic autochthonous cases. This conclusion challenges the general assumption of negligible malaria risk in Canada with climate change. PMID:19277107

Implications of climate change predictions for UK cropping and prospects for possible mitigation: a review of challenges and potential responses.

PubMed

Rial-Lovera, Karen; Davies, W Paul; Cannon, Nicola D

2017-01-01

The UK, like the rest of the world, is confronting the impacts of climate change. Further changes are expected and they will have a profound effect on agriculture. Future crop production will take place against increasing CO 2 levels and temperatures, decreasing water availability, and increasing frequency of extreme weather events. This review contributes to research on agricultural practices for climate change, but with a more regional perspective. The present study explores climate change impacts on UK agriculture, particularly food crop production, and how to mitigate and build resilience to climate change by adopting and/or changing soil management practices, including fertilisation and tillage systems, new crop adoption and variety choice. Some mitigation can be adopted in the shorter term, such as changes in crop type and reduction in fertiliser use, but in other cases the options will need greater investment and longer adaptation period. This is the case for new crop variety development and deployment, and possible changes to soil cultivations. Uncertainty of future weather conditions, particularly extreme weather, also affect decision-making for adoption of practices by farmers to ensure more stable and sustainable production. Even when there is real potential for climate change mitigation, it can sometimes be more difficult to accomplish with certainty on-farm. Better future climate projections and long-term investments will be required to create more resilient agricultural systems in the UK in the face of climate change challenges. © 2016 Society of Chemical Industry. © 2016 Society of Chemical Industry.

From Pinot to Xinomavro in the world's future wine-growing regions

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wolkovich, E. M.; García de Cortázar-Atauri, I.; Morales-Castilla, I.; Nicholas, K. A.; Lacombe, T.

2018-01-01

Predicted impacts of climate change on crops—including yield declines and loss of conservation lands—could be mitigated by exploiting existing diversity within crops. Here we examine this possibility for wine grapes. Across 1,100 planted varieties, wine grapes possess tremendous diversity in traits that affect responses to climate, such as phenology and drought tolerance. Yet little of this diversity is exploited. Instead many countries plant 70-90% of total hectares with the same 12 varieties—representing 1% of total diversity. We outline these challenges, and highlight how altered planting practices and new initiatives could help the industry better adapt to continued climate change.

The Regional Integrated Sciences and Assessments (RISA) Program, Climate Services, and Meeting the National Climate Change Adaptation Challenge

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Overpeck, J. T.; Udall, B.; Miles, E.; Dow, K.; Anderson, C.; Cayan, D.; Dettinger, M.; Hartmann, H.; Jones, J.; Mote, P.; Ray, A.; Shafer, M.; White, D.

2008-12-01

The NOAA-led RISA Program has grown steadily to nine regions and a focus that includes both natural climate variability and human-driven climate change. The RISAs are, at their core, university-based and heavily invested in partnerships, particularly with stakeholders, NOAA, and other federal agencies. RISA research, assessment and partnerships have led to new operational climate services within NOAA and other agencies, and have become important foundations in the development of local, state and regional climate change adaptation initiatives. The RISA experience indicates that a national climate service is needed, and must include: (1) services prioritized based on stakeholder needs; (2) sustained, ongoing regional interactions with users, (3) a commitment to improve climate literacy; (4) support for assessment as an ongoing, iterative process; (5) full recognition that stakeholder decisions are seldom made using climate information alone; (6) strong interagency partnership; (7) national implementation and regional in focus; (8) capability spanning local, state, tribal, regional, national and international space scales, and weeks to millennia time scales; and (9) institutional design and scientific support flexible enough to assure the effort is nimble enough to respond to rapidly-changing stakeholder needs. The RISA experience also highlights the central role that universities must play in national climate change adaptation programs. Universities have a tradition of trusted regional stakeholder partnerships, as well as the interdisciplinary expertise - including social science, ecosystem science, law, and economics - required to meet stakeholder climate-related needs; project workforce can also shift rapidly in universities. Universities have a proven ability to build and sustain interagency partnerships. Universities excel in most forms of education and training. And universities often have proven entrepreneurship, technology transfer and private sector partnership capability.

Projected Evolution of California's San Francisco Bay-Delta-River System in a Century of Climate Change

PubMed Central

Cloern, James E.; Knowles, Noah; Brown, Larry R.; Cayan, Daniel; Dettinger, Michael D.; Morgan, Tara L.; Schoellhamer, David H.; Stacey, Mark T.; van der Wegen, Mick; Wagner, R. Wayne; Jassby, Alan D.

2011-01-01

Background Accumulating evidence shows that the planet is warming as a response to human emissions of greenhouse gases. Strategies of adaptation to climate change will require quantitative projections of how altered regional patterns of temperature, precipitation and sea level could cascade to provoke local impacts such as modified water supplies, increasing risks of coastal flooding, and growing challenges to sustainability of native species. Methodology/Principal Findings We linked a series of models to investigate responses of California's San Francisco Estuary-Watershed (SFEW) system to two contrasting scenarios of climate change. Model outputs for scenarios of fast and moderate warming are presented as 2010–2099 projections of nine indicators of changing climate, hydrology and habitat quality. Trends of these indicators measure rates of: increasing air and water temperatures, salinity and sea level; decreasing precipitation, runoff, snowmelt contribution to runoff, and suspended sediment concentrations; and increasing frequency of extreme environmental conditions such as water temperatures and sea level beyond the ranges of historical observations. Conclusions/Significance Most of these environmental indicators change substantially over the 21st century, and many would present challenges to natural and managed systems. Adaptations to these changes will require flexible planning to cope with growing risks to humans and the challenges of meeting demands for fresh water and sustaining native biota. Programs of ecosystem rehabilitation and biodiversity conservation in coastal landscapes will be most likely to meet their objectives if they are designed from considerations that include: (1) an integrated perspective that river-estuary systems are influenced by effects of climate change operating on both watersheds and oceans; (2) varying sensitivity among environmental indicators to the uncertainty of future climates; (3) inevitability of biological community changes as responses to cumulative effects of climate change and other drivers of habitat transformations; and (4) anticipation and adaptation to the growing probability of ecosystem regime shifts. PMID:21957451

Projected evolution of California's San Francisco Bay-Delta-river system in a century of climate change.

PubMed

Cloern, James E; Knowles, Noah; Brown, Larry R; Cayan, Daniel; Dettinger, Michael D; Morgan, Tara L; Schoellhamer, David H; Stacey, Mark T; van der Wegen, Mick; Wagner, R Wayne; Jassby, Alan D

2011-01-01

Accumulating evidence shows that the planet is warming as a response to human emissions of greenhouse gases. Strategies of adaptation to climate change will require quantitative projections of how altered regional patterns of temperature, precipitation and sea level could cascade to provoke local impacts such as modified water supplies, increasing risks of coastal flooding, and growing challenges to sustainability of native species. We linked a series of models to investigate responses of California's San Francisco Estuary-Watershed (SFEW) system to two contrasting scenarios of climate change. Model outputs for scenarios of fast and moderate warming are presented as 2010-2099 projections of nine indicators of changing climate, hydrology and habitat quality. Trends of these indicators measure rates of: increasing air and water temperatures, salinity and sea level; decreasing precipitation, runoff, snowmelt contribution to runoff, and suspended sediment concentrations; and increasing frequency of extreme environmental conditions such as water temperatures and sea level beyond the ranges of historical observations. Most of these environmental indicators change substantially over the 21(st) century, and many would present challenges to natural and managed systems. Adaptations to these changes will require flexible planning to cope with growing risks to humans and the challenges of meeting demands for fresh water and sustaining native biota. Programs of ecosystem rehabilitation and biodiversity conservation in coastal landscapes will be most likely to meet their objectives if they are designed from considerations that include: (1) an integrated perspective that river-estuary systems are influenced by effects of climate change operating on both watersheds and oceans; (2) varying sensitivity among environmental indicators to the uncertainty of future climates; (3) inevitability of biological community changes as responses to cumulative effects of climate change and other drivers of habitat transformations; and (4) anticipation and adaptation to the growing probability of ecosystem regime shifts.

Projected evolution of California's San Francisco Bay-Delta-River System in a century of continuing climate change

USGS Publications Warehouse

Cloern, James E.; Knowles, Noah; Brown, Larry R.; Cayan, Daniel; Dettinger, Michael D.; Morgan, Tara L.; Schoellhamer, David H.; Stacey, Mark T.; van der Wegen, Mick; Wagner, R. Wayne; Jassby, Alan D.

2011-01-01

Background Accumulating evidence shows that the planet is warming as a response to human emissions of greenhouse gases. Strategies of adaptation to climate change will require quantitative projections of how altered regional patterns of temperature, precipitation and sea level could cascade to provoke local impacts such as modified water supplies, increasing risks of coastal flooding, and growing challenges to sustainability of native species. Methodology/Principal Findings We linked a series of models to investigate responses of California's San Francisco Estuary-Watershed (SFEW) system to two contrasting scenarios of climate change. Model outputs for scenarios of fast and moderate warming are presented as 2010–2099 projections of nine indicators of changing climate, hydrology and habitat quality. Trends of these indicators measure rates of: increasing air and water temperatures, salinity and sea level; decreasing precipitation, runoff, snowmelt contribution to runoff, and suspended sediment concentrations; and increasing frequency of extreme environmental conditions such as water temperatures and sea level beyond the ranges of historical observations. Conclusions/Significance Most of these environmental indicators change substantially over the 21st century, and many would present challenges to natural and managed systems. Adaptations to these changes will require flexible planning to cope with growing risks to humans and the challenges of meeting demands for fresh water and sustaining native biota. Programs of ecosystem rehabilitation and biodiversity conservation in coastal landscapes will be most likely to meet their objectives if they are designed from considerations that include: (1) an integrated perspective that river-estuary systems are influenced by effects of climate change operating on both watersheds and oceans; (2) varying sensitivity among environmental indicators to the uncertainty of future climates; (3) inevitability of biological community changes as responses to cumulative effects of climate change and other drivers of habitat transformations; and (4) anticipation and adaptation to the growing probability of ecosystem regime shifts.

Projected evolution of California's San Francisco bay-delta-river system in a century of climate change

USGS Publications Warehouse

Cloern, James E.; Knowles, Noah; Brown, Larry R.; Cayan, Daniel R.; Dettinger, Michael D.; Morgan, Tara L.; Schoellhamer, David H.; Stacey, Mark T.; Van der Wegen, Mick; Wagner, R.W.; Jassby, Alan D.

2011-01-01

Background: Accumulating evidence shows that the planet is warming as a response to human emissions of greenhouse gases. Strategies of adaptation to climate change will require quantitative projections of how altered regional patterns of temperature, precipitation and sea level could cascade to provoke local impacts such as modified water supplies, increasing risks of coastal flooding, and growing challenges to sustainability of native species. Methodology/Principal Findings: We linked a series of models to investigate responses of California's San Francisco Estuary-Watershed (SFEW) system to two contrasting scenarios of climate change. Model outputs for scenarios of fast and moderate warming are presented as 2010-2099 projections of nine indicators of changing climate, hydrology and habitat quality. Trends of these indicators measure rates of: increasing air and water temperatures, salinity and sea level; decreasing precipitation, runoff, snowmelt contribution to runoff, and suspended sediment concentrations; and increasing frequency of extreme environmental conditions such as water temperatures and sea level beyond the ranges of historical observations. Conclusions/Significance: Most of these environmental indicators change substantially over the 21st century, and many would present challenges to natural and managed systems. Adaptations to these changes will require flexible planning to cope with growing risks to humans and the challenges of meeting demands for fresh water and sustaining native biota. Programs of ecosystem rehabilitation and biodiversity conservation in coastal landscapes will be most likely to meet their objectives if they are designed from considerations that include: (1) an integrated perspective that river-estuary systems are influenced by effects of climate change operating on both watersheds and oceans; (2) varying sensitivity among environmental indicators to the uncertainty of future climates; (3) inevitability of biological community changes as responses to cumulative effects of climate change and other drivers of habitat transformations; and (4) anticipation and adaptation to the growing probability of ecosystem regime shifts.

Ecosystems and Human Health: Meeting Challenges through Integrated Research and Policy

EPA Science Inventory

Human activity is transforming the structure and function of Earth’s natural systems including its land cover, rivers, oceans, biogeochemical cycles, and climate system.  As this transformation accelerates, there is growing evidence that changes in the state of natural...

Climate Informatics: Accelerating Discovering in Climate Science with Machine Learning

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Monteleoni, Claire; Schmidt, Gavin A.; McQuade, Scott

2014-01-01

The goal of climate informatics, an emerging discipline, is to inspire collaboration between climate scientists and data scientists, in order to develop tools to analyze complex and ever-growing amounts of observed and simulated climate data, and thereby bridge the gap between data and understanding. Here, recent climate informatics work is presented, along with details of some of the field's remaining challenges. Given the impact of climate change, understanding the climate system is an international priority. The goal of climate informatics is to inspire collaboration between climate scientists and data scientists, in order to develop tools to analyze complex and ever-growing amounts of observed and simulated climate data, and thereby bridge the gap between data and understanding. Here, recent climate informatics work is presented, along with details of some of the remaining challenges.

Climate Literacy and Cyberlearning: Emerging Platforms and Programs

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

McCaffrey, M. S.; Wise, S. B.; Buhr, S. M.

2009-12-01

With the release of the Essential Principles of Climate Science Literacy: A Guide for Individuals and Communities in the Spring of 2009, an important step toward an shared educational and communication framework about climate science was achieved. Designed as a living document, reviewed and endorsed by the thirteen federal agencies in the U.S. Climate Change Science Program (now U.S. Global Change Research Program), the Essential Principles of Climate Literacy complement other Earth system literacy efforts. A variety of emerging efforts have begun to build on the framework using a variety of cyberlearning tools, including an online Climate Literacy course developed by Education and Outreach group at CIRES, the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, and the Independent Learning program of the Continuing Education Division at the University of Colorado at Boulder. The online course, piloted during the Summer of 2009 with formal classroom teachers and informal science educators, made use of the online Climate Literacy Handbook, which was developed by CIRES Education and Outreach and the Encyclopedia of Earth, which is supported by the National Council for Science and the Environment and hosted by Boston University. This paper will explore challenges and opportunities in the use of cyberlearning tools to support climate literacy efforts, highlight the development of the online course and handbook, and note related emerging cyberlearning platforms and programs for climate literacy, including related efforts by the Climate Literacy Network, the NASA Global Climate Change Education programs, the National STEM Education Distributed Learning (NSDL) and AAAS Project 2061.

Challenges and priorities for modelling livestock health and pathogens in the context of climate change

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Özkan, Şeyda

Climate change has the potential to impair livestock health, with consequences for animal welfare, productivity, greenhouse gas emissions, and human livelihoods and health. Modelling has an important role in assessing the impacts of climate change on livestock systems and the efficacy of potential adaptation strategies, to support decision making for more efficient, resilient and sustainable production. However, a coherent set of challenges and research priorities for modelling livestock health and pathogens under climate change has not previously been available. To identify such challenges and priorities, researchers from across Europe were engaged in a horizon-scanning study, involving workshop and questionnaire basedmore » exercises and focussed literature reviews. Eighteen key challenges were identified and grouped into six categories based on subject-specific and capacity building requirements. Across a number of challenges, the need for inventories relating model types to different applications (e.g. the pathogen species, region, scale of focus and purpose to which they can be applied) was identified, in order to identify gaps in capability in relation to the impacts of climate change on animal health. The need for collaboration and learning across disciplines was highlighted in several challenges, e.g. to better understand and model complex ecological interactions between pathogens, vectors, wildlife hosts and livestock in the context of climate change. Collaboration between socio-economic and biophysical disciplines was seen as important for better engagement with stakeholders and for improved modelling of the costs and benefits of poor livestock health. The need for more comprehensive validation of empirical relationships, for harmonising terminology and measurements, and for building capacity for under-researched nations, systems and health problems indicated the importance of joined up approaches across nations. The challenges and priorities identified can help focus the development of modelling capacity and future research structures in this vital field. Well-funded networks capable of managing the long-term development of shared resources are required in order to create a cohesive modelling community equipped to tackle the complex challenges of climate change. - Highlights: • Experts identified challenges for health and pathogen modelling under climate change. • Eighteen key challenges and associated research priorities were identified. • Increasing capacity will require improved organisation and sharing knowledge. • Better communication across the diverse topics and approaches in this field is needed.« less

EarthLabs Climate Detectives: Using the Science, Data, and Technology of IODP Expedition 341 to Investigate the Earth's Past Climate

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Mote, A. S.; Lockwood, J.; Ellins, K. K.; Haddad, N.; Ledley, T. S.; Lynds, S. E.; McNeal, K.; Libarkin, J. C.

2014-12-01

EarthLabs, an exemplary series of lab-based climate science learning modules, is a model for high school Earth Science lab courses. Each module includes a variety of learning activities that allow students to explore the Earth's complex and dynamic climate history. The most recent module, Climate Detectives, uses data from IODP Expedition 341, which traveled to the Gulf of Alaska during the summer of 2013 to study past climate, sedimentation, and tectonics along the continental margin. At the onset of Climate Detectives, students are presented with a challenge engaging them to investigate how the Earth's climate has changed since the Miocene in southern Alaska. To complete this challenge, students join Exp. 341 to collect and examine sediments collected from beneath the seafloor. The two-week module consists of six labs that provide students with the content and skills needed to solve this climate mystery. Students discover how an international team collaborates to examine a scientific problem with the IODP, compete in an engineering design challenge to learn about scientific ocean drilling, and learn about how different types of proxy data are used to detect changes in Earth's climate. The NGSS Science and Engineering Practices are woven into the culminating activity, giving students the opportunity to think and act like scientists as they investigate the following questions: 1) How have environmental conditions in in the Gulf of Alaska changed during the time when the sediments in core U1417 were deposited? (2) What does the occurrence of different types of diatoms and their abundance reveal about the timing of the cycles of glacial advance and retreat? (3) What timeline is represented by the section of core? (4) How do results from the Gulf of Alaska compare with the global record of glaciations during this period based on oxygen isotopes proxies? Developed by educators in collaboration with Expedition 341 scientists, Climate Detectives is a strong example of how learners can engage in authentic research experiences using real data in the secondary science classroom. In this session you will receive a brief overview of the EarthLabs project, learn more about IODP Expedition 341, and see some of the resources that the module makes available to students to help them analyze the data.

Climate change and infectious diseases in North America: the road ahead.

PubMed

Greer, Amy; Ng, Victoria; Fisman, David

2008-03-11

Global climate change is inevitable--the combustion of fossil fuels has resulted in a buildup of greenhouse gases within the atmosphere, causing unprecedented changes to the earth's climate. The Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change suggests that North America will experience marked changes in weather patterns in coming decades, including warmer temperatures and increased rainfall, summertime droughts and extreme weather events (e.g., tornadoes and hurricanes). Although these events may have direct consequences for health (e.g., injuries and displacement of populations due to thermal stress), they are also likely to cause important changes in the incidence and distribution of infectious diseases, including vector-borne and zoonotic diseases, water-and food-borne diseases and diseases with environmental reservoirs (e.g., endemic fungal diseases). Changes in weather patterns and ecosystems, and health consequences of climate change will probably be most severe in far northern regions (e.g., the Arctic). We provide an overview of the expected nature and direction of such changes, which pose current and future challenges to health care providers and public health agencies.

Climate change and infectious diseases in North America: the road ahead

PubMed Central

Greer, Amy; Ng, Victoria; Fisman, David

2008-01-01

Global climate change is inevitable — the combustion of fossil fuels has resulted in a buildup of greenhouse gases within the atmosphere, causing unprecedented changes to the earth's climate. The Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change suggests that North America will experience marked changes in weather patterns in coming decades, including warmer temperatures and increased rainfall, summertime droughts and extreme weather events (e.g., tornadoes and hurricanes). Although these events may have direct consequences for health (e.g., injuries and displacement of populations due to thermal stress), they are also likely to cause important changes in the incidence and distribution of infectious diseases, including vector-borne and zoonotic diseases, water-and food-borne diseases and diseases with environmental reservoirs (e.g., endemic fungal diseases). Changes in weather patterns and ecosystems, and health consequences of climate change will probably be most severe in far northern regions (e.g., the Arctic). We provide an overview of the expected nature and direction of such changes, which pose current and future challenges to health care providers and public health agencies. PMID:18332386

High-resolution dynamic downscaling of CMIP5 output over the Tropical Andes

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Reichler, Thomas; Andrade, Marcos; Ohara, Noriaki

2015-04-01

Our project is targeted towards making robust predictions of future changes in climate over the tropical part of the South American Andes. This goal is challenging, since tropical lowlands, steep mountains, and snow covered subarctic surfaces meet over relatively short distances, leading to distinct climate regimes within the same domain and pronounced spatial gradients in virtually every climate quantity. We use an innovative approach to solve this problem, including several quadruple nested versions of WRF, a systematic validation strategy to find the version of WRF that best fits our study region, spatial resolutions at the kilometer scale, 20-year-long simulation periods, and bias-corrected output from various CMIP5 simulations that also include the multi-model mean of all CMIP5 models. We show that the simulated changes in climate are consistent with the results from the global climate models and also consistent with two different versions of WRF. We also discuss the expected changes in snow and ice, derived from off-line coupling the regional simulations to a carefully calibrated snow and ice model.

Open NASA Earth Exchange (OpenNEX): A Public-Private Partnership for Climate Change Research

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Nemani, R. R.; Lee, T. J.; Michaelis, A.; Ganguly, S.; Votava, P.

2014-12-01

NASA Earth Exchange (NEX) is a data, computing and knowledge collaborative that houses satellite, climate and ancillary data where a community of researchers can come together to share modeling and analysis codes, scientific results, knowledge and expertise on a centralized platform with access to large supercomputing resources. As a part of broadening the community beyond NASA-funded researchers, NASA through an agreement with Amazon Inc. made available to the public a large collection of Climate and Earth Sciences satellite data. The data, available through the Open NASA Earth Exchange (OpenNEX) platform hosted by Amazon Web Services (AWS) public cloud, consists of large amounts of global land surface imaging, vegetation conditions, climate observations and climate projections. In addition to the data, users of OpenNEX platform can also watch lectures from leading experts, learn basic access and use of the available data sets. In order to advance White House initiatives such as Open Data, Big Data and Climate Data and the Climate Action Plan, NASA over the past six months conducted the OpenNEX Challenge. The two-part challenge was designed to engage the public in creating innovative ways to use NASA data and address climate change impacts on economic growth, health and livelihood. Our intention was that the challenges allow citizen scientists to realize the value of NASA data assets and offers NASA new ideas on how to share and use that data. The first "ideation" challenge, closed on July 31st attracted over 450 participants consisting of climate scientists, hobbyists, citizen scientists, IT experts and App developers. Winning ideas from the first challenge will be incorporated into the second "builder" challenge currently targeted to launch mid-August and close by mid-November. The winner(s) will be formally announced at AGU in December of 2014. We will share our experiences and lessons learned over the past year from OpenNEX, a public-private partnership for engaging and enabling a large community of citizen scientists to better understand global climate changes and in creating climate resilience.

Coastline degradation as an indicator of global change

USGS Publications Warehouse

Nicholls, Robert J.; Woodroffe, Colin D.; Burkett, Virginia; Letcher, Trevor M.

2009-01-01

Finding a climate change signal on coasts is more problematic than often assumed. Coasts undergo natural dynamics at many scales, with erosion and recovery in response to climate variability such as El Niño, or extreme events such as storms and infrequent tsunamis. Additionally, humans have had enormous impacts on most coasts, overshadowing most changes that one can presently attribute directly to climate change. Each area of coast is experiencing its own pattern of relative sea-level change and climate change, making discrimination of the component of degradation that results from climate change problems. The best examples of a climate influence are related to temperature rise at low and high latitudes, as seen by the impacts on coral reefs and polar coasts, respectively. Observations through the twentieth century demonstrate the importance of understanding the impacts of sea-level rise and climate change in the context of multiple drivers of change; this will remain a challenge under a more rapidly changing climate. Nevertheless, there are emerging signs that climate change provides a global threat—sea ice is retreating, permafrost in coastal areas is widely melting. Reefs are bleaching more often, and the sea is rising—amplifying widespread trends of subsidence and threatening low-lying areas. To enhance the sustainability of coastal systems, management strategies will also need to address this challenge, focusing on the drivers that are dominant at each section of coast. Global warming through the twentieth century has caused a series of changes with important implications for coastal areas. These include rising temperatures, rising sea level, increasing CO2 concentrations with an associated reduction in seawater pH, and more intense precipitation on average.

Planning the future's forests with assisted migration

Treesearch

Mary I. Williams; R. Kasten Dumroese

2014-01-01

Studies show that changes in climate may exceed plant adaptation and migration. The mismatch in rates between climate change and plant adaptation and migration will pose significant challenges for practitioners that select, grow, and outplant native tree species. Native tree species and populations that are planted today must meet the climatic challenges that they will...

Global Climate Change and Children's Health.

PubMed

2015-11-01

Rising global temperatures are causing major physical, chemical, and ecological changes in the planet. There is wide consensus among scientific organizations and climatologists that these broad effects, known as "climate change," are the result of contemporary human activity. Climate change poses threats to human health, safety, and security, and children are uniquely vulnerable to these threats. The effects of climate change on child health include: physical and psychological sequelae of weather disasters; increased heat stress; decreased air quality; altered disease patterns of some climate-sensitive infections; and food, water, and nutrient insecurity in vulnerable regions. The social foundations of children's mental and physical health are threatened by the specter of far-reaching effects of unchecked climate change, including community and global instability, mass migrations, and increased conflict. Given this knowledge, failure to take prompt, substantive action would be an act of injustice to all children. A paradigm shift in production and consumption of energy is both a necessity and an opportunity for major innovation, job creation, and significant, immediate associated health benefits. Pediatricians have a uniquely valuable role to play in the societal response to this global challenge. Copyright © 2015 by the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Full annual cycle climate change vulnerability assessment for migratory birds

USGS Publications Warehouse

Culp, Leah A.; Cohen, Emily B.; Scarpignato, Amy L.; Thogmartin, Wayne E.; Marra, Peter P.

2017-01-01

Climate change is a serious challenge faced by all plant and animal species. Climate change vulnerability assessments (CCVAs) are one method to assess risk and are increasingly used as a tool to inform management plans. Migratory animals move across regions and continents during their annual cycles where they are exposed to diverse climatic conditions. Climate change during any period and in any region of the annual cycle could influence survival, reproduction, or the cues used to optimize timing of migration. Therefore, CCVAs for migratory animals best estimate risk when they include climate exposure during the entire annual cycle. We developed a CCVA incorporating the full annual cycle and applied this method to 46 species of migratory birds breeding in the Upper Midwest and Great Lakes (UMGL) region of the United States. Our methodology included background risk, climate change exposure × climate sensitivity, adaptive capacity to climate change, and indirect effects of climate change. We compiled information about migratory connectivity between breeding and stationary non-breeding areas using literature searches and U.S. Geological Survey banding and re-encounter data. Climate change exposure (temperature and moisture) was assessed using UMGL breeding season climate and winter climate from non-breeding regions for each species. Where possible, we focused on non-breeding regions known to be linked through migratory connectivity. We ranked 10 species as highly vulnerable to climate change and two as having low vulnerability. The remaining 34 species were ranked as moderately vulnerable. In general, including non-breeding data provided more robust results that were highly individualistic by species. Two species were found to be highly vulnerable throughout their annual cycle. Projected drying will have the greatest effect during the non-breeding season for species overwintering in Mexico and the Caribbean. Projected temperature increases will have the greatest effect during the breeding season in UMGL as well as during the non-breeding season for species overwintering in South America. We provide a model for adaptive management of migratory animals in the face of projected climate change, including identification of priority species, research needs, and regions within non-breeding ranges for potential conservation partnerships.

Challenges of Representing Sub-Grid Physics in an Adaptive Mesh Refinement Atmospheric Model

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

O'Brien, T. A.; Johansen, H.; Johnson, J. N.; Rosa, D.; Benedict, J. J.; Keen, N. D.; Collins, W.; Goodfriend, E.

2015-12-01

Some of the greatest potential impacts from future climate change are tied to extreme atmospheric phenomena that are inherently multiscale, including tropical cyclones and atmospheric rivers. Extremes are challenging to simulate in conventional climate models due to existing models' coarse resolutions relative to the native length-scales of these phenomena. Studying the weather systems of interest requires an atmospheric model with sufficient local resolution, and sufficient performance for long-duration climate-change simulations. To this end, we have developed a new global climate code with adaptive spatial and temporal resolution. The dynamics are formulated using a block-structured conservative finite volume approach suitable for moist non-hydrostatic atmospheric dynamics. By using both space- and time-adaptive mesh refinement, the solver focuses computational resources only where greater accuracy is needed to resolve critical phenomena. We explore different methods for parameterizing sub-grid physics, such as microphysics, macrophysics, turbulence, and radiative transfer. In particular, we contrast the simplified physics representation of Reed and Jablonowski (2012) with the more complex physics representation used in the System for Atmospheric Modeling of Khairoutdinov and Randall (2003). We also explore the use of a novel macrophysics parameterization that is designed to be explicitly scale-aware.

Engaging with Underserved Urban Communities on Climate Resilience

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Akerlof, K.; Moser, F. C.; Baja, K.; Dindinger, J. M.; Chanse, V.; Rowan, K. E.; Rohring, B.

2016-12-01

Meeting the needs of urban high-risk/low-resource communities is one of the most critical challenges in improving climate resilience nationally, but little tailored information exists to guide community engagement efforts specifically for these contexts. This case study describes a collaboration between universities, local governments, and community members working in underserved neighborhoods of the City of Baltimore and Prince George's County, Maryland. In service of current and developing community programs, the team surveyed residents door-to-door about their perceptions of the socio-environmental risks they face, their priorities for change, and the ways in which communication may build protective social capital. We highlight theoretical, applied, and pedagogical aspects of the study that inform both the promise and limitations of these collaborations. These include: 1) the role of citizen participation in climate adaptation decision-making; 2) the meaning, use, and potential impact of community data; 3) balancing differing organizational priorities, timelines, and cultures within community-based projects; and 4) research participation of undergraduate students. The results of the survey illuminate climate risk perceptions in neighborhoods facing complex stressors with lessons for communication and engagement in other urban areas facing similar adaptation challenges.

Climate change, cranes, and temperate floodplain ecosystems

USGS Publications Warehouse

King, Sammy L.

2010-01-01

Floodplain ecosystems provide important habitat to cranes globally. Lateral, longitudinal, vertical, and temporal hydrologic connectivity in rivers is essential to maintaining the functions and values of these systems. Agricultural development, flood control, water diversions, dams, and other anthropogenic activities have greatly affected hydrologic connectivity of river systems worldwide and altered the functional capacity of these systems. Although the specific effects of climate change in any given area are unknown, increased intensity and frequency of flooding and droughts and increased air and water temperatures are among many potential effects that can act synergistically with existing human modifications in these systems to create even greater challenges in maintaining ecosystem productivity. In this paper, I review basic hydrologic and geomorphic processes of river systems and use three North American rivers (Guadalupe, Platte, and Rio Grande) that are important to cranes as case studies to illustrate the challenges facing managers tasked with balancing the needs of cranes and people in the face of an uncertain climatic future. Each river system has unique natural and anthropogenic characteristics that will affect conservation strategies. Mitigating the effects of climate change on river systems necessitates an understanding of river/floodplain/landscape linkages, which include people and their laws as well as existing floodplain ecosystem conditions.

NASA Contributions to Improve Understanding of Extreme Events in the Global Energy and Water Cycle

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Lapenta, William M.

2008-01-01

The U.S. Climate Change Science Program (CCSP) has established the water cycle goals of the Nation's climate change program. Accomplishing these goals will require, in part, an accurate accounting of the key reservoirs and fluxes associated with the global water and energy cycle, including their spatial and temporal variability. through integration of all necessary observations and research tools, To this end, in conjunction with NASA's Earth science research strategy, the overarching long-term NASA Energy and Water Cycle Study (NEWS) grand challenge can he summarized as documenting and enabling improved, observationally based, predictions of water and energy cycle consequences of Earth system variability and change. This challenge requires documenting and predicting trends in the rate of the Earth's water and energy cycling that corresponds to climate change and changes in the frequency and intensity of naturally occurring related meteorological and hydrologic events, which may vary as climate may vary in the future. The cycling of water and energy has obvious and significant implications for the health and prosperity of our society. The importance of documenting and predicting water and energy cycle variations and extremes is necessary to accomplish this benefit to society.

USING DIVERSE EXPERTISE TO ADVANCE CLIMATE CHANGE FISHERIES SCIENCE.

PubMed

Mulvaney, Kate K; Druschke, Caroline Gottschalk

2017-11-15

As climate change continues to impact New England's coastal ecosystems and their related fisheries, the need for measuring, projecting, interpreting, and applying those impacts for adaptive management is expanding. In New England, different types of formal and informal research efforts that involve collaboration between the fishing community and traditional university and government researchers continue to develop to address some of this need. To better understand the opportunities and challenges that these collaborative research efforts face, we conducted semi-structured interviews with 18 members of the fishing and research communities who are engaged in advancing New England climate change and fisheries science. Participants showed clear concern for the impacts of climate change on New England fisheries and about the insufficient availability of the necessary science to manage for those impacts. They also noted a number of challenges in collaborative research, including poor communication and a lack of trust among fishers, researchers, and decision makers, as well as a lack of perceived credibility for research coming out of the fishing community. We identify a number of opportunities for improving collaboration and communication among these groups, which could build upon the identified value of existing collaborations.

Technology transfer for adaptation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Biagini, Bonizella; Kuhl, Laura; Gallagher, Kelly Sims; Ortiz, Claudia

2014-09-01

Technology alone will not be able to solve adaptation challenges, but it is likely to play an important role. As a result of the role of technology in adaptation and the importance of international collaboration for climate change, technology transfer for adaptation is a critical but understudied issue. Through an analysis of Global Environment Facility-managed adaptation projects, we find there is significantly more technology transfer occurring in adaptation projects than might be expected given the pessimistic rhetoric surrounding technology transfer for adaptation. Most projects focused on demonstration and early deployment/niche formation for existing technologies rather than earlier stages of innovation, which is understandable considering the pilot nature of the projects. Key challenges for the transfer process, including technology selection and appropriateness under climate change, markets and access to technology, and diffusion strategies are discussed in more detail.

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

None

Articles include: Arizona Apache tribe set to break ground on new solar project; Native leaders give tribes a voice on White House Climate Task Force; Chaninik Wind Group Pursues Innovative Solutions to native Alaska energy challenges; and sections, Message from the Director, Tracey Lebeau; On the Horizon, Sharing Knowledge, and Building Bridges.

NASA Climate Days: Promoting Climate Literacy One Ambassador and One Event at a Time

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Weir, H. M.; Lewis, P. M.; Chambers, L. H.; Millham, R. A.; Richardson, A.

2012-12-01

With so many informal outreach and education venues across the world, leveraging them for climate education allows vast amounts of information to be translated to the public in a familiar setting through trusted local sources. One of the challenges is the development of an effective process for training informal educators and providing them with adequate support materials. The 'NASA Climate Day Kit', and its related training strategy for Earth Ambassadors, is designed to address some of these issues. The purpose of the NASA Climate Day project is to collect existing NASA climate education materials, assemble a cadre of informal educators, and provide professional development on the subject of climate change. This training is accomplished through a series of exercises, games, science talks and place-based training. After their training and immersion in climate-related content, participants develop and implement a climate event at their local informal education venue. Throughout their training the Earth Ambassadors are exposed to a wide array of climate related exercises and background content. Some of these include one-on-one science content talks with NASA scientists who study climate on a daily basis. This allows the Ambassador to have direct access to new cutting edge data and information. To complement the science talks, participants explore activities and games that can engage all ages at their climate event. During their training, they also explore the 'Climate Day Kit'. This Kit is an assemblage of climate-related materials created by various NASA groups. Key components of this Kit include data visualizations, articles, electronic reference material, science talks, NASA Education and Public Outreach (E/PO) climate materials, and examples of Climate Day events that have been conducted in the past. As an on-going resource and to use for their own climate event, each group of Earth Ambassadors has access to a dynamic website that hosts all of the science presentations from the training, along with downloadable Climate Day Kit materials. Utilizing informal educators from museums, aquariums, libraries and other similar venues allow the hard-to-understand, sometimes-controversial, topic of climate change to be presented to the public in tailored events that suit an individual community's needs. Included in the process of scheduling and executing these climate events, the Ambassadors participate in virtual conferences to discuss progress, to ensure proper evaluation and to allow ample time for questions from the trainers and scientists. This ensures an accurate stream of information from the scientist to the public in a fashion that can be understood and digested by the layperson, helping them to make better-informed decisions about societal issues related to global climate change. Through a series of local Climate Day events, it is hoped that the public will have the opportunity to have first hand experience with the topic of climate change, leaving with a better understanding of its scientific basis. Outcome: This paper will summarize the various methods and strategies used in the Climate Day training events. A discussion of methods that work and those that do not for informal education will help provide a better understanding of the challenges faced in educating the public on such a controversial and hard-to-understand topic.

Climate Change Education: Student Media Production to Educate and Engage

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Rooney-Varga, J. N.; Brisk, A. A.; Ledley, T. S.; Shuldman, M.

2011-12-01

Climate change education offers many challenges, including the complexity of the natural and human systems involved, a need for a multi-disciplinary perspective, and the psychological barriers to learning that result from a problem that frequently elicits a sense of being overwhelmed and powerless. The implications of climate change impacts and/or solutions can be especially overwhelming for today's students, who are likely to be confronted with many projected changes within their lifetimes. We are developing approaches to incorporate video production by students at both the high school and university levels in order to overcome many of the challenges unique to climate change education. Through media production, students are asked to convey complex topics using clear, simple language and metaphor, so their content knowledge must be deep enough to educate others. Video production is a team effort (director, camera person, editor, etc.) and inherently creates an opportunity for learning in a social context, which has been shown to lead to better learning outcomes in climate change education. Video production also promotes the basic tenets of engagement theory, in which a small group of students is in constant contact with the content and, ideally, creates a product that can be disseminated broadly. Lastly, putting students behind the camera can give them a voice and a sense of empowerment, fostering active participation in the learning process. While video is a medium that is readily disseminated to a broad audience, our focus is on the process (i.e., learning outcomes of students directly involved in media production), not the product. However, we have found that providing students with a means to add their voices to the broader public's discussion of climate change has a positive impact on student engagement with climate change science and on public awareness this problem beyond the classroom. While student-produced media pieces are not intended to provide in-depth scientific information to the broader public, we have found that they can be successful in conveying some of the key, basic concepts needed to understand anthropogenic climate change. Some of these concepts include the causal relationships between fossil fuel-based energy systems, atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations, and climate change; the distinction between natural and anthropogenic processes in the carbon cycle; impacts of climate change on ecosystem services; and transitioning to renewable energy systems that do not emit carbon dioxide is necessary to avert 'dangerous' climate change.

Global climate change: the quantifiable sustainability challenge.

PubMed

Princiotta, Frank T; Loughlin, Daniel H

2014-09-01

Population growth and the pressures spawned by increasing demands for energy and resource-intensive goods, foods, and services are driving unsustainable growth in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Recent GHG emission trends are consistent with worst-case scenarios of the previous decade. Dramatic and near-term emission reductions likely will be needed to ameliorate the potential deleterious impacts of climate change. To achieve such reductions, fundamental changes are required in the way that energy is generated and used. New technologies must be developed and deployed at a rapid rate. Advances in carbon capture and storage, renewable, nuclear and transportation technologies are particularly important; however, global research and development efforts related to these technologies currently appear to fall short relative to needs. Even with a proactive and international mitigation effort, humanity will need to adapt to climate change, but the adaptation needs and damages will be far greater if mitigation activities are not pursued in earnest. In this review, research is highlighted that indicates increasing global and regional temperatures and ties climate changes to increasing GHG emissions. GHG mitigation targets necessary for limiting future global temperature increases are discussed, including how factors such as population growth and the growing energy intensity of the developing world will make these reduction targets more challenging. Potential technological pathways for meeting emission reduction targets are examined, barriers are discussed, and global and US. modeling results are presented that suggest that the necessary pathways will require radically transformed electric and mobile sectors. While geoengineering options have been proposed to allow more time for serious emission reductions, these measures are at the conceptual stage with many unanswered cost, environmental, and political issues. Implications: This paper lays out the case that mitigating the potential for catastrophic climate change will be a monumental challenge, requiring the global community to transform its energy system in an aggressive, coordinated, and timely manner. If this challenge is to be met, new technologies will have to be developed and deployed at a rapid rate. Advances in carbon capture and storage, renewable, nuclear, and transportation technologies are particularly important. Even with an aggressive international mitigation effort, humanity will still need to adapt to significant climate change.

Identifying stakeholder-relevant climate change impacts: a case study in the Yakima River Basin, Washington, USA

USGS Publications Warehouse

Jenni, K.; Graves, D.; Hardiman, Jill M.; Hatten, James R.; Mastin, Mark C.; Mesa, Matthew G.; Montag, J.; Nieman, Timothy; Voss, Frank D.; Maule, Alec G.

2014-01-01

Designing climate-related research so that study results will be useful to natural resource managers is a unique challenge. While decision makers increasingly recognize the need to consider climate change in their resource management plans, and climate scientists recognize the importance of providing locally-relevant climate data and projections, there often remains a gap between management needs and the information that is available or is being collected. We used decision analysis concepts to bring decision-maker and stakeholder perspectives into the applied research planning process. In 2009 we initiated a series of studies on the impacts of climate change in the Yakima River Basin (YRB) with a four-day stakeholder workshop, bringing together managers, stakeholders, and scientists to develop an integrated conceptual model of climate change and climate change impacts in the YRB. The conceptual model development highlighted areas of uncertainty that limit the understanding of the potential impacts of climate change and decision alternatives by those who will be most directly affected by those changes, and pointed to areas where additional study and engagement of stakeholders would be beneficial. The workshop and resulting conceptual model highlighted the importance of numerous different outcomes to stakeholders in the basin, including social and economic outcomes that go beyond the physical and biological outcomes typically reported in climate impacts studies. Subsequent studies addressed several of those areas of uncertainty, including changes in water temperatures, habitat quality, and bioenergetics of salmonid populations.

Building Climate Resilience in the Blue Nile/Abay Highlands: A Role for Earth System Sciences

PubMed Central

Zaitchik, Benjamin F.; Simane, Belay; Habib, Shahid; Anderson, Martha C.; Ozdogan, Mutlu; Foltz, Jeremy D.

2012-01-01

The Blue Nile (Abay) Highlands of Ethiopia are characterized by significant interannual climate variability, complex topography and associated local climate contrasts, erosive rains and erodible soils, and intense land pressure due to an increasing population and an economy that is almost entirely dependent on smallholder, low-input agriculture. As a result, these highland zones are highly vulnerable to negative impacts of climate variability. As patterns of variability and precipitation intensity alter under anthropogenic climate change, there is concern that this vulnerability will increase, threatening economic development and food security in the region. In order to overcome these challenges and to enhance sustainable development in the context of climate change, it is necessary to establish climate resilient development strategies that are informed by best-available Earth System Science (ESS) information. This requirement is complicated by the fact that climate projections for the Abay Highlands contain significant and perhaps irreducible uncertainties. A critical challenge for ESS, then, is to generate and to communicate meaningful information for climate resilient development in the context of a highly uncertain climate forecast. Here we report on a framework for applying ESS to climate resilient development in the Abay Highlands, with a focus on the challenge of reducing land degradation. PMID:22470302

Climate Change Education: Preparing Future and Current Business Leaders--A Workshop Summary

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Storksdieck, Martin

2014-01-01

Climate change poses challenges as well as opportunities for businesses and, broadly speaking for the entire economy. Businesses will be challenged to provide services or products with less harmful influence on the climate; respond to a changing policy, regulatory, and market environment; and provide new services and products to help address the…

Lessons about Climate Change Pose Many Challenges for Science Teachers

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cavanagh, Sean

2007-01-01

This article reports on lessons about climate change which pose many challenges for science teachers. The natural world today offers a broad--and dire--catalog of scientific phenomena for teachers wanting to craft classroom lessons on the topic of climate change. As public concern about global warming increases, teachers are carving out a larger…

Balancing the Tensions and Meeting the Conceptual Challenges of Education for Sustainable Development and Climate Change

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Blum, Nicole; Nazir, Joanne; Breiting, Soren; Goh, Kim Chuan; Pedretti, Erminia

2013-01-01

This paper addresses one of the key challenges for work on education, sustainable development and climate change: the overall conceptualisation of central ideas such as Environmental Education (EE), Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) and Climate Change Education (CCE). What do these concepts mean in diverse contexts and amongst diverse…

Climate and development: enhancing impact through stronger linkages in the implementation of the Paris Agreement and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

PubMed Central

Gomez-Echeverri, Luis

2018-01-01

One of the greatest achievements in the global negotiations of 2015 that delivered the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development or Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Paris Agreement on climate change is that, for the first time, the linkages between climate and development were enshrined in each of the documents. This was done in recognition that climate change and development need to be addressed together in order not only to avoid harmful trade-offs and high costs, particularly for poorer countries, but also to exploit the benefits that come from strengthening these linkages. This review presents some of the latest data that argue for stronger linkages as well as the challenges of implementation which are not only politically and economically related but also include issues such as knowledge gaps, finance and governance. Finally, the review also presents a glimpse at the pathways that will be required to reach the ambitious global temperature targets of the Paris Agreement of less than 2°C above pre-industrial levels with efforts to limit temperature rise even further to 1.5°C. This provides the context for some conclusions and recommendations for policy-makers, including on methodologies for assessing linkages and leveraging them for greater benefit. This article is part of the theme issue ‘The Paris Agreement: understanding the physical and social challenges for a warming world of 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels’. PMID:29610377

Climate and development: enhancing impact through stronger linkages in the implementation of the Paris Agreement and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

PubMed

Gomez-Echeverri, Luis

2018-05-13

One of the greatest achievements in the global negotiations of 2015 that delivered the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development or Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Paris Agreement on climate change is that, for the first time, the linkages between climate and development were enshrined in each of the documents. This was done in recognition that climate change and development need to be addressed together in order not only to avoid harmful trade-offs and high costs, particularly for poorer countries, but also to exploit the benefits that come from strengthening these linkages. This review presents some of the latest data that argue for stronger linkages as well as the challenges of implementation which are not only politically and economically related but also include issues such as knowledge gaps, finance and governance. Finally, the review also presents a glimpse at the pathways that will be required to reach the ambitious global temperature targets of the Paris Agreement of less than 2°C above pre-industrial levels with efforts to limit temperature rise even further to 1.5°C. This provides the context for some conclusions and recommendations for policy-makers, including on methodologies for assessing linkages and leveraging them for greater benefit.This article is part of the theme issue 'The Paris Agreement: understanding the physical and social challenges for a warming world of 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels'. © 2018 The Authors.

Climate and development: enhancing impact through stronger linkages in the implementation of the Paris Agreement and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gomez-Echeverri, Luis

2018-05-01

One of the greatest achievements in the global negotiations of 2015 that delivered the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development or Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Paris Agreement on climate change is that, for the first time, the linkages between climate and development were enshrined in each of the documents. This was done in recognition that climate change and development need to be addressed together in order not only to avoid harmful trade-offs and high costs, particularly for poorer countries, but also to exploit the benefits that come from strengthening these linkages. This review presents some of the latest data that argue for stronger linkages as well as the challenges of implementation which are not only politically and economically related but also include issues such as knowledge gaps, finance and governance. Finally, the review also presents a glimpse at the pathways that will be required to reach the ambitious global temperature targets of the Paris Agreement of less than 2°C above pre-industrial levels with efforts to limit temperature rise even further to 1.5°C. This provides the context for some conclusions and recommendations for policy-makers, including on methodologies for assessing linkages and leveraging them for greater benefit. This article is part of the theme issue `The Paris Agreement: understanding the physical and social challenges for a warming world of 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels'.

Modelling Glacial Lake Outburst Floods: Key Considerations and Challenges Posed By Climatic Change

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Westoby, M.

2014-12-01

The number and size of moraine-dammed supraglacial and proglacial lakes is increasing as a result of contemporary climatic change. Moraine-dammed lakes are capable of impounding volumes of water in excess of 107 m3, and often represent a very real threat to downstream communities and infrastructure, should the bounding moraine fail and produce a catastrophic Glacial Lake Outburst Flood (GLOF). Modelling the individual components of a GLOF, including a triggering event, the complex dam-breaching process and downstream propagation of the flood is incredibly challenging, not least because direct observation and instrumentation of such high-magnitude flows is virtually impossible. We briefly review the current state-of-the-art in numerical GLOF modelling, with a focus on the theoretical and computational challenges associated with reconstructing or predicting GLOF dynamics in the face of rates of cryospheric change that have no historical precedent, as well as various implications for researchers and professionals tasked with the production of hazard maps and disaster mitigation strategies.

Climate models predict increasing temperature variability in poor countries.

PubMed

Bathiany, Sebastian; Dakos, Vasilis; Scheffer, Marten; Lenton, Timothy M

2018-05-01

Extreme events such as heat waves are among the most challenging aspects of climate change for societies. We show that climate models consistently project increases in temperature variability in tropical countries over the coming decades, with the Amazon as a particular hotspot of concern. During the season with maximum insolation, temperature variability increases by ~15% per degree of global warming in Amazonia and Southern Africa and by up to 10%°C -1 in the Sahel, India, and Southeast Asia. Mechanisms include drying soils and shifts in atmospheric structure. Outside the tropics, temperature variability is projected to decrease on average because of a reduced meridional temperature gradient and sea-ice loss. The countries that have contributed least to climate change, and are most vulnerable to extreme events, are projected to experience the strongest increase in variability. These changes would therefore amplify the inequality associated with the impacts of a changing climate.

Climate models predict increasing temperature variability in poor countries

PubMed Central

Dakos, Vasilis; Scheffer, Marten

2018-01-01

Extreme events such as heat waves are among the most challenging aspects of climate change for societies. We show that climate models consistently project increases in temperature variability in tropical countries over the coming decades, with the Amazon as a particular hotspot of concern. During the season with maximum insolation, temperature variability increases by ~15% per degree of global warming in Amazonia and Southern Africa and by up to 10%°C−1 in the Sahel, India, and Southeast Asia. Mechanisms include drying soils and shifts in atmospheric structure. Outside the tropics, temperature variability is projected to decrease on average because of a reduced meridional temperature gradient and sea-ice loss. The countries that have contributed least to climate change, and are most vulnerable to extreme events, are projected to experience the strongest increase in variability. These changes would therefore amplify the inequality associated with the impacts of a changing climate. PMID:29732409

Back to the Future -Precipitation Extremes, Climate Variability, Environmental Planning and Adaptation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Barros, A. P.

2008-12-01

--"The last major climatic oscillation peak was about 1856, or 74 years ago. Practically all of our important railroad and public highway work has been done since that time. Most of our parks systems driveways, and roads of all type for auto travel, in the various States, have been completed within the past 30 years, namely, beginning at the very lowest point of our climatic swing (1900-1910). There is every reason to believe, therefore, as the next 20 years comes on apace, we will witness considerable damage to work done during the past regime of weather."-- Schuman, 1931 At the beginning of the 21st century, as at the beginning of the 20th century, the fundamental question is whether the nation is more prepared for natural disasters today than it was eight decades ago. Indeed, the question is whether the best science, engineering and policy tools are in place to prepare for and respond to extreme events. Changes in the risk and magnitude of extreme precipitation events rank among the most studied impacts, and indicators (symptoms) of climatic variations. Extreme precipitation translates generally into extreme flooding, landslides, collapse of lifeline infrastructure, and the breakdown of public health services among others. In approaching the problem of quantifying the risk and magnitude of extreme precipitation events, there are two major challenges: 1) it is difficult to characterize "observed" (20th century) conditions due to the lack of long-term observations - i.e., short and incomplete historical records; and 2) it is difficult to characterize "predicted" (21st century) conditions due to the lack of skill of precipitation forecasts at spatial and temporal scales meaningful for impact studies, and the short-duration of climate model simulations themselves. The first challenge translates in estimating the probability of occurrence (rare) and magnitude (very large) of events that may have not happened yet. The second challenge is that of quantifying uncertainty and separating climatic variability and change from model error. Nonstationarity and persistence at multiple scales confound the problem. From an economics perspective, the unprecedented success of environmental control and "conservation" in the 20th century, present another yet challenge in terms of social expectations and human development, including the right to sustainable (high) quality of life. In this presentation, we illustrate these challenges by considering first the estimation of Probable Maximum Precipitation, an engineering design criterion typically used in dam design, and examine how it varies spatially across the continental US according to physiographic region and as a function of climate regime. Second, we explore the spatial and temporal scales that link climate variability to macroscale environmental planning, and the notion of place-based adaptive riskgrade analysis.

The Integration of Climate Science and Collaborative Processes in Building Regional Climate Resiliency in Southeast Florida

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Jurado, J.

2016-12-01

Southeast Florida is widely recognized as one of the most vulnerable regions in the United States to the impacts of climate change, especially sea level rise. Dense urban populations, low land elevations, flat topography, complex shorelines and a porous geology all contribute to the region's challenges. Regional and local governments have been working collaboratively to address shared climate mitigation and adaptation concerns as part of the four-county Southeast Florida Regional Climate Change Compact (Compact). This partnership has emphasized, in part, the use of climate data and the development of advanced technical tools and visualizations to help inform decision-making, improve communications, and guide investments. Prominent work products have included regional vulnerability maps and assessments, a unified sea level rise projection for southeast Florida, the development and application of hydrologic models in scenario planning, interdisciplinary resilient redesign planning workshops, and the development of regional climate indicators. Key to the Compact's efforts has been the engagement and expertise of academic and agency partners, including a formal collaboration between the Florida Climate Institute and the Compact to improve research and project collaborations focused on southeast Florida. This presentation will focus on the collaborative processes and work products that have served to accelerate resiliency planning and investments in southeast Florida, with specific examples of how local governments are using these work products to modernize agency processes, and build support among residents and business leaders.

Uncertainty Quantification in Climate Modeling and Projection

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Qian, Yun; Jackson, Charles; Giorgi, Filippo

The projection of future climate is one of the most complex problems undertaken by the scientific community. Although scientists have been striving to better understand the physical basis of the climate system and to improve climate models, the overall uncertainty in projections of future climate has not been significantly reduced (e.g., from the IPCC AR4 to AR5). With the rapid increase of complexity in Earth system models, reducing uncertainties in climate projections becomes extremely challenging. Since uncertainties always exist in climate models, interpreting the strengths and limitations of future climate projections is key to evaluating risks, and climate change informationmore » for use in Vulnerability, Impact, and Adaptation (VIA) studies should be provided with both well-characterized and well-quantified uncertainty. The workshop aimed at providing participants, many of them from developing countries, information on strategies to quantify the uncertainty in climate model projections and assess the reliability of climate change information for decision-making. The program included a mixture of lectures on fundamental concepts in Bayesian inference and sampling, applications, and hands-on computer laboratory exercises employing software packages for Bayesian inference, Markov Chain Monte Carlo methods, and global sensitivity analyses. The lectures covered a range of scientific issues underlying the evaluation of uncertainties in climate projections, such as the effects of uncertain initial and boundary conditions, uncertain physics, and limitations of observational records. Progress in quantitatively estimating uncertainties in hydrologic, land surface, and atmospheric models at both regional and global scales was also reviewed. The application of Uncertainty Quantification (UQ) concepts to coupled climate system models is still in its infancy. The Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP) multi-model ensemble currently represents the primary data for assessing reliability and uncertainties of climate change information. An alternative approach is to generate similar ensembles by perturbing parameters within a single-model framework. One of workshop’s objectives was to give participants a deeper understanding of these approaches within a Bayesian statistical framework. However, there remain significant challenges still to be resolved before UQ can be applied in a convincing way to climate models and their projections.« less

Climate change and forests of the future: Managing in the face of uncertainty

USGS Publications Warehouse

Millar, C.I.; Stephenson, N.L.; Stephens, S.L.

2007-01-01

We offer a conceptual framework for managing forested ecosystems under an assumption that future environments will be different from present but that we cannot be certain about the specifics of change. We encourage flexible approaches that promote reversible and incremental steps, and that favor ongoing learning and capacity to modify direction as situations change. We suggest that no single solution fits all future challenges, especially in the context of changing climates, and that the best strategy is to mix different approaches for different situations. Resources managers will be challenged to integrate adaptation strategies (actions that help ecosystems accommodate changes adaptively) and mitigation strategies (actions that enable ecosystems to reduce anthropogenic influences on global climate) into overall plans. Adaptive strategies include resistance options (forestall impacts and protect highly valued resources), resilience options (improve the capacity of ecosystems to return to desired conditions after disturbance), and response options (facilitate transition of ecosystems from current to new conditions). Mitigation strategies include options to sequester carbon and reduce overall greenhouse gas emissions. Priority-setting approaches (e.g., triage), appropriate for rapidly changing conditions and for situations where needs are greater than available capacity to respond, will become increasingly important in the future. ?? 2007 by the Ecological Society of America.

Local control on precipitation in a fully coupled climate-hydrology model.

PubMed

Larsen, Morten A D; Christensen, Jens H; Drews, Martin; Butts, Michael B; Refsgaard, Jens C

2016-03-10

The ability to simulate regional precipitation realistically by climate models is essential to understand and adapt to climate change. Due to the complexity of associated processes, particularly at unresolved temporal and spatial scales this continues to be a major challenge. As a result, climate simulations of precipitation often exhibit substantial biases that affect the reliability of future projections. Here we demonstrate how a regional climate model (RCM) coupled to a distributed hydrological catchment model that fully integrates water and energy fluxes between the subsurface, land surface, plant cover and the atmosphere, enables a realistic representation of local precipitation. Substantial improvements in simulated precipitation dynamics on seasonal and longer time scales is seen for a simulation period of six years and can be attributed to a more complete treatment of hydrological sub-surface processes including groundwater and moisture feedback. A high degree of local influence on the atmosphere suggests that coupled climate-hydrology models have a potential for improving climate projections and the results further indicate a diminished need for bias correction in climate-hydrology impact studies.

A framework for the identification of hotspots of climate change risk for mammals.

PubMed

Pacifici, Michela; Visconti, Piero; Rondinini, Carlo

2018-04-01

As rates of global warming increase rapidly, identifying species at risk of decline due to climate impacts and the factors affecting this risk have become key challenges in ecology and conservation biology. Here, we present a framework for assessing three components of climate-related risk for species: vulnerability, exposure and hazard. We used the relationship between the observed response of species to climate change and a set of intrinsic traits (e.g. weaning age) and extrinsic factors (e.g. precipitation seasonality within a species geographic range) to predict, respectively, the vulnerability and exposure of all data-sufficient terrestrial non-volant mammals (3,953 species). Combining this information with hazard (the magnitude of projected climate change within a species geographic range), we identified global hotspots of species at risk from climate change that includes the western Amazon basin, south-western Kenya, north-eastern Tanzania, north-eastern South Africa, Yunnan province in China, and mountain chains in Papua-New Guinea. Our framework identifies priority areas for monitoring climate change effects on species and directing climate mitigation actions for biodiversity. © 2017 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Local control on precipitation in a fully coupled climate-hydrology model

PubMed Central

Larsen, Morten A. D.; Christensen, Jens H.; Drews, Martin; Butts, Michael B.; Refsgaard, Jens C.

2016-01-01

The ability to simulate regional precipitation realistically by climate models is essential to understand and adapt to climate change. Due to the complexity of associated processes, particularly at unresolved temporal and spatial scales this continues to be a major challenge. As a result, climate simulations of precipitation often exhibit substantial biases that affect the reliability of future projections. Here we demonstrate how a regional climate model (RCM) coupled to a distributed hydrological catchment model that fully integrates water and energy fluxes between the subsurface, land surface, plant cover and the atmosphere, enables a realistic representation of local precipitation. Substantial improvements in simulated precipitation dynamics on seasonal and longer time scales is seen for a simulation period of six years and can be attributed to a more complete treatment of hydrological sub-surface processes including groundwater and moisture feedback. A high degree of local influence on the atmosphere suggests that coupled climate-hydrology models have a potential for improving climate projections and the results further indicate a diminished need for bias correction in climate-hydrology impact studies. PMID:26960564

On the Reprocessing and Reanalysis of Observations for Climate

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Bosilovich, Michael G.; Kennedy, John; Dee, Dick; Allan, R.; O'Neill, Alan

2013-01-01

The long observational record is critical to our understanding of the Earths climate, but most observing systems were not developed with a climate objective in mind. As a result, tremendous efforts have gone into assessing and reprocessing the data records to improve their usefulness in climate studies. The purpose of this paper is to both review recent progress in reprocessing and reanalyzing observations, and to summarize the challenges that must be overcome in order to improve our understanding of climate and variability. Reprocessing improves data quality through more scrutiny and improved retrieval techniques for individual observing systems, while reanalysis merges many disparate observations with models through data assimilation, yet both aim to provide an climatology of Earth processes. Many challenges remain, such as tracking the improvement of processing algorithms and limited spatial coverage. Reanalyses have fostered significant research, yet reliable global trends in many physical fields are not yet attainable, despite significant advances in data assimilation and numerical modeling. Oceanic reanalyses have made significant advances in recent years, but will only be discussed here in terms of progress toward integrated Earth system analyses. Climate data sets are generally adequate for process studies and large-scale climate variability. Communication of the strengths, limitations and uncertainties of reprocessed observations and reanalysis data, not only among the community of developers, but also with the extended research community, including the new generations of researchers and the decision makers is crucial for further advancement of the observational data records. It must be emphasized that careful investigation of the data and processing methods are required to use the observations appropriately.

Exploring Pacific Northwest ecosystem resilience: packaging climate change science for federal managers

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bachelet, D. M.

2014-12-01

Climate change is projected to jeopardize ecosystems in the Pacific Northwest. Managing ecosystems for future resilience requires collaboration, innovation and communication. The abundance of data and documents describing the uncertainty around both climate change projections and impacts has become challenging to managers who have little funding and limited time to digest and incorporate these materials into planning and implementation documents. We worked with US Forest Service and BLM managers to help them develop vulnerability assessments and identify on-the-ground strategies to address climate change challenges on the federal lands in northwest Oregon (Siuslaw, Willamette and Mt. Hood National Forests; Eugene and Salem BLM Districts). We held workshops to promote dialogue about climate change, which were particularly effective in fostering discussions between the managers who often do not have the time to share their knowledge and compare experiences across administrative boundaries. We used the Adaptation for Conservation Targets (ACT) framework to identify measurable management objectives and rapidly assess local vulnerabilities. We used databasin.org to centralize usable information, including state-of-the-art CMIP5 climate projections, for the mandated assessments of vulnerability and resilience. We introduced participants to a decision support framework providing opportunities to develop more effective adaptation strategies. We built a special web page to hold the information gathered at the workshops and provide easy access to climate change information. We are now working with several Landscape Conservation Cooperatives (LCCs) to design gateways - conservation atlases - to their relevant data repositories on databasin.org and working with them to develop web tools that can provide usable information for their own vulnerability assessments.

A Computing Infrastructure for Supporting Climate Studies

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Yang, C.; Bambacus, M.; Freeman, S. M.; Huang, Q.; Li, J.; Sun, M.; Xu, C.; Wojcik, G. S.; Cahalan, R. F.; NASA Climate @ Home Project Team

2011-12-01

Climate change is one of the major challenges facing us on the Earth planet in the 21st century. Scientists build many models to simulate the past and predict the climate change for the next decades or century. Most of the models are at a low resolution with some targeting high resolution in linkage to practical climate change preparedness. To calibrate and validate the models, millions of model runs are needed to find the best simulation and configuration. This paper introduces the NASA effort on Climate@Home project to build a supercomputer based-on advanced computing technologies, such as cloud computing, grid computing, and others. Climate@Home computing infrastructure includes several aspects: 1) a cloud computing platform is utilized to manage the potential spike access to the centralized components, such as grid computing server for dispatching and collecting models runs results; 2) a grid computing engine is developed based on MapReduce to dispatch models, model configuration, and collect simulation results and contributing statistics; 3) a portal serves as the entry point for the project to provide the management, sharing, and data exploration for end users; 4) scientists can access customized tools to configure model runs and visualize model results; 5) the public can access twitter and facebook to get the latest about the project. This paper will introduce the latest progress of the project and demonstrate the operational system during the AGU fall meeting. It will also discuss how this technology can become a trailblazer for other climate studies and relevant sciences. It will share how the challenges in computation and software integration were solved.

A paradigm shift toward a consistent modeling framework to assess climate impacts

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Monier, E.; Paltsev, S.; Sokolov, A. P.; Fant, C.; Chen, H.; Gao, X.; Schlosser, C. A.; Scott, J. R.; Dutkiewicz, S.; Ejaz, Q.; Couzo, E. A.; Prinn, R. G.; Haigh, M.

2017-12-01

Estimates of physical and economic impacts of future climate change are subject to substantial challenges. To enrich the currently popular approaches of assessing climate impacts by evaluating a damage function or by multi-model comparisons based on the Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs), we focus here on integrating impacts into a self-consistent coupled human and Earth system modeling framework that includes modules that represent multiple physical impacts. In a sample application we show that this framework is capable of investigating the physical impacts of climate change and socio-economic stressors. The projected climate impacts vary dramatically across the globe in a set of scenarios with global mean warming ranging between 2.4°C and 3.6°C above pre-industrial by 2100. Unabated emissions lead to substantial sea level rise, acidification that impacts the base of the oceanic food chain, air pollution that exceeds health standards by tenfold, water stress that impacts an additional 1 to 2 billion people globally and agricultural productivity that decreases substantially in many parts of the world. We compare the outcomes from these forward-looking scenarios against the common goal described by the target-driven scenario of 2°C, which results in much smaller impacts. It is challenging for large internationally coordinated exercises to respond quickly to new policy targets. We propose that a paradigm shift toward a self-consistent modeling framework to assess climate impacts is needed to produce information relevant to evolving global climate policy and mitigation strategies in a timely way.

A Big Data Guide to Understanding Climate Change: The Case for Theory-Guided Data Science.

PubMed

Faghmous, James H; Kumar, Vipin

2014-09-01

Global climate change and its impact on human life has become one of our era's greatest challenges. Despite the urgency, data science has had little impact on furthering our understanding of our planet in spite of the abundance of climate data. This is a stark contrast from other fields such as advertising or electronic commerce where big data has been a great success story. This discrepancy stems from the complex nature of climate data as well as the scientific questions climate science brings forth. This article introduces a data science audience to the challenges and opportunities to mine large climate datasets, with an emphasis on the nuanced difference between mining climate data and traditional big data approaches. We focus on data, methods, and application challenges that must be addressed in order for big data to fulfill their promise with regard to climate science applications. More importantly, we highlight research showing that solely relying on traditional big data techniques results in dubious findings, and we instead propose a theory-guided data science paradigm that uses scientific theory to constrain both the big data techniques as well as the results-interpretation process to extract accurate insight from large climate data .

How to allocate water resources under climate change in the arid endorheic river basin, Northwest China

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zhang, A.; Feng, D.; Tian, Y.; Zheng, Y.

2017-12-01

Water resource is of fundamental importance to the society and ecosystem in arid endorheic river basins, and water-use conflicts between upstream and downstream are usually significant. Heihe river basin (HRB) is the second largest endorheic river basin in china, which is featured with dry climate, intensively irrigated farmlands in oases and significant surface water-groundwater interaction. The irrigation districts in the middle HRB consume a large portion of the river flow, and the low HRB, mainly Gobi Desert, has an extremely vulnerable ecological environment. The water resources management has significantly altered the hydrological processes in HRB, and is now facing multiple challenges, including decline of groundwater table in the middle HRB, insufficient environmental flow for the lower HRB. Furthermore, future climate change adds substantial uncertainty to the water system. Thus, it is imperative to have a sustainable water resources management in HRB in order to tackle the existing challenges and future uncertainty. Climate projection form a dynamical downscaled climate change scenario shows precipitation will increase at a rate of approximately 3 millimeter per ten years and temperature will increase at a rate of approximately 0.2 centigrade degree per ten years in the following 50 years in the HRB. Based on an integrated ecohydrological model, we evaluated how the climate change and agricultural development would collaboratively impact the water resources and ecological health in the middle and lower HRB, and investigated how the water management should cope with the complex impact.

Climate Change in Colorado: Developing a Synthesis of the Science to Support Water Resources Management and Adaptation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ray, A. J.; Barsugli, J. J.; Averyt, K. B.; Deheza, V.; Udall, B.

2008-12-01

In 2007 Colorado's Governor Ritter issued a Colorado Climate Action Plan, in response to the risks associated with climate change and sets a goal to adapt to those climate changes "that cannot be avoided." The Western Water Assessment, a NOAA funded RISA program, was commissioned to do a synthesis of the science on climate change aimed at planners, decisionmakers, and policymakers in water in Colorado. Changes in Colorado's climate and implications for water resources are occurring in a global context. The objective of the report is to communicate the state of the science regarding the physical aspects of climate change that are important for evaluating impacts on Colorado's water resources, and to support state efforts to develop a water adaptation plan. However, the identification of specific climate change impacts on water resources is beyond the scope of this report. Water managers have a long history of adapting to changing circumstances, including changes in economies and land use, environmental concerns, and population growth. Climate change will further affect the decisions made about use of water. However, current water management practices may not be robust enough to cope with this climate change. This presentation reports on the process of developing the report and challenges we faced. We developed the report based on ongoing interactions with the water management community and discussions with them about their decision processes and needs. A second presentation (see Barsugli et al) presents the synthesis findings from the report. We followed the IPCC WG1 model of observations, attribution, and projections. However, many published studies and datasets include information about Colorado, there are few climate studies that focus only on the state. Consequently, many important scientific analyses for Colorado have not been done, and Colorado- specific information is often imbedded in or averaged with studies of the larger Western U.S. We used findings from peer-reviewed regional studies, and conducted new analyses derived from existing datasets and model projections, and took advantage of new regional analyses. In addition to the IPCC Fourth Assessment, we also took advantage of very new Climate Change Science Program Assessments. Many water managers, although often technically savvy engineers, hydrologists and other professionals, but are not trained as climate or atmospheric scientists, and seeks to complexity by using Fahrenheit units, minimizing use of or defining jargon terms, and re-plotting published figures/data for simplicity. The report is written at a less technical level than the IPCC reports, and some features are intended to raise the level of climate literacy of our audience about climate and how climate science is done. For example, the report includes a primer on climate models and theory that situates Colorado in the context of global climate change and describes how the unique features of the state -- such as the complex topography -- relate to interpreting and using climate change projections. This report responds to Colorado state agencies' and water management community needs to understanding of climate change and is an initial step in establishing Colorado's water-related adaptation needs. Another impact of this report is as an experiment in climate services for climate change information and exploring the challenges of communicating the information to diverse decisionmakers.

ASF: Facing the Challenges for 15 Years and Counting

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

La Belle-Hamer, N.; Nicoll, J.; Atwood, D.; Arko, S.

2006-12-01

The Alaska Satellite Facility (ASF) of the Geophysical Institute, University of Alaska Fairbanks, has just celebrated its 15th year of experience in satellite remote sensing. ASF is involved in a wide range of activities - - from downlinking satellite data to developing data analysis tools, value-added products, and training for Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) users. Satellite remote sensing data are acquired, processed, analyzed, and archived by ASF from several satellites; ASF has built expertise in handling and manipulating the data, SAR in particular. SAR is the only satellite imagery in the world today that can be acquired at any time of the day or night and during adverse weather conditions. It can be used to develop value-added products to aid in global climate change research. Examples include the SAR-derived coastal winds in the Gulf of Alaska and Bering Sea; monitoring of the major ice shelves in the Arctic and Antarctic; and examining the impact on sea level from the Greenland ice sheets and glaciers. The challenges facing the use of remote-sensing data in climate change research can be divided into three major categories: economical, political, and technical. The expense of designing, building, and launching a satellite is substantial. The costs of the ground segment including data management can be substantial and should not be neglected. The US agency funding climate often has the research community pushing for new missions against declining federal budgets in direct competition with ongoing missions. On the political front, data policy, data ownership, and cost recovery are issues often perceived as insurmountable by the user community. The technical issues, while challenging, are often the easiest to solve. The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, with the successful launch of the Advanced Land Observing System (ALOS), has embarked on a new way of handling the ground segment with the introduction of international data nodes. ASF will serve with NOAA as the Americas ALOS Data Node. With the success of the ALOS data node structure, it may well be that international cooperation will become the standard method for overcoming the challenges of global climate change research.

Contemplating the Future: Building Student Resilience in Climate Change Education

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Allison, E.

2015-12-01

Climate change research has largely focused on the biophysical, economic, and political aspects of the phenomenon, its projected impacts, and the possibilities for adaptation (Carey et al. 2014; Castree et al. 2014). In the classroom, too, climate change is generally presented as a scientific, technological, political, and economic challenge. However, defining climate change as physical challenge, divorced from its cultural causes and responses, forecloses some pathways of inquiry and limits the possibilities for adaptation (Adger et al. 2013). Recent perspectives by the environmental historian Mark Carey and colleagues (2014) and by the geographer Noel Castree and colleagues (2014) contend that ethnographic, narrative, social scientific, and humanistic insights are necessary additions to the climate change policy process and can contribute to deliberate, resilient responses to climate change. Among the humanistic insights needed are strategies and practices to maintain fortitude and persistence in the midst of dispiriting ecological trends. Students facing the "gloom and doom" of climate change data in environmental studies courses can experience negative states of mind such as denial, despair, burnout, and grief. Emerging research, however, demonstrates how contemplative practice can shift consciousness and promote resilience. Contemplative practices are those that consciously direct calm, focused attention. Such practices can build internal resilience, by promoting a greater sense of calm and well-being, decreasing stress, and sharpening focus and concentration. In addition, contemplative practices improve relationships with other people, through increasing compassion and flexibility in thinking. They also strengthen relationships with the surrounding world by increasing our ability to question, explore, and cope with rapid change and complexity. This presentation provides a context for incorporating contemplative practices, including mindfulness exercises, creative expression, and meditation, into the environmental studies classroom, and discusses how these practices can cultivate well-being and resilience in the face of climate change.

Cloud Compute for Global Climate Station Summaries

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Baldwin, R.; May, B.; Cogbill, P.

2017-12-01

Global Climate Station Summaries are simple indicators of observational normals which include climatic data summarizations and frequency distributions. These typically are statistical analyses of station data over 5-, 10-, 20-, 30-year or longer time periods. The summaries are computed from the global surface hourly dataset. This dataset totaling over 500 gigabytes is comprised of 40 different types of weather observations with 20,000 stations worldwide. NCEI and the U.S. Navy developed these value added products in the form of hourly summaries from many of these observations. Enabling this compute functionality in the cloud is the focus of the project. An overview of approach and challenges associated with application transition to the cloud will be presented.

Incorporating phosphorus cycling into global modeling efforts: a worthwhile, tractable endeavor

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Reed, Sasha C.; Yang, Xiaojuan; Thornton, Peter E.

2015-06-25

Myriad field, laboratory, and modeling studies show that nutrient availability plays a fundamental role in regulating CO 2 exchange between the Earth's biosphere and atmosphere, and in determining how carbon pools and fluxes respond to climatic change. Accordingly, global models that incorporate coupled climate-carbon cycle feedbacks made a significant advance with the introduction of a prognostic nitrogen cycle. Here we propose that incorporating phosphorus cycling represents an important next step in coupled climate-carbon cycling model development, particularly for lowland tropical forests where phosphorus availability is often presumed to limit primary production. We highlight challenges to including phosphorus in modeling effortsmore » and provide suggestions for how to move forward.« less

AATSR: global-change and surface-temperature measurements from Envisat

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Llewellyn-Jones, D.; Edwards, M. C.; Mutlow, C. T.; Birks, A. R.; Barton, I. J.; Tait, H.

2001-02-01

The Advanced Along-Track Scanning Radiometer (AATSR) onboard ESA's Envisat spacecraft is designed to meet the challenging task of monitoring and detecting climate change. It builds on the success of its predecessor instruments on the ERS-1 and ERS-2 satellites, and will lead to a 15+ year record of precise and accurate global Sea-Surface Temperature (SST) measurements, thereby making a valuable contribution to the long-term climate record. With its high-accuracy, high-quality imagery and channels in the visible, near-infrared and thermal wavelengths, AATSR data will support many applications in addition to oceanographic and climate research, including a wide range of land-surface, cryosphere and atmospheric studies.

Ocean waves from tropical cyclones in the Gulf of Mexico and the effect of climate change

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Appendini, C. M.; Pedrozo-Acuña, A.; Meza-Padilla, R.; Torres-Freyermuth, A.; Cerezo-Mota, R.; López-González, J.

2016-12-01

To generate projections of wave climate associated to tropical cyclones is a challenge due to their short historical record of events, their low occurrence, and the poor wind field resolution in General Circulation Models. Synthetic tropical cyclones provide an alternative to overcome such limitations, improving robust statistics under present and future climates. We use synthetic events to characterize present and future wave climate associated with tropical cyclones in the Gulf of Mexico. The NCEP/NCAR atmospheric reanalysis and the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 models NOAA/GFDL CM3 and UK Met Office HADGEM2-ES, were used to derive present and future wave climate under RCPs 4.5 and 8.5. The results suggest an increase in wave activity for the future climate, particularly for the GFDL model that shows less bias in the present climate, although some areas are expected to decrease the wave energy. The practical implications of determining the future wave climate is exemplified by means of the 100-year design wave, where the use of the present climate may result in under/over design of structures, since the lifespan of a structure includes the future wave climate period.

Complex challenges of maintaining whitebark pine in Greater Yellowstone under climate change: A call for innovative research, management, and policy approaches

Treesearch

Andrew Hansen; Kathryn Ireland; Kristin Legg; Robert Keane; Edward Barge; Martha Jenkins; Michiel Pillet

2016-01-01

Climate suitability is projected to decline for many subalpine species, raising questions about managing species under a deteriorating climate. Whitebark pine (WBP) (Pinus albicaulis) in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE) crystalizes the challenges that natural resource managers of many high mountain ecosystems will likely face in the coming decades. We...

Challenges in Incorporating Climate Change Adaptation into Integrated Water Resources Management

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kirshen, P. H.; Cardwell, H.; Kartez, J.; Merrill, S.

2011-12-01

Over the last few decades, integrated water resources management (IWRM), under various names, has become the accepted philosophy for water management in the USA. While much is still to be learned about how to actually carry it out, implementation is slowly moving forward - spurred by both legislation and the demands of stakeholders. New challenges to IWRM have arisen because of climate change. Climate change has placed increased demands on the creativities of planners and engineers because they now must design systems that will function over decades of hydrologic uncertainties that dwarf any previous hydrologic or other uncertainties. Climate and socio-economic monitoring systems must also now be established to determine when the future climate has changed sufficiently to warrant undertaking adaptation. The requirements for taking some actions now and preserving options for future actions as well as the increased risk of social inequities in climate change impacts and adaptation are challenging experts in stakeholder participation. To meet these challenges, an integrated methodology is essential that builds upon scenario analysis, risk assessment, statistical decision theory, participatory planning, and consensus building. This integration will create cross-disciplinary boundaries for these disciplines to overcome.

Future consequences and challenges for dairy cow production systems arising from climate change in Central Europe - a review.

PubMed

Gauly, M; Bollwein, H; Breves, G; Brügemann, K; Dänicke, S; Daş, G; Demeler, J; Hansen, H; Isselstein, J; König, S; Lohölter, M; Martinsohn, M; Meyer, U; Potthoff, M; Sanker, C; Schröder, B; Wrage, N; Meibaum, B; von Samson-Himmelstjerna, G; Stinshoff, H; Wrenzycki, C

2013-05-01

It is well documented that global warming is unequivocal. Dairy production systems are considered as important sources of greenhouse gas emissions; however, little is known about the sensitivity and vulnerability of these production systems themselves to climate warming. This review brings different aspects of dairy cow production in Central Europe into focus, with a holistic approach to emphasize potential future consequences and challenges arising from climate change. With the current understanding of the effects of climate change, it is expected that yield of forage per hectare will be influenced positively, whereas quality will mainly depend on water availability and soil characteristics. Thus, the botanical composition of future grassland should include species that are able to withstand the changing conditions (e.g. lucerne and bird's foot trefoil). Changes in nutrient concentration of forage plants, elevated heat loads and altered feeding patterns of animals may influence rumen physiology. Several promising nutritional strategies are available to lower potential negative impacts of climate change on dairy cow nutrition and performance. Adjustment of feeding and drinking regimes, diet composition and additive supplementation can contribute to the maintenance of adequate dairy cow nutrition and performance. Provision of adequate shade and cooling will reduce the direct effects of heat stress. As estimated genetic parameters are promising, heat stress tolerance as a functional trait may be included into breeding programmes. Indirect effects of global warming on the health and welfare of animals seem to be more complicated and thus are less predictable. As the epidemiology of certain gastrointestinal nematodes and liver fluke is favourably influenced by increased temperature and humidity, relations between climate change and disease dynamics should be followed closely. Under current conditions, climate change associated economic impacts are estimated to be neutral if some form of adaptation is integrated. Therefore, it is essential to establish and adopt mitigation strategies covering available tools from management, nutrition, health and plant and animal breeding to cope with the future consequences of climate change on dairy farming.

The Borderlands and climate change: Chapter 10 in United States-Mexican Borderlands: Facing tomorrow's challenges through USGS science

USGS Publications Warehouse

Fitzpatrick, Joan; Gray, Floyd; Dubiel, Russell; Langman, Jeff; Moring, J. Bruce; Norman, Laura M.; Page, William R.; Parcher, Jean W.

2013-01-01

The prediction of global climate change in response to both natural forces and human activity is one of the defining issues of our times. The unprecedented observational capacity of modern earth-orbiting satellites coupled with the development of robust computational representations (models) of the Earth’s weather and climate systems afford us the opportunity to observe and investigate how these systems work now, how they have worked in the past, and how they will work in the future when forced in specific ways. In the most recent report on global climate change by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC; Solomon and others, 2007), analyses using multiple climate models support recent observations that the Earth’s climate is changing in response to a combination of natural and human-induced causes. These changes will be significant in the United States–Mexican border region, where the process of climate change affects all of the Borderlands challenge themes discussed in the preceding chapters. The dual possibilities of both significantly-changed climate and increasing variability in climate make it challenging to take full measure of the potential effects because the Borderlands already experience a high degree of interannual variability and climatological extremes.

Towards climate justice: how do the most vulnerable weigh environment-economy trade-offs?

PubMed

Running, Katrina

2015-03-01

The world's poor are especially vulnerable to environmental disasters, including the adverse consequences of climate change. This creates a challenge for climate justice advocates who seek to ensure that those least responsible for causing climate change do not bear unwanted burdens of mitigation. One way to promote climate justice could be to pay particular attention to the environmental policy preferences of citizens from poorer, lower-emitting countries. This paper examines opinions on environment-economy trade-offs and willingness to make personal financial contributions to protect the environment among residents of 42 developed and developing countries using data from the 2005-2008 World Values Survey, the 2010 Climate Risk Index, and World Bank development indicators. Results reveal that individuals in developing countries are less likely to support policies to prioritize environmental protection over economic growth but are more willing to donate personal income for pro-environmental efforts compared to citizens of more developed nations. Published by Elsevier Inc.

Contrasting responses of leaf stomatal characteristics to climate change: a considerable challenge to predict carbon and water cycles.

PubMed

Yan, Weiming; Zhong, Yangquanwei; Shangguan, Zhouping

2017-09-01

Stomata control the cycling of water and carbon between plants and the atmosphere; however, no consistent conclusions have been drawn regarding the response of stomatal frequency to climate change. Here, we conducted a meta-analysis of 1854 globally obtained data series to determine the response of stomatal frequency to climate change, which including four plant life forms (over 900 species), at altitudes ranging from 0 to 4500 m and over a time span of more than one hundred thousand years. Stomatal frequency decreased with increasing CO 2 concentration and increased with elevated temperature and drought stress; it was also dependent on the species and experimental conditions. The response of stomatal frequency to climate change showed a trade-off between stomatal control strategies and environmental factors, such as the CO 2 concentration, temperature, and soil water availability. Moreover, threshold effects of elevated CO 2 and temperature on stomatal frequency were detected, indicating that the response of stomatal density to increasing CO 2 concentration will decrease over the next few years. The results also suggested that the stomatal index may be more reliable than stomatal density for determination of the historic CO 2 concentration. Our findings indicate that the contrasting responses of stomata to climate change bring a considerable challenge in predicting future water and carbon cycles. © 2017 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Applying the global RCP-SSP-SPA scenario framework at sub-national scale: A multi-scale and participatory scenario approach.

PubMed

Kebede, Abiy S; Nicholls, Robert J; Allan, Andrew; Arto, Iñaki; Cazcarro, Ignacio; Fernandes, Jose A; Hill, Chris T; Hutton, Craig W; Kay, Susan; Lázár, Attila N; Macadam, Ian; Palmer, Matthew; Suckall, Natalie; Tompkins, Emma L; Vincent, Katharine; Whitehead, Paul W

2018-09-01

To better anticipate potential impacts of climate change, diverse information about the future is required, including climate, society and economy, and adaptation and mitigation. To address this need, a global RCP (Representative Concentration Pathways), SSP (Shared Socio-economic Pathways), and SPA (Shared climate Policy Assumptions) (RCP-SSP-SPA) scenario framework has been developed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fifth Assessment Report (IPCC-AR5). Application of this full global framework at sub-national scales introduces two key challenges: added complexity in capturing the multiple dimensions of change, and issues of scale. Perhaps for this reason, there are few such applications of this new framework. Here, we present an integrated multi-scale hybrid scenario approach that combines both expert-based and participatory methods. The framework has been developed and applied within the DECCMA 1 project with the purpose of exploring migration and adaptation in three deltas across West Africa and South Asia: (i) the Volta delta (Ghana), (ii) the Mahanadi delta (India), and (iii) the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna (GBM) delta (Bangladesh/India). Using a climate scenario that encompasses a wide range of impacts (RCP8.5) combined with three SSP-based socio-economic scenarios (SSP2, SSP3, SSP5), we generate highly divergent and challenging scenario contexts across multiple scales against which robustness of the human and natural systems within the deltas are tested. In addition, we consider four distinct adaptation policy trajectories: Minimum intervention, Economic capacity expansion, System efficiency enhancement, and System restructuring, which describe alternative future bundles of adaptation actions/measures under different socio-economic trajectories. The paper highlights the importance of multi-scale (combined top-down and bottom-up) and participatory (joint expert-stakeholder) scenario methods for addressing uncertainty in adaptation decision-making. The framework facilitates improved integrated assessments of the potential impacts and plausible adaptation policy choices (including migration) under uncertain future changing conditions. The concept, methods, and processes presented are transferable to other sub-national socio-ecological settings with multi-scale challenges. Copyright © 2018. Published by Elsevier B.V.

Abrupt climate changes during Termination III in Southern Europe

PubMed Central

Pérez-Mejías, Carlos; Moreno, Ana; Sancho, Carlos; Bartolomé, Miguel; Stoll, Heather; Cacho, Isabel; Cheng, Hai; Edwards, R. Lawrence

2017-01-01

The Late Quaternary glacial–interglacial transitions represent the highest amplitude climate changes over the last million years. Unraveling the sequence of events and feedbacks at Termination III (T-III), including potential abrupt climate reversals similar to those of the last Termination, has been particularly challenging due to the scarcity of well-dated records worldwide. Here, we present speleothem data from southern Europe covering the interval from 262.7 to 217.9 kyBP, including the transition from marine isotope stage (MIS) 8 to MIS 7e. High-resolution δ13C, δ18O, and Mg/Ca profiles reveal major millennial-scale changes in aridity manifested in changing water availability and vegetation productivity. uranium–thorium dates provide a solid chronology for two millennial-scale events (S8.1 and S8.2) which, compared with the last two terminations, has some common features with Heinrich 1 and Heinrich 2 in Termination I (T-I). PMID:28874530

Abrupt climate changes during Termination III in Southern Europe.

PubMed

Pérez-Mejías, Carlos; Moreno, Ana; Sancho, Carlos; Bartolomé, Miguel; Stoll, Heather; Cacho, Isabel; Cheng, Hai; Edwards, R Lawrence

2017-09-19

The Late Quaternary glacial-interglacial transitions represent the highest amplitude climate changes over the last million years. Unraveling the sequence of events and feedbacks at Termination III (T-III), including potential abrupt climate reversals similar to those of the last Termination, has been particularly challenging due to the scarcity of well-dated records worldwide. Here, we present speleothem data from southern Europe covering the interval from 262.7 to 217.9 kyBP, including the transition from marine isotope stage (MIS) 8 to MIS 7e. High-resolution δ 13 C, δ 18 O, and Mg/Ca profiles reveal major millennial-scale changes in aridity manifested in changing water availability and vegetation productivity. uranium-thorium dates provide a solid chronology for two millennial-scale events (S8.1 and S8.2) which, compared with the last two terminations, has some common features with Heinrich 1 and Heinrich 2 in Termination I (T-I).

Abrupt climate changes during Termination III in Southern Europe

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Pérez-Mejías, Carlos; Moreno, Ana; Sancho, Carlos; Bartolomé, Miguel; Stoll, Heather; Cacho, Isabel; Cheng, Hai; Edwards, R. Lawrence

2017-09-01

The Late Quaternary glacial-interglacial transitions represent the highest amplitude climate changes over the last million years. Unraveling the sequence of events and feedbacks at Termination III (T-III), including potential abrupt climate reversals similar to those of the last Termination, has been particularly challenging due to the scarcity of well-dated records worldwide. Here, we present speleothem data from southern Europe covering the interval from 262.7 to 217.9 kyBP, including the transition from marine isotope stage (MIS) 8 to MIS 7e. High-resolution δ13C, δ18O, and Mg/Ca profiles reveal major millennial-scale changes in aridity manifested in changing water availability and vegetation productivity. uranium-thorium dates provide a solid chronology for two millennial-scale events (S8.1 and S8.2) which, compared with the last two terminations, has some common features with Heinrich 1 and Heinrich 2 in Termination I (T-I).

Modelling impacts of climate change on arable crop diseases: progress, challenges and applications.

PubMed

Newbery, Fay; Qi, Aiming; Fitt, Bruce Dl

2016-08-01

Combining climate change, crop growth and crop disease models to predict impacts of climate change on crop diseases can guide planning of climate change adaptation strategies to ensure future food security. This review summarises recent developments in modelling climate change impacts on crop diseases, emphasises some major challenges and highlights recent trends. The use of multi-model ensembles in climate change modelling and crop modelling is contributing towards measures of uncertainty in climate change impact projections but other aspects of uncertainty remain largely unexplored. Impact assessments are still concentrated on few crops and few diseases but are beginning to investigate arable crop disease dynamics at the landscape level. Copyright © 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.

When the globe is your classroom: teaching and learning about large-scale environmental change online

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Howard, E. A.; Coleman, K. J.; Barford, C. L.; Kucharik, C.; Foley, J. A.

2005-12-01

Understanding environmental problems that cross physical and disciplinary boundaries requires a more holistic view of the world - a "systems" approach. Yet it is a challenge for many learners to start thinking this way, particularly when the problems are large in scale and not easily visible. We will describe our online university course, "Humans and the Changing Biosphere," which takes a whole-systems perspective for teaching regional to global-scale environmental science concepts, including climate, hydrology, ecology, and human demographics. We will share our syllabus and learning objectives and summarize our efforts to incorporate "best" practices for online teaching. We will describe challenges we have faced, and our efforts to reach different learner types. Our goals for this presentation are: (1) to communicate how a systems approach ties together environmental sciences (including climate, hydrology, ecology, biogeochemistry, and demography) that are often taught as separate disciplines; (2) to generate discussion about challenges of teaching large-scale environmental processes; (3) to share our experiences in teaching these topics online; (4) to receive ideas and feedback on future teaching strategies. We will explain why we developed this course online, and share our experiences about benefits and challenges of teaching over the web - including some suggestions about how to use technology to supplement face-to-face learning experiences (and vice versa). We will summarize assessment data about what students learned during the course, and discuss key misconceptions and barriers to learning. We will highlight the role of an online discussion board in creating classroom community, identifying misconceptions, and engaging different types of learners.

Fostering climate dialogue by introducing students to uncertainty in decision-making

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Addor, N.; Ewen, T.; Johnson, L.; Coltekin, A.; Derungs, C.; Muccione, V.

2014-12-01

Uncertainty is present in all fields of climate research, spanning from climate projections, to assessing regional impacts and vulnerabilities to adaptation policy and decision-making. The complex and interdisciplinary nature of climate information, however, makes the decision-making process challenging. This process is further hindered by a lack of institutionalized dialogue between climate researchers, decision-makers and user groups. Forums that facilitate such dialogue would allow these groups to actively engage with each other to improve decisions. In parallel, introducing students to these challenges is one way to foster such climate dialogue. We present the design and outcome of an innovative workshop-seminar series we convened at the University of Zurich to demonstrate the pedagogical importance of such forums. An initial two-day workshop brought together 50 participants, including bachelor, master and PhD students and academic staff, and nine speakers from academia, industry, government, and philanthropy. The main objectives were to provide participants with tools to communicate uncertainty in their current or future research projects, to foster exchange between practitioners, students and scientists from different backgrounds and finally to expose students to multidisciplinary collaborations and real-world problems involving decisions under uncertainty. An opinion survey conducted before and after the workshop enabled us to observe changes in participants' perspectives on what information and tools should be exchanged between researchers and decision-makers to better address uncertainty. Responses demonstrated a marked shift from a pre-workshop vertical conceptualization of researcher-user group interaction to a post-workshop horizontal mode: in the former, researchers were portrayed as bestowing data-based products to decision-makers, while in the latter, both sets of actors engaged in frequent communication, exchanging their needs and expertise. Drawing on examples from the course evaluation, we seek to encourage the organization of similar events, introducing students to these challenges at an early stage of their education and career as a first step towards improving future dialogue.

Challenges in developing methods for quantifying the effects of weather and climate on water-associated diseases: A systematic review

PubMed Central

Armstrong, Ben; Fleming, Lora E.; Elson, Richard; Kovats, Sari; Vardoulakis, Sotiris; Nichols, Gordon L.

2017-01-01

Infectious diseases attributable to unsafe water supply, sanitation and hygiene (e.g. Cholera, Leptospirosis, Giardiasis) remain an important cause of morbidity and mortality, especially in low-income countries. Climate and weather factors are known to affect the transmission and distribution of infectious diseases and statistical and mathematical modelling are continuously developing to investigate the impact of weather and climate on water-associated diseases. There have been little critical analyses of the methodological approaches. Our objective is to review and summarize statistical and modelling methods used to investigate the effects of weather and climate on infectious diseases associated with water, in order to identify limitations and knowledge gaps in developing of new methods. We conducted a systematic review of English-language papers published from 2000 to 2015. Search terms included concepts related to water-associated diseases, weather and climate, statistical, epidemiological and modelling methods. We found 102 full text papers that met our criteria and were included in the analysis. The most commonly used methods were grouped in two clusters: process-based models (PBM) and time series and spatial epidemiology (TS-SE). In general, PBM methods were employed when the bio-physical mechanism of the pathogen under study was relatively well known (e.g. Vibrio cholerae); TS-SE tended to be used when the specific environmental mechanisms were unclear (e.g. Campylobacter). Important data and methodological challenges emerged, with implications for surveillance and control of water-associated infections. The most common limitations comprised: non-inclusion of key factors (e.g. biological mechanism, demographic heterogeneity, human behavior), reporting bias, poor data quality, and collinearity in exposures. Furthermore, the methods often did not distinguish among the multiple sources of time-lags (e.g. patient physiology, reporting bias, healthcare access) between environmental drivers/exposures and disease detection. Key areas of future research include: disentangling the complex effects of weather/climate on each exposure-health outcome pathway (e.g. person-to-person vs environment-to-person), and linking weather data to individual cases longitudinally. PMID:28604791

Challenges in developing methods for quantifying the effects of weather and climate on water-associated diseases: A systematic review.

PubMed

Lo Iacono, Giovanni; Armstrong, Ben; Fleming, Lora E; Elson, Richard; Kovats, Sari; Vardoulakis, Sotiris; Nichols, Gordon L

2017-06-01

Infectious diseases attributable to unsafe water supply, sanitation and hygiene (e.g. Cholera, Leptospirosis, Giardiasis) remain an important cause of morbidity and mortality, especially in low-income countries. Climate and weather factors are known to affect the transmission and distribution of infectious diseases and statistical and mathematical modelling are continuously developing to investigate the impact of weather and climate on water-associated diseases. There have been little critical analyses of the methodological approaches. Our objective is to review and summarize statistical and modelling methods used to investigate the effects of weather and climate on infectious diseases associated with water, in order to identify limitations and knowledge gaps in developing of new methods. We conducted a systematic review of English-language papers published from 2000 to 2015. Search terms included concepts related to water-associated diseases, weather and climate, statistical, epidemiological and modelling methods. We found 102 full text papers that met our criteria and were included in the analysis. The most commonly used methods were grouped in two clusters: process-based models (PBM) and time series and spatial epidemiology (TS-SE). In general, PBM methods were employed when the bio-physical mechanism of the pathogen under study was relatively well known (e.g. Vibrio cholerae); TS-SE tended to be used when the specific environmental mechanisms were unclear (e.g. Campylobacter). Important data and methodological challenges emerged, with implications for surveillance and control of water-associated infections. The most common limitations comprised: non-inclusion of key factors (e.g. biological mechanism, demographic heterogeneity, human behavior), reporting bias, poor data quality, and collinearity in exposures. Furthermore, the methods often did not distinguish among the multiple sources of time-lags (e.g. patient physiology, reporting bias, healthcare access) between environmental drivers/exposures and disease detection. Key areas of future research include: disentangling the complex effects of weather/climate on each exposure-health outcome pathway (e.g. person-to-person vs environment-to-person), and linking weather data to individual cases longitudinally.

Health Aspects of Climate Change in Cities with Mediterranean Climate, and Local Adaptation Plans

PubMed Central

Paz, Shlomit; Negev, Maya; Clermont, Alexandra; Green, Manfred S.

2016-01-01

Cities with a Mediterranean-type climate (Med-cities) are particularly susceptible to health risks from climate change since they are located in biogeographical hot-spots that experience some of the strongest effects of the changing climate. The study aims to highlight health impacts of climate change in Med-cities, analyze local climate adaptation plans and make adaptation policy recommendations for the Med-city level. We identified five Med-cities with a climate change adaptation plan: Adelaide, Barcelona, Cape Town, Los Angeles and Santiago. Beyond their similar Med-climate features (although Santiago’s are slightly different), the cities have different socio-economic characteristics in various aspects. We analyzed each plan according to how it addresses climate change-related drivers of health impacts among city dwellers. For each driver, we identified the types of policy adaptation tools that address it in the urban climate adaptation plans. The surveyed cities address most of the fundamental climate change-related drivers of risks to human health, including rising temperatures, flooding and drought, but the policy measures to reduce negative impacts vary across cities. We suggest recommendations for Med-cities in various aspects, depending on their local needs and vulnerability challenges: assessment of health risks, extreme events management and long-term adaptation, among others. PMID:27110801

Health Aspects of Climate Change in Cities with Mediterranean Climate, and Local Adaptation Plans.

PubMed

Paz, Shlomit; Negev, Maya; Clermont, Alexandra; Green, Manfred S

2016-04-21

Cities with a Mediterranean-type climate (Med-cities) are particularly susceptible to health risks from climate change since they are located in biogeographical hot-spots that experience some of the strongest effects of the changing climate. The study aims to highlight health impacts of climate change in Med-cities, analyze local climate adaptation plans and make adaptation policy recommendations for the Med-city level. We identified five Med-cities with a climate change adaptation plan: Adelaide, Barcelona, Cape Town, Los Angeles and Santiago. Beyond their similar Med-climate features (although Santiago's are slightly different), the cities have different socio-economic characteristics in various aspects. We analyzed each plan according to how it addresses climate change-related drivers of health impacts among city dwellers. For each driver, we identified the types of policy adaptation tools that address it in the urban climate adaptation plans. The surveyed cities address most of the fundamental climate change-related drivers of risks to human health, including rising temperatures, flooding and drought, but the policy measures to reduce negative impacts vary across cities. We suggest recommendations for Med-cities in various aspects, depending on their local needs and vulnerability challenges: assessment of health risks, extreme events management and long-term adaptation, among others.

Predator or Proprietor? Challengers to the Liberal Education Throne

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wittnebel, Leo

2012-01-01

The nature of the changing economic climate has resulted in drastic changes in the postsecondary education landscape. With record numbers of adult learners seeking to further their education, they are faced with numerous outlets, including traditional liberal universities and a variety of for-profit colleges and vocational schools that have…

Reforesting the Earth. Worldwatch Paper 83.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Postel, Sandra; Heise, Lori

This document deals with efforts aimed at reforesting large areas of degraded lands. It includes sections on: (1) tree cover trends; (2) fuelwood challenges of the future; (3) the need to supply industrial wood; (4) stabilizing soil and water resources; (5) forests and climate change; and (6) mobilization for reforestation. (TW)

The Culture of Discovery

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Webber-Thrush, Diane

2009-01-01

Research universities around the world are at work on the most challenging problems of today. The research to-do list includes reforming education and reviving the economy, climate change and genome mapping, curing cancer and curbing obesity--to name just a few of the headline grabbers. This article discusses how advancement professionals serving…

The challenge of making ozone risk assessment for forest trees more mechanistic

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

In the upcoming decades, the earth’s atmosphere will contain increasing levels of carbon dioxide and possibly tropospheric ozone. The latter constitute a risk for vegetation, including forest ecosystems, counteracting the ability to sequester carbon. In view of climate change, the need increases f...

Sustainable Schools through Science Across the World

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cutler, Marianne

2007-01-01

Children need new skills if they are to become part of the solution to challenges such as climate change rather than part of the problem. So states the UK's National Framework for Sustainable Schools. Skills include expressing points of view, weighing up evidence, cooperating, thinking critically, tackling real problems, participating in…

Reflections on Developing an Employment Mentoring Program for College Students Who Are Blind

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

O'Mally, Jamie; Steverson, Anne

2017-01-01

In a competitive employment climate, college graduates with visual impairments (that is, those who are blind or have low vision) face challenges securing work. Employment barriers among visually impaired individuals include: limited early work experience, negative employer attitudes, transportation issues, lack of exposure to successful role…

Black swans, wicked problems, and science during crises

USGS Publications Warehouse

Machlis, G.E.; McNutt, M.K.

2011-01-01

Oceanic resources face challenges that are significant and widespread, including (but not limited to) overharvesting, climate change, selected stock collapse, coral reef decline, species extinction, pollution, and more. These challenges are the focus of much ocean science, which is helping to inform policy and guide management actions. The steady growth of research results and the emergence of new research needs have been systematically reviewed through periodic assessments, such as those of the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (Valdés et al., 2010).

Emerging Forms of Climate Protection Governance: Urban Initiatives in the European Union

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Rosenthal, J. K.; Brunner, E.

2006-12-01

Changes in climate patterns are expected to pose increasing challenges for cities in the following decades, with adverse impacts on urban populations currently stressed by poverty, health and economic inequities. Simultaneously, a strong global trend towards urbanization of poverty exists, with increased challenges for local governments to protect and sustain the well-being of growing cities. In the context of these two overarching trends, interdisciplinary research at the city scale is prioritized for understanding the social impacts of climate change and variability and for the evaluation of strategies in the built environment that might serve as adaptive and mitigative responses to climate change. Urban managers, and transnational networks of municipalities and non-state actors, have taken an increasingly active role in climate protection, through research, policies, programs and agreements on adaptation and mitigation strategies. Concerns for urban impacts of climate change include the potential increase in frequency and intensity of damaging extreme weather events, such as heat waves, hurricanes, heavy rainfall or drought, and coastal flooding and erosion, and potentially adverse impacts on infrastructure, energy systems, and public health. Higher average summertime temperatures in temperate zone cities are also associated with environmental and public health liabilities such as decreased air quality and increased peak electrical demand. We review municipal climate protection programs, generally categorized as approaches based on technological innovation (e.g., new materials); changes in behavior and public education (e.g., use of cooling centers); and improvements in urban design (e.g., zoning for mixed land-use; the use of water, vegetation and plazas to reduce the urban heat island effect). Climate protection initiatives in three European cities are assessed within the context of the global collective efforts enacted by the Kyoto Protocol and United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Initiatives in Stockholm, London and Milan provide evidence that local actions are inevitable and of central importance to mitigate and adapt to the adverse impacts of climate change, the urban heat island effect, and extreme weather events.

Using a Global Climate Model in an On-line Climate Change Course

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Randle, D. E.; Chandler, M. A.; Sohl, L. E.

2012-12-01

Seminars on Science: Climate Change is an on-line, graduate-level teacher professional development course offered by the American Museum of Natural History. It is an intensive 6-week course covering a broad range of global climate topics, from the fundamentals of the climate system, to the causes of climate change, the role of paleoclimate investigations, and a discussion of potential consequences and risks. The instructional method blends essays, videos, textbooks, and linked websites, with required participation in electronic discussion forums that are moderated by an experienced educator and a course scientist. Most weeks include additional assignments. Three of these assignments employ computer models, including two weeks spent working with a full-fledged 3D global climate model (GCM). The global climate modeling environment is supplied through a partnership with Columbia University's Educational Global Climate Modeling Project (EdGCM). The objective is to have participants gain hands-on experience with one of the most important, yet misunderstood, aspects of climate change research. Participants in the course are supplied with a USB drive that includes installers for the software and sample data. The EdGCM software includes a version of NASA's global climate model fitted with a graphical user interface and pre-loaded with several climate change simulations. Step-by-step assignments and video tutorials help walk people through these challenging exercises and the course incorporates a special assignment discussion forum to help with technical problems and questions about the NASA GCM. There are several takeaways from our first year and a half of offering this course, which has become one of the most popular out of the twelve courses offered by the Museum. Participants report a high level of satisfaction in using EdGCM. Some report frustration at the initial steps, but overwhelmingly claim that the assignments are worth the effort. Many of the difficulties that arise are due to a lack of computer literacy amongst participants and we have found, through iterative improvements in the materials, that breaking assignments into discrete, well-supported tasks has been key to the success.

Towards Improved Linkage of Disaster Risk Reduction and Climate Change Adaptation in Health: A Review.

PubMed

Banwell, Nicola; Rutherford, Shannon; Mackey, Brendan; Chu, Cordia

2018-04-18

Climate change and climate-sensitive disasters significantly impact health. Linking Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) and Climate Change Adaptation (CCA) is essential for addressing these ever present, complex and increasing risks. Recent calls have been made to build these links in health. However, there is a need to clearly articulate why linking DRR and CCA is important in health. Furthermore, little is known about how DRR and CCA should be linked in health. By extensively examining relevant literature, this review presents the current state of knowledge of linking DRR and CCA in health. This includes the potential for maximising conceptual synergies such as building resilience, and reducing vulnerability and risk. Additionally, technical and operational synergies are identified to link DRR and CCA in health, including: policy, Early Warning Systems, vulnerability and risk assessment, health systems strengthening, infrastructure resilience, disaster preparedness and response, and health impact pathways. Public health actors have a central role in building these links due to their expertise, work functions, and experience in addressing complex health risks. The review concludes with recommendations for future research, including how to better link DRR and CCA in health; and the opportunities, challenges and enablers to build and sustain these links.

Examining the effects of transportation governance on infrastructure adaptation to climate change.

DOT National Transportation Integrated Search

2015-05-01

Transportation agencies across the United States are faced with the challenge of effectively : adapting infrastructure to withstand the predicted effects of climate change. This challenge is : magnified by a nationwide funding shortage, uncertainty a...

Challenges and priorities for modelling livestock health and pathogens in the context of climate change.

PubMed

Özkan, Şeyda; Vitali, Andrea; Lacetera, Nicola; Amon, Barbara; Bannink, André; Bartley, Dave J; Blanco-Penedo, Isabel; de Haas, Yvette; Dufrasne, Isabelle; Elliott, John; Eory, Vera; Fox, Naomi J; Garnsworthy, Phil C; Gengler, Nicolas; Hammami, Hedi; Kyriazakis, Ilias; Leclère, David; Lessire, Françoise; Macleod, Michael; Robinson, Timothy P; Ruete, Alejandro; Sandars, Daniel L; Shrestha, Shailesh; Stott, Alistair W; Twardy, Stanislaw; Vanrobays, Marie-Laure; Ahmadi, Bouda Vosough; Weindl, Isabelle; Wheelhouse, Nick; Williams, Adrian G; Williams, Hefin W; Wilson, Anthony J; Østergaard, Søren; Kipling, Richard P

2016-11-01

Climate change has the potential to impair livestock health, with consequences for animal welfare, productivity, greenhouse gas emissions, and human livelihoods and health. Modelling has an important role in assessing the impacts of climate change on livestock systems and the efficacy of potential adaptation strategies, to support decision making for more efficient, resilient and sustainable production. However, a coherent set of challenges and research priorities for modelling livestock health and pathogens under climate change has not previously been available. To identify such challenges and priorities, researchers from across Europe were engaged in a horizon-scanning study, involving workshop and questionnaire based exercises and focussed literature reviews. Eighteen key challenges were identified and grouped into six categories based on subject-specific and capacity building requirements. Across a number of challenges, the need for inventories relating model types to different applications (e.g. the pathogen species, region, scale of focus and purpose to which they can be applied) was identified, in order to identify gaps in capability in relation to the impacts of climate change on animal health. The need for collaboration and learning across disciplines was highlighted in several challenges, e.g. to better understand and model complex ecological interactions between pathogens, vectors, wildlife hosts and livestock in the context of climate change. Collaboration between socio-economic and biophysical disciplines was seen as important for better engagement with stakeholders and for improved modelling of the costs and benefits of poor livestock health. The need for more comprehensive validation of empirical relationships, for harmonising terminology and measurements, and for building capacity for under-researched nations, systems and health problems indicated the importance of joined up approaches across nations. The challenges and priorities identified can help focus the development of modelling capacity and future research structures in this vital field. Well-funded networks capable of managing the long-term development of shared resources are required in order to create a cohesive modelling community equipped to tackle the complex challenges of climate change. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Policy challenges for wildlife management in a changing climate

Treesearch

Mark L. Shaffer

2014-01-01

Try as it might, wildlife management cannot make wild living things adapt to climate change. Management can, however, make adaptation more or less likely. Given that policy is a rule set for action, policy will play a critical role in society’s efforts to help wildlife cope with the challenge of climate change. To be effective, policy must provide clear goals and be...

Crossing Scales and Disciplines to Understand Challenges for Climate Change Adaptation and Water Resources Management in Chile and Californi

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Vicuna, S.; Melo, O.; Meza, F. J.; Medellin-Azuara, J.; Herman, J. D.; Sandoval Solis, S.

2017-12-01

California and Chile share similarities in terms of climate, ecosystems, topography and water use. In both regions, the hydro-climatologic system is characterized by a typical Mediterranean climate, rainy winters and dry summers, highly variable annual precipitation, and snowmelt-dependent water supply systems. Water use in both regions has also key similarities, with the highest share devoted to high-value irrigated crops, followed by urban water use and a significant hydropower-driven power supply system. Snowmelt-driven basins in semiarid regions are highly sensitive to climate change for two reasons, temperature effects on snowmelt timing and water resources scarcity in these regions subject to ever-increasing demands. Research in both regions also coincide in terms of the potential climate change impacts. Expected impacts on California and Chile water resources have been well-documented in terms of changes in water supply and water demand, though significant uncertainties remain. Both regions have recently experienced prolonged droughts, providing an opportunity to understand the future challenges and potential adaptive responses under climate change. This study connects researchers from Chile and California with the goal of understanding the problem of how to adapt to climate change impacts on water resources and agriculture at the various spatial and temporal scales. The project takes advantage of the complementary contexts between Chile and California in terms of similar climate and hydrologic conditions, water management institutions, patterns of water consumption and, importantly, a similar challenge facing recent drought scenarios to understand the challenges faced by a changing climate.

Western water and climate change.

PubMed

Dettinger, Michael; Udall, Bradley; Georgakakos, Aris

2015-12-01

The western United States is a region long defined by water challenges. Climate change adds to those historical challenges, but does not, for the most part, introduce entirely new challenges; rather climate change is likely to stress water supplies and resources already in many cases stretched to, or beyond, natural limits. Projections are for continued and, likely, increased warming trends across the region, with a near certainty of continuing changes in seasonality of snowmelt and streamflows, and a strong potential for attendant increases in evaporative demands. Projections of future precipitation are less conclusive, although likely the northern-most West will see precipitation increases while the southernmost West sees declines. However, most of the region lies in a broad area where some climate models project precipitation increases while others project declines, so that only increases in precipitation uncertainties can be projected with any confidence. Changes in annual and seasonal hydrographs are likely to challenge water managers, users, and attempts to protect or restore environmental flows, even where annual volumes change little. Other impacts from climate change (e.g., floods and water-quality changes) are poorly understood and will likely be location dependent. In this context, four iconic river basins offer glimpses into specific challenges that climate change may bring to the West. The Colorado River is a system in which overuse and growing demands are projected to be even more challenging than climate-change-induced flow reductions. The Rio Grande offers the best example of how climate-change-induced flow declines might sink a major system into permanent drought. The Klamath is currently projected to face the more benign precipitation future, but fisheries and irrigation management may face dire straits due to warming air temperatures, rising irrigation demands, and warming waters in a basin already hobbled by tensions between endangered fisheries and agricultural demands. Finally, California's Bay-Delta system is a remarkably localized and severe weakness at the heart of the region's trillion-dollar economy. It is threatened by the full range of potential climate-change impacts expected across the West, along with major vulnerabilities to increased flooding and rising sea levels.

Camels and Climate Resilience: Adaptation in Northern Kenya.

PubMed

Watson, Elizabeth E; Kochore, Hassan H; Dabasso, Bulle Hallo

2016-01-01

In the drylands of Africa, pastoralists have been facing new challenges, including those related to environmental shocks and stresses. In northern Kenya, under conditions of reduced rainfall and more frequent droughts, one response has been for pastoralists to focus increasingly on camel herding. Camels have started to be kept at higher altitudes and by people who rarely kept camels before. The development has been understood as a climate change adaptation strategy and as a means to improve climate resilience. Since 2003, development organizations have started to further the trend by distributing camels in the region. Up to now, little has been known about the nature of, reasons for, or ramifications of the increased reliance on camels. The paper addresses these questions and concludes that camels improve resilience in this dryland region, but only under certain climate change scenarios, and only for some groups.

Climate-chemical interactions and effects of changing atmospheric trace gases

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Ramanathan, V.; Callis, L.; Cess, R.; Hansen, J.; Isaksen, I.

1987-01-01

The paper considers trace gas-climate effects including the greenhouse effect of polyatomic trace gases, the nature of the radiative-chemical interactions, and radiative-dynamical interactions in the stratosphere, and the role of these effects in governing stratospheric climate change. Special consideration is given to recent developments in the investigations of the role of oceans in governing the transient climate responses, and a time-dependent estimate of the potential trace gas warming from the preindustrial era to the early 21st century. The importance of interacting modeling and observational efforts is emphasized. One of the problems remaining on the observational front is the lack of certainty in current estimates of the rate of growth of CO, O3, and NOx; the primary challenge is the design of a strategy that will minimize the sampling errors.

Climate Change Observation Accuracy: Requirements and Economic Value

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Wielicki, Bruce; Cooke, Roger; Golub, Alexander; Baize, Rosemary; Mlynczak, Martin; Lukashin, Constantin; Thome, Kurt; Shea, Yolanda; Kopp, Greg; Pilewskie, Peter;

Linking Environmental Research and Practice: Lessons From The Integration of Climate Science and Water Management in the Western United States

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ferguson, D. B.; Rice, J.; Woodhouse, C. A.

2015-12-01

Efforts to better connect scientific research with people and organizations involved in environmental decision making are receiving increased interest and attention. Some of the challenges we currently face, however—including complex questions associated with climate change—present unique challenges because of their scale and scope. Focused research on the intersections between environment and society has provided substantial insight into dynamics of large-scale environmental change and the related impacts on people, natural resources, and ecosystems, yet our ability to connect this research to real-world decision making remains limited. Addressing these complex environmental problems requires broad cooperation between scientists and those who may apply research results in decision making, but there are few templates for guiding the growing number of scientists and practitioners now engaging in this kind of cooperative work. This presentation will offer a set of heuristics for carrying out collaborative work between scientists and practitioners. These heuristics were derived from research that examined the direct experiences of water resources professionals and climate researchers who have been working to integrate science and practice.

Relating Climate and Enviornmental Stress to Conflict... or Cooperation?

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kelley, C. P.

2016-12-01

There are many factors which contribute to social unrest, including governance, economy, access to resources and others. As global climate change progresses, many regions and nations, particularly those that are most vulnerable and least resilient, will face increasing challenges with respect to water and food scarcity. Increasing population and demand for water, combined with declining access to groundwater, will greatly increase exisiting vulnerability. Syria, Yemen and other countries serve as examples of nations that have experienced increasing both environmental stress and conflict. The Syria case in particular has had clear global repercussions, most notably contributing to a global refugee crisis. However, there are also examples of nations that have experienced increasing environmental stress that instead demonstrated transboundary water cooperation rather than conflict. An important and emerging body of work is that which seeks to better understand and characterize real-time resilience and vulnerability in order to better mitigate the consequences of future regional climate change. Prediction of potential conflict is a formidable challenge, one that is highly complex and multivariate, operating on many different temporal and spatial scales.

Lessons Learned from Monitoring Drought in Data Sparse Regions in the United States

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Edwards, L. M.; Redmond, K. T.

2011-12-01

Drought monitoring in the geographic domain represented by the Western Regional Climate Center (WRCC) in the United States can serve as an example of many of the challenges that face a global drought early warning system (GDEWS). The WRCC area includes numerous climate regions, such as: the Pacific coast of the continental U.S., the lowest elevation in North America, arid and alpine environments, temperate rainforest, Alaska, Hawaii and the Pacific territories of the U.S. in the tropics. This area is quite diverse in its climatological regimes, from rainforest to high desert to tundra, and covers a large area of land and water. Drought in the WRCC domain affects a wide range of constituents and interests, and the complex interplay between "human-caused" and natural drought cannot be understated. Data to support a GDEWS, as in the WRCC region, is often non-existent or unreliable in remote locations. Even in the continental U.S., data is not as dense as the topography and climate zones demand for accurate drought assessment. Challenges and efforts to address drought monitoring at the WRCC will be presented.

Minority Pre-service Teachers' and Faculty Training on Climate Change Education in Delaware State University

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ozbay, G.; Fox-Lykens, R.; Veron, D. E.; Rogers, M.; Merrill, J.; Harcourt, P.; Mead, H.

2015-12-01

Delaware State University is working toward infusing undergraduate education with climate change science and enhancing the climate change learning content of pre-service teacher preparation programs as part of the MADE-CLEAR project (www.madeclear.org). Faculty development workshops have been conducted to prepare and educate a cadre of faculty from different disciplines in global climate science literacy. Following the workshops, the faculty participants have integrated climate literacy tenets into their existing curriculum. Follow up meetings have helped the faculty members to use specific content in their curriculum such as greenhouse gases, atmospheric CO2, sea level rise, etc. Additional training provided to the faculty participants in pedagogical methods of climate change instruction to identify common misconceptions and barriers to student understanding. Some pre-service teachers were engaged in summer internships and learned how to become messenger of climate change science by the state parks staff during the summer. Workshops were offered to other pre-service teachers to teach them specific climate change topics with enhanced hands-on laboratory activities. The participants were provided examples of lesson plans and guided to develop their own lesson plans and present them. Various pedagogical methods have been explored for teaching climate change content to the participants. The pre-service teachers found the climate content very challenging and confusing. Training activities were modified to focus on targeted topics and modeling of pedagogical techniques for the faculty and pre-service teachers. Program evaluation confirms that the workshop participant show improved understanding of the workshop materials by the participants if they were introduced few climate topics. Learning how to use hands-on learning tools and preparing lesson plans are two of the challenges successfully implemented by the pre-service teachers. Our next activity includes pre-service teachers to use their lesson plans to teach the climate change content in the middle school science classes. This will mutually help the middle school science teachers' to learn and use the materials provided by the pre-service teachers and also pre-service teachers' to improve their teaching skills on climate change content.

Satellite Instrument Calibration for Measuring Global Climate Change. Report of a Workshop at the University of Maryland Inn and Conference Center, College Park, MD. , November 12-14, 2002

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Ohring, G.; Wielicki, B.; Spencer, R.; Emery, B.; Datla, R.

2004-01-01

Measuring the small changes associated with long-term global climate change from space is a daunting task. To address these problems and recommend directions for improvements in satellite instrument calibration some 75 scientists, including researchers who develop and analyze long-term data sets from satellites, experts in the field of satellite instrument calibration, and physicists working on state of the art calibration sources and standards met November 12 - 14, 2002 and discussed the issues. The workshop defined the absolute accuracies and long-term stabilities of global climate data sets that are needed to detect expected trends, translated these data set accuracies and stabilities to required satellite instrument accuracies and stabilities, and evaluated the ability of current observing systems to meet these requirements. The workshop's recommendations include a set of basic axioms or overarching principles that must guide high quality climate observations in general, and a roadmap for improving satellite instrument characterization, calibration, inter-calibration, and associated activities to meet the challenge of measuring global climate change. It is also recommended that a follow-up workshop be conducted to discuss implementation of the roadmap developed at this workshop.

Climate Change and Health in the Urban Context: The Experience of Barcelona.

PubMed

Villalbí, Joan R; Ventayol, Irma

2016-07-01

Climate change poses huge challenges for public health, and cities are at the forefront of this process. The purpose of this paper is to present the issues climate change poses for public health in the city of Barcelona, how they are being addressed, and what are the current major challenges, trying to contribute to the development of a baseline understanding of the status of adaptation in cities from a public health perspective. The major issues related to climate change faced by the city are common to other urban centers in a Mediterranean climate: heat waves, water availability and quality, air quality, and diseases transmitted by vectors, and all are reviewed in detail with empirical data. They are not a potential threat for the future, but have actually challenged the city services and infrastructure over the last years, requiring sustainable responses and rigorous planning. © The Author(s) 2016.

Approaches to Climate Literacy at the American Museum of Natural History

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Steiner, R. V.

2015-12-01

The American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) offers a suite of courses, workshops and special events in climate change education for audiences ranging from young children to adults and utilizing both online and in-person formats. These offerings are supported by rich digital resources including video, animations and data visualizations. These efforts have the potential to raise awareness of climate change, deepen understandings and improve public discourse and decision-making on this critical issue. For adult audiences, Our Earth's Future offers participants a five-week course at AMNH that focuses on climate change science, impacts and communication, taking advantage of both AMNH expertise and exhibitry. Online versions of this course include both a ten-week course as well as three different three-week thematic courses. (The longer course is now available as a MOOC in Coursera.) These activities have been supported by a grant from IMLS. The results of independent evaluation provide insight into participant needs and how they might be addressed. For K-12 educators, the Museum's Seminars on Science program of online teacher professional development offers, in collaboration with its higher education partners, a graduate course in climate change that is authored by both an AMNH curator and leading NASA scientists. Developed with support from both NASA and NSF, the course provides a semester-equivalent introduction to climate change science for educators, including digital resources, assignments and discussions for classroom use. The results of independent evaluation will be presented. For younger audiences, the presentation will highlight resources from the AMNH Ology site; television programming conducted in partnership with HBO; Science Bulletinsvideos that include current climate change research; resources related to the GRACE mission for tracking water from space; and special event programming at the Museum on climate change. This presentation will address the opportunities and challenges of climate change education in an informal science institution as well as enduring questions of institutional capacity, scale and sustainability.

Responding to Climate Change at the Poles: Findings from the National Research Council's Reports on Climate Intervention

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Russell, L. M.; McNutt, M. K.; Abdalati, W.; Caldeira, K.; Doney, S. C.; Falkowski, P. G.; Fetter, S.; Fleming, J. R.; Hamburg, S.; Morgan, G.; Penner, J.; Pierrehumbert, R.; Rasch, P. J.; Snow, J. T.; Wilcox, J.

2015-12-01

Earlier this year the National Research Council of the US National Academy of Sciences released a pair of reports on two strategies of climate intervention in order to reduce the risks of negative impacts from climate change. The first of the pair of reports discusses the opportunities and challenges in carbon capture and long-term, safe sequestration. The second report discusses several approaches to reflecting sunlight to cool Earth, including the risks, time scales, costs, and socio-economic, and political considerations. The primary conclusion from these pair of reports is that mitigation and adaptation are still our best choices in terms of cost and low risk for reducing harmful effects from climate change: there is no "silver bullet." Given that the polar regions of the planet are the most sensitive to climate change, the reports also touched on the potential for regional climate intervention. The majority of the methods that are currently under discussion and for which there is a body of peer-reviewed research would have global impacts, with but few exceptions.

Climate regulation services by urban lakes in Bucharest city

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ioja, Cristian; Cheval, Sorin; Vanau, Gabriel; Sandric, Ionut; Onose, Diana; Carstea, Elfrida

2017-04-01

Urban ecosystems services assessment is an important challenge for practitioners, due to the high complexity of relations between urban systems components, high vulnerability to climate change, and consequences in social-economical systems. Urban lakes represent a significant component in more European cities (average 5% of total surface). Adequate urban management supports diverse benefits of urban lakes: clean water availability, mediation of waste, toxics and other nuisance, air quality and climate regulation, support for physical, intelectual or spiritual interactions. Due to underestimation of climate change and misfit urban planning decision, these benefits may be lost or chaged into diservices. The aim of the paper is to assess the changes in terms of the urban lakes contribution role to regulate urban climate, using the Bucharest as case study. Using sensors and Modis, Sentinel and Landsat images, the paper experiments the evolution of climate regulation services of urban lakes under the pressure of urbanisation and climate change between 2008 and 2015. Urban lakes management has to include specific measures in order to help the cities to become more sustainable, resilient, liveable and healthly.

Climate Informatics

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Monteleoni, Claire; Schmidt, Gavin A.; Alexander, Francis J.; Niculescu-Mizil, Alexandru; Steinhaeuser, Karsten; Tippett, Michael; Banerjee, Arindam; Blumenthal, M. Benno; Ganguly, Auroop R.; Smerdon, Jason E.;

The Evolving Risk of Climate Change and National Security: People not Polar Bears

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Titley, D.

2014-12-01

This talk will provide a general overview of climate change and discuss why this is a national security issue. Climate change is about people, about water, and about change itself. Understanding the rate of climate change, relative to the abilities of both humans and ecosystems to adapt is critical. I will briefly describe the multiple, independent lines of evidence that the climate is changing, and that the primary cause of this change is a change in atmospheric composition caused by the burning of fossil fuels. I will cover the history of climate change as seen within the U.S. Department of Defense and U.S. Navy, how this challenge is being addressed from budgetary, policy, and political angles, and what are the greatest challenges to national security that arise from climate change and in particular, the associated changes in the Arctic. I will conclude with an assessment of future challenges and opportunities regarding climate change, from science, policy, and political perspectives, and why we know enough to take significant action now, even if we don't know every detail about the future. In addition, this talk will address how to effectively talk about climate change through the use of analogies, plain, non-jargon English, and even a little humor.

A Big Data Guide to Understanding Climate Change: The Case for Theory-Guided Data Science

PubMed Central

Kumar, Vipin

2014-01-01

Abstract Global climate change and its impact on human life has become one of our era's greatest challenges. Despite the urgency, data science has had little impact on furthering our understanding of our planet in spite of the abundance of climate data. This is a stark contrast from other fields such as advertising or electronic commerce where big data has been a great success story. This discrepancy stems from the complex nature of climate data as well as the scientific questions climate science brings forth. This article introduces a data science audience to the challenges and opportunities to mine large climate datasets, with an emphasis on the nuanced difference between mining climate data and traditional big data approaches. We focus on data, methods, and application challenges that must be addressed in order for big data to fulfill their promise with regard to climate science applications. More importantly, we highlight research showing that solely relying on traditional big data techniques results in dubious findings, and we instead propose a theory-guided data science paradigm that uses scientific theory to constrain both the big data techniques as well as the results-interpretation process to extract accurate insight from large climate data. PMID:25276499

Review: visual analytics of climate networks

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Nocke, T.; Buschmann, S.; Donges, J. F.; Marwan, N.; Schulz, H.-J.; Tominski, C.

2015-09-01

Network analysis has become an important approach in studying complex spatiotemporal behaviour within geophysical observation and simulation data. This new field produces increasing numbers of large geo-referenced networks to be analysed. Particular focus lies currently on the network analysis of the complex statistical interrelationship structure within climatological fields. The standard procedure for such network analyses is the extraction of network measures in combination with static standard visualisation methods. Existing interactive visualisation methods and tools for geo-referenced network exploration are often either not known to the analyst or their potential is not fully exploited. To fill this gap, we illustrate how interactive visual analytics methods in combination with geovisualisation can be tailored for visual climate network investigation. Therefore, the paper provides a problem analysis relating the multiple visualisation challenges to a survey undertaken with network analysts from the research fields of climate and complex systems science. Then, as an overview for the interested practitioner, we review the state-of-the-art in climate network visualisation and provide an overview of existing tools. As a further contribution, we introduce the visual network analytics tools CGV and GTX, providing tailored solutions for climate network analysis, including alternative geographic projections, edge bundling, and 3-D network support. Using these tools, the paper illustrates the application potentials of visual analytics for climate networks based on several use cases including examples from global, regional, and multi-layered climate networks.

Review: visual analytics of climate networks

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Nocke, T.; Buschmann, S.; Donges, J. F.; Marwan, N.; Schulz, H.-J.; Tominski, C.

2015-04-01

Network analysis has become an important approach in studying complex spatiotemporal behaviour within geophysical observation and simulation data. This new field produces increasing amounts of large geo-referenced networks to be analysed. Particular focus lies currently on the network analysis of the complex statistical interrelationship structure within climatological fields. The standard procedure for such network analyses is the extraction of network measures in combination with static standard visualisation methods. Existing interactive visualisation methods and tools for geo-referenced network exploration are often either not known to the analyst or their potential is not fully exploited. To fill this gap, we illustrate how interactive visual analytics methods in combination with geovisualisation can be tailored for visual climate network investigation. Therefore, the paper provides a problem analysis, relating the multiple visualisation challenges with a survey undertaken with network analysts from the research fields of climate and complex systems science. Then, as an overview for the interested practitioner, we review the state-of-the-art in climate network visualisation and provide an overview of existing tools. As a further contribution, we introduce the visual network analytics tools CGV and GTX, providing tailored solutions for climate network analysis, including alternative geographic projections, edge bundling, and 3-D network support. Using these tools, the paper illustrates the application potentials of visual analytics for climate networks based on several use cases including examples from global, regional, and multi-layered climate networks.

Development and Application of Climate Services for Water Resources Planning and Management within the Department of Interior Bureau of Reclamation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Raff, D. A.; Morgan, A.; Brekke, L. D.

2014-12-01

The Bureau of Reclamation is the nation's largest wholesale water supplier and the second largest producer of hydropower. Reclamation operates 337 reservoirs with a total storage capacity of 245 million acre-feet and operates 53 hydroelectric powerplants that annually produce, on average for the past 10 years, 40 billion kilowatt-hours. Reclamation is adapting to the impacts and future challenges posed by the changing climate through the development of new climate services as well as through cooperation with Federal, state, local, tribal, academic, and non-governmental partners in the use of climate and water resource information that may be available. Reclamation is utilizing this information within a strategy that has four goals: 1) Increase Water Management Flexibility, 2) Enhance Climate Adaptation Planning, 3) Improve Infrastructure Resiliency, and 4) Expand Information Sharing. Within this presentation we will focus on the utilization of climate services within each of these key goals of Reclamation's strategy. This includes the utilization of climate information to track and potentially improve reservoir management to increase water management flexibility, the development of climate informed hydrology that supports climate adaptation planning, use of climate information to inform decisions of infrastructure resilience, and climate services use for jointly informed water management decisions through education and web based services.

Climate Science Centers: Growing Federal and Academic Expertise in the Nation's Interests

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ryker, S. J.

2014-12-01

The U.S. Department of the Interior's (Interior) natural and cultural resource managers face increasingly complex challenges exacerbated by climate change. In 2009, under Secretarial Order 3289, Interior created eight regional Climate Science Centers managed by the U.S. Geological Survey's (USGS) National Climate Change and Wildlife Science Center and in partnership with universities. Secretarial Order 3289 provides a framework to coordinate climate change science and adaptation efforts across Interior and to integrate science and resource management expertise from Federal, State, Tribal, private, non-profit, and academic partners. In addition to broad research expertise, these Federal/university partnerships provide opportunities to develop a next generation of climate science professionals. These include opportunities to increase the climate science knowledge base of students and practicing professionals; build students' skills in working across the boundary between research and implementation; facilitate networking among researchers, students, and professionals for the application of research to on-the-ground issues; and support the science pipeline in climate-related fields through structured, intensive professional development. In 2013, Climate Science Centers supported approximately 10 undergraduates, 60 graduate students, and 26 postdoctoral researchers. Additional students trained by Climate Science Center-affiliated faculty also contribute valuable time and expertise, and are effectively part of the Climate Science Center network. The Climate Science Centers' education and training efforts have also reached a number of high school students interested in STEM careers, and professionals in natural and cultural resource management. The Climate Science Centers are coordinating to build on each other's successful education and training efforts. Early successes include several intensive education experiences, such as the Alaska Climate Science Center's Girls on Ice, the Northeast's Consortium Retreat, the Northwest's Climate Science Boot Camp; the whole-network Early Career Climate Forum; the South Central Climate Science Center's Minority Internship; and a growing curriculum through Interior's National Conservation Training Center.

Harmonisation of Global Land-Use Scenarios for the Period 1500-2100 for IPCC-AR5

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Hurtt, George; Chini, Louise Parsons; Frolking, Steve

2009-06-01

In preparation for the fifth Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change climate change assessment (IPCC-AR5), the international community is developing new advanced computer models (CMs) to address the combined effects of human activities (e.g. land-use and fossil fuel emissions) on the carbon-climate system. In addition, four Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) scenarios of the future (2005-2100) are being developed by four Integrated Assessment Modeling teams (IAMs) to be used as input to the CMs for future climate projections. The diversity of requirements and approaches among CMs and IAMs for tracking land-use changes (past, present, and future), presents major challenges for treating land-usemore » comprehensively and consistently between these communities. As part of an international working group, we have been working to meet these challenges by developing a "harmonized" set of land-use change scenarios that smoothly connects gridded historical reconstructions of land-use with future projections, in a format required by CMs. This approach to harmonizing the treatment of land-use between two key modeling communities, CMs and IAMs, represents a major advance that will facilitate more consistent and fuller treatments of land-use/land-use change effects including both CO2 emissions and corresponding land-surface changes.« less

Move it or lose it? The ecological ethics of relocating species under climate change.

PubMed

Minteer, Ben A; Collins, James P

2010-10-01

Managed relocation (also known as assisted colonization, assisted migration) is one of the more controversial proposals to emerge in the ecological community in recent years. A conservation strategy involving the translocation of species to novel ecosystems in anticipation of range shifts forced by climate change, managed relocation (MR) has divided many ecologists and conservationists, mostly because of concerns about the potential invasion risk of the relocated species in their new environments. While this is indeed an important consideration in any evaluation of MR, moving species across the landscape in response to predicted climate shifts also raises a number of larger and important ethical and policy challenges that need to be addressed. These include evaluating the implications of a more aggressive approach to species conservation, assessing MR as a broader ecological policy and philosophy that departs from longstanding scientific and management goals focused on preserving ecological integrity, and considering MR within a more comprehensive ethical and policy response to climate change. Given the complexity and novelty of many of the issues at stake in the MR debate, a more dynamic and pragmatic approach to ethical analysis and debate is needed to help ecologists, conservationists, and environmental decision makers come to grips with MR and the emerging ethical challenges of ecological policy and management under global environmental change.

Mapping Disaster Risk Reduction and Climate Change Adaptation: progress in South Africa

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Storie, Judith M.

2018-05-01

Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) and Climate Change Adaptation (CCA) strategies in Africa are on the increase. South Africa is no different, and a number of strategies have seen the light in aid of reducing disaster risk and adapting to cli-mate change. The DRR and CCA processes include the mapping of location and extent of known and potential hazards, vulnerable communities and environments, and opportunities that may exist to manage these risks. However, the mapping of often fast-changing urban and rural spaces in a standardized manner presents challenges that relate to processes, scales of data capture, level of detail recorded, software and compatibility related to data formats and net-works, human resources skills and understanding, as well as differences in approaches to the nature in which the map-ping processes are executed and spatial data is managed. As a result, projects and implementation of strategies that re-late to the use of such data is affected, and the success of activities based on the data may therefore be uncertain. This paper investigates data custodianship and data categories that is processed and managed across South Africa. It explores the process and content management of disaster risk and climate change related information and defines the challenges that exist in terms of governance. The paper also comments on the challenges and potential solutions for the situation as it gives rise to varying degrees of accuracy, effectiveness for use, and applicability of the spatial data available to affect DRR and improve the value of CCA programmes in the region.

Introduction to the Special Issue on Climate Ethics: Uncertainty, Values and Policy.

PubMed

Roeser, Sabine

2017-10-01

Climate change is a pressing phenomenon with huge potential ethical, legal and social policy implications. Climate change gives rise to intricate moral and policy issues as it involves contested science, uncertainty and risk. In order to come to scientifically and morally justified, as well as feasible, policies, targeting climate change requires an interdisciplinary approach. This special issue will identify the main challenges that climate change poses from social, economic, methodological and ethical perspectives by focusing on the complex interrelations between uncertainty, values and policy in this context. This special issue brings together scholars from economics, social sciences and philosophy in order to address these challenges.

Implementation of an Online Climate Science Course at San Antonio College

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Reyes, R.; Strybos, J.

2016-12-01

San Antonio College (SAC) plans to incorporate an online climate science class into the curriculum with a focus on local weather conditions and data. SAC is part of a network of five community colleges based around San Antonio, Texas, has over 20,000 students enrolled, and its student population reflects the diversity in ethnicity, age and gender of the San Antonio community. The college understands the importance of educating San Antonio residents on climate science and its complexities. San Antonio residents are familiar with weather changes and extreme conditions. The region has experienced an extreme drought, including water rationing in the city. Then, this year's El Niño intensified expected annual rainfalls and flash floods. The proposed climate science course will uniquely prepare students to understand weather data and the evidence of climate change impacting San Antonio at a local level. This paper will discuss the importance and challenges of introducing the new climate science course into the curriculum, and the desired class format that will increase the course's success. Two of the most significant challenges are informing students about the value of this class and identifying the best teaching format. Additionally, measuring and monitoring enrollment will be essential to determine the course performance and success. At the same time, Alamo Colleges is modifying the process of teaching online classes and is officially working to establish an online college. Around 23% of students enrolled in SAC offered courses are currently enrolled in online courses only, representing an opportunity to incorporate the climate science class as an online course. Since the proposed course will be using electronic textbooks and online applications to access hyperlocal weather data, the class is uniquely suited for online students.

Climate Scenarios for the NASA / USAID SERVIR Project: Challenges for Multiple Planning Horizons

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Robertson, Franklin R.; Roberts, J. B.; Lyon, B.; Funk, C.; Bosilovich, M. G.

2014-01-01

SERVIR, an acronym meaning "to serve" in Spanish, is a joint venture between NASA and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) which provides satellite-based Earth observation data, modeling, and science applications to help developing nations in Central America, East Africa and the Himalayas improve environmental decision making. Anticipating climate variability / climate change impacts has now become an important component of the SERVIR efforts to build capacity in these regions. Uncertainty in hydrometeorological components of climate variations and exposure to extreme events across scales from weather to climate are of particular concern. We report here on work to construct scenarios or outlooks that are being developed as input drivers for decision support systems (DSSs) in a variety of settings. These DSSs are being developed jointly by a broad array NASA Applied Science Team (AST) Investigations and user communities in the three SERVIR Hub Regions, Central America, East Africa and the Himalayas. Issues span hydrologic / water resources modeling, agricultural productivity, and forest carbon reserves. The scenarios needed for these efforts encompass seasonal forecasts, interannual outlooks, and likely decadal / multi-decadal trends. Providing these scenarios across the different AST efforts enables some level of integration in considering regional responses to climate events. We will discuss a number of challenges in developing this continuum of scenarios including the identification and "mining" of predictability, addressing multiple continental regions, issues of downscaling global model integrations to regional / local applications (i.e. hydrologic and crop modeling). We compare / contrast the role of the U.S. National Multi- Model Experiment initiative in seasonal forecasts and the CMIP-5 climate model experiments in supporting these efforts. Examples of these scenarios, their use, and an assessment of their utility as well as limitations will be presented.

Observations to support adaptation: Principles, scales and decision-making

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Pulwarty, R. S.

2012-12-01

As has been long noted, a comprehensive, coordinated observing system is the backbone of any Earth information system. Demands are increasingly placed on earth observation and prediction systems and attendant services to address the needs of economically and environmentally vulnerable sectors and investments, including energy, water, human health, transportation, agriculture, fisheries, tourism, biodiversity, and national security. Climate services include building capacity to interpret information and recognize standards and limitations of data in the promotion of social and economic development in a changing climate. This includes improving the understanding of climate in the context of a variety of temporal and spatial scales (including the influence of decadal scale forcings and land surface feedbacks on seasonal forecast reliability). Climate data and information are central for developing decision options that are sensitive to climate-related uncertainties and the design of flexible adaptation pathways. Ideally monitoring should be action oriented to support climate risk assessment and adaptation including informing robust decision making to multiple risks over the long term. Based on the experience of global observations programs and empirical research we outline- Challenges in developing effective monitoring and climate information systems to support adaptation. The types of observations of critical importance needed for sector planning to enhance food, water and energy security, and to improve early warning for disaster risk reduction Observations needed for ecosystem-based adaptation including the identification of thresholds, maintenance of biological diversity and land degradation The benefits and limits of linking regional model output to local observations including analogs and verification for adaptation planning To support these goals a robust systems of integrated observations are needed to characterize the uncertainty surrounding emergent risks including overcoming unrealistically precise information demands. While monitoring systems design and operation should be guided by the standards and requirements of management, those who provide information to the system (e.g. hydromet services) should also derive benefits. Drawing on identified information needs to support climate risk management (in drought, water resources and other areas) we outline principles of effective monitoring and develop preliminary strategic guidance for information systems being developed through the GEO, GCOS and Global and national frameworks for climate services. The efficacy of such services are improved by a problem-solving orientation, participatory planning, extension management and improvements in the use and value of existing data to legitimize new investments.

Preface

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Rosenzweig, Cynthia (Editor); Hillel, Daniel (Editor)

2015-01-01

The potential effects of climate change on the food production system are raising concern both globally and regionally. The system is already challenged to deliver sufficient and healthy sustenance to all people, and is certain to be even further challenged as world population grows and price shocks loom. The prospect of climate change intensifies these challenges, raising the risk that more frequent and intense extreme weather events threaten the stability of agricultural production in regions around the globe. This two-part set is an important contribution to the ongoing Imperial College Press (ICP) Series on Climate Change Impacts, Adaptation, and Mitigation. This series aims to provide the know ledge base necessary for understanding and responding to climate change, in both its current form and future manifestations. In these volumes, ·leading agricultural researchers have come together to contribute their expertise on actual and potential climate change impacts, adaptation strategies, and mitigation efforts. This ongoing series is jointly published by The American Society of Agronomy (ASA), Crop Science Society of America (CSSA), and Soil Science Society of America (SSSA), together with ICP. We hope that this fruitful cooperation will continue for many years to come, as it spurs the global effort to define and meet the great food security and climate change challenges of our time.

Integrating Media Production By Students Into Climate Change Education: Within and Beyond the Classroom

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Rooney-Varga, J. N.; Brisk, A. A.; Grogan, M.; Ledley, T. S.

2012-12-01

Through the Climate Education in an Age of Media (CAM) Project (http://cleanet.org/cced_media/), we have developed approaches to integrate media production by students into climate change education in ways that are engaging, empowering, and can be readily adopted in a wide range of instructional environments. These approaches can be used to overcome many of the challenges that climate change education presents and provide a means to evoke experiential, affective, and social learning pathways. Video production combines many key twenty-first century literacy skills, including content research, writing, an understanding of the power of images and sounds, the ability to use that power, and the ability to manipulate, transform, and distribute digital media. Through collaboration, reflection, and visual expression of concepts, video production facilitates a deeper understanding of material and, potentially, shifts in mental models about climate change. Equally importantly, it provides a means to bridge formal and informal learning by enabling students to educate those beyond the classroom. We have piloted our approach in two intensive summer programs (2011 and 2012) for high school students, during which students learned about climate change science content in lessons that were paired with the production of short media pieces including animations, public service announcements, person-on-the-street interviews, mock trailers, mock news programs, and music videos. Two high school teachers were embedded in the program during the second year, providing feedback and assessment of the feasibility, accessibility, and utility of the approach. The programs culminated with students presenting and discussing their work at public screening events. The media lessons and climate change science content examples used in these programs form the backbone of a toolkit and professional development workshops for middle and high school teachers, in which teachers learn how to incorporate student media-making into their science classes. Here, we share the toolkit, describe the scope and structure of the teacher professional development workshops, and share several of the media products created by YEP participants. The confluence of falling financial and technological barriers to producing media; the need for innovative approaches to meet climate change education challenges; and the potential for media literacy to empower young people to add their voice to the societal discourse about climate change science creates an ideal opportunity for integration of science and media production in education.

Rising Waters and a Smaller Island: What Should Physicians Do for Tuvaluans?

PubMed

Emont, Jordan; Anandarajah, Gowri

2017-12-01

Residents of the island nation of Tuvalu will be among the first of the 1.7 million Pacific Islanders to be displaced by the effects of climate change (including rising sea levels, changing distributions of agriculture, and unpredictable weather patterns). Already 3,500 Tuvaluans live in New Zealand (approximately 25 percent of the world's Tuvaluan population), some of whom moved due to climate change. Immigrating to New Zealand presents several challenges for Tuvaluans, including limited job opportunities, health care disparities, and dietary changes. Nevertheless, Tuvaluans in New Zealand continue their culture as they redefine their identity in a new country. Given the growing effects of climate change, physicians around the world will soon care for a new generation of immigrants and will play an important role in advocating for health equity and self-determination among climate-sensitive populations. This article uses personal stories and photographs of Tuvaluans and photographs of Tuvalu and New Zealand to present Tuvaluans' struggles and ethical issues pertaining to health that arise in relocating Tuvaluans. © 2017 American Medical Association. All Rights Reserved.

Review of Global Change Research Program plan

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Showstack, Randy

2012-01-01

The draft 10-year strategic plan for the U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP), which proposes broadening the scope of the program from climate change only to climate change and climaterelated global changes, “is an important step in the right direction,” according to a 5 January review of the plan by a committee of the U.S. National Research Council (NRC) of the National Academies. However, the committee also said that the program's legislative mandate is even broader in allowing USGCRP to address many aspects of global change including climate change, the global hydrological cycle, and widespread land use changes. “The Program's legislative mandate is to address all of global change, whether or not related to climate. The Committee concurs that this broader scope is appropriate, but realizes that such an expansion may be constrained by budget realities and by the practical challenge of maintaining clear boundaries for an expanded program,” the report states. “We encourage sustained efforts to expand the Program over time, along with efforts to better define and prioritize what specific topics are included within the bounds of global change research.”

A vulnerability tool for adapting water and aquatic resources to climate change and extremes on the Shoshone National Forest, Wyoming

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Rice, J.; Joyce, L. A.; Armel, B.; Bevenger, G.; Zubic, R.

2011-12-01

Climate change introduces a significant challenge for land managers and decision makers managing the natural resources that provide many benefits from forests. These benefits include water for urban and agricultural uses, wildlife habitat, erosion and climate control, aquifer recharge, stream flows regulation, water temperature regulation, and cultural services such as outdoor recreation and aesthetic enjoyment. The Forest Service has responded to this challenge by developing a national strategy for responding to climate change (the National Roadmap for Responding to Climate Change, July 2010). In concert with this national strategy, the Forest Service's Westwide Climate Initiative has conducted 4 case studies on individual Forests in the western U.S to develop climate adaptation tools. Western National Forests are particularly vulnerable to climate change as they have high-mountain topography, diversity in climate and vegetation, large areas of water limited ecosystems, and increasing urbanization. Information about the vulnerability and capacity of resources to adapt to climate change and extremes is lacking. There is an urgent need to provide customized tools and synthesized local scale information about the impacts to resources from future climate change and extremes, as well as develop science based adaptation options and strategies in National Forest management and planning. The case study on the Shoshone National Forest has aligned its objectives with management needs by developing a climate extreme vulnerability tool that guides adaptation options development. The vulnerability tool determines the likely degree to which native Yellowstone cutthroat trout and water availability are susceptible to, or unable to cope with adverse effects of climate change extremes. We spatially categorize vulnerability for water and native trout resources using exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity indicators that use minimum and maximum climate and GIS data. Results show that the vulnerability of water availability may increase in areas that have less storage and become more dominated by rain instead of snow. Native trout habitat was found to improve in some areas from warmer temperatures suggesting future refugia habitat may need to be a focus of conservation efforts. The climate extreme vulnerability tool provides Forest Service resource managers science based information that guides adaptation strategy development; prioritize conservation projects; guides monitoring efforts, and helps promote more resilient ecosystems undergoing the effects of climate change.

The challenge of reducing scientific complexity for different target groups (without losing the essence) - experiences from interdisciplinary audio-visual media production

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hezel, Bernd; Broschkowski, Ephraim; Kropp, Jürgen

2013-04-01

The Climate Media Factory originates from an interdisciplinary media lab run by the Film and Television University "Konrad Wolf" Potsdam-Babelsberg (HFF) and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK). Climate scientists, authors, producers and media scholars work together to develop media products on climate change and sustainability. We strive towards communicating scientific content via different media platforms reconciling the communication needs of scientists and the audience's need to understand the complexity of topics that are relevant in their everyday life. By presenting four audio-visual examples, that have been designed for very different target groups, we show (i) the interdisciplinary challenges during the production process and the lessons learnt and (ii) possibilities to reach the required degree of simplification without the need for dumbing down the content. "We know enough about climate change" is a short animated film that was produced for the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ) for training programs and conferences on adaptation in the target countries including Indonesia, Tunisia and Mexico. "Earthbook" is a short animation produced for "The Year of Science" to raise awareness for the topics of sustainability among digital natives. "What is Climate Engineering?". Produced for the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies (IASS) the film is meant for an informed and interested public. "Wimmelwelt Energie!" is a prototype of an iPad application for children from 4-6 years of age to help them learn about different forms of energy and related greenhouse gas emissions.

NASA's Climate Data Services Initiative

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

McInerney, M.; Duffy, D.; Schnase, J. L.; Webster, W. P.

2013-12-01

Our understanding of the Earth's processes is based on a combination of observational data records and mathematical models. The size of NASA's space-based observational data sets is growing dramatically as new missions come online. However a potentially bigger data challenge is posed by the work of climate scientists, whose models are regularly producing data sets of hundreds of terabytes or more. It is important to understand that the 'Big Data' challenge of climate science cannot be solved with a single technological approach or an ad hoc assemblage of technologies. It will require a multi-faceted, well-integrated suite of capabilities that include cloud computing, large-scale compute-storage systems, high-performance analytics, scalable data management, and advanced deployment mechanisms in addition to the existing, well-established array of mature information technologies. It will also require a coherent organizational effort that is able to focus on the specific and sometimes unique requirements of climate science. Given that it is the knowledge that is gained from data that is of ultimate benefit to society, data publication and data analytics will play a particularly important role. In an effort to accelerate scientific discovery and innovation through broader use of climate data, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center's Office of Computational and Information Sciences and Technology has embarked on a determined effort to build a comprehensive, integrated data publication and analysis capability for climate science. The Climate Data Services (CDS) Initiative integrates people, expertise, and technology into a highly-focused, next-generation, one-stop climate science information service. The CDS Initiative is providing the organizational framework, processes, and protocols needed to deploy existing information technologies quickly using a combination of enterprise-level services and an expanding array of cloud services. Crucial to its effectiveness, the CDS Initiative is developing the technical expertise to move new information technologies from R&D into operational use. This combination enables full, end-to-end support for climate data publishing and data analytics, and affords the flexibility required to meet future and unanticipated needs. Current science efforts being supported by the CDS Initiative include IPPC, OBS4MIP, ANA4MIPS, MERRA II, National Climate Assessment, the Ocean Data Assimilation project, NASA Earth Exchange (NEX), and the RECOVER Burned Area Emergency Response decision support system. Service offerings include an integrated suite of classic technologies (FTP, LAS, THREDDS, ESGF, GRaD-DODS, OPeNDAP, WMS, ArcGIS Server), emerging technologies (iRODS, UVCDAT), and advanced technologies (MERRA Analytic Services, MapReduce, Ontology Services, and the CDS API). This poster will describe the CDS Initiative, provide details about the Initiative's advanced offerings, and layout the CDS Initiative's deployment roadmap.

Monitoring Users' Satisfactions of the NOAA NWS Climate Products and Services

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Horsfall, F. M.; Timofeyeva, M. M.; Dixon, S.; Meyers, J. C.

2011-12-01

The NOAA's National Weather Service (NWS) Climate Services Division (CSD) ensures the relevance of NWS climate products and services. There are several ongoing efforts to identify the level of user satisfaction. One of these efforts includes periodical surveys conducted by Claes Fornell International (CFI) Group using the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI), which is "the only uniform, national, cross-industry measure of satisfaction with the quality of goods and services available in the United States" (http://www.cfigroup.com/acsi/overview.asp). The CFI Group conducted NWS Climate Products and Services surveys in 2004 and 2009. In 2010, a prominent routine was established for a periodical assessment of the customer satisfaction. From 2010 onward, yearly surveys will cover major climate services products and services. An expanded suite of climate products will be surveyed every other year. Each survey evaluated customer satisfaction with a range of NWS climate services, data, and products, including Climate Prediction Center (CPC) outlooks, drought monitoring, and ENSO monitoring and forecasts, as well as NWS local climate data and forecast products and services. The survey results provide insight into the NWS climate customer base and their requirements for climate services. They also evaluate whether we are meeting the needs of customers and the ease of their understanding for routine climate services, forecasts, and outlooks. In addition, the evaluation of specific topics, such as NWS forecast product category names, probabilistic nature of climate products, interpretation issues, etc., were addressed to assess how our users interpret prediction terminology. This paper provides an analysis of the following products: hazards, extended-range, long-lead and drought outlooks, El Nino Southern Oscillation monitoring and predictions as well as local climate data products. Two key issues make comparing the different surveys challenging, including the inconsistent suite of characteristics measured and the different number of respondent collected for each survey. Regardless of these two factors contributing to uncertainty of the results, CSD observed general improvement in customer satisfaction. Although, all NWS climate products have competitive scores, the leading ACSIs are for NWS Drought products and climate surface observation products. Overall, the survey results identify requirements for improving existing NWS climate services and introducing new ones. To date, the 2011 survey results have not been evaluated, but will be included in the conference presentation. A key point out of the initial 2011 survey results was that the climate section captured the greatest interest (as measured by number of respondents) of the customers of NWS products and services.

Investigating the Sensitivity of Streamflow and Water Quality to Climate Change and Urbanization in 20 U.S. Watersheds

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Johnson, T. E.; Weaver, C. P.; Butcher, J.; Parker, A.

2011-12-01

Watershed modeling was conducted in 20 large (15,000-60,000 km2), U.S. watersheds to address gaps in our knowledge of the sensitivity of U.S. streamflow, nutrient (N and P) and sediment loading to potential future climate change, and methodological challenges associated with integrating existing tools (e.g., climate models, watershed models) and datasets to address these questions. Climate change scenarios are based on dynamically downscaled (50x50 km2) output from four of the GCMs used in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 4th Assessment Report for the period 2041-2070 archived by the North American Regional Climate Change Assessment Program (NARCCAP). To explore the potential interaction of climate change and urbanization, model simulations also include urban and residential development scenarios for each of the 20 study watersheds. Urban and residential development scenarios were acquired from EPA's national-scale Integrated Climate and Land Use Scenarios (ICLUS) project. Watershed modeling was conducted using the Hydrologic Simulation Program-FORTRAN (HSPF) and Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) models. Here we present a summary of results for 5 of the study watersheds; the Minnesota River, the Susquehanna River, the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint, the Salt/Verde/San Pedro, and the Willamette River Basins. This set of results provide an overview of the response to climate change in different regions of the U.S., the different sensitivities of different streamflow and water quality endpoints, and illustrate a number of methodological issues including the sensitivities and uncertainties associated with use of different watershed models, approaches for downscaling climate change projections, and interaction between climate change and other forcing factors, specifically urbanization and changes in atmospheric CO2 concentration.

Using EarthLabs to Enhance Earth Science Curriculum in Texas

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Chegwidden, D. M.; Ellins, K. K.; Haddad, N.; Ledley, T. S.

2012-12-01

As an educator in Texas, a state that values and supports an Earth Science curriculum, I find it essential to educate my students who are our future voting citizens and tax payers. It is important to equip them with tools to understand and solve the challenges of solving of climate change. As informed citizens, students can help to educate others in the community with basic knowledge of weather and climate. They can also help to dispose of the many misconceptions that surround the climate change, which is perceived as a controversial topic. As a participant in a NSF-sponsored Texas Earth and Space (TXESS) Revolution teacher professional development program, I was selected to participate in a curriculum development project led by TERC to develop and test education resources for the EarthLabs climate literacy collection. I am involved in the multiple phases of the project, including reviewing labs that comprise the Climate, Weather and Biosphere module during the development phase, pilot teaching the module with my students, participating in research, and delivering professional development to other Texas teachers to expose them to the content found in the module and to encourage them to incorporate it into their teaching. The Climate, Weather and the Biosphere module emphasizes different forms of evidence and requires that learners apply different inquiry-based approaches to build the knowledge they need to develop as climate literate citizens. My involvement with the EarthLabs project has strengthened my overall knowledge and confidence to teach about Earth's climate system and climate change. In addition, the project has produced vigorous classroom discussion among my students as well as encouraged me to collaborate with other educators through our delivery of professional development to other teachers. In my poster, I will share my experiences, describe the impact the curriculum has made on my students, and report on challenges and valuable lessons gained by being an active participant in the EarthLabs curriculum review, implementation and professional development process.

Security Planning and Policies to Meet the Challenges of Climate Change

DTIC Science & Technology

2010-07-01

Security Climate change poses challenges to societies and governments that go far beyond the alteration of our environment. The physical impacts of...capacity of governments to respond. In this sense, the growing likelihood of events such as mass migrations, crop failures, economic shocks, public...riots and violence, floods and other natural disasters, widespread epidemics, and competition for resources pose serious challenges for governments and

Climate change impact assessments on the water resources of India under extensive human interventions.

PubMed

Madhusoodhanan, C G; Sreeja, K G; Eldho, T I

2016-10-01

Climate change is a major concern in the twenty-first century and its assessments are associated with multiple uncertainties, exacerbated and confounded in the regions where human interventions are prevalent. The present study explores the challenges for climate change impact assessment on the water resources of India, one of the world's largest human-modified systems. The extensive human interventions in the Energy-Land-Water-Climate (ELWC) nexus significantly impact the water resources of the country. The direct human interventions in the landscape may surpass/amplify/mask the impacts of climate change and in the process also affect climate change itself. Uncertainties in climate and resource assessments add to the challenge. Formulating coherent resource and climate change policies in India would therefore require an integrated approach that would assess the multiple interlinkages in the ELWC nexus and distinguish the impacts of global climate change from that of regional human interventions. Concerted research efforts are also needed to incorporate the prominent linkages in the ELWC nexus in climate/earth system modelling.

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Watson, A.; Butheau, M.; Sandor, D.

The Philippines, an island nation of nearly 100 million people and one of the world?s 15 most populous nations, is grappling with the challenge of expanding economic opportunities for its people. At the same time, it is one of the nations at greatest risk from climate change impacts, including rising sea levels and more frequent and intense floods and storms.

Ecological consequences of the MPB epidemic for habitats and populations of wildlife [Chapter 5

Treesearch

Beth Hahn; Vicki Saab; Barbara Bentz; Rachel Loehman; Bob Keane

2014-01-01

Wildlife biologists must balance a diverse array of ecological and social considerations in managing species and habitats. The challenges of managing species and habitats in dynamic landscapes are influenced by diverse factors, including natural disturbances, vegetation development, and anthropogenic-mediated changes, such as climate change, management activities, and...

Between-Site Differences in the Scale of Dispersal and Gene Flow in Red Oak

Treesearch

Emily V Moran; James S. Clark

2012-01-01

Background: Nut-bearing trees, including oaks (Quercus spp.), are considered to be highly dispersal limited, leading to concerns about their ability to colonize new sites or migrate in response to climate change. However, estimating seed dispersal is challenging in species that are secondarily dispersed by animals, and differences in...

Valuing Little Steps toward Inquiry

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Grueber, David; Whitin, Phyllis

2012-01-01

In a climate of high-stakes testing that emphasizes content, it can be challenging to teach science from an inquiry perspective. In addition there is a widespread call for a new approach to science education that includes science practices, crosscutting concepts, and core ideas (NRC 2011). However, it is not imperative for teachers to implement…

Lessons learned on 50,000 acres of plantation in northern California

Treesearch

Jeff Webster; Ed Fredrickson

2005-01-01

Many lessons have been learned during reforestation of large wildfires and clearcuts in interior Northern California, a region of low rainfall and summer drought typical of a Mediterranean climate. Challenges appeared from time of establishment right up to commercial thinning. Establishment issues included procurement of improved seed, site preparation, soil mitigation...

The science of decisionmaking: applications for sustainable forest and grassland management in the National Forest System

Treesearch

Matthew P. Thompson; Bruce G. Marcot; Frank R. Thompson; Steven McNulty; Larry A. Fisher; Michael C. Runge; David Cleaves; Monica Tomosy

2013-01-01

Sustainable management of national forests and grasslands within the National Forest System (NFS) often requires managers to make tough decisions under considerable uncertainty, complexity, and potential conflict. Resource decisionmakers must weigh a variety of risks, stressors, and challenges to sustainable management, including climate change, wildland fire, invasive...

Biological control of aflatoxins in Africa: current status and potential challenges in the face of climate change

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Aflatoxin contamination of crops is frequent in warm regions across the globe, including large areas in sub-Saharan Africa. Crop contamination with these dangerous toxins transcends health, food security, and trade sectors. It cuts across the value chain, affecting farmers, traders, markets, and fin...

Effective Student Teacher Supervision in the Era of "No Child Left Behind"

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bates, Alisa J.; Burbank, Mary D.

2008-01-01

This research study addresses the issues and challenges for university supervisors of providing supervisory feedback in the accountability climate of No Child Left Behind. Several findings are detailed in the case below and include the following: (a) Feedback on individual learning needs of students differed between informal written observations…

Examining the potential impacts of climate change on international security: EU-Africa partnership on climate change.

PubMed

Dodo, Mahamat K

2014-01-01

Climate Change like many global problems nowadays is recognized as a threat to the international security and cooperation. In theoretical terms, it is being securitized and included in the traditional security studies. Climate change and its accompanying environmental degradation are perceived to be a threat that can have incalculable consequences on the international community. The consequences are said to have more effects in small island developing nations and Africa where many States are fragile and overwhelmed with mounting challenges. In recent years, the security implications of the climate change are being addressed from national, regional and multilateral level. Against this backdrop, this paper intends to contribute to the debate on climate change and international security and present a broader perspective on the discussion. The paper will draw from the EU-Africa partnership on climate change and is structured as follows: the first part introduces the background of the international climate change policy and its securitization, the second part covers the EU-Africa relations and EU-Africa partnership on climate change, and the third part discusses the Congo Basin Forest Partnership as a concrete example of EU-Africa Partnership on Climate Change. Lastly, the paper concludes by drawing some conclusions and offers some policy perspectives and recommendations. Q54; 055; 052; 01;

Probabilistic seasonal Forecasts to deterministic Farm Leve Decisions: Innovative Approach

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Mwangi, M. W.

2015-12-01

Climate change and vulnerability are major challenges in ensuring household food security. Climate information services have the potential to cushion rural households from extreme climate risks. However, most the probabilistic nature of climate information products is not easily understood by majority of smallholder farmers. Despite the probabilistic nature, climate information have proved to be a valuable climate risk adaptation strategy at the farm level. This calls for innovative ways to help farmers understand and apply climate information services to inform their farm level decisions. The study endeavored to co-design and test appropriate innovation systems for climate information services uptake and scale up necessary for achieving climate risk development. In addition it also determined the conditions necessary to support the effective performance of the proposed innovation system. Data and information sources included systematic literature review, secondary sources, government statistics, focused group discussions, household surveys and semi-structured interviews. Data wasanalyzed using both quantitative and qualitative data analysis techniques. Quantitative data was analyzed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) software. Qualitative data was analyzed using qualitative techniques, which involved establishing the categories and themes, relationships/patterns and conclusions in line with the study objectives. Sustainable livelihood, reduced household poverty and climate change resilience were the impact that resulted from the study.

Actor groups, related needs, and challenges at the climate downscaling interface

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Rössler, Ole; Benestad, Rasmus; Diamando, Vlachogannis; Heike, Hübener; Kanamaru, Hideki; Pagé, Christian; Margarida Cardoso, Rita; Soares, Pedro; Maraun, Douglas; Kreienkamp, Frank; Christodoulides, Paul; Fischer, Andreas; Szabo, Peter

2016-04-01

At the climate downscaling interface, numerous downscaling techniques and different philosophies compete on being the best method in their specific terms. Thereby, it remains unclear to what extent and for which purpose these downscaling techniques are valid or even the most appropriate choice. A common validation framework that compares all the different available methods was missing so far. The initiative VALUE closes this gap with such a common validation framework. An essential part of a validation framework for downscaling techniques is the definition of appropriate validation measures. The selection of validation measures should consider the needs of the stakeholder: some might need a temporal or spatial average of a certain variable, others might need temporal or spatial distributions of some variables, still others might need extremes for the variables of interest or even inter-variable dependencies. Hence, a close interaction of climate data providers and climate data users is necessary. Thus, the challenge in formulating a common validation framework mirrors also the challenges between the climate data providers and the impact assessment community. This poster elaborates the issues and challenges at the downscaling interface as it is seen within the VALUE community. It suggests three different actor groups: one group consisting of the climate data providers, the other two groups being climate data users (impact modellers and societal users). Hence, the downscaling interface faces classical transdisciplinary challenges. We depict a graphical illustration of actors involved and their interactions. In addition, we identified four different types of issues that need to be considered: i.e. data based, knowledge based, communication based, and structural issues. They all may, individually or jointly, hinder an optimal exchange of data and information between the actor groups at the downscaling interface. Finally, some possible ways to tackle these issues are discussed.

Two Challenges to Communicating Climate Science

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Oreskes, N.; Evans, J. H.; Feng, J.

2011-12-01

Climate scientists have been frustrated by the persistence of public opinion at odds with established scientific evidence about anthropogenic climate change. Traditionally, scientists have attributed the gap between scientific knowledge and public perception to scientific illiteracy, which could be remedied by a better and more abundant supply of well-communicated scientific information. Social scientific research, however, illustrates that this "deficit model" is insufficient to explain the current state of affairs: many individuals who reject the conclusions of climate scientists are highly educated, and some evidence suggests that, among certain demographics, more educated people are more likely than less educated ones to reject climate science. This talk explores two possible sources of resistance to, or outright rejection of, scientific conclusions about climate change: 1) the effects of long-standing organized efforts to challenge climate science and the credibility of climate scientists; 2) conservative Protestant religious beliefs concerning how factual claims about the earth are determined and how their significance is judged.

Intersections of downscaling, the ethics of climate services, and regional research grand challenges.

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hewitson, B.; Jack, C. D.; Gutowski, W. J., Jr.

2014-12-01

Possibly the leading complication for users of climate information for policy and adaptation is the confusing mix of contrasting data sets that offer widely differing (and often times fundamentally contradictory) indications of the magnitude and direction of past and future regional climate change. In this light, the most pressing scientific-societal challenge is the need to find new ways to understand the sources of conflicting messages from multi-model, multi-method and multi-scale disparities, to develop and implement new analytical methodologies to address this difficulty and so to advance the interpretation and communication of robust climate information to decision makers. Compounding this challenge is the growth of climate services which, in view of the confusing mix of climate change messages, raises serious concerns as to the ethics of communication and dissemination of regional climate change data.The Working Group on Regional Climate (WGRC) of the World Climate Research Program (WCRP) oversees the CORDEX downscaling program which offers a systematic approach to compare the CMIP5 GCMs alongside RCMs and Empirical-statistical (ESD) downscaling within a common experimental design, and which facilitates the evaluation and assessment of the relative information content and sources of error. Using results from the CORDEX RCM and ESD evaluation experiment, and set against the regional messages from the CMIP5 GCMs, we examine the differing messages that arise from each data source. These are then considered in terms of the implications of consequence if each data source were to be independently adopted in a real world use-case scenario. This is then cast in the context of the emerging developments on the distillation dilemma - where the pressing need is for multi-method integration - and how this relates to the WCRP regional research grand challenges.

A multi-layered governance framework for incorporating social science insights into adapting to the health impacts of climate change.

PubMed

Bowen, Kathryn J; Ebi, Kristie; Friel, Sharon; McMichael, Anthony J

2013-09-10

Addressing climate change and its associated effects is a multi-dimensional and ongoing challenge. This includes recognizing that climate change will affect the health and wellbeing of all populations over short and longer terms, albeit in varied ways and intensities. That recognition has drawn attention to the need to take adaptive actions to lessen adverse impacts over the next few decades from unavoidable climate change, particularly in developing country settings. A range of sectors is responsible for appropriate adaptive policies and measures to address the health risks of climate change, including health services, water and sanitation, trade, agriculture, disaster management, and development. To broaden the framing of governance and decision-making processes by using innovative methods and assessments to illustrate the multi-sectoral nature of health-related adaptation to climate change. This is a shift from sector-specific to multi-level systems encompassing sectors and actors, across temporal and spatial scales. A review and synthesis of the current knowledge in the areas of health and climate change adaptation governance and decision-making processes. A novel framework is presented that incorporates social science insights into the formulation and implementation of adaptation activities and policies to lessen the health risks posed by climate change. Clarification of the roles that different sectors, organizations, and individuals occupy in relation to the development of health-related adaptation strategies will facilitate the inclusion of health and wellbeing within multi-sector adaptation policies, thereby strengthening the overall set of responses to minimize the adverse health effects of climate change.

A multi-layered governance framework for incorporating social science insights into adapting to the health impacts of climate change

PubMed Central

Bowen, Kathryn J.; Ebi, Kristie; Friel, Sharon; McMichael, Anthony J.

2013-01-01

Background Addressing climate change and its associated effects is a multi-dimensional and ongoing challenge. This includes recognizing that climate change will affect the health and wellbeing of all populations over short and longer terms, albeit in varied ways and intensities. That recognition has drawn attention to the need to take adaptive actions to lessen adverse impacts over the next few decades from unavoidable climate change, particularly in developing country settings. A range of sectors is responsible for appropriate adaptive policies and measures to address the health risks of climate change, including health services, water and sanitation, trade, agriculture, disaster management, and development. Objectives To broaden the framing of governance and decision-making processes by using innovative methods and assessments to illustrate the multi-sectoral nature of health-related adaptation to climate change. This is a shift from sector-specific to multi-level systems encompassing sectors and actors, across temporal and spatial scales. Design A review and synthesis of the current knowledge in the areas of health and climate change adaptation governance and decision-making processes. Results A novel framework is presented that incorporates social science insights into the formulation and implementation of adaptation activities and policies to lessen the health risks posed by climate change. Conclusion Clarification of the roles that different sectors, organizations, and individuals occupy in relation to the development of health-related adaptation strategies will facilitate the inclusion of health and wellbeing within multi-sector adaptation policies, thereby strengthening the overall set of responses to minimize the adverse health effects of climate change. PMID:24028938

Weather forecasting based on hybrid neural model

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Saba, Tanzila; Rehman, Amjad; AlGhamdi, Jarallah S.

2017-11-01

Making deductions and expectations about climate has been a challenge all through mankind's history. Challenges with exact meteorological directions assist to foresee and handle problems well in time. Different strategies have been investigated using various machine learning techniques in reported forecasting systems. Current research investigates climate as a major challenge for machine information mining and deduction. Accordingly, this paper presents a hybrid neural model (MLP and RBF) to enhance the accuracy of weather forecasting. Proposed hybrid model ensure precise forecasting due to the specialty of climate anticipating frameworks. The study concentrates on the data representing Saudi Arabia weather forecasting. The main input features employed to train individual and hybrid neural networks that include average dew point, minimum temperature, maximum temperature, mean temperature, average relative moistness, precipitation, normal wind speed, high wind speed and average cloudiness. The output layer composed of two neurons to represent rainy and dry weathers. Moreover, trial and error approach is adopted to select an appropriate number of inputs to the hybrid neural network. Correlation coefficient, RMSE and scatter index are the standard yard sticks adopted for forecast accuracy measurement. On individual standing MLP forecasting results are better than RBF, however, the proposed simplified hybrid neural model comes out with better forecasting accuracy as compared to both individual networks. Additionally, results are better than reported in the state of art, using a simple neural structure that reduces training time and complexity.

78 FR 13874 - Watershed Modeling To Assess the Sensitivity of Streamflow, Nutrient, and Sediment Loads to...

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2013-03-01

... an improved understanding of methodological challenges associated with integrating existing tools and... methodological challenges associated with integrating existing tools (e.g., climate models, downscaling... sensitivity to methodological choices such as different approaches for downscaling global climate change...

Gifted and Talented Students' Perceptions on Their Schooling: A Survey Study

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kahveci, Nihat Gürel; Akgül, Savas

2014-01-01

This study provides elementary gifted and talented students: Social Studies, Math, Turkish, Science, and Foreign Language courses in terms of differentiation, challenging activities and classroom climate. Research studies contend the significance of differentiation, challenging curriculum and instruction, suitable classroom climate to provide…

Soil management challenges in response to climatic change

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Agriculture has tremendous potential to help solve global food, feed, fiber, and bioenergy challenges and respond to changing climatic conditions provided we do not compromise our soil, water and air resources. This presentation will examine soil management, defined by the Soil Science Society of Am...

Sustained Large-Scale Collective Climate Action Supported by Effective Climate Change Education Practice

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Niepold, F., III; Crim, H.; Fiorile, G.; Eldadah, S.

2017-12-01

Since 2012, the Climate and Energy Literacy community have realized that as cities, nations and the international community seek solutions to global climate change over the coming decades, a more comprehensive, interdisciplinary approach to climate literacy—one that includes economic and social considerations—will play a vital role in knowledgeable planning, decision-making, and governance. City, county and state leaders are now leading the American response to a changing climate by incubating social innovation to prevail in the face of unprecedented change. Cities are beginning to realize the importance of critical investments to support the policies and strategies that will foster the climate literacy necessary for citizens to understand the urgency of climate actions and to succeed in a resilient post-carbon economy and develop the related workforce. Over decade of federal and non-profit Climate Change Education effective methods have been developed that can support municipality's significant educational capabilities for the purpose of strengthening and scaling city, state, business, and education actions designed to sustain and effectively address this significant social change. Looking to foster the effective and innovative strategies that will enable their communities several networks have collaborated to identify recommendations for effective education and communication practices when working with different types of audiences. U.S. National Science Foundation funded Climate Change Education Partnership (CCEP) Alliance, the National Wildlife Federation, NOAA Climate Program Office, Tri-Agency Climate Change Education Collaborative and the Climate Literacy and Energy Awareness Network (CLEAN) are working to develop a new web portal that will highlight "effective" practices that includes the acquisition and use of climate change knowledge to inform decision-making. The purpose of the web portal is to transfer effective practice to support communities to be empowered to address the challenges of a new climate reality and ensure that all people are capable of taking an active role in shaping a sustainable future.

Towards Increased Engagement of Geoscientists in Global Development Frameworks

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gill, Joel

2016-04-01

Geoscientists have the potential to make a significant contribution to tackling some of the major socio-environmental challenges of today, including extreme poverty, sustainable development, disaster risk reduction and climate change. This presentation explores the importance and social responsibility of geoscientists to engage in such work through understanding and supporting key global development frameworks. During 2015 the international community agreed three important agendas for change. Each framework relates to the intersection of environmental processes with human activities and behaviours, addressing significant challenges affecting society. The frameworks are (i) the UN Global Goals for Sustainable Development, (ii) the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030, and (iii) subject to final confirmation at the time of writing, an agreement on climate change at the Paris Conference of the Parties - COP21. The UN Global Goals for Sustainable Development, for example, includes 17 goals aiming to end extreme poverty, fight inequality and ensure environmental sustainability. Specific goals relate to clean water and sanitation, clean and affordable energy, the development of resilient infrastructure, and the need for climate action. Given this context, here (i) a synthesis is presented of the role of geoscience in successfully achieving these major global development frameworks agreed in 2015, (ii) the ethical and social understanding that underpins effective engagement by geoscientists in the science-policy-practice interface is discussed, and (iii) this required ethical understanding is placed into the context of geoscience training and development needs. This approach demonstrates the importance of geoscientists from across all sectors and specialisms, engaging in the implementation, monitoring and evaluation of global development frameworks. It highlights the importance of a greater awareness and consideration of our ethical responsibilities in order to better support efforts to tackle major societal challenges.

Climate and Cryosphere (CliC) Project and its Interest in Arctic Hydrology Research

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Yang, D.; Prowse, T. D.; Steffen, K.; Ryabinin, V.

2009-12-01

The cryosphere is an important and dynamic component of the global climate system. The global cryosphere is changing rapidly, with changes in the Polar Regions receiving particular attention during the International Polar Year 2007-2008. The Climate and Cryosphere (CliC) Project is a core project of the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP) and is co-sponsored by WCRP, SCAR (Scientific Committee for Antarctic Research) and IASC (International Committee for Antarctic Research). The principal goal of CliC is to assess and quantify the impacts that climatic variability and change have on components of the cryosphere and the consequences of these impacts for the climate system. To achieve its objectives, CliC coordinates international and regional projects, partners with other organizations in joint initiatives, and organizes panels and working groups to lead and coordinate advanced research aimed at closing identified gaps in scientific knowledge about climate and cryosphere. The terrestrial cryosphere includes land areas where snow cover, lake- and river-ice, glaciers and ice caps, permafrost and seasonally frozen ground and solid precipitation occur. The main task of this theme is to improve estimates and quantify the uncertainty of water balance and related energy flux components in cold climate regions. This includes precipitation (both solid and liquid) distribution, properties of snow, snow melt, evapotranspiration, sublimation, water movement through frozen and unfrozen ground, water storage in watersheds, river- and lake-ice properties and processes, and river runoff. The focus of this theme includes two specific issues: the role of permafrost and frozen ground in the carbon balance, and precipitation in cold climates. Hydrological studies of cold regions will provide a key contribution to the new theme crosscut, which focuses on the cryospheric input to the freshwater balance of the Arctic. This presentation will provide an overview and update of recent developments of cold region hydrometeorology research activities and future challenges in arctic hydrology and climate change investigations.

The Early Anthropogenic Hypothesis: Challenges and Responses

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ruddiman, William F.

2007-12-01

Ruddiman (2003) proposed that late Holocene anthropogenic intervention caused CH4 and CO2 increases that kept climate from cooling and that preindustrial pandemics caused CO2 decreases and a small cooling. Every aspect of this early anthropogenic hypothesis has been challenged: the timescale, the issue of stage 11 as a better analog, the ability of human activities to account for the gas anomalies, and the impact of the pandemics. This review finds that the late Holocene gas trends are anomalous in all ice timescales; greenhouse gases decreased during the closest stage 11 insolation analog; disproportionate biomass burning and rice irrigation can explain the methane anomaly; and pandemics explain half of the CO2 decrease since 1000 years ago. Only ˜25% of the CO2 anomaly can, however, be explained by carbon from early deforestation. The remainder must have come from climate system feedbacks, including a Holocene ocean that remained anomalously warm because of anthropogenic intervention.

Large-scale modeled contemporary and future water temperature estimates for 10774 Midwestern U.S. Lakes

USGS Publications Warehouse

Winslow, Luke A.; Hansen, Gretchen J. A.; Read, Jordan S.; Notaro, Michael

2017-01-01

Climate change has already influenced lake temperatures globally, but understanding future change is challenging. The response of lakes to changing climate drivers is complex due to the nature of lake-atmosphere coupling, ice cover, and stratification. To better understand the diversity of lake responses to climate change and give managers insight on individual lakes, we modelled daily water temperature profiles for 10,774 lakes in Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin for contemporary (1979–2015) and future (2020–2040 and 2080–2100) time periods with climate models based on the Representative Concentration Pathway 8.5, the worst-case emission scenario. In addition to lake-specific daily simulated temperatures, we derived commonly used, ecologically relevant annual metrics of thermal conditions for each lake. We include all supporting lake-specific model parameters, meteorological drivers, and archived code for the model and derived metric calculations. This unique dataset offers landscape-level insight into the impact of climate change on lakes.

Large-scale modeled contemporary and future water temperature estimates for 10774 Midwestern U.S. Lakes

PubMed Central

Winslow, Luke A.; Hansen, Gretchen J.A.; Read, Jordan S; Notaro, Michael

2017-01-01

Climate change has already influenced lake temperatures globally, but understanding future change is challenging. The response of lakes to changing climate drivers is complex due to the nature of lake-atmosphere coupling, ice cover, and stratification. To better understand the diversity of lake responses to climate change and give managers insight on individual lakes, we modelled daily water temperature profiles for 10,774 lakes in Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin for contemporary (1979–2015) and future (2020–2040 and 2080–2100) time periods with climate models based on the Representative Concentration Pathway 8.5, the worst-case emission scenario. In addition to lake-specific daily simulated temperatures, we derived commonly used, ecologically relevant annual metrics of thermal conditions for each lake. We include all supporting lake-specific model parameters, meteorological drivers, and archived code for the model and derived metric calculations. This unique dataset offers landscape-level insight into the impact of climate change on lakes. PMID:28440790

Organizational factors associated with readiness for change in residential aged care settings.

PubMed

von Treuer, Kathryn; Karantzas, Gery; McCabe, Marita; Mellor, David; Konis, Anastasia; Davison, Tanya E; O'Connor, Daniel

2018-02-01

Organizational change is inevitable in any workplace. Previous research has shown that leadership and a number of organizational climate and contextual variables can affect the adoption of change initiatives. The effect of these workplace variables is particularly important in stressful work sectors such as aged care where employees work with challenging older clients who frequently exhibit dementia and depression. This study sought to examine the effect of organizational climate and leadership variables on organizational readiness for change across 21 residential aged care facilities. Staff from each facility (N = 255) completed a self-report measure assessing organizational factors including organizational climate, leadership and readiness for change. A hierarchical regression model revealed that the organizational climate variables of work pressure, innovation, and transformational leadership were predictive of employee perceptions of organizational readiness for change. These findings suggest that within aged care facilities an organization's capacity to change their organizational climate and leadership practices may enhance an organization's readiness for change.

Large-scale modeled contemporary and future water temperature estimates for 10774 Midwestern U.S. Lakes

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Winslow, Luke A.; Hansen, Gretchen J. A.; Read, Jordan S.; Notaro, Michael

2017-04-01

Climate change has already influenced lake temperatures globally, but understanding future change is challenging. The response of lakes to changing climate drivers is complex due to the nature of lake-atmosphere coupling, ice cover, and stratification. To better understand the diversity of lake responses to climate change and give managers insight on individual lakes, we modelled daily water temperature profiles for 10,774 lakes in Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin for contemporary (1979-2015) and future (2020-2040 and 2080-2100) time periods with climate models based on the Representative Concentration Pathway 8.5, the worst-case emission scenario. In addition to lake-specific daily simulated temperatures, we derived commonly used, ecologically relevant annual metrics of thermal conditions for each lake. We include all supporting lake-specific model parameters, meteorological drivers, and archived code for the model and derived metric calculations. This unique dataset offers landscape-level insight into the impact of climate change on lakes.

Biologically Based Methods for Pest Management in Agriculture under Changing Climates: Challenges and Future Directions.

PubMed

Chidawanyika, Frank; Mudavanhu, Pride; Nyamukondiwa, Casper

2012-11-09

The current changes in global climatic regimes present a significant societal challenge, affecting in all likelihood insect physiology, biochemistry, biogeography and population dynamics. With the increasing resistance of many insect pest species to chemical insecticides and an increasing organic food market, pest control strategies are slowly shifting towards more sustainable, ecologically sound and economically viable options. Biologically based pest management strategies present such opportunities through predation or parasitism of pests and plant direct or indirect defense mechanisms that can all be important components of sustainable integrated pest management programs. Inevitably, the efficacy of biological control systems is highly dependent on natural enemy-prey interactions, which will likely be modified by changing climates. Therefore, knowledge of how insect pests and their natural enemies respond to climate variation is of fundamental importance in understanding biological insect pest management under global climate change. Here, we discuss biological control, its challenges under climate change scenarios and how increased global temperatures will require adaptive management strategies to cope with changing status of insects and their natural enemies.

Mathematics applied to the climate system: outstanding challenges and recent progress

PubMed Central

Williams, Paul D.; Cullen, Michael J. P.; Davey, Michael K.; Huthnance, John M.

2013-01-01

The societal need for reliable climate predictions and a proper assessment of their uncertainties is pressing. Uncertainties arise not only from initial conditions and forcing scenarios, but also from model formulation. Here, we identify and document three broad classes of problems, each representing what we regard to be an outstanding challenge in the area of mathematics applied to the climate system. First, there is the problem of the development and evaluation of simple physically based models of the global climate. Second, there is the problem of the development and evaluation of the components of complex models such as general circulation models. Third, there is the problem of the development and evaluation of appropriate statistical frameworks. We discuss these problems in turn, emphasizing the recent progress made by the papers presented in this Theme Issue. Many pressing challenges in climate science require closer collaboration between climate scientists, mathematicians and statisticians. We hope the papers contained in this Theme Issue will act as inspiration for such collaborations and for setting future research directions. PMID:23588054

The computational future for climate and Earth system models: on the path to petaflop and beyond.

PubMed

Washington, Warren M; Buja, Lawrence; Craig, Anthony

2009-03-13

The development of the climate and Earth system models has had a long history, starting with the building of individual atmospheric, ocean, sea ice, land vegetation, biogeochemical, glacial and ecological model components. The early researchers were much aware of the long-term goal of building the Earth system models that would go beyond what is usually included in the climate models by adding interactive biogeochemical interactions. In the early days, the progress was limited by computer capability, as well as by our knowledge of the physical and chemical processes. Over the last few decades, there has been much improved knowledge, better observations for validation and more powerful supercomputer systems that are increasingly meeting the new challenges of comprehensive models. Some of the climate model history will be presented, along with some of the successes and difficulties encountered with present-day supercomputer systems.

An overview of mineral dust modeling over East Asia

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Chen, Siyu; Huang, Jianping; Qian, Yun

Dust aerosol, one of the most abundant aerosol species in the atmosphere, has significant impacts on the energy balance and climatic feedback of the Earth system through its influence on solar and terrestrial radiation as well as clouds. East Asia is the one of prominent regions of dust generation. The East Asia dust life cycle and associated radiative and climatic effects are the outstanding science issues in understanding climate change at regional and even global scale. In the past decades, numerous dust models have been developed and applied to comprehend a series of dust-related processes studies, including emission, transport, andmore » deposition, and to understand the effects of dust aerosol on the radiation and climate over East Asian. In this paper, we review the recent achievements and progresses in East Asian dust modeling research and discuss the potential challenges in future studies.« less

On the Reprocessing and Reanalysis of Observations for Climate

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Bosilovich, Michael G.; Kennedy, John; Dee, Dick; ONeill, Alan

2012-01-01

The long observational record is critical to our understanding of the Earth s climate, but most observing systems were not developed with a climate objective in mind. As a result, tremendous efforts have gone into assessing and reprocessing the data records to improve their usefulness in climate studies. Many challenges remain, such as tracking the improvement of processing algorithms and limited spatial coverage. Reanalyses have fostered significant research, yet reliable global trends in many physical fields are not yet attainable, despite significant advances in data assimilation and numerical modeling. Communication of the strengths, limitations and uncertainties of reprocessed observations and reanalysis data, not only among the community of developers, but also with the extended research community, including the new generations of researchers and the decision makers is crucial for further advancement of the observational data records. WCRP provides the means to bridge the different motivating objectives on which national efforts focus.

Assessing agricultural risks of climate change in the 21st century in a global gridded crop model intercomparison

PubMed Central

Rosenzweig, Cynthia; Elliott, Joshua; Deryng, Delphine; Ruane, Alex C.; Müller, Christoph; Arneth, Almut; Boote, Kenneth J.; Folberth, Christian; Glotter, Michael; Khabarov, Nikolay; Neumann, Kathleen; Piontek, Franziska; Pugh, Thomas A. M.; Schmid, Erwin; Stehfest, Elke; Yang, Hong; Jones, James W.

2014-01-01

Here we present the results from an intercomparison of multiple global gridded crop models (GGCMs) within the framework of the Agricultural Model Intercomparison and Improvement Project and the Inter-Sectoral Impacts Model Intercomparison Project. Results indicate strong negative effects of climate change, especially at higher levels of warming and at low latitudes; models that include explicit nitrogen stress project more severe impacts. Across seven GGCMs, five global climate models, and four representative concentration pathways, model agreement on direction of yield changes is found in many major agricultural regions at both low and high latitudes; however, reducing uncertainty in sign of response in mid-latitude regions remains a challenge. Uncertainties related to the representation of carbon dioxide, nitrogen, and high temperature effects demonstrated here show that further research is urgently needed to better understand effects of climate change on agricultural production and to devise targeted adaptation strategies. PMID:24344314

Assessing Agricultural Risks of Climate Change in the 21st Century in a Global Gridded Crop Model Intercomparison

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Rosenzweig, Cynthia E.; Elliott, Joshua; Deryng, Delphine; Ruane, Alex C.; Mueller, Christoph; Arneth, Almut; Boote, Kenneth J.; Folberth, Christian; Glotter, Michael; Khabarov, Nikolay

2014-01-01

Here we present the results from an intercomparison of multiple global gridded crop models (GGCMs) within the framework of the Agricultural Model Intercomparison and Improvement Project and the Inter-Sectoral Impacts Model Intercomparison Project. Results indicate strong negative effects of climate change, especially at higher levels of warming and at low latitudes; models that include explicit nitrogen stress project more severe impacts. Across seven GGCMs, five global climate models, and four representative concentration pathways, model agreement on direction of yield changes is found in many major agricultural regions at both low and high latitudes; however, reducing uncertainty in sign of response in mid-latitude regions remains a challenge. Uncertainties related to the representation of carbon dioxide, nitrogen, and high temperature effects demonstrated here show that further research is urgently needed to better understand effects of climate change on agricultural production and to devise targeted adaptation strategies.

Globalisation and climate change in Asia: the urban health impact.

PubMed

Munslow, Barry; O'Dempsey, Tim

2010-01-01

Asia's economic development successes will create new policy areas to address, as the advances made through globalisation create greater climate change challenges, particularly the impact on urban health. Poverty eradication and higher standards of living both increase demand on resources. Globalisation increases inequalities and those who are currently the losers will carry the greatest burden of the costs in the form of the negative effects of climate change and the humanitarian crises that will ensue. Of four major climate change challenges affecting the environment and health, two—urban air pollution and waste management—can be mitigated by policy change and technological innovation if sufficient resources are allocated. Because of the urban bias in the development process, these challenges will probably register on policy makers' agenda. The second two major challenges—floods and drought—are less amenable to policy and technological solutions: many humanitarian emergency challenges lie ahead. This article describes the widely varying impact of both globalisation and climate change across Asia. The greatest losers are those who flee one marginal location, the arid inland areas, only to settle in another marginal location in the flood prone coastal slums. Effective preparation is required, and an effective response when subsequent humanitarian crises occur.

Towards a comprehensive climate impacts assessment of solar geoengineering

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Irvine, Peter J.; Kravitz, Ben; Lawrence, Mark G.

Despite a growing literature on the climate response to solar geoengineering—proposals to cool the planet by increasing the planetary albedo—there has been little published on the impacts of solar geoengineering on natural and human systems such as agriculture, health, water resources, and ecosystems. An understanding of the impacts of different scenarios of solar geoengineering deployment will be crucial for informing decisions on whether and how to deploy it. Here we review the current state of knowledge about impacts of a solar-geoengineered climate and identify the major research gaps. We suggest that a thorough assessment of the climate impacts of amore » range of scenarios of solar geoengineering deployment is needed and can be built upon existing frameworks. However, solar geoengineering poses a novel challenge for climate impacts research as the manner of deployment could be tailored to pursue different objectives making possible a wide range of climate outcomes. We present a number of ideas for approaches to extend the survey of climate impacts beyond standard scenarios of solar geoengineering deployment to address this challenge. Reducing the impacts of climate change is the fundamental motivator for emissions reductions and for considering whether and how to deploy solar geoengineering. This means that the active engagement of the climate impacts research community will be important for improving the overall understanding of the opportunities, challenges, and risks presented by solar geoengineering.« less

Towards a comprehensive climate impacts assessment of solar geoengineering

DOE PAGES

Irvine, Peter J.; Kravitz, Ben; Lawrence, Mark G.; ...

2016-11-23

Despite a growing literature on the climate response to solar geoengineering—proposals to cool the planet by increasing the planetary albedo—there has been little published on the impacts of solar geoengineering on natural and human systems such as agriculture, health, water resources, and ecosystems. An understanding of the impacts of different scenarios of solar geoengineering deployment will be crucial for informing decisions on whether and how to deploy it. Here we review the current state of knowledge about impacts of a solar-geoengineered climate and identify the major research gaps. We suggest that a thorough assessment of the climate impacts of amore » range of scenarios of solar geoengineering deployment is needed and can be built upon existing frameworks. However, solar geoengineering poses a novel challenge for climate impacts research as the manner of deployment could be tailored to pursue different objectives making possible a wide range of climate outcomes. We present a number of ideas for approaches to extend the survey of climate impacts beyond standard scenarios of solar geoengineering deployment to address this challenge. Reducing the impacts of climate change is the fundamental motivator for emissions reductions and for considering whether and how to deploy solar geoengineering. This means that the active engagement of the climate impacts research community will be important for improving the overall understanding of the opportunities, challenges, and risks presented by solar geoengineering.« less

Towards a comprehensive climate impacts assessment of solar geoengineering

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Irvine, Peter J.; Kravitz, Ben; Lawrence, Mark G.; Gerten, Dieter; Caminade, Cyril; Gosling, Simon N.; Hendy, Erica J.; Kassie, Belay T.; Kissling, W. Daniel; Muri, Helene; Oschlies, Andreas; Smith, Steven J.

2017-01-01

Despite a growing literature on the climate response to solar geoengineering—proposals to cool the planet by increasing the planetary albedo—there has been little published on the impacts of solar geoengineering on natural and human systems such as agriculture, health, water resources, and ecosystems. An understanding of the impacts of different scenarios of solar geoengineering deployment will be crucial for informing decisions on whether and how to deploy it. Here we review the current state of knowledge about impacts of a solar-geoengineered climate and identify the major research gaps. We suggest that a thorough assessment of the climate impacts of a range of scenarios of solar geoengineering deployment is needed and can be built upon existing frameworks. However, solar geoengineering poses a novel challenge for climate impacts research as the manner of deployment could be tailored to pursue different objectives making possible a wide range of climate outcomes. We present a number of ideas for approaches to extend the survey of climate impacts beyond standard scenarios of solar geoengineering deployment to address this challenge. Reducing the impacts of climate change is the fundamental motivator for emissions reductions and for considering whether and how to deploy solar geoengineering. This means that the active engagement of the climate impacts research community will be important for improving the overall understanding of the opportunities, challenges, and risks presented by solar geoengineering.

Cloud Ice: A Climate Model Challenge With Signs and Expectations of Progress

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Li, F.; Waliser, D.; Bacmeister, J.; Chern, J.; Del Genio, T.; Jiang, J.; Kharitondov, M.; Liou, K.; Meng, H.; Minnis, P.; Rossow, B.; Stephens, G.; Sun-Mack, S.; Tao, W.; Vane, D.; Woods, C.; Tompkins, A.; Wu, D.

2007-12-01

Global climate models (GCMs), including those assessed in the IPCC AR4, exhibit considerable disagreement in the amount of cloud ice - both in terms of the annual global mean as well as their spatial variability. Global measurements of cloud ice have been difficult due to the challenges involved in remotely sensing ice water content (IWC) and its vertical profile - including complications associated with multi-level clouds, mixed-phases and multiple hydrometer types, the uncertainty in classifying ice particle size and shape for remote retrievals, and the relatively small time and space scales associated with deep convection. Together, these measurement difficulties make it a challenge to characterize and understand the mechanisms of ice cloud formation and dissipation. Fortunately, there are new observational resources recently established that can be expected to lead to considerable reduction in the observational uncertainties of cloud ice, and in turn improve the fidelity of model representations. Specifically, these include the Microwave Limb Sounder (MLS) on the Earth Observing System (EOS) Aura satellite, and the CloudSat and Calipso satellite missions, all of which fly in formation in what is referred to as the A-Train. Based on radar and limb-sounding techniques, these new satellite measurements provide a considerable leap forward in terms of the information gathered regarding upper-tropospheric cloud IWC as well as other macrophysical and microphysical properties. In this presentation, we describe the current state of GCM representations of cloud ice and their associated uncertainties, the nature of the new observational resources for constraining cloud ice values in GCMs, the challenges in making model-data comparisons with these data resources, and prospects for near-term improvements in model representations.

The adaptation challenge in the Arctic

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ford, James D.; McDowell, Graham; Pearce, Tristan

2015-12-01

It is commonly asserted that human communities in the Arctic are highly vulnerable to climate change, with the magnitude of projected impacts limiting their ability to adapt. At the same time, an increasing number of field studies demonstrate significant adaptive capacity. Given this paradox, we review climate change adaptation, resilience and vulnerability research to identify and characterize the nature and magnitude of the adaptation challenge facing the Arctic. We find that the challenge of adaptation in the Arctic is formidable, but suggest that drivers of vulnerability and barriers to adaptation can be overcome, avoided or reduced by individual and collective efforts across scales for many, if not all, climate change risks.

Seasonal forecasting and health impact models: challenges and opportunities.

PubMed

Ballester, Joan; Lowe, Rachel; Diggle, Peter J; Rodó, Xavier

2016-10-01

After several decades of intensive research, steady improvements in understanding and modeling the climate system have led to the development of the first generation of operational health early warning systems in the era of climate services. These schemes are based on collaborations across scientific disciplines, bringing together real-time climate and health data collection, state-of-the-art seasonal climate predictions, epidemiological impact models based on historical data, and an understanding of end user and stakeholder needs. In this review, we discuss the challenges and opportunities of this complex, multidisciplinary collaboration, with a focus on the factors limiting seasonal forecasting as a source of predictability for climate impact models. © 2016 New York Academy of Sciences.

Hurricanes and Climate: the U.S. CLIVAR Working Group on Hurricanes

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Walsh, Kevin; Camargo, Suzana J.; Vecchi, Gabriel A.; Daloz, Anne Sophie; Elsner, James; Emanuel, Kerry; Horn, Michael; Lim, Young-Kwon; Roberts, Malcolm; Patricola, Christina;

Climate Change Community Outreach Initiative (CCCOI)--A Gulf of Mexico Education Partnership

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Walker, S. H.; Stone, D.; Schultz, T.; LeBlanc, T.; Miller-Way, T.; Estrada, P.

2012-12-01

This five-year, Gulf of Mexico regional collaborative is funded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)-Office of Education and represents a successful grant submitted by the FL Aquarium as a member of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA). This climate change effort focuses on enhanced content knowledge and the manner in which personal actions and behaviors contribute to sustainability and stewardship. Diverse audiences—represented by visitors at the informal centers listed above—have been and are involved in the following activities: social networking via responses to climate change surveys; an "ocean and climate change defender" computer game, specifically designed for this project; an average of 10 annual outreach events implemented by these facilities at community festivals; climate change lectures provided to family audiences; and professional development workshops for informal and formal educators. This presentation will provide opportunities and challenges encountered during the first two years of implementation. This regional effort is also aligned with both the Ocean Literacy: Essential Principles and the Climate Literacy: Essential Principles. Additional partners include: Normandeau Associates, Conservation Enterprises, Unlimited, and Mindclay Creative.

How the Alliance for Climate Education engages national and local partners to achieve collective impact in climate literacy and action (Invited)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lappe, M.; Gonzalez, R.; Shanley Hope, S.

2013-12-01

The Alliance for Climate Education (ACE) has a mission to educate and inspire young people to break through the challenge of climate change. ACE believes that achieving a safe and stable climate in our lifetime requires the ideas, action and influence of young people. Since 2009, ACE has reached almost 2 million teens in 2,200 schools in over 20 states across the US. In order to support these young people to become leaders in their schools and communities, ACE works closely with local and national partners. In this presentation, ACE will discuss strategic partnerships that have yielded measurable impact and explore how nonprofits, universities, school districts, private companies and government agencies can more effectively align efforts to achieve shared goals. Examples of successful partnerships discussed will include PG&E, Chicago Public Schools, Monterey Bay Aquarium, DC Public Schools, the Climate Literacy and Energy Awareness Network, NOAA, The Next Generation, Los Angeles Public Schools and research universities. ACE will also discuss how research in the field of transformational leadership informs our partnership strategy.

The challenges and opportunities of climate change policy under different stages of economic development.

PubMed

Liobikienė, Genovaitė; Butkus, Mindaugas

2018-06-18

Climate change policy confronts with many challenges and opportunities. Thus the aim of this study was to analyse the impact of gross domestic product (hereinafter GDP), trade, foreign direct investment (hereinafter FDI), energy efficiency (hereinafter EF) and renewable energy (hereinafter RE) consumption on greenhouse gas (hereinafter GHG) emissions in 1990-2013 and reveal the main challenges and opportunities of climate policy for which policy makers should take the most attention under different stages of economic development. The results showed that the economic growth significantly contributed to the increase of GHG emissions and remains the main challenge in all groups of countries. Analysing the trade impact on pollution, the results revealed that the growth of export (hereinafter EX) significantly reduced GHG emissions only in high income countries. However, the export remains a challenge in low income countries. FDI insignificantly determined the changes in GHG emissions in all groups of countries. Meanwhile, energy efficiency and share of renewable energy consumption are the main opportunities of climate change policy because they reduce the GHG emissions in all groups of countries. Thus, technological processes, the increase of energy efficiency and the shift from carbon to renewable energy sources are the main tools implementing the climate change policy in all countries despite the different stage of economic development. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Delivering Climate Science for the Nation's Fish, Wildlife, and Ecosystems: The U.S. Geological Survey National Climate Change and Wildlife Science Center

USGS Publications Warehouse

Beard, T. Douglas

2011-01-01

Changes to the Earth's climate-temperature, precipitation, and other important aspects of climate-pose significant challenges to our Nation's natural resources now and will continue to do so. Managers of land, water, and living resources need to understand the impacts of climate change-which will exacerbate ongoing stresses such as habitat fragmentation and invasive species-so they can design effective response strategies. In 2008 Congress created the National Climate Change and Wildlife Science Center (NCCWSC) within the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS); this center was formed to address challenges resulting from climate change and to empower natural resource managers with rigorous scientific information and effective tools for decision-making. Located at the USGS National Headquarters in Reston, Virginia, the NCCWSC has invested over $20M in cutting-edge climate change research and is now leading the effort to establish eight regional Department of the Interior (DOI) Climate Science Centers (CSCs).

Making climate change tangible for strategic adaptation planning: The Climate Corridor Approach

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Orlowsky, Boris; Calanca, Pierluigi; Ali, Irshad; Ali, Jawad; Elguera Hilares, Agustin; Huggel, Christian; Khan, Inamullah; Neukom, Raphael; Nizami, Arjumand; Qazi, Muhammad Abbas; Robledo, Carmenza; Rohrer, Mario; Salzmann, Nadine; Schmidt, Kaspar

2017-04-01

Climate change is a global phenomenon and difficult to grasp. Although its importance is generally acknowledged, impacts of (future) climate change on human activities are in many cases not taken into account explicitly, in particular when planning development projects. This is due to technical and conceptual challenges, missing financial and human resources and competing priorities. Neglecting climate change can become problematic, if a proposed activity requires specific climatological conditions under which it becomes feasible, a simple example being crop cultivation that needs certain temperature an d precipitation ranges. Comparing such ``climate corridors'' to future climate projections provides an intuitive and low-cost yet quantitative means for assessing needs for, and viability of, adaptation activities under climate change - a "poor man's approach" to climate suitability analysis. A chief advantage of this approach is its modest demand on data. Three case studies from Pakistan, Peru and Tajikistan show that climate corridor analysis can deliver robust results and can be used to efficiently communicate risks and challenges of climate change to partners and stakeholders in the developing countries.

Relationship between organizational climate and empowerment of nurses in Hong Kong.

PubMed

Mok, Esther; Au-Yeung, Betty

2002-05-01

The authors explore the relationship between organizational climate and empowerment among the nursing staff of a regional hospital in Hong Kong. The main purpose of the study was to apply the modified Spreitzer measure of empowerment in a hospital and to examine the relationship of organizational climate to perceptions of empowerment. From 658 questionnaires sent out, 331 nurses participated in the study with a response rate of 50.3%. Survey measures administered included the modified Litwin and Stringer Organizational Climate Questionnaire (LSOCQ) and the modified Spreitzer empowerment instrument. The relationships between organizational climate and empowerment were examined in a series of bivariate correlational analyses. The final section of the questionnaire asked the respondents to list three elements in the organizational climate that they perceived would further increase their feelings of empowerment. Exploratory factor analysis of the modified LSOCQ resulted in six factors: leadership, working harmony, challenge, recognition, teamwork and decision making. There was a positive correlation between organizational climate and psychological empowerment. Using multiple regression analysis, all the six derived climate factors significantly accounted for 44% of the variance. Among the six predicting factors, leadership and teamwork showed the most positive relationship with psychological empowerment. Responses from the open questions on perception of organizational climate that further enhance nurses' feelings of empowerment were categorized into eight areas. They include leadership, communication, working relationship, recognition, structure, training, teamwork and stress management. The study echoes previous studies in finding that organizational climate and, in particular, supportive leadership and teamwork are related to empowerment. The findings also suggest that the nurses in the study did not put much emphasis on the importance of participative decision making.

Extreme waves from tropical cyclones and climate change in the Gulf of Mexico

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Appendini, Christian M.; Pedrozo-Acuña, Adrian; Meza-Padilla, Rafael; Torres-Freyermuth, Alec; Cerezo-Mota, Ruth; López-González, José

2017-04-01

Tropical cyclones generate extreme waves that represent a risk to infrastructure and maritime activities. The projection of the tropical cyclones derived wave climate are challenged by the short historical record of tropical cyclones, their low occurrence, and the poor wind field resolution in General Circulation Models. In this study we use synthetic tropical cyclones to overcome such limitations and be able to characterize present and future wave climate associated with tropical cyclones in the Gulf of Mexico. Synthetic events derived from the NCEP/NCAR atmospheric reanalysis and the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 models NOAA/GFDL CM3 and UK Met Office HADGEM2-ES, were used to force a third generation wave model to characterize the present and future wave climate under RCP 4.5 and 8.5 escenarios. An increase in wave activity is projected for the future climate, particularly for the GFDL model that shows less bias in the present climate, although some areas are expected to decrease the wave energy. The practical implications of determining the future wave climate is exemplified by means of the 100-year design wave, where the use of the present climate may result in under/over design of structures, since the lifespan of a structure includes the future wave climate period.

Java Climate Model: a tool for interaction between science, policy and citizens, to avoid dangerous anthropogenic interference in the climate system

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Matthews, B.

2003-04-01

To reach an effective global agreement to help avoid "dangerous anthropogenic interference in the climate system" (UNFCCC article 2) we must balance many complex interacting issues, and also inspire the active engagement of citizens around the world. So we have to transfer understanding back from computers and experts, into the ultimate "integrated assessment model" which remains the global network of human heads. The Java Climate Model (JCM) tries to help provide a quantitative framework for this global dialogue, by enabling anybody to explore many mitigation policy options and scientific uncertainties simply by adjusting parameter controls with a mouse in a web browser. The instant response on linked plots helps to demonstrate cause and effect, and the sensitivity to various assumptions, risk and value judgements. JCM implements the same simple models and formulae as used by IPCC for the TAR projections, in efficient modular structure, including carbon cycle and atmospheric chemistry, radiative forcing, changes in temperature and sealevel, including some feedbacks. As well as explore the SRES scenarios, the user can create a wide variety of inverse scenarios for stabilising CO2, forcing, or temperature. People ask how local emissions which they can control, may influence the vast global natural and human systems, and change local climate impacts which affect them directly. JCM includes regional emissions and socioeconomic data, and scaled climate impact maps. However to complete this loop in a fast interactive model is a challenge! For transparency and accessibility, pop-up information is provided in ten languages, and documentation ranges from key cross-cutting questions, to them details of the model formulae, including all source code.

Mainstreaming Climate Change Into Geosciences Curriculum of Tertiary Educational Systems in Ghana

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Nyarko, B. K.

2015-12-01

The impact of Climate Change has a far-reaching implication for economies and people living in the fragile Regions of Africa analysts project that by 2020, between 75 million and 250 million people will be exposed various forms of Climate Change Stresses. Education as a key strategy identified under Agenda 21 has been incorporated into the efforts of various educational institutions as a means of mitigating climate change and enhancing sustainability. Climate Change education offers many opportunities and benefits for educators, researchers, learners, and for wider society, but there are also many challenges, which can hinder the successful mainstreaming of climate change education. The study aims at understanding barriers for Climate Change Education in selected tertiary institutions in Ghana. The study was conducted among Geoscience Departments of the 7 main public universities of Ghana and also juxtapose with the WASCAL graduate school curriculum. The transcript analysis identified issues that hinders the mainstreaming of Climate Change, these includes existing levels of knowledge and understanding of the concept of climate change, appreciating the threshold concepts, ineffective teaching of Climate Change and some Departments are slow in embracing Climate Change as a discipline. Hence to develop strategies to mainstream climate change education it is important to recognize that increasing the efficiency and delivery of Climate Change education requires greater attention and coordination of activities and updating the educators knowledge and skill's. Institutions and Educator should be encouraged to undertake co-curricula activities and finding ways to make Climate Change education practical.

Interactions of Climate Change and Nitrogen Management for Optimizing Crop Productivity and Food Security while Minimizing Nitrogen Pollution and Greenhouse Gas Emissions

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Davidson, E. A.; Suddick, E. C.

2012-12-01

Producing food, transportation, and energy for seven billion people has led to huge increases in use of synthetic nitrogen (N) fertilizers and fossil fuels, resulting in large releases of N as air and water pollution. In its numerous chemical forms, N plays a critical role in all aspects of climate change, including mitigation, adaptation, and impacts. Here we report on a multi-authored, interdisciplinary technical report on climate-nitrogen interactions submitted to the US National Climate Assessment as part of a Research Coordination Network activity. Management of the N cycle not only affects emissions of nitrous oxide (N2O) and nitrogen oxides (NOX), but also impacts carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4), through effects on carbon cycling processes in forests and soils and the effects on atmospheric reactions of ozone (O3) and CH4. While some of these direct and indirect N effects have a short-term cooling effect, the warming effects of N2O dominate at long time scales. The challenges of mitigating N2O emissions are substantially different from those for CO2 and CH4, because N is essential for food production, and over 80% of anthropogenic N2O emissions are from the agricultural sector. On one hand, improved agricultural nutrient management can confer some adaptive capacity of crops to climatic variability, but, on the other hand, increased climatic variability will render the task more difficult to manage nutrients for the optimization of crop productivity while minimizing N losses to the environment. Higher air temperatures will result in a "climate penalty" for air quality mitigation efforts, because larger NOX emissions reductions will be needed to achieve the same reductions of O3 pollution under higher temperatures, thus imposing further challenges to avoid harmful impacts on human health and crop productivity. Changes in river discharge, due to summer drought and to extreme precipitation events, will affect the transport of N from agricultural fields to rivers and estuaries, potentially resulting in more eutrophication, including harmful algal blooms. Both climate change and N inputs from N deposition can provoke biodiversity loss in aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems, because nutrient enrichment of native ecosystems often favors fast-growing, often non-native species. Policies aimed at improving N-use efficiencies in agriculture and reducing emissions from transportation and energy sectors would have multiple interacting benefits for climate mitigation and adaptation and for minimizing climate change impacts on crop productivity, air and water quality, biodiversity, human health risks, and food security.

Assessing climate change risks to the natural environment to facilitate cross-sectoral adaptation policy.

PubMed

Brown, Iain

2018-06-13

Climate change policy requires prioritization of adaptation actions across many diverse issues. The policy agenda for the natural environment includes not only biodiversity, soils and water, but also associated human benefits through agriculture, forestry, water resources, hazard alleviation, climate regulation and amenity value. To address this broad agenda, the use of comparative risk assessment is investigated with reference to statutory requirements of the UK Climate Change Risk Assessment. Risk prioritization was defined by current adaptation progress relative to risk magnitude and implementation lead times. Use of an ecosystem approach provided insights into risk interactions, but challenges remain in quantifying ecosystem services. For all risks, indirect effects and potential systemic risks were identified from land-use change, responding to both climate and socio-economic drivers, and causing increased competition for land and water resources. Adaptation strategies enhancing natural ecosystem resilience can buffer risks and sustain ecosystem services but require improved cross-sectoral coordination and recognition of dynamic change. To facilitate this, risk assessments need to be reflexive and explicitly assess decision outcomes contingent on their riskiness and adaptability, including required levels of human intervention, influence of uncertainty and ethical dimensions. More national-scale information is also required on adaptation occurring in practice and its efficacy in moderating risks.This article is part of the theme issue 'Advances in risk assessment for climate change adaptation policy'. © 2018 The Author(s).

Assessing climate change risks to the natural environment to facilitate cross-sectoral adaptation policy

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Brown, Iain

2018-06-01

Climate change policy requires prioritization of adaptation actions across many diverse issues. The policy agenda for the natural environment includes not only biodiversity, soils and water, but also associated human benefits through agriculture, forestry, water resources, hazard alleviation, climate regulation and amenity value. To address this broad agenda, the use of comparative risk assessment is investigated with reference to statutory requirements of the UK Climate Change Risk Assessment. Risk prioritization was defined by current adaptation progress relative to risk magnitude and implementation lead times. Use of an ecosystem approach provided insights into risk interactions, but challenges remain in quantifying ecosystem services. For all risks, indirect effects and potential systemic risks were identified from land-use change, responding to both climate and socio-economic drivers, and causing increased competition for land and water resources. Adaptation strategies enhancing natural ecosystem resilience can buffer risks and sustain ecosystem services but require improved cross-sectoral coordination and recognition of dynamic change. To facilitate this, risk assessments need to be reflexive and explicitly assess decision outcomes contingent on their riskiness and adaptability, including required levels of human intervention, influence of uncertainty and ethical dimensions. More national-scale information is also required on adaptation occurring in practice and its efficacy in moderating risks. This article is part of the theme issue `Advances in risk assessment for climate change adaptation policy'.

Climate change and health effects in Northwest Alaska.

PubMed

Brubaker, Michael; Berner, James; Chavan, Raj; Warren, John

2011-01-01

This article provides examples of adverse health effects, including weather-related injury, food insecurity, mental health issues, and water infrastructure damage, and the responses to these effects that are currently being applied in two Northwest Alaska communities. In Northwest Alaska, warming is resulting in a broad range of unusual weather and environmental conditions, including delayed freeze-up, earlier breakup, storm surge, coastal erosion, and thawing permafrost. These are just some of the climate impacts that are driving concerns about weather-related injury, the spread of disease, mental health issues, infrastructure damage, and food and water security. Local leaders are challenged to identify appropriate adaptation strategies to address climate impacts and related health effects. IMPLEMENTATION PROCESS: The tribal health system is combining local observations, traditional knowledge, and western science to perform community-specific climate change health impact assessments. Local leaders are applying this information to develop adaptation responses. The Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium will describe relationships between climate impacts and health effects and provide examples of community-scaled adaptation actions currently being applied in Northwest Alaska. Climate change is increasing vulnerability to injury, disease, mental stress, food insecurity, and water insecurity. Northwest communities are applying adaptation approaches that are both specific and appropriate. The health impact assessment process is effective in raising awareness, encouraging discussion, engaging partners, and implementing adaptation planning. With community-specific information, local leaders are applying health protective adaptation measures.

Climate change and health effects in Northwest Alaska

PubMed Central

Brubaker, Michael; Berner, James; Chavan, Raj; Warren, John

2011-01-01

This article provides examples of adverse health effects, including weather-related injury, food insecurity, mental health issues, and water infrastructure damage, and the responses to these effects that are currently being applied in two Northwest Alaska communities. Background In Northwest Alaska, warming is resulting in a broad range of unusual weather and environmental conditions, including delayed freeze-up, earlier breakup, storm surge, coastal erosion, and thawing permafrost. These are just some of the climate impacts that are driving concerns about weather-related injury, the spread of disease, mental health issues, infrastructure damage, and food and water security. Local leaders are challenged to identify appropriate adaptation strategies to address climate impacts and related health effects. Implementation process The tribal health system is combining local observations, traditional knowledge, and western science to perform community-specific climate change health impact assessments. Local leaders are applying this information to develop adaptation responses. Objective The Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium will describe relationships between climate impacts and health effects and provide examples of community-scaled adaptation actions currently being applied in Northwest Alaska. Findings Climate change is increasing vulnerability to injury, disease, mental stress, food insecurity, and water insecurity. Northwest communities are applying adaptation approaches that are both specific and appropriate. Conclusion The health impact assessment process is effective in raising awareness, encouraging discussion, engaging partners, and implementing adaptation planning. With community-specific information, local leaders are applying health protective adaptation measures. PMID:22022304

The Challenges and Opportunities for Extending Plant Genomics to Climate (2013 DOE JGI Genomics of Energy and Environment 8th Annual User Meeting)

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Weston, David

2013-03-01

David Weston of Oak Ridge National Laboratory on "The challenges and opportunities for extending plant genomics to climate" at the 8th Annual Genomics of Energy & Environment Meeting on March 27, 2013 in Walnut Creek, CA.

The Icarus challenge - Predicting vulnerability to climate change using an algorithm-based species' trait approach

EPA Science Inventory

The Icarus challenge - Predicting vulnerability to climate change using an algorithm-based species’ trait approachHenry Lee II, Christina Folger, Deborah A. Reusser, Patrick Clinton, and Rene Graham1 U.S. EPA, Western Ecology Division, Newport, OR USA E-mail: lee.henry@ep...

New Opportunities for Principal Leadership: Shaping School Climates for Enhanced Teacher Development

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Drago-Severson, Eleanor

2012-01-01

Background/Context: Improved professional development for teachers and principals is central to our national educational agenda. Principals struggle with the challenge of how to build school climates that improve practice in an era of heightened accountability and increasingly complex adaptive challenges. Purpose/Objective/Research Questions/Focus…

Effective and responsible teaching of climate change in Earth Science-related disciplines

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Robinson, Z. P.; Greenhough, B. J.

2009-04-01

Climate change is a core topic within Earth Science-related courses. This vast topic covers a wide array of different aspects that could be covered, from past climatic change across a vast range of scales to environmental (and social and economic) impacts of future climatic change and strategies for reducing anthropogenic climate change. The Earth Science disciplines play a crucial role in our understanding of past, present and future climate change and the Earth system in addition to understanding leading to development of strategies and technological solutions to achieve sustainability. However, an increased knowledge of the occurrence and causes of past (natural) climate changes can lead to a lessened concern and sense of urgency and responsibility amongst students in relation to anthropogenic causes of climatic change. Two concepts integral to the teaching of climate change are those of scientific uncertainty and complexity, yet an emphasis on these concepts can lead to scepticism about future predictions and a further loss of sense of urgency. The requirement to understand the nature of scientific uncertainty and think and move between different scales in particular relating an increased knowledge of longer timescale climatic change to recent (industrialised) climate change, are clearly areas of troublesome knowledge that affect students' sense of responsibility towards their role in achieving a sustainable society. Study of the attitudes of university students in a UK HE institution on a range of Earth Science-related programmes highlights a range of different attitudes in the student body towards the subject of climate change. Students express varied amounts of ‘climate change saturation' resulting from both media and curriculum coverage, a range of views relating to the significance of humans to the global climate and a range of opinions about the relevance of environmental citizenship to their degree programme. Climate change is therefore a challenging topic to cover within the Earth Science-related curricula due to wide-ranging, and sometimes polarised, existing attitudes of students and levels of existing partial and sometimes flawed knowledge in addition to the troublesome concepts that need to be grasped. These issues highlight the responsibility and challenge inherent in teaching the subject of climate change and the importance of consideration of integrating sustainability issues with the core science of climate change. The talk will include a discussion of strategies and resources for the effective teaching of climate change topics for a range of levels and discipline backgrounds.

Towards Improved Linkage of Disaster Risk Reduction and Climate Change Adaptation in Health: A Review

PubMed Central

Banwell, Nicola; Rutherford, Shannon; Mackey, Brendan; Chu, Cordia

2018-01-01

Climate change and climate-sensitive disasters significantly impact health. Linking Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) and Climate Change Adaptation (CCA) is essential for addressing these ever present, complex and increasing risks. Recent calls have been made to build these links in health. However, there is a need to clearly articulate why linking DRR and CCA is important in health. Furthermore, little is known about how DRR and CCA should be linked in health. By extensively examining relevant literature, this review presents the current state of knowledge of linking DRR and CCA in health. This includes the potential for maximising conceptual synergies such as building resilience, and reducing vulnerability and risk. Additionally, technical and operational synergies are identified to link DRR and CCA in health, including: policy, Early Warning Systems, vulnerability and risk assessment, health systems strengthening, infrastructure resilience, disaster preparedness and response, and health impact pathways. Public health actors have a central role in building these links due to their expertise, work functions, and experience in addressing complex health risks. The review concludes with recommendations for future research, including how to better link DRR and CCA in health; and the opportunities, challenges and enablers to build and sustain these links. PMID:29670057

Ocean Modeling and Visualization on Massively Parallel Computer

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Chao, Yi; Li, P. Peggy; Wang, Ping; Katz, Daniel S.; Cheng, Benny N.

1997-01-01

Climate modeling is one of the grand challenges of computational science, and ocean modeling plays an important role in both understanding the current climatic conditions and predicting future climate change.

Research on Climate and Dengue in Malaysia: A Systematic Review.

PubMed

Hii, Yien Ling; Zaki, Rafdzah Ahmad; Aghamohammadi, Nasrin; Rocklöv, Joacim

2016-03-01

Dengue is a climate-sensitive infectious disease. Climate-based dengue early warning may be a simple, low-cost, and effective tool for enhancing surveillance and control. Scientific studies on climate and dengue in local context form the basis for advancing the development of a climate-based early warning system. This study aims to review the current status of scientific studies in climate and dengue and the prospect or challenges of such research on a climate-based dengue early warning system in a dengue-endemic country, taking Malaysia as a case study. We reviewed the relationship between climate and dengue derived from statistical modeling, laboratory tests, and field studies. We searched electronic databases including PubMed, Scopus, EBSCO (MEDLINE), Web of Science, and the World Health Organization publications, and assessed climate factors and their influence on dengue cases, mosquitoes, and virus and recent development in the field of climate and dengue. Few studies in Malaysia have emphasized the relationship between climate and dengue. Climatic factors such as temperature, rainfall, and humidity are associated with dengue; however, these relationships were not consistent. Climate change projections for Malaysia show a mounting risk for dengue in the future. Scientific studies on climate and dengue enhance dengue surveillance in the long run. It is essential for institutions in Malaysia to promote research on climate and vector-borne diseases to advance the development of climate-based early warning systems. Together, effective strategies that improve existing research capacity, maximize the use of limited resources, and promote local-international partnership are crucial for sustaining research on climate and health.

Adaptive strategies to climate change in Southern Malawi

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Chidanti-Malunga, J.

Climate change poses a big challenge to rural livelihoods in the Shire Valley area of Southern Malawi, where communities have depended almost entirely on rain-fed agriculture for generations. The Shire Valley area comprises of low-altitude dambo areas and uplands which have been the main agricultural areas. Since early to mid 1980s, the uplands have experienced prolonged droughts and poor rainfall distribution, while the dambos have experienced recurrent seasonal floods. This study assessed some of the adaptive strategies exercised by small-scale rural farmers in response to climate change in the Shire Valley. The methodology used in collecting information includes group discussions, household surveys in the area, secondary data, and field observations. The results show that small-scale rural farmers exercise a number of adaptive strategies in response to climate change. These adaptive strategies include: increased use of water resources for small-scale irrigation or wetland farming, mostly using simple delivery techniques; increased management of residual moisture; and increased alternative sources of income such as fishing and crop diversity. It was also observed that government promoted the use of portable motorized pumps for small-scale irrigation in order to mitigate the effects of climate change. However, these external interventions were not fully adopted; instead the farmers preferred local interventions which mostly had indigenous elements.

Computer models and the evidence of anthropogenic climate change: An epistemology of variety-of-evidence inferences and robustness analysis.

PubMed

Vezér, Martin A

2016-04-01

To study climate change, scientists employ computer models, which approximate target systems with various levels of skill. Given the imperfection of climate models, how do scientists use simulations to generate knowledge about the causes of observed climate change? Addressing a similar question in the context of biological modelling, Levins (1966) proposed an account grounded in robustness analysis. Recent philosophical discussions dispute the confirmatory power of robustness, raising the question of how the results of computer modelling studies contribute to the body of evidence supporting hypotheses about climate change. Expanding on Staley's (2004) distinction between evidential strength and security, and Lloyd's (2015) argument connecting variety-of-evidence inferences and robustness analysis, I address this question with respect to recent challenges to the epistemology robustness analysis. Applying this epistemology to case studies of climate change, I argue that, despite imperfections in climate models, and epistemic constraints on variety-of-evidence reasoning and robustness analysis, this framework accounts for the strength and security of evidence supporting climatological inferences, including the finding that global warming is occurring and its primary causes are anthropogenic. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

eSACP - a new Nordic initiative towards developing statistical climate services

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Thorarinsdottir, Thordis; Thejll, Peter; Drews, Martin; Guttorp, Peter; Venälainen, Ari; Uotila, Petteri; Benestad, Rasmus; Mesquita, Michel d. S.; Madsen, Henrik; Fox Maule, Cathrine

2015-04-01

The Nordic research council NordForsk has recently announced its support for a new 3-year research initiative on "statistical analysis of climate projections" (eSACP). eSACP will focus on developing e-science tools and services based on statistical analysis of climate projections for the purpose of helping decision-makers and planners in the face of expected future challenges in regional climate change. The motivation behind the project is the growing recognition in our society that forecasts of future climate change is associated with various sources of uncertainty, and that any long-term planning and decision-making dependent on a changing climate must account for this. At the same time there is an obvious gap between scientists from different fields and between practitioners in terms of understanding how climate information relates to different parts of the "uncertainty cascade". In eSACP we will develop generic e-science tools and statistical climate services to facilitate the use of climate projections by decision-makers and scientists from all fields for climate impact analyses and for the development of robust adaptation strategies, which properly (in a statistical sense) account for the inherent uncertainty. The new tool will be publically available and include functionality to utilize the extensive and dynamically growing repositories of data and use state-of-the-art statistical techniques to quantify the uncertainty and innovative approaches to visualize the results. Such a tool will not only be valuable for future assessments and underpin the development of dedicated climate services, but will also assist the scientific community in making more clearly its case on the consequences of our changing climate to policy makers and the general public. The eSACP project is led by Thordis Thorarinsdottir, Norwegian Computing Center, and also includes the Finnish Meteorological Institute, the Norwegian Meteorological Institute, the Technical University of Denmark and the Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research, Norway. This poster will present details of focus areas in the project and show some examples of the expected analysis tools.

Necrotic enteritis: important role of intestinal immunity to Clostridium perfringens in pathogenesis and antibiotic alternative strategies to reduce the gut damage

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

The human population is projected to grow to 9-10 billion by the year 2050. As a consequence of the population explosion, food animal production must confront a new array of challenges including global food security, regulatory ban of antimicrobials, climate change, emerging infectious diseases, hi...

Aiming Talent Development toward Creative Eminence in the 21st Century

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Olszewski-Kubilius, Paula; Subotnik, Rena F.; Worrell, Frank C.

2016-01-01

Much has been written about the social and scientific problems that face the world in the 21st century, including climate change and economic inequality. In this context, the development of talented individuals who can tackle these problems is most important. In this article, the authors discuss the implications of 21st-century challenges for the…

Defining metrics of the Quasi-Biennial Oscillation in global climate models

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Schenzinger, Verena; Osprey, Scott; Gray, Lesley; Butchart, Neal

2017-06-01

As the dominant mode of variability in the tropical stratosphere, the Quasi-Biennial Oscillation (QBO) has been subject to extensive research. Though there is a well-developed theory of this phenomenon being forced by wave-mean flow interaction, simulating the QBO adequately in global climate models still remains difficult. This paper presents a set of metrics to characterize the morphology of the QBO using a number of different reanalysis datasets and the FU Berlin radiosonde observation dataset. The same metrics are then calculated from Coupled Model Intercomparison Project 5 and Chemistry-Climate Model Validation Activity 2 simulations which included a representation of QBO-like behaviour to evaluate which aspects of the QBO are well captured by the models and which ones remain a challenge for future model development.

3-D Teaching of Climate Change: An innovative professional learning model for K-12 teachers

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Stapleton, M.; Wolfson, J.; Sezen-Barrie, A.

2017-12-01

In spite of the presumed controversy over the evidence for climate change, the recently released Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) for K-12 include a focus on climate literacy and explicitly use the term `climate change.' In addition to the increased focus on climate change, the NGSS are also built upon a new three dimensional framework for teaching and learning science. Three dimensional learning has students engaging in scientific and engineering practices (Dimension 1), while using crosscutting concepts (Dimension 2) to explore and explain natural phenomena using disciplinary core ideas (Dimension 3). The adoption of these new standards in many states across the nation has created a critical need for on-going professional learning as in-service science educators begin to implement both climate change instruction and three dimensional teaching and learning in their classrooms. In response to this need, we developed an innovative professional learning model for preparing teachers to effectively integrate climate change into their new curriculum and engage students in three dimensional learning. Our professional learning model utilized ideas that have emerged from recent science education research and include: a) formative assessment probes for three dimensional learning that monitor students' progress; b) collaboration with scientists with expertise in climate science to understand the domain specific ways of doing science; and c) development of a community of practice for in-service teachers to provide feedback to each other on their implementation. In this poster presentation, we will provide details on the development of this professional learning model and discuss the affordances and challenges of implementing this type of professional learning experience.

Simulated crop yield in response to changes in climate and agricultural practices: results from a simple process based model

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Caldararu, S.; Smith, M. J.; Purves, D.; Emmott, S.

2013-12-01

Global agriculture will, in the future, be faced with two main challenges: climate change and an increase in global food demand driven by an increase in population and changes in consumption habits. To be able to predict both the impacts of changes in climate on crop yields and the changes in agricultural practices necessary to respond to such impacts we currently need to improve our understanding of crop responses to climate and the predictive capability of our models. Ideally, what we would have at our disposal is a modelling tool which, given certain climatic conditions and agricultural practices, can predict the growth pattern and final yield of any of the major crops across the globe. We present a simple, process-based crop growth model based on the assumption that plants allocate above- and below-ground biomass to maintain overall carbon optimality and that, to maintain this optimality, the reproductive stage begins at peak nitrogen uptake. The model includes responses to available light, water, temperature and carbon dioxide concentration as well as nitrogen fertilisation and irrigation. The model is data constrained at two sites, the Yaqui Valley, Mexico for wheat and the Southern Great Plains flux site for maize and soybean, using a robust combination of space-based vegetation data (including data from the MODIS and Landsat TM and ETM+ instruments), as well as ground-based biomass and yield measurements. We show a number of climate response scenarios, including increases in temperature and carbon dioxide concentrations as well as responses to irrigation and fertiliser application.

Bias Reduction as Guidance for Developing Convection and Cloud Parameterization in GFDL AM4/CM4

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zhao, M.; Held, I.; Golaz, C.

2016-12-01

The representations of moist convection and clouds are challenging in global climate models and they are known to be important to climate simulations at all spatial and temporal scales. Many climate simulation biases can be traced to deficiencies in convection and cloud parameterizations. I will present some key biases that we are concerned about and the efforts that we have made to reduce the biases during the development of NOAA's Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL) new generation global climate model AM4/CM4. In particular, I will present a modified version of the moist convection scheme that is based on the University of Washington Shallow Cumulus scheme (UWShCu, Bretherton et. al 2004). The new scheme produces marked improvement in simulation of the Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO) and the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) compared to that used in AM3 and HIRAM. AM4/CM4 also produces high quality simulation of global distribution of cloud radiative effects and the precipitation with realistic mean climate state. This differs from models of improved MJO but with a much deteriorated mean state. The modifications to the UWShCu include an additional bulk plume for representing deep convection. The entrainment rate in the deep plume is parameterized to be a function of column-integrated relative humidity. The deep convective closure is based on relaxation of the convective available potential energy (CAPE) or cloud work function. The plumes' precipitation efficiency is optimized for better simulations of the cloud radiative effects. Precipitation re-evaporation is included in both shallow and deep plumes. In addition, a parameterization of convective gustiness is included with an energy source driven by cold pool derived from precipitation re-evaporation within the boundary layer and energy sink due to dissipation. I will present the motivations of these changes which are driven by reducing some aspects of the AM4/CM4 biases. Finally, I will also present the biases in current AM4/CM4 and challenges to further reduce them.

Headlines: Planet Earth: Improving Climate Literacy with Short Format News Videos

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Tenenbaum, L. F.; Kulikov, A.; Jackson, R.

2012-12-01

One of the challenges of communicating climate science is the sense that climate change is remote and unconnected to daily life--something that's happening to someone else or in the future. To help face this challenge, NASA's Global Climate Change website http://climate.nasa.gov has launched a new video series, "Headlines: Planet Earth," which focuses on current climate news events. This rapid-response video series uses 3D video visualization technology combined with real-time satellite data and images, to throw a spotlight on real-world events.. The "Headlines: Planet Earth" news video products will be deployed frequently, ensuring timeliness. NASA's Global Climate Change Website makes extensive use of interactive media, immersive visualizations, ground-based and remote images, narrated and time-lapse videos, time-series animations, and real-time scientific data, plus maps and user-friendly graphics that make the scientific content both accessible and engaging to the public. The site has also won two consecutive Webby Awards for Best Science Website. Connecting climate science to current real-world events will contribute to improving climate literacy by making climate science relevant to everyday life.

The Social Impact of Climate

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hsiang, S. M.

2013-12-01

Managing climate change requires that we understand the social value of climate-related decisions. Rational decision-making demands that we weigh the potential benefits of climate-related investments against their costs. To date, it has been challenging to quantify the relative social benefit of living under different climatic conditions, so policy debates tend to focus on investment costs without considering their benefits. Here I will discuss challenges and advances in the measurement of climate's impact on society. By linking data and methods across physical and social sciences, we are beginning to understand when, where, and how climatic conditions have a causal impact on human wellbeing. I will present examples from this burgeoning interdisciplinary field that quantify the effect of temperature on macroeconomic performance, the effects of climate on human conflict, and the long-term health and economic impact of tropical cyclones. Each of these examples provide new insight into previously unknown benefits of various climate management strategies. I conclude by describing new efforts to systematically gather and compare findings from across the research community to support informed and rational climate management decisions.

Using Outreach and Engagement Efforts to Inform the Makah Tribe's Climate Adaptation Plan

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Nelson, L. K.; Chang, M.; Howk, F.

2017-12-01

The Makah Tribe views climate change as one of the biggest challenges to their natural resource management, threatening their livelihoods, economy, and culture. As part of their work towards climate adaptation planning, the Makah Tribal Council and tribal natural resource managers prioritized early community outreach and engagement efforts in order to accomplish three goals: continually update and inform the tribal community about the Tribe's climate adaptation efforts; gather community input and priorities for the Makah Climate Adaptation Plan; and provide a series of targeted educational events to inform the tribal community about projected climate change impacts to our resources. Our first community climate event, the Makah Climate Change Awareness Dinner, was held on February 8, 2017. At this event, we provided an overview of the Makah Tribe's Climate Vulnerability Assessment and administered an initial climate survey that gathered information regarding community members' observed environmental changes, knowledge about climate change and impacts, and any concerns and priorities to include in the Tribe's adaptation plan. We developed a framework for incorporating community engagement into climate adaptation planning and used results of our community survey to ensure community concerns were being addressed in the plan in addition to risks identified in western science. We also used survey results to inform a series of educational events to address knowledge gaps in the community and requested topics. These are two of next steps that the Makah Tribe is pursuing towards climate adaptation planning.

The limits of poverty reduction in support of climate change adaptation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Nelson, Donald R.; Lemos, Maria Carmen; Eakin, Hallie; Lo, Yun-Jia

2016-09-01

The relationship between poverty and climate change vulnerability is complex and though not commensurate, the distinctions between the two are often blurred. There is widespread recognition of the need to better understand poverty-vulnerability dynamics in order to improve risk management and poverty reduction investments. This is challenging due to the latent nature of adaptive capacities, frequent lack of baseline data, and the need for high-resolution studies. Here we respond to these challenges by analyzing household-level data in Northeast Brazil to compare drought events 14 years apart. In the period between droughts, the government implemented an aggressive anti-poverty program that includes financial and human capital investments. Poverty declined significantly, but the expected reduction in vulnerability did not occur, in part because the households were not investing in risk management strategies. Our findings complement other research that shows that households make rational decisions that may not correspond with policymaker expectations. We emphasize the need for complementary investments to help channel increased household wealth into risk reduction, and to ensure that the public sector itself continues to prioritize the public functions of risk management, especially in areas where the social cost of climatic risk is high.

Plastid biotechnology for crop production: present status and future perspectives

PubMed Central

Daniell, Henry

2012-01-01

The world population is expected to reach an estimated 9.2 billion by 2050. Therefore, food production globally has to increase by 70% in order to feed the world, while total arable land, which has reached its maximal utilization, may even decrease. Moreover, climate change adds yet another challenge to global food security. In order to feed the world in 2050, biotechnological advances in modern agriculture are essential. Plant genetic engineering, which has created a new wave of global crop production after the first green revolution, will continue to play an important role in modern agriculture to meet these challenges. Plastid genetic engineering, with several unique advantages including transgene containment, has made significant progress in the last two decades in various biotechnology applications including development of crops with high levels of resistance to insects, bacterial, fungal and viral diseases, different types of herbicides, drought, salt and cold tolerance, cytoplasmic male sterility, metabolic engineering, phytoremediation of toxic metals and production of many vaccine antigens, biopharmaceuticals and biofuels. However, useful traits should be engineered via chloroplast genomes of several major crops. This review provides insight into the current state of the art of plastid engineering in relation to agricultural production, especially for engineering agronomic traits. Understanding the bottleneck of this technology and challenges for improvement of major crops in a changing climate are discussed. PMID:21437683

Water Stress on U.S. Power Production at Decadal Time Horizons

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ganguli, P.; Kumar, D.; Yun, J.; Short, G.; Klausner, J.; Ganguly, A. R.

2014-12-01

Thermoelectric power production at risk, owing to current and projected water scarcity and rising stream temperatures, is assessed for the continental United States (US) at decadal scales. Regional water scarcity is driven by climate variability and change, as well as by multi-sector water demand. While a planning horizon of zero to about thirty years is occasionally prescribed by stakeholders, the challenges to risk assessment at these scales include the difficulty in delineating decadal climate trends from intrinsic natural or multiple model variability. Current generation global climate or earth system models are not credible at the spatial resolutions of power plants, especially for surface water quantity and stream temperatures, which further exacerbates the assessment challenge. Population changes, which are anyway difficult to project, cannot serve as adequate proxies for changes in the water demand across sectors. The hypothesis that robust assessments of power production at risks are possible, despite the uncertainties, has been examined as a proof of concept. An approach is presented for delineating water scarcity and temperature from climate models, observations and population storylines, as well as for assessing power production at risk by examining geospatial correlations of power plant locations within regions where the usable water supply for energy production happens to be scarcer and warmer. Acknowledgment: Funding provided by US DOE's ARPA-E through Award DE-AR0000374.

Common challenge, collaborative response: a roadmap for US-China cooperation on energy and climate change

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

NONE

2009-01-15

This Report which was produced in partnership between Asia Society's Center on U.S.-China Relations and Pew Center on Global Climate Change, in collaboration with The Brookings Institution, Council on Foreign Relations, National Committee on U.S.-China Relations, and Environmental Defense Fund presents both a vision and a concrete Roadmap for such Sino-U.S. collaboration. With input from scores of experts and other stakeholders from the worlds of science, business, civil society, policy, and politics in both China and the United States, the Report, or 'Roadmap', explores the climate and energy challenges facing both nations and recommends a concrete program for sustained, high-level,more » bilateral engagement and on-the-ground action. The Report recommends that, as a first step in forging this new partnership, the leaders of the two countries should convene a leaders summit as soon as practically possible following the inauguration of Barack Obama to launch a 'U.S.-China Partnership on Energy and Climate Change'. This presidential summit should outline a major plan of joint-action and empower relevant officials in each country to take the necessary actions to ensure its implementation. Priority areas of collaboration include: deploying low-emissions coal technologies; improving energy efficiency and conservation; developing an advanced electric grid; promoting renewable energy; and quantifying emissions and financing low-carbon technologies. 5 figs., 1 tab., 2 apps.« less

Global Framework for Climate Services (GFCS): implementation approach

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lucio, Filipe

2013-04-01

The Extraordinary Session of the World Meteorological Congress, held from 29 to 31 October 2012, adopted the Implementation Plan of the Global Framework for Climate Services, for the subsequent consideration by the Intergovernmental Board on Climate Services, which will host its first session in July 2013. The Extraordinary Congress called for an immediate move to action, so that the work undertaken can result in activities on the ground which will benefit, in particular, vulnerable countries. The development of the GFCS through a broad consultation process accross the pillars of the GFCS (User Interface Platform; Observations and Monitoring; Climate Services Information System; Research, Modelling and Prediction; and Capacity Development) and the initial four priority areas (Agriculture and Food Security; Water; Health and Disaster Risk Reductio) identified a number of challenges, which in some cases constitute barries to implementation: - Accessibility: many countries do not have climate services at all, and all countries have scope to improve access to such services; - Capacity: many countries lack the capacity to anticipate and managed climate-related risks and opportunities; - Data: the current availability and quality of climate observations and impacts data are inadequate for large parts of the globe; - Partnerships: mechanisms to enhance interaction between climate users and providers are not always well developed, and user requirements are not always adequately understood and addressed; - Quality: operational climate services are lagging advances in climate and applications science, and the spatial and temporal resolution of information to support decision-making is often insufficient to match user requirements. To address these challenges, the Implementation Plan of the GFCS identified initial implementation projects and activities. The initial priority is to establish the leadership and management capacity to take the GFCS forward at all levels. Capacity development is seen as the critical element to build the foundation for progress. This includes but not limited to: - Linking climate services users and providers, e.g., through User Interface mechanisms; - Developing capacities at national level; - Strengthening regional climate capabilities. Taking advantage of exhausting mechanisms and others under planning the GFCS offers an adequate platform for coordination and integration of efforts towards effective action to deliver user tailored climate services. This paper will provide details on the implementation approach of the GFCS and highlight progress made thus far.

Engagement with indigenous peoples and honoring traditional knowledge systems

USGS Publications Warehouse

Maldonado, Julie; Bennett, Bull; Chief, Karletta; Cochran, Patricia; Cozetto, Karen; Gough, Bob; Hiza-Redsteer, Margaret M.; Lynn, Kathy; Maynard, Nancy; Voggesser, Garrit

2016-01-01

The organizers of the 2014 US National Climate Assessment (NCA) made a concerted effort to reach out to and collaborate with Indigenous peoples, resulting in the most comprehensive information to date on climate change impacts to Indigenous peoples in a US national assessment. Yet, there is still much room for improvement in assessment processes to ensure adequate recognition of Indigenous perspectives and Indigenous knowledge systems. This article discusses the process used in creating the Indigenous Peoples, Land, and Resources NCA chapter by a team comprised of tribal members, agencies, academics, and non-governmental organizations, who worked together to solicit, collect, and synthesize traditional knowledges and data from a diverse array of Indigenous communities across the US. It also discusses the synergy and discord between traditional knowledge systems and science and the emergence of cross-cutting issues and vulnerabilities for Indigenous peoples. The challenges of coalescing information about climate change and its impacts on Indigenous communities are outlined along with recommendations on the types of information to include in future assessment outputs. We recommend that future assessments – not only NCA, but other relevant local, regional, national, and international efforts aimed at the translation of climate information and assessments into meaningful actions – should support integration of Indigenous perspectives in a sustained way that builds respectful relationships and effectively engages Indigenous communities. Given the large number of tribes in the US and the current challenges and unique vulnerabilities of Indigenous communities, a special report focusing solely on climate change and Indigenous peoples is warranted.This article is part of a special issue on “The National Climate Assessment: Innovations in Science and Engagement” edited by Katharine Jacobs, Susanne Moser, and James Buizer.

Climate change and Public health: vulnerability, impacts, and adaptation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Guzzone, F.; Setegn, S.

2013-12-01

Climate Change plays a significant role in public health. Changes in climate affect weather conditions that we are accustomed to. Increases in the frequency or severity of extreme weather events such as storms could increase the risk of dangerous flooding, high winds, and other direct threats to people and property. Changes in temperature, precipitation patterns, and extreme events could enhance the spread of some diseases. According to studies by EPA, the impacts of climate change on health will depend on many factors. These factors include the effectiveness of a community's public health and safety systems to address or prepare for the risk and the behavior, age, gender, and economic status of individuals affected. Impacts will likely vary by region, the sensitivity of populations, the extent and length of exposure to climate change impacts, and society's ability to adapt to change. Transmissions of infectious disease have been associated with social, economic, ecological, health care access, and climatic factors. Some vector-borne diseases typically exhibit seasonal patterns in which the role of temperature and rainfall is well documented. Some of the infectious diseases that have been documented by previous studies, include the correlation between rainfall and drought in the occurrence of malaria, the influence of the dry season on epidemic meningococcal disease in the sub-Saharan African, and the importance of warm ocean waters in driving cholera occurrence in the Ganges River delta in Asia The rise of climate change has been a major concern in the public health sector. Climate change mainly affects vulnerable populations especially in developing countries; therefore, it's important that public health advocates are involve in the decision-making process in order to provide resources and preventative measures for the challenges that are associated with climate change. The main objective of this study is to assess the vulnerability and impact of climate change on public health and identify appropriate adaptation strategies. Several studies have evaluated the impact of climate change on health, which have included evaluating the current associations between the recent changes in climate, and the evidence base analysis of current, as well as projecting the future impacts of climate change on health. This study will document the use of building an integrated approach for sustainable management of climate, environmental, health surveillance and epidemiological data that will support the assessment of vulnerability, impact and adaption to climate change.

Climate variability and vulnerability to climate change: a review

PubMed Central

Thornton, Philip K; Ericksen, Polly J; Herrero, Mario; Challinor, Andrew J

2014-01-01

The focus of the great majority of climate change impact studies is on changes in mean climate. In terms of climate model output, these changes are more robust than changes in climate variability. By concentrating on changes in climate means, the full impacts of climate change on biological and human systems are probably being seriously underestimated. Here, we briefly review the possible impacts of changes in climate variability and the frequency of extreme events on biological and food systems, with a focus on the developing world. We present new analysis that tentatively links increases in climate variability with increasing food insecurity in the future. We consider the ways in which people deal with climate variability and extremes and how they may adapt in the future. Key knowledge and data gaps are highlighted. These include the timing and interactions of different climatic stresses on plant growth and development, particularly at higher temperatures, and the impacts on crops, livestock and farming systems of changes in climate variability and extreme events on pest-weed-disease complexes. We highlight the need to reframe research questions in such a way that they can provide decision makers throughout the food system with actionable answers, and the need for investment in climate and environmental monitoring. Improved understanding of the full range of impacts of climate change on biological and food systems is a critical step in being able to address effectively the effects of climate variability and extreme events on human vulnerability and food security, particularly in agriculturally based developing countries facing the challenge of having to feed rapidly growing populations in the coming decades. PMID:24668802

A National Climate Change Adaptation Network for Protecting Water Security

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Weaver, A.; Sauchyn, D.; Byrne, J. M.

2009-12-01

Water security and resource-dependent community-survival are being increasingly challenged as a consequence of climate change, and it is urgent that we plan now for the security of our water supplies which support our lives and livelihoods. However, the range of impacts of climate change on water availability, and the consequent environmental and human adaptations that are required, is so complex and serious that it will take the combined work of natural, health and social scientists working with industries and communities to solve them. Networks are needed that will identify crucial water issues under climate change at a range of scales in order to provide regionally-sensitive, solutions-oriented research and adaptation. We suggest national and supra-national water availability and community sustainability issues must be addressed by multidisciplinary research and adaptation networks. The work must be driven by a bottom-up research paradigm — science in the service of community and governance. We suggest that interdisciplinary teams of researchers, in partnership with community decision makers and local industries, are the best means to develop solutions as communities attempt to address future water demands, protect their homes from infrastructure damage, and meet their food, drinking water, and other essential resource requirements. The intention is to cover: the impact of climate change on Canadian natural resources, both marine and terrestrial; issues of long-term sustainability and resilience in human communities and the environments in which they are embedded; the making and moving of knowledge, be that between members of Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities, researchers of different disciplines, communities, industry, policymakers and the academy and the crucial involvement of the various orders of government in the response to water problems, under conditions of heightened uncertainty. Such an adaptation network must include a national communications strategy that will ensure widespread visibility of the network’s activities and findings and general public awareness-raising regarding water challenges and opportunities, including accessible web infrastructure and printed materials and communication with key organizations.

When it rains, it pours: future climate extremes and health.

PubMed

Patz, Jonathan A; Grabow, Maggie L; Limaye, Vijay S

2014-01-01

The accelerating accumulation of greenhouse gases in the Earth's atmosphere is changing global environmental conditions in unprecedented and potentially irreversible ways. Climate change poses a host of challenges to the health of populations through complex direct and indirect mechanisms. The direct effects include an increased frequency of heat waves, rising sea levels that threaten low-lying communities, anticipated extremes in the global hydrologic cycle (droughts, floods, and intense storms), and adverse effects on agricultural production and fisheries due to environmental stressors and changes in land use. Indirectly, climate change is anticipated to threaten health by worsening urban air pollution and increasing rates of infectious (particularly waterborne and vector-borne) disease transmission. To provide a state-of-the-science review on the health consequences of a changing climate. Environmental public health researchers have concluded that, on balance, adverse health outcomes will dominate under these changed climatic conditions. The number of pathways through which climate change can affect the health of populations makes this environmental health threat one of the largest and most formidable of the new century. Geographic location plays an influential role the potential for adverse health effects caused by climate change, and certain regions and populations are more vulnerable than others to expected health effects. Two kinds of strategies are available for responding to climate change: mitigation policies (which aim to reduce greenhouse gas emissions) and adaptation measures (relating to preparedness for anticipated impacts). To better understand and address the complex nature of health risks posed by climate change, interdisciplinary collaboration is critical. Efforts to move beyond our current reliance on fossil fuels to cleaner, more sustainable energy sources may offer some of the greatest health opportunities in more than a century and cobenefits beyond the health sector. Because the nations least responsible for climate change are most vulnerable to its effects, the challenge to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is not merely technical, but also moral. Copyright © 2014 Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

The Consortium for Climate Risk in the Urban Northeast: A NOAA RISA Project

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Rosenzweig, C.

2011-12-01

The Consortium for Climate Risk in the Urban Northeast, or CCRUN, was funded in October 2010 under NOAA's Regional Integrated Sciences and Assessments (RISA) program to serve stakeholder needs in assessing and managing risks from climate variability and change. It is currently also the only RISA team with a principal focus on climate change adaptation in urban settings. While CCRUN's initial focus is on the major cities of the urban Northeast corridor (Philadelphia, New York and Boston), its work will ultimately expand to cover small and medium-sized cities in the relevant portions of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania as well, so that local needs for targeted climate-risk information can be served in a coordinated way. CCRUN is designed to address the complex challenges that are associated with densely populated, highly interconnected urban areas, including such as urban heat island effects; poor air quality; intense coastal development, and multifunctional settlement along inland waterways; complex overlapping institutional jurisdictions; integrated infrastructure systems; and highly diverse, and in some cases, fragile socio-economic communities. These challenges can best be addressed by the stakeholder-driven interdisciplinary approach taken by the CCRUN RISA team. As an important added benefit, the research accomplishments and lessons learned through stakeholder engagement will provide a foundation for managing climate risks in other urban areas in the United States. CCRUN's initial projects are focused in three broad sectors: Water, Coasts, and Health. Research in each of these sectors is linked through the cross-cutting themes of climate change and community vulnerability, the latter of which is especially important in considerations of environmental justice and equity. CCRUN's stakeholder-driven approach to research can therefore support investigations of the impacts of a changing climate, population growth, and urban and economic policies on the social, racial and ethnic dimensions of livelihoods and of communities in the urban Northeast corridor. Disadvantaged socio-economic groups have been particularly underserved in the area of climate change, and one of CCRUN's long-term goals is the building of adaptive capacity among such groups to current and future climate extremes.

Climate change and evolutionary adaptation.

PubMed

Hoffmann, Ary A; Sgrò, Carla M

2011-02-24

Evolutionary adaptation can be rapid and potentially help species counter stressful conditions or realize ecological opportunities arising from climate change. The challenges are to understand when evolution will occur and to identify potential evolutionary winners as well as losers, such as species lacking adaptive capacity living near physiological limits. Evolutionary processes also need to be incorporated into management programmes designed to minimize biodiversity loss under rapid climate change. These challenges can be met through realistic models of evolutionary change linked to experimental data across a range of taxa.

A Framework for the Cross-Sectoral Integration of Multi-Model Impact Projections: Land Use Decisions Under Climate Impacts Uncertainties

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Frieler, K.; Elliott, Joshua; Levermann, A.; Heinke, J.; Arneth, A.; Bierkens, M. F. P.; Ciais, P.; Clark, D. B.; Deryng, D.; Doll, P.;

A framework for the cross-sectoral integration of multi-model impact projections: land use decisions under climate impacts uncertainties

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Frieler, K.; Levermann, A.; Elliott, J.; Heinke, J.; Arneth, A.; Bierkens, M. F. P.; Ciais, P.; Clark, D. B.; Deryng, D.; Döll, P.; Falloon, P.; Fekete, B.; Folberth, C.; Friend, A. D.; Gellhorn, C.; Gosling, S. N.; Haddeland, I.; Khabarov, N.; Lomas, M.; Masaki, Y.; Nishina, K.; Neumann, K.; Oki, T.; Pavlick, R.; Ruane, A. C.; Schmid, E.; Schmitz, C.; Stacke, T.; Stehfest, E.; Tang, Q.; Wisser, D.; Huber, V.; Piontek, F.; Warszawski, L.; Schewe, J.; Lotze-Campen, H.; Schellnhuber, H. J.

2015-07-01

Climate change and its impacts already pose considerable challenges for societies that will further increase with global warming (IPCC, 2014a, b). Uncertainties of the climatic response to greenhouse gas emissions include the potential passing of large-scale tipping points (e.g. Lenton et al., 2008; Levermann et al., 2012; Schellnhuber, 2010) and changes in extreme meteorological events (Field et al., 2012) with complex impacts on societies (Hallegatte et al., 2013). Thus climate change mitigation is considered a necessary societal response for avoiding uncontrollable impacts (Conference of the Parties, 2010). On the other hand, large-scale climate change mitigation itself implies fundamental changes in, for example, the global energy system. The associated challenges come on top of others that derive from equally important ethical imperatives like the fulfilment of increasing food demand that may draw on the same resources. For example, ensuring food security for a growing population may require an expansion of cropland, thereby reducing natural carbon sinks or the area available for bio-energy production. So far, available studies addressing this problem have relied on individual impact models, ignoring uncertainty in crop model and biome model projections. Here, we propose a probabilistic decision framework that allows for an evaluation of agricultural management and mitigation options in a multi-impact-model setting. Based on simulations generated within the Inter-Sectoral Impact Model Intercomparison Project (ISI-MIP), we outline how cross-sectorally consistent multi-model impact simulations could be used to generate the information required for robust decision making. Using an illustrative future land use pattern, we discuss the trade-off between potential gains in crop production and associated losses in natural carbon sinks in the new multiple crop- and biome-model setting. In addition, crop and water model simulations are combined to explore irrigation increases as one possible measure of agricultural intensification that could limit the expansion of cropland required in response to climate change and growing food demand. This example shows that current impact model uncertainties pose an important challenge to long-term mitigation planning and must not be ignored in long-term strategic decision making.

Identifying climate risk perceptions, information needs, and barriers to information exchange among public land managers.

PubMed

Peters, Casey B; Schwartz, Mark W; Lubell, Mark N

2018-03-01

Meeting ecosystem management challenges posed by climate change requires building effective communication channels among researchers, planners and practitioners to focus research on management issues requiring new knowledge. We surveyed resource managers within two regions of the western United States regions to better understand perceived risks and vulnerabilities associated with climate change and barriers to obtaining and using relevant climate science information in making ecosystem management decisions. We sought to understand what types of climate science information resource managers find most valuable, and the formats in which they prefer to receive climate science information. We found broad concern among natural resource managers in federal agencies that climate change will make it more difficult for them to achieve their management goals. Primary barriers to incorporating climate science into planning are distributed among challenges identifying, receiving, and interpreting appropriate science and a lack of direction provided by agency leadership needed to meaningfully use this emerging science in resource planning. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Identifying climate drivers of infectious disease dynamics: recent advances and challenges ahead

PubMed Central

Walter, Katharine S.; Wesolowski, Amy; Buckee, Caroline O.; Shevliakova, Elena; Tatem, Andrew J.; Boos, William R.; Weinberger, Daniel M.; Pitzer, Virginia E.

2017-01-01

Climate change is likely to profoundly modulate the burden of infectious diseases. However, attributing health impacts to a changing climate requires being able to associate changes in infectious disease incidence with the potentially complex influences of climate. This aim is further complicated by nonlinear feedbacks inherent in the dynamics of many infections, driven by the processes of immunity and transmission. Here, we detail the mechanisms by which climate drivers can shape infectious disease incidence, from direct effects on vector life history to indirect effects on human susceptibility, and detail the scope of variation available with which to probe these mechanisms. We review approaches used to evaluate and quantify associations between climate and infectious disease incidence, discuss the array of data available to tackle this question, and detail remaining challenges in understanding the implications of climate change for infectious disease incidence. We point to areas where synthesis between approaches used in climate science and infectious disease biology provide potential for progress. PMID:28814655

Delivering climate science about the Nation's fish, wildlife, and ecosystems: the U.S. Geological Survey National Climate Change and Wildlife Science Center

USGS Publications Warehouse

Varela-Acevedo, Elda

2014-01-01

Changes to the Earth’s climate—temperature, precipitation, and other climate variables—pose significant challenges to our Nation’s natural resources. Managers of land, water, and living resources require an understanding of the impacts of climate change—which exacerbate ongoing stresses such as habitat alteration and invasive species—in order to design effective response strategies. In 2008, Congress created the National Climate Change and Wildlife Science Center (NCCWSC) within the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). The center was formed to address environmental challenges resulting from climate and land-use change and to provide natural resource managers with rigorous scientific information and effective tools for decision making. Located at the USGS National Headquarters in Reston, Virginia, the NCCWSC has established eight regional Department of the Interior (DOI) Climate Science Centers (CSCs) and has invested over $93 million (through fiscal year 2013) in cutting-edge climate change research.

Identifying climate drivers of infectious disease dynamics: recent advances and challenges ahead.

PubMed

Metcalf, C Jessica E; Walter, Katharine S; Wesolowski, Amy; Buckee, Caroline O; Shevliakova, Elena; Tatem, Andrew J; Boos, William R; Weinberger, Daniel M; Pitzer, Virginia E

2017-08-16

Climate change is likely to profoundly modulate the burden of infectious diseases. However, attributing health impacts to a changing climate requires being able to associate changes in infectious disease incidence with the potentially complex influences of climate. This aim is further complicated by nonlinear feedbacks inherent in the dynamics of many infections, driven by the processes of immunity and transmission. Here, we detail the mechanisms by which climate drivers can shape infectious disease incidence, from direct effects on vector life history to indirect effects on human susceptibility, and detail the scope of variation available with which to probe these mechanisms. We review approaches used to evaluate and quantify associations between climate and infectious disease incidence, discuss the array of data available to tackle this question, and detail remaining challenges in understanding the implications of climate change for infectious disease incidence. We point to areas where synthesis between approaches used in climate science and infectious disease biology provide potential for progress. © 2017 The Authors.

Climate Ocean Modeling on Parallel Computers

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Wang, P.; Cheng, B. N.; Chao, Y.

1998-01-01

Ocean modeling plays an important role in both understanding the current climatic conditions and predicting future climate change. However, modeling the ocean circulation at various spatial and temporal scales is a very challenging computational task.

Climate Leadership in the Financial Sector Webinar

EPA Pesticide Factsheets

Financial sector winners from the 2015 Climate Leadership Awards discuss best practices and challenges faced by their corporations based on their experience of attempting to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and address climate risk.

Climate, Companies, and Public Policy: How Transparent Is the Private Sector in Reporting Climate Policy Influence?

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Goldman, G. T.; Carlson, C.

2014-12-01

To enact effective policies to address climate change, decision makers need both scientific and political support. One major barrier to U.S. climate policy enactment has been the opposition of private sector actors to proposed policies and to climate science itself. Increasingly, the public and investors are holding companies accountable for their actions around climate change—including political activies, affiliations with trade groups, and involvement with climate science. However, this accountability is inhibited by the prominent role that trade associations have played in climate policy debates in recent years. The opaque nature of such groups is problematic, as it inhibits the public from understanding who is obstructing progress on addressing climate change, and in some cases, impedes the public's climate literacy. Voluntary climate reporting can yield some information on companies' climate engagement and demonstrates the need for greater transparency in corporate political activities around climate change. We analyze CDP climate reporting data from 1,824 companies to assess the degree to which corporate actors disclosed their political influence on climate policies through their trade associations. Results demonstrate the limitations of voluntary reporting and the extent to which companies utilize their trade associations to influence climate change policy debates without being held accountable for these positions. Notably, many companies failed to acknowledge their board seat on trade groups with significant climate policy engagement. Of those that did acknowledge their board membership, some claimed not to agree with their trade associations' positions on climate change. These results raise questions about who trade groups are representing when they challenge the science or obstruct policies to address climate change. Recommendations for overcoming this barrier to informed decision making to address climate change will be discussed.

Climate change impacts: The challenge of quantifying multi-factor causation, multi-component responses, and leveraging from extremes

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Field, C. B.

2012-12-01

Modeling climate change impacts is challenging for a variety of reasons. Some of these are related to causation. A weather or climate event is rarely the sole cause of an impact, and, for many impacts, social, economic, cultural, or ecological factors may play a larger role than climate. Other challenges are related to outcomes. Consequences of an event are often most severe when several kinds of responses interact, typically in unexpected ways. Many kinds of consequences are difficult to quantify, especially when they include a mix of market, cultural, personal, and ecological values. In addition, scale can be tremendously important. Modest impacts over large areas present very different challenges than severe but very local impacts. Finally, impacts may respond non-linearly to forcing, with behavior that changes qualitatively at one or more thresholds and with unexpected outcomes in extremes. Modeling these potentially complex interactions between drivers and impacts presents one set of challenges. Evaluating the models presents another. At least five kinds of approaches can contribute to the evaluation of impact models designed to provide insights in multi-driver, multi-responder, multi-scale, and extreme-driven contexts, even though none of these approaches is a complete or "silver-bullet" solution. The starting point for much of the evaluation in this space is case studies. Case studies can help illustrate links between processes and scales. They can highlight factors that amplify or suppress sensitivity to climate drivers, and they can suggest the consequences of intervening at different points. While case studies rarely provide concrete evidence about mechanisms, they can help move a mechanistic case from circumstantial to sound. Novel approaches to data collection, including crowd sourcing, can potentially provide tools and the number of relevant examples to develop case studies as statistically robust data sources. A critical condition for progress in this area is the ability to utilize data of uneven quality and standards. Novel approaches to meta-analysis provide other options for taking advantage of diverse case studies. Techniques for summarizing responses across impacts, drivers, and scales can play a huge role in increasing the value of information from case studies. In some cases, expert elicitation may provide alternatives for identifying mechanisms or for interpreting multi-factor drivers or responses. Especially when designed to focus on a well-defined set of observations, a sophisticated elicitation can establish formal confidence limits on responses that are otherwise difficult to constrain. A final possible approach involves a focus on the mechanisms contributing to an impact, rather than the impact itself. Approaches based on quantified mechanisms are especially appealing in the context of models where the number of interactions makes it difficult to intuitively understand the chain of connections from cause to effect, when actors differ in goals or sensitivities, or when scale affects parts of the system differently. With all of these approaches, useful evidence may not conform to traditional levels of statistical confidence. Some of the biggest challenges in taking advantage of the potential tools will involve defining what constitutes a meaningful evaluation.

Detection and Attribution of Anthropogenic Climate Change Impacts

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Rosenzweig, Cynthia; Neofotis, Peter

2013-01-01

Human-influenced climate change is an observed phenomenon affecting physical and biological systems across the globe. The majority of observed impacts are related to temperature changes and are located in the northern high- and midlatitudes. However, new evidence is emerging that demonstrates that impacts are related to precipitation changes as well as temperature, and that climate change is impacting systems and sectors beyond the Northern Hemisphere. In this paper, we highlight some of this new evidence-focusing on regions and sectors that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fourth Assessment Report (IPCC AR4) noted as under-represented-in the context of observed climate change impacts, direct and indirect drivers of change (including carbon dioxide itself), and methods of detection. We also present methods and studies attributing observed impacts to anthropogenic forcing. We argue that the expansion of methods of detection (in terms of a broader array of climate variables and data sources, inclusion of the major modes of climate variability, and incorporation of other drivers of change) is key to discerning the climate sensitivities of sectors and systems in regions where the impacts of climate change currently remain elusive. Attributing such changes to human forcing of the climate system, where possible, is important for development of effective mitigation and adaptation. Current challenges in documenting adaptation and the role of indigenous knowledge in detection and attribution are described.

Atmospheric Science: Solving Challenges of Climate Change

ScienceCinema

Geffen, Charlette

2018-02-07

PNNL’s atmospheric science research provides data required to make decisions about challenges presented by climate change: Where to site power plants, how to manage water resources, how to prepare for severe weather events and more. Our expertise in fundamental observations and modeling is recognized among the national labs and the world.

Challenges in predicting climate and environmental effects on vector-borne disease episystems in a changing world.

PubMed

Tabachnick, W J

2010-03-15

Vector-borne pathogens cause enormous suffering to humans and animals. Many are expanding their range into new areas. Dengue, West Nile and Chikungunya have recently caused substantial human epidemics. Arthropod-borne animal diseases like Bluetongue, Rift Valley fever and African horse sickness pose substantial threats to livestock economies around the world. Climate change can impact the vector-borne disease epidemiology. Changes in climate will influence arthropod vectors, their life cycles and life histories, resulting in changes in both vector and pathogen distribution and changes in the ability of arthropods to transmit pathogens. Climate can affect the way pathogens interact with both the arthropod vector and the human or animal host. Predicting and mitigating the effects of future changes in the environment like climate change on the complex arthropod-pathogen-host epidemiological cycle requires understanding of a variety of complex mechanisms from the molecular to the population level. Although there has been substantial progress on many fronts the challenges to effectively understand and mitigate the impact of potential changes in the environment on vector-borne pathogens are formidable and at an early stage of development. The challenges will be explored using several arthropod-borne pathogen systems as illustration, and potential avenues to meet the challenges will be presented.

Primary, secondary and tertiary effects of eco-climatic change: the medical response.

PubMed

Butler, Colin D; Harley, David

2010-04-01

Climatic and ecological change threaten human health globally. Manifestations include lost species, vanishing glaciers and more frequent heavy rain. In the second half of this century, accelerating sea level rise is likely to cause crop loss, and population dislocation. These problems may be magnified by dysfunctional human responses, including conflict. The population health consequences of these events can be classified as primary, secondary and tertiary. Primary signs include the acute and chronic stress of heat waves, and trauma from increased bush fires and flooding. Secondary signs are indirect, such as an altered distribution of arthropod vectors, intermediate hosts and pathogens that will produce changes in the epidemiology of many infectious diseases. More severe future health consequences of climate change are classified here as tertiary effects. If moderate or severe climate change scenarios prove accurate then these manifestations will occur over large areas, and could include famine, war and significant population displacement. Such effects would threaten governance and health. The health professions must respond to these challenges, especially the task of recognising and seeking to minimise tertiary health consequences. The gap between what we know and what we need to know concerning these issues can be narrowed by a new field of medical practice. The framework for this emerging discipline includes climate change, ecology and global health. Combined, these dimensions may be called ecomedicine. Actions to reduce individual emissions, to promote active transport (with its 'co-benefit' of preventing chronic disease), and involvement in group action to protect the environment and to prevent war, informed by understanding of the health of individual patients and populations, will be central to the practice of ecomedicine.

Spectators or participants: How can SETAC become more engaged in international climate change research programs?

PubMed

Stahl, Ralph G; Stauber, Jennifer L; Clements, William H

2017-08-01

Environmental toxicologists and chemists have been crucial to evaluating the chemical fate and toxicological effects of environmental contaminants, including chlorinated pesticides, before and after Rachel Carson's publication of Silent Spring in 1962. Like chlorinated pesticides previously, global climate change is widely considered to be one of the most important environmental challenges of our time. Over the past 30 yr, climate scientists and modelers have shown that greenhouse gases such as CO 2 and CH 4 cause radiative forcing (climate forcing) and lead to increased global temperatures. Despite significant climate change research efforts worldwide, the climate science community has overlooked potential problems associated with chemical contaminants, in particular how climate change could magnify the ecological consequences of their use and disposal. It is conceivable that the impacts of legacy or new chemical contaminants on wildlife and humans may be exacerbated when climate changes, especially if global temperatures rise as predicted. This lack of attention to chemical contaminants represents an opportunity for environmental toxicologists and chemists to become part of the global research program, and our objective is to highlight the importance of and ways for that to occur. Environ Toxicol Chem 2017;36:1971-1977. © 2017 SETAC. © 2017 SETAC.

Integrating bioclimate with population models to improve forecasts of species extinctions under climate change.

PubMed

Brook, Barry W; Akçakaya, H Resit; Keith, David A; Mace, Georgina M; Pearson, Richard G; Araújo, Miguel B

2009-12-23

Climate change is already affecting species worldwide, yet existing methods of risk assessment have not considered interactions between demography and climate and their simultaneous effect on habitat distribution and population viability. To address this issue, an international workshop was held at the University of Adelaide in Australia, 25-29 May 2009, bringing leading species distribution and population modellers together with plant ecologists. Building on two previous workshops in the UK and Spain, the participants aimed to develop methodological standards and case studies for integrating bioclimatic and metapopulation models, to provide more realistic forecasts of population change, habitat fragmentation and extinction risk under climate change. The discussions and case studies focused on several challenges, including spatial and temporal scale contingencies, choice of predictive climate, land use, soil type and topographic variables, procedures for ensemble forecasting of both global climate and bioclimate models and developing demographic structures that are realistic and species-specific and yet allow generalizations of traits that make species vulnerable to climate change. The goal is to provide general guidelines for assessing the Red-List status of large numbers of species potentially at risk, owing to the interactions of climate change with other threats such as habitat destruction, overexploitation and invasive species.

Communities of practice in support of collaborative multi-disciplinary learning and action in response to climate change

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Heimlich, J. E.; Stylinski, C.; Palmquist, S.; Wasserman, D.

2017-12-01

Collaborative efforts reaching across interdisciplinary boundaries to address controversial issues such as climate change present significant complexities, including developing shared language, agreeing on common outcomes, and even establishing habits of regular dialogue. Such collaborative efforts should include museums, aquariums, zoos, parks, and youth groups as each of these informal education institutions provides a critical avenue for supporting learning about and responding to climate change. The community of practice framework offers a potential effective approach to support learning and action of diverse groups with a shared interest. Our study applied this framework to the NSF-funded Maryland and Delaware Climate Change Assessment and Education (MADE-CLEAR) project, facilitating informal educators across these two states to advance their climate change education practices, and could provide insight for a building a citywide multi-sector collaborative effort. We found strategies that center on the process of group evolution; support different perspectives, levels of participation, and community spaces; focus on value as defined by members; and balance familiarity and fun produced a dynamic and functional community with a shared practice where none had existed before. Also important was expanding the community-of-practice focus on relationship building to include structured professional development and spin-off opportunities for small-group team-based endeavors. Our findings suggest that this collaborative professional learning approach is well suited to diverse groups seeking creative solutions to complex and even divisive challenges.

Translating Big Data into Big Climate Ideas: Communicating Future Climate Scenarios to Increase Interdisciplinary Engagement.

EPA Science Inventory

Climate change has emerged as the significant environmental challenge of the 21st century. Therefore, understanding our changing world has forced researchers from many different fields of science to join together to tackle complicated research questions. The climate change resear...

Uncertainty in Model Predictions of Vibrio Vulnificus Response to Climate Variability and Change: A Chesapeake Bay Case Study

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Urquhart, Erin A.; Zaitchik, Benjamin F.; Waugh, Darryn W.; Guikema, Seth D.; Del Castillo, Carlos E.

2014-01-01

The effect that climate change and variability will have on waterborne bacteria is a topic of increasing concern for coastal ecosystems, including the Chesapeake Bay. Surface water temperature trends in the Bay indicate a warming pattern of roughly 0.3-0.4 C per decade over the past 30 years. It is unclear what impact future warming will have on pathogens currently found in the Bay, including Vibrio spp. Using historical environmental data, combined with three different statistical models of Vibrio vulnificus probability, we explore the relationship between environmental change and predicted Vibrio vulnificus presence in the upper Chesapeake Bay. We find that the predicted response of V. vulnificus probability to high temperatures in the Bay differs systematically between models of differing structure. As existing publicly available datasets are inadequate to determine which model structure is most appropriate, the impact of climatic change on the probability of V. vulnificus presence in the Chesapeake Bay remains uncertain. This result points to the challenge of characterizing climate sensitivity of ecological systems in which data are sparse and only statistical models of ecological sensitivity exist.

A systematic review of dynamics in climate risk and vulnerability assessments

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Jurgilevich, Alexandra; Räsänen, Aleksi; Groundstroem, Fanny; Juhola, Sirkku

2017-01-01

Understanding climate risk is crucial for effective adaptation action, and a number of assessment methodologies have emerged. We argue that the dynamics of the individual components in climate risk and vulnerability assessments has received little attention. In order to highlight this, we systematically reviewed 42 sub-national climate risk and vulnerability assessments. We analysed the assessments using an analytical framework with which we evaluated (1) the conceptual approaches to vulnerability and exposure used, (2) if current or future risks were assessed, and (3) if and how changes over time (i.e. dynamics) were considered. Of the reviewed assessments, over half addressed future risks or vulnerability; and of these future-oriented studies, less than 1/3 considered both vulnerability and exposure dynamics. While the number of studies that include dynamics is growing, and while all studies included socio-economic aspects, often only biophysical dynamics was taken into account. We discuss the challenges of assessing socio-economic and spatial dynamics, particularly the poor availability of data and methods. We suggest that future-oriented studies assessing risk dynamics would benefit from larger stakeholder involvement, discussion of the assessment purpose, the use of multiple methods, inclusion of uncertainty/sensitivity analyses and pathway approaches.

Adaptation: Planning for climate change and its effects on federal lands

Treesearch

Marie Oliver; David L. Peterson; Michael J. Furniss

2012-01-01

National forest managers are charged with tackling the effects of climate change on the natural resources under their care. The Forest Service National Roadmap for Responding to Climate Change and the Climate Change Performance Scorecard require managers to make significant progress in addressing climate change by 2015. To help land managers meet this challenge,...

Collaborative Adaptation Planning for Water Security: Preliminary Lessons, Challenges, and the Way Forward for Maipo Basin Adaptation Plan, Chile

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Vicuna, S.; Scott, C. A.; Bonelli, S.; Bustos, E.; Meza, F. J.

2014-12-01

The Maipo basin holds 40% of Chile's total population and almost half of the country's Gross Domestic Product. The basin is located in the semiarid central region of the country and, aside from the typical pressures of growth in developing country basins, the Maipo river faces climate change impacts associated with a reduction in total runoff and changes in its seasonality. Surface water is the main water source for human settlements and economic activities including agriculture. In 2012 we started a research project to create a climate variability and climate change adaptation plan for the basin. The pillars of the plan are co-produced by researchers and a Scenario Building Team (SBT) with membership of relevant water and land use stakeholders (including from civil society, public and private sectors) in the basin. Following similar experiences in other regions in the world that have faced the challenges of dealing with long term planning under uncertainty, the project has divided the task of developing the plan into a series of interconnected elements. A critical first component is to work on the desired vision(s) of the basin for the future. In this regards, the "water security" concept has been chosen as a framework that accommodates all objectives of the SBT members. Understanding and quantifying the uncertainties that could affect the future water security of the basin is another critical aspect of the plan. Near and long term climate scenarios are one dimension of these uncertainties that are combined with base development uncertainties such as urban growth scenarios. A third component constructs the models/tools that allows the assessment of impacts on water security that could arise under these scenarios. The final critical component relates to the development of the adaptation measures that could avoid the negative impacts and/or capture the potential opportunities. After two years in the development of the adaptation plan a series of results has been achieved in all critical components that are presented here. The success in the process now poses a series of new challenges, most importantly: how to implement and monitor the evolution of the adaptation process.

Urban climate and energy demand interaction in Northern Eurasia

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kasilova, E. V.; Ginzburg, A. S.; Demchenko, P. F.

2017-11-01

The regional and urban climate change in Northern Eurasia is one of the main challenges for sustainable development of human habitats situated in boreal and temperate areas. The half of primary energy is spent for space heating even under quite a mild European climate. Implementation of the district heating in urban areas is currently seen as one of the key conditions of sustainable development. The clear understanding of main problems of the urban climateenergy demand interaction is crucial for both small towns and megacities. The specific features of the urban energy systems in Finland, Russia and China under the changing climate conditions were studied. Regional manifestations of the climate change were examined. The climate projections were established for urban regions of the Northern Eurasia. It was shown that the climate warming is likely to continue intensively there. History and actual development trends were discussed for the urban district heating systems in Russia, China and Finland. Common challenges linked with the climate change have been identified for the considered areas. Adaptation possibilities were discussed taking into account climate-energy interactions.

Complex interactions between climate change and toxicants: evidence that temperature variability increases sensitivity to cadmium.

PubMed

Kimberly, David A; Salice, Christopher J

2014-07-01

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change projects that global climate change will have significant impacts on environmental conditions including potential effects on sensitivity of organisms to environmental contaminants. The objective of this study was to test the climate-induced toxicant sensitivity (CITS) hypothesis in which acclimation to altered climate parameters increases toxicant sensitivity. Adult Physa pomilia snails were acclimated to a near optimal 22 °C or a high-normal 28 °C for 28 days. After 28 days, snails from each temperature group were challenged with either low (150 μg/L) or high (300 μg/L) cadmium at each temperature (28 or 22 °C). In contrast to the CITS hypothesis, we found that acclimation temperature did not have a strong influence on cadmium sensitivity except at the high cadmium test concentration where snails acclimated to 28 °C were more cadmium tolerant. However, snails that experienced a switch in temperature for the cadmium challenge, regardless of the switch direction, were the most sensitive to cadmium. Within the snails that were switched between temperatures, snails acclimated at 28 °C and then exposed to high cadmium at 22 °C exhibited significantly greater mortality than those snails acclimated to 22 °C and then exposed to cadmium at 28 °C. Our results point to the importance of temperature variability in increasing toxicant sensitivity but also suggest a potentially complex cost of temperature acclimation. Broadly, the type of temporal stressor exposures we simulated may reduce overall plasticity in responses to stress ultimately rendering populations more vulnerable to adverse effects.

The Agricultural Model Intercomparison and Improvement Project (AgMIP): Progress and Preliminary Results

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Rosenzweig, C.

2011-12-01

The Agricultural Model Intercomparison and Improvement Project (AgMIP) is a distributed climate-scenario simulation exercise for historical model intercomparison and future climate change conditions with participation of multiple crop and agricultural trade modeling groups around the world. The goals of AgMIP are to improve substantially the characterization of risk of hunger and world food security due to climate change and to enhance adaptation capacity in both developing and developed countries. Recent progress and the current status of AgMIP will be presented, highlighting three areas of activity: preliminary results from crop pilot studies, outcomes from regional workshops, and emerging scientific challenges. AgMIP crop modeling efforts are being led by pilot studies, which have been established for wheat, maize, rice, and sugarcane. These crop-specific initiatives have proven instrumental in testing and contributing to AgMIP protocols, as well as creating preliminary results for aggregation and input to agricultural trade models. Regional workshops are being held to encourage collaborations and set research activities in motion for key agricultural areas. The first of these workshops was hosted by Embrapa and UNICAMP and held in Campinas, Brazil. Outcomes from this meeting have informed crop modeling research activities within South America, AgMIP protocols, and future regional workshops. Several scientific challenges have emerged and are currently being addressed by AgMIP researchers. Areas of particular interest include geospatial weather generation, ensemble methods for climate scenarios and crop models, spatial aggregation of field-scale yields to regional and global production, and characterization of future changes in climate variability.

New Hampshire Carbon Challenge: Reducing Residential Energy Use and Greenhouse Gas Emissions

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Schloss, A. L.; Bartlett, D.; Blaha, D.; Skoglund, C.; Dundorf, J.; Froburg, E.; Pasinella, B.

2007-12-01

The New Hampshire Carbon Challenge is an initiative of the Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans and Space at the University of New Hampshire. Our goal is to educate New Hampshire residents about climate change and also encourage them to reduce their household greenhouse gas emissions by 10,000 pounds. The Northeast region is undergoing climate changes consistent with those expected due to increasing levels of CO2 in the atmosphere, while also contributing to climate change as the world's seventh largest source of CO2 emissions. In the USA, approximately 40 percent of CO2 emissions from fossil fuel combustion come from residential energy consumption for space heating, electricity usage, and transportation. Homeowners typically are not aware that modest energy reductions can result in significant carbon savings. Most campaigns that raise awareness of climate change and residential energy usage disseminate information to consumers through newspaper articles, brochures, websites, or other traditional means of communication. These information-only campaigns have not been very effective in changing residential energy consumption. Bombarded with information in their daily lives, the public has become quite adept at tuning most of it out. When much of the information they receive about climate change is confusing and contradictory, residents have even less incentive to change their behavior. The Challenge is unique in that it couples accurate information about climate change with concrete actions homeowners can take to reduce their carbon emissions. Our strategy is to utilize the tools of Community Based Social Marketing, which has been shown to be effective in changing behavior, and also to leverage existing networks including the NH Department of Environmental Services, UNH Cooperative Extension, faith-based communities, municipal energy committees and Climate Project volunteers, to effectively reach residents throughout the state. The response to our program has been very positive. We gave 74 presentations to 4000 NH residents since the program was launched in October 2006. We are currently developing web-based tools tailored to New Hampshire residents that will enable them to track reductions in their energy usage and connect those reductions to reduced emissions, and will provide us feedback as to which actions households are willing to take. This type of information exchange is essential in creating and sustaining an effective and scientifically accurate public outreach campaign.

Political Challenges and Opportunities to Climate Change Mitigation: A View from the Front Lines

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Weaver, A. J.

2014-12-01

Subsequent to the release of the 2007 Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the Province of British Columbia in Canada became an international leader in the development and implementation of innovative climate change mitigation policies. These include, but are not limited to, the 2008 Greenhouse Gas Reductions Target Act, the 2008 Carbon Tax Act and the 2010 Clean Energy Act. British Columbia's Cleantech sector quickly responded to, and thrived as a result of, the signal sent by government to the market. But with a change in Premier in 2011 came a change in priorities. A number of the previous initiatives have either been weakened or no longer followed through with as the Province sets its vision of being a major exporter of Liquified Natural Gas. As a member of the British Columbia Climate Action Team set up by Premier Gordon Campbell in 2007 to provide advice to government on a variety of policy-related matters, I was fortunate to be able to watch first hand as the Province aggressively moved towards reducing its Greenhouse gas emissions. Rather than stand on the sidelines as the government lost its direction on the climate file I chose to run with the BC Green Party in the 2013 provincial election. I was subsequently elected as a Member of the Legislative Assembly representing the constituents of Oak Bay Gordon Head. While science can and should inform policy deliberations, in and of itself, science cannot and should not prescribe policy outcomes. Whether or not we deal with today's challenge of climate change boils down to a question of intergeneration equity. Does the present generation owe anything to future generations in terms of the quality of the environment that they inherit? Many of today's elected decision-makers are focused on short-term decision-making. Yet those who will be affected by the consequences of these decisions are not part of the decision making process — hence the political conundrum. In this presentation I detail some of the political opportunities and challenges associated with efforts to ensure political decision-makers consider the long term consequences of their climate and energy policy while balancing a myriad other immediately-pressing issues.

A National Road Map to a Climate Literate Society: Advancing Climate Literacy by Coordinating Federal Climate Change Educational Programs (Invited)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Niepold, F.; Karsten, J. L.

2009-12-01

Over the 21st century, climate scientists expect Earth's temperature to continue increasing, very likely more than it did during the 20th century. Two anticipated results are rising global sea level and increasing frequency and intensity of heat waves, droughts, and floods. [IPCC 2007, USGCRP 2009] These changes will affect almost every aspect of human society, including economic prosperity, human and environmental health, and national security. Climate change will bring economic and environmental challenges as well as opportunities, and citizens who have an understanding of climate science will be better prepared to respond to both. Society needs citizens who understand the climate system and know how to apply that knowledge in their careers and in their engagement as active members of their communities. Climate change will continue to be a significant element of public discourse. Understanding the essential principles of climate science will enable all people to assess news stories and contribute to their everyday conversations as informed citizens. Key to our nations response to climate change will be a Climate Literate society that understands their influence on climate and climate’s influence on them and society. In order to ensure the nation increases its literacy, the Climate Literacy: Essential Principles of Climate Science document has been endorsed by the 13 Federal agencies that make up the US Global Change Research Program (http://globalchange.gov/resources/educators/climate-literacy) and twenty-four other science and educational institutions. This session will explore the coordinated efforts by the federal agencies and partner organizations to ensure a climate literate society. "Climate Literacy: The Essential Principles of Climate Sciences: A Guide for Individuals and Communities" produced by the U.S. Global Change Research Program in March 2009

Informing climate-related decisions in complex river basins: A comparative assessment

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Pulwarty, R. S.; Bark, R. H.; Maia, R.; Udall, B.

2010-12-01

Integrated water resources management provides an important governance framework to achieve climate-related adaptation measures across socio-economic, environmental and administrative systems. Adaptation includes technical changes that improve water use efficiency, early warning, demand management (e.g. through metering and pricing), and institutional changes that improve the tradability of water rights. Supply-side strategies generally involve increases in storage capacity, abstraction from watercourses, and water transfers. Incentives for improving water-use efficiency, hold considerable promise for water savings and the reallocation of water to highly valued uses. However, conflicts exist between processes and goals of water management and governance. These militate against the effectiveness of using scientific information to meet short-term needs in the context of reducing longer-term vulnerabilities such as for “increasing water supply while meeting environmental needs.” A complete analysis of the effects of climate change on human water uses would consider cross-sector interactions, including the impacts of transfers of the use of water from one sector to another. In this presentation we will review the challenges and lessons provided in water resources management in the context of a changing climate. Lessons are drawn from watersheds around the world including the Colorado, Columbia, Murray-Darling, Guadiana and others. We explore how watershed managers and researchers are attempting to address the risks associated with climatic change and potential surprises. In spite of numerous climate impacts studies the management of the cumulative impacts of extremes (droughts, floods etc.) remains reactive and crisis-driven. Most recommendations stay within the applied sciences realm of technological interventions and supply driven approaches. Clearly more is needed to inform an integrated watershed management approaches in which adaptive management functions as an operational tool for learning. The barriers to implementing adaptation measures include the inability of some natural systems to adapt at the rate of combined demographic pressures and climate, incomplete understanding and quantifying of water demands, and impediments to the flow of timely and reliable knowledge and information relevant for decision makers. Mechanisms to expand this range of choice include: Anticipatory coordination within development plans (e.g. adaptive management within integrated watershed and coastal zone plans). Developing usable climate risk management triggers for early warning of potential conflicts in agriculture, water, energy, health, environment , and coastal zones, including a mixed portfolio of past data and scenario-based approaches Developing and employing water efficient technologies. Actively engaging communities and states in mainstreaming climate information such as in the development of scenarios that link climate and development goals Future needs include exploration of alternate integration models and overlying policy structures that could, together, facilitate and sustain shared learning as climate varies and change

Science Teachers' Perspectives about Climate Change

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Dawson, Vaille

2012-01-01

Climate change and its effects are likely to present challenging problems for future generations of young people. It is important for Australian students to understand the mechanisms and consequences of climate change. If students are to develop a sophisticated understanding, then science teachers need to be well-informed about climate change…

Climate projections FAQ

Treesearch

A.E. Daniels; J.F. Morrison; L.A. Joyce; N.L. Crookston; S.C. Chen; S.G. McNulty

2012-01-01

Climate scenarios offer one way to identify and examine the land management challenges posed by climate change. Selecting projections, however, requires careful consideration of the natural resources under study, and where and how they are sensitive to climate. Selection also depends on the robustness of different projections for the resources and geographic area of...

Climate Change and Public Health Policy.

PubMed

Smith, Jason A; Vargo, Jason; Hoverter, Sara Pollock

2017-03-01

Climate change poses real and immediate impacts to the public health of populations around the globe. Adverse impacts are expected to continue throughout the century. Emphasizing co-benefits of climate action for health, combining adaptation and mitigation efforts, and increasing interagency coordination can effectively address both public health and climate change challenges.

College Students' Perceptions about the Plausibility of Human-Induced Climate Change

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lombardi, Doug; Sinatra, Gale M.

2012-01-01

Overcoming students' misconceptions may be a challenge when teaching about phenomena such as climate change. Students tend to cite short-term weather effects as evidence to support or refute long-term climate transformations, which displays a fundamental misunderstanding about weather and climate distinctions. Confusion about weather and climate…

Climate change response framework overview: Chapter 1

Treesearch

Chris Swanston; Maria Janowiak; Patricia Butler

2012-01-01

Managers currently face the immense challenge of anticipating the effects of climate change on forest ecosystems and then developing and applying management responses for adapting forests to future conditions. The Climate Change Response Framework (CCRF) is a highly collaborative approach to helping land managers understand the potential effects of climate change on...

Conceptualizing Holistic Community Resilience to Climate Events: Foundation for a Climate Resilience Screening Index

EPA Science Inventory

The concept of resilience has been evolving over the past decade as a way to address the current and future challenges nations, states, and cities face from a changing climate. Understanding how the environment (natural and built), climate event risk, societal interactions, and g...

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Tian, Hanqin; Chen, Guangsheng; Lu, Chaoqun

Greenhouse gas (GHG)-induced climate change is among the most pressing sustainability challenges facing humanity today, posing serious risks for ecosystem health. Methane (CH 4) and nitrous oxide (N 2O) are the two most important GHGs after carbon dioxide (CO 2), but their regional and global budgets are not well known. In this paper, we applied a process-based coupled biogeochemical model to concurrently estimate the magnitude and spatial and temporal patterns of CH 4 and N 2O fluxes as driven by multiple environmental changes, including climate variability, rising atmospheric CO 2, increasing nitrogen deposition, tropospheric ozone pollution, land use change, andmore » nitrogen fertilizer use.« less

Climate change games as tools for education and engagement

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wu, Jason S.; Lee, Joey J.

2015-05-01

Scientists, educators and policymakers continue to face challenges when it comes to finding effective strategies to engage the public on climate change. We argue that games on the subject of climate change are well-suited to address these challenges because they can serve as effective tools for education and engagement. Recently, there has been a dramatic increase in the development of such games, many featuring innovative designs that blur traditional boundaries (for example, those that involve social media, alternative reality games, or those that involve direct action upon the real world). Here, we present an overview of the types of climate change game currently available, the benefits and trade-offs of their use, and reasons why they hold such promise for education and engagement regarding climate change.

Meta-analyses of the determinants and outcomes of belief in climate change

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hornsey, Matthew J.; Harris, Emily A.; Bain, Paul G.; Fielding, Kelly S.

2016-06-01

Recent growth in the number of studies examining belief in climate change is a positive development, but presents an ironic challenge in that it can be difficult for academics, practitioners and policy makers to keep pace. As a response to this challenge, we report on a meta-analysis of the correlates of belief in climate change. Twenty-seven variables were examined by synthesizing 25 polls and 171 academic studies across 56 nations. Two broad conclusions emerged. First, many intuitively appealing variables (such as education, sex, subjective knowledge, and experience of extreme weather events) were overshadowed in predictive power by values, ideologies, worldviews and political orientation. Second, climate change beliefs have only a small to moderate effect on the extent to which people are willing to act in climate-friendly ways. Implications for converting sceptics to the climate change cause--and for converting believers’ intentions into action--are discussed.

Benefits and challenges for gene conservation: a view from the UK national tree seed project

Treesearch

Clare Trivedi; Simon. Kallow

2017-01-01

Trees and woodlands in the United Kingdom are currently subject to a range of threats including loss and fragmentation of native woodland and escalating pest and disease outbreaks. The largely unknown impacts of climate change pose a number of questions when considering afforestation and reforestation. There are frequent calls to develop resilient woodlands, robust...

Boundary organizations as an approach to overcoming science-delivery barriers in landscape conservation: a Caribbean case study

Treesearch

K.R. Jacobs; L. Nicholson; B.A. Murry; Marixa Maldonado; William Gould

2016-01-01

Throughout the Caribbean, conservation is ecologically, politically, and socially challenging due to a number of factors including globalization, climate change, loss of biodiversity, and the spread of invasive species. Relationships between organizations and institutions that govern the region’s natural and cultural resources are key to conservation success as...

Analysis of the mycotoxigenic fungi associated with southeastern U.S. winegrapes reveals a large population of Fusarium fujikuroi isolates producing high levels of fumonisins

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Mycotoxins pose a serious challenge to a consistently safe food supply worldwide, and their threat is only expected to worsen with our changing climate. Species of Fusarium produce one or more of several mycotoxins, including tricothecenes, zearalenone, and fumonisins, which have been associated wi...

Assisted migration: What it means to nursery managers and tree planters

Treesearch

Mary I. Williams; R. Kasten Dumroese

2014-01-01

Projections indicate that natural plant adaptation and migration may not keep pace with climate changes. This mismatch in rates will pose significant challenges for practitioners that select, grow, and outplant native tree species. Populations of native tree species planted today must be able to meet the climatic challenges they will face during this century. One...

The Challenges of Political Instruction in a Post-9/11 United States

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Journell, Wayne

2011-01-01

In the decade since the attacks of September 11th, the political climate in the United States has become increasingly intolerant of opposing viewpoints. This climate, made nearly ubiquitous by 24-hour news cycles and increased exposure to political media, poses quite a challenge to teachers wishing to broach political topics as part of their…

Climate Change Communication by a Research Institute: Experiences, Successes, and Challenges from a North European Perspective

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lyytimäki, Jari; Nygrén, Nina A.; Ala-Ketola, Ulla; Pellinen, Sirpa; Ruohomäki, Virpi; Inkinen, Aino

2013-01-01

Communicating about climate change is challenging not only because of the multidisciplinary and complex nature of the issue itself and multiple policy options related to mitigation and adaptation, but also because of the plenitude of potential communication methods coupled with limited resources for communication. This article explores climate…

Climate for Learning and Students' Openness to Diversity and Challenge: A Critical Role for Faculty

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ryder, Andrew J.; Reason, Robert D.; Mitchell, Joshua J.; Gillon, Kathleen; Hemer, Kevin M.

2016-01-01

Utilizing data from 15 institutions that participated in the 2013 and 2014 administrations of the Personal and Social Responsibility Inventory (PSRI), this study employed a multilevel modeling approach to examine the relationship of students' perceptions of their climate for learning to their scores on the Openness to Diversity and Challenge Scale…

Linked sustainability challenges and trade-offs among fisheries, aquaculture and agriculture.

PubMed

Blanchard, Julia L; Watson, Reg A; Fulton, Elizabeth A; Cottrell, Richard S; Nash, Kirsty L; Bryndum-Buchholz, Andrea; Büchner, Matthias; Carozza, David A; Cheung, William W L; Elliott, Joshua; Davidson, Lindsay N K; Dulvy, Nicholas K; Dunne, John P; Eddy, Tyler D; Galbraith, Eric; Lotze, Heike K; Maury, Olivier; Müller, Christoph; Tittensor, Derek P; Jennings, Simon

2017-09-01

Fisheries and aquaculture make a crucial contribution to global food security, nutrition and livelihoods. However, the UN Sustainable Development Goals separate marine and terrestrial food production sectors and ecosystems. To sustainably meet increasing global demands for fish, the interlinkages among goals within and across fisheries, aquaculture and agriculture sectors must be recognized and addressed along with their changing nature. Here, we assess and highlight development challenges for fisheries-dependent countries based on analyses of interactions and trade-offs between goals focusing on food, biodiversity and climate change. We demonstrate that some countries are likely to face double jeopardies in both fisheries and agriculture sectors under climate change. The strategies to mitigate these risks will be context-dependent, and will need to directly address the trade-offs among Sustainable Development Goals, such as halting biodiversity loss and reducing poverty. Countries with low adaptive capacity but increasing demand for food require greater support and capacity building to transition towards reconciling trade-offs. Necessary actions are context-dependent and include effective governance, improved management and conservation, maximizing societal and environmental benefits from trade, increased equitability of distribution and innovation in food production, including continued development of low input and low impact aquaculture.

Quantification of physical and economic impacts of climate change on public infrastructure in Alaska and benefits of global greenhouse gas mitigation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Melvin, A. M.; Larsen, P.; Boehlert, B.; Martinich, J.; Neumann, J.; Chinowsky, P.; Schweikert, A.; Strzepek, K.

2015-12-01

Climate change poses many risks and challenges for the Arctic and sub-Arctic, including threats to infrastructure. The safety and stability of infrastructure in this region can be impacted by many factors including increased thawing of permafrost soils, reduced coastline protection due to declining arctic sea ice, and changes in inland flooding. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is coordinating an effort to quantify physical and economic impacts of climate change on public infrastructure across the state of Alaska and estimate how global greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation may avoid or reduce these impacts. This research builds on the Climate Change Impacts and Risk Analysis (CIRA) project developed for the contiguous U.S., which is described in an EPA report released in June 2015. We are using a multi-model analysis focused primarily on the impacts of changing permafrost, coastal erosion, and inland flooding on a range of infrastructure types, including transportation (e.g. roads, airports), buildings and harbors, energy sources and transmission, sewer and water systems, and others. This analysis considers multiple global GHG emission scenarios ranging from a business as usual future to significant global action. These scenarios drive climate projections through 2100 spanning a range of outcomes to capture variability amongst climate models. Projections are being combined with a recently developed public infrastructure database and integrated into a version of the Infrastructure Planning Support System (IPSS) we are modifying for use in the Arctic and sub-Arctic region. The IPSS tool allows for consideration of both adaptation and reactive responses to climate change. Results of this work will address a gap in our understanding of climate change impacts in Alaska, provide estimates of the physical and economic damages we may expect with and without global GHG mitigation, and produce important insights about infrastructure vulnerabilities in response to warming at northern latitudes.

Concept Mapping to Assess Learning and Understanding of Complexity in Courses on Global Climate Change

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Rebich-Hespanha, S.; Gautier, C.

2010-12-01

The complex nature of climate change science poses special challenges for educators wishing to broaden and deepen student understanding of the climate system and its sensitivity to and impacts upon human activity. Learners have prior knowledge that may limit their perception and processing of the multiple relationships between processes (e.g., feedbacks) that arise in global change science, and these existing mental models serve as the scaffold for all future learning. Because adoption of complex scientific concepts is not likely if instruction includes presentation of information or concepts that are not compatible with the learners’ prior knowledge, providing effective instruction on this complex topic requires learning opportunities that are anchored upon an evaluation of the limitations and inaccuracies of the learners’ existing understandings of the climate system. The formative evaluation that serves as the basis for planning such instruction can also be useful as a baseline against which to evaluate subsequent learning. We will present concept-mapping activities that we have used to assess students’ knowledge and understanding about global climate change in courses that utilized multiple assessment methods including presentations, writings, discussions, and concept maps. The courses in which these activities were completed use a variety of instructional approaches (including standard lectures and lab assignments and a mock summit) to help students understand the inherently interdisciplinary topic of global climate change, its interwoven human and natural causes, and the connections it has with society through a complex range of political, social, technological and economic factors. Two instances of concept map assessment will be presented: one focused on evaluating student understanding of the major components of the climate system and their interconnections, and the other focused on student understanding of the connections between climate change and the global food system. We will discuss how concept mapping can be used to demonstrate evidence of learning and conceptual change, and also how it can be used to provide information about gaps in knowledge and misconceptions students have about the topic.

Promoting Regionally-Based Climate Change Education through Collaborations with Formal and Informal Education Institutions

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Stylinski, C.; Griswold, M.

2012-12-01

Improving climate literacy is necessary to effectively respond to climate change impacts. However, climate change education efforts face significant hurdles both in the classroom and in out-of-school settings. These include addressing uncertainity and the complex mix of drivers and impacts that occur over large spatial and temporal scales. These efforts are further hampered by audiences who are disinterested and resisant to discussions of anthropogenic climate change. Bridging formal and informal education experiences focused on climate change offers a potentially powerful strategy to tackle these challenges. In this session, we will describe our NSF-funded Maryland-Delaware Climate Change Education, Assessment and Research (MADE-CLEAR) project, which applies a comprehensive regional partnership among scientists, education researchers, K-12 and informal education practitioners, and other stakeholders to improve public and student understanding of and engagement in climate change issues and solutions. To better understand gaps and opportunities, we have conducted surveys and interviews with K-12, informal, and undergraduate educators and administrators. We found that climate change education aligns with most institutions' missions and efforts, that most educators do not face institutional barriers to climate change education, and that climate change is typically incorporated as part of a host of environmental issues. Despite this, climate change education is still quite limited with few institutions explicitly focusing on climate change in their programming. Additionally, there is little apparent communication among these institutions with regard to this issue. In response to these needs, we have focused the MADE-CLEAR project on creating and providing regionally-relevant resouces and professional development on climate change science, impacts and solutions for both formal and informal educators. Our approach is collaborative and includes strategies to promote networking within and among these two groups. For example, we will lead joint workshops where K-12 teachers can share their in-depth understanding of climate change concepts and links to education standards, while free-choice-learning practitioners can provide their expertise in engaging diverse audiences and supporting more learner-centered teaching. Our resources will further support a formal-informal bridge by helping both groups of educators make climate change relevant to their audiences with local examples of impacts and ways to mitigate or adapt to these impacts. Our project includes design-based research, and thus we will examine how our professional development is translated into practice at different types of institutions and the impact of our approach on enhancing formal-informal education collaborations focused on climate change education.

Empowering Pre-College Students To Engage In Climate Change Solutions

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Haine, D. B.

2014-12-01

Developing and implementing solutions to environmental challenges, such as climate change, depend upon the cultivation of STEM knowledge and skills among today's youth. Furthermore, STEM instruction enhances learning by providing tools to investigate and analyze environmental issues, making the issue real and tangible to students. That said, educators engaged in the climate literacy movement are aware that possession of knowledge about Earth's climate and the causes and consequences of climate change is not sufficient to empower individuals to contribute to solutions that promote a sustainable future. By framing the issue of climate change in the context of energy, by utilizing STEM instructional strategies and by showcasing scientists and others working on solutions to address climate change, the Climate Leadership and Energy Awareness Program (Climate LEAP) at the University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill is cultivating a network of youth who are not only informed about society's use of energy and the implication for Earth's climate but also empowered to be part of the solution as society shifts to a low carbon economy. During this year-long science enrichment program, 9th-12thgraders learn about our fossil fuel based economy, meet scientists who are working to expand the use of renewable energy sources, and develop communication and leadership skills. Experienced educators with UNC's Institute for the Environment, the Morehead Planetarium and Science Center and the Alliance for Climate Education partner with scientists to implement Climate LEAP. In addition to increasing knowledge of climate science and of the solutions proposed to address climate change, program participants are invited to engage members of their community through implementation of a solutions-oriented community outreach project. Now in its fifth year, 168 students have completed Climate LEAP, with approximately 2/3 completing at least one community outreach project. A survey of program alumni indicated that 90% of respondents were motivated by the program to make at least one behavior change to conserve energy in their daily life. This session will include a description of the program evaluation plan, which includes assessment of student learning..

Climate change, conflict and health.

PubMed

Bowles, Devin C; Butler, Colin D; Morisetti, Neil

2015-10-01

Future climate change is predicted to diminish essential natural resource availability in many regions and perhaps globally. The resulting scarcity of water, food and livelihoods could lead to increasingly desperate populations that challenge governments, enhancing the risk of intra- and interstate conflict. Defence establishments and some political scientists view climate change as a potential threat to peace. While the medical literature increasingly recognises climate change as a fundamental health risk, the dimension of climate change-associated conflict has so far received little attention, despite its profound health implications. Many analysts link climate change with a heightened risk of conflict via causal pathways which involve diminishing or changing resource availability. Plausible consequences include: increased frequency of civil conflict in developing countries; terrorism, asymmetric warfare, state failure; and major regional conflicts. The medical understanding of these threats is inadequate, given the scale of health implications. The medical and public health communities have often been reluctant to interpret conflict as a health issue. However, at times, medical workers have proven powerful and effective peace advocates, most notably with regard to nuclear disarmament. The public is more motivated to mitigate climate change when it is framed as a health issue. Improved medical understanding of the association between climate change and conflict could strengthen mitigation efforts and increase cooperation to cope with the climate change that is now inevitable. © The Royal Society of Medicine.

Quantifying the health impacts of air pollution under a changing climate-a review of approaches and methodology.

PubMed

Sujaritpong, Sarunya; Dear, Keith; Cope, Martin; Walsh, Sean; Kjellstrom, Tord

2014-03-01

Climate change has been predicted to affect future air quality, with inevitable consequences for health. Quantifying the health effects of air pollution under a changing climate is crucial to provide evidence for actions to safeguard future populations. In this paper, we review published methods for quantifying health impacts to identify optimal approaches and ways in which existing challenges facing this line of research can be addressed. Most studies have employed a simplified methodology, while only a few have reported sensitivity analyses to assess sources of uncertainty. The limited investigations that do exist suggest that examining the health risk estimates should particularly take into account the uncertainty associated with future air pollution emissions scenarios, concentration-response functions, and future population growth and age structures. Knowledge gaps identified for future research include future health impacts from extreme air pollution events, interactions between temperature and air pollution effects on public health under a changing climate, and how population adaptation and behavioural changes in a warmer climate may modify exposure to air pollution and health consequences.

Addressing socioeconomic and political challenges posed by climate change

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Fernando, Harindra Joseph; Klaic, Zvjezdana Bencetic

2011-08-01

NATO Advanced Research Workshop: Climate Change, Human Health and National Security; Dubrovnik, Croatia, 28-30 April 2011; Climate change has been identified as one of the most serious threats to humanity. It not only causes sea level rise, drought, crop failure, vector-borne diseases, extreme events, degradation of water and air quality, heat waves, and other phenomena, but it is also a threat multiplier wherein concatenation of multiple events may lead to frequent human catastrophes and intranational and international conflicts. In particular, urban areas may bear the brunt of climate change because of the amplification of climate effects that cascade down from global to urban scales, but current modeling and downscaling capabilities are unable to predict these effects with confidence. These were the main conclusions of a NATO Advanced Research Workshop (ARW) sponsored by the NATO Science for Peace and Security program. Thirty-two invitees from 17 counties, including leading modelers; natural, political, and social scientists; engineers; politicians; military experts; urban planners; industry analysts; epidemiologists; and health care professionals, parsed the topic on a common platform.

Challenges and Opportunities for Integrating Social Science Perspectives into Climate and Global Change Assessments

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Larson, E. K.; Li, J.; Zycherman, A.

2017-12-01

Integration of social science into climate and global change assessments is fundamental for improving understanding of the drivers, impacts and vulnerability of climate change, and the social, cultural and behavioral challenges related to climate change responses. This requires disciplinary and interdisciplinary knowledge as well as integrational and translational tools for linking this knowledge with the natural and physical sciences. The USGCRP's Social Science Coordinating Committee (SSCC) is tasked with this challenge and is working to integrate relevant social, economic and behavioral knowledge into processes like sustained assessments. This presentation will discuss outcomes from a recent SSCC workshop, "Social Science Perspectives on Climate Change" and their applications to sustained assessments. The workshop brought academic social scientists from four disciplines - anthropology, sociology, geography and archaeology - together with federal scientists and program managers to discuss three major research areas relevant to the USGCRP and climate assessments: (1) innovative tools, methods, and analyses to clarify the interactions of human and natural systems under climate change, (2) understanding of factors contributing to differences in social vulnerability between and within communities under climate change, and (3) social science perspectives on drivers of global climate change. These disciplines, collectively, emphasize the need to consider socio-cultural, political, economic, geographic, and historic factors, and their dynamic interactions, to understand climate change drivers, social vulnerability, and mitigation and adaptation responses. They also highlight the importance of mixed quantitative and qualitative methods to explain impacts, vulnerability, and responses at different time and spatial scales. This presentation will focus on major contributions of the social sciences to climate and global change research. We will discuss future directions for sustained assessments that integrate and reflect the social science understanding of the complex relationships between social and natural worlds in a changing climate, and factors that impact effective mitigation and adaptation strategies that address risks and vulnerabilities of climate change.

Development and Performance of Alternative Electricity Sector Pathways Subject to Multiple Climate and Water Projections

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Newmark, R. L.; Vorosmarty, C. J.; Miara, A.; Cohen, S.; Macknick, J.; Sun, Y.; Corsi, F.; Fekete, B. M.; Tidwell, V. C.

2017-12-01

Climate change impacts on air temperatures and water availability have the potential to alter future electricity sector investment decisions as well as the reliability and performance of the power sector. Different electricity sector configurations are more or less vulnerable to climate-induced changes. For example, once-through cooled thermal facilities are the most cost-effective and efficient technologies under cooler and wetter conditions, but can be substantially affected by and vulnerable to warmer and drier conditions. Non-thermal renewable technologies, such as PV and wind, are essentially "drought-proof" but have other integration and reliability challenges. Prior efforts have explored the impacts of climate change on electric sector development for a limited set of climate and electricity scenarios. Here, we provide a comprehensive suite of scenarios that evaluate how different electricity sector pathways could be affected by a range of climate and water resource conditions. We use four representative concentration pathway (RCP) scenarios under five global circulation models (GCM) as climate drivers to a Water Balance Model (WBM), to provide twenty separate future climate-water conditions. These climate-water conditions influence electricity sector development from present day to 2050 as determined using the Regional Energy Deployment Systems (ReEDS) model. Four unique electricity sector pathways will be considered, including business-as-usual, carbon cap, high renewable energy technology costs, and coal reliance scenarios. The combination of climate-water and electricity sector pathway scenarios leads to 80 potential future cases resulting in different national and regional electricity infrastructure configurations. The vulnerability of these configurations in relation to climate change (including in-stream thermal pollution impacts and environmental regulations) is evaluated using the Thermoelectric Power and Thermal Pollution (TP2M) model, providing quantitative estimates of the power sector's ability to meet loads, given changes in air temperature, water temperature, and water availability.

Outstanding challenges limiting the development of climate services in Europe

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Buontempo, Carlo; Soares, Marta Bruno; Liggins, Felicity

2016-04-01

Climate services attempt to make the available (or forthcoming) climate knowledge more usable by decision and policy makers in the development of a climate smart society. Since the launch of the Global Framework for Climate Services in 2009 there has been an exponential increase in investment in the development and delivery of climate services, leading to an array of projects and initiatives across Europe. However, to date little attention has been given to understanding the different ways in which climate services are defined, implemented, and evaluated in Europe. In addition, other aspects such as how to pursue the necessary processes of co-production, which business models to apply, and the implications for the careers of scientists and others involved in the development of climate services are also crucial elements that need to be further examined and discussed. Such aspects are critical to the future development of climate services as they have the potential to significantly constrain the growth of climate services in Europe. Starting from a set of questions that have arisen within some of the most prominent climate services projects and initiatives in Europe, our paper highlights and expands on the outstanding challenges that need to be resolved by both the scientific community and the funders in order to ensure climate services can prosper and grow in Europe.

A Way Forward: Cooperative Solutions to Our Climate Challenges

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Little, L. J.; Byrne, J. M.

2014-12-01

Solving the global climate crisis is a multidisciplinary challenge. The world is seeking solutions to climate change. The climate research and education community must move beyond the realm of debating the science - we MUST provide the solutions. The research community understands the science and many of the solutions very well. This project will address the specifics of solutions involving social, political and science disciplines. The content is targeted to multidisciplinary education at the senior undergraduate and graduate levels in universities and colleges. Humanity has already changed the climate and current greenhouse gas emission (GHG) projections indicate our world will warm 2-6° C within a young person's lifetime. We must coordinate societal mitigation and adaptation policies, programs and technology transformations. There is now a dramatic need for many, many highly trained multidisciplinary climate change solutions professionals that understand the complexities of the challenges and can work through the social, political and science tribulations needed to sustain communities around the world. This proposed education project: Provides an introduction to the social, political, technical, health and well-being challenges of climate change; Defines and describes the unprecedented changes to personal and community lifestyle, and consumption of energy and other resources; Examines ways and means for rapid transition of energy systems from fossil fuels to clean renewable technologies. Evaluates redevelopment of our infrastructure to withstand increasing weather extremes; Inventories possible abandonment and/or protection of infrastructure that cannot be redeveloped or reworked, particularly with respect to coastal zones where substantial populations currently live. We propose an online living textbook project. Chapter contributions will be invited from outstanding solutions research professionals from around the world. The online presence is the best means to facilitate a multimedia presentation of the core content of the proposed text.

Climate change and the Delta

USGS Publications Warehouse

Dettinger, Michael; Anderson, Jamie; Anderson, Michael L.; Brown, Larry R.; Cayan, Daniel; Maurer, Edwin P.

2016-01-01

Anthropogenic climate change amounts to a rapidly approaching, “new” stressor in the Sacramento–San Joaquin Delta system. In response to California’s extreme natural hydroclimatic variability, complex water-management systems have been developed, even as the Delta’s natural ecosystems have been largely devastated. Climate change is projected to challenge these management and ecological systems in different ways that are characterized by different levels of uncertainty. For example, there is high certainty that climate will warm by about 2°C more (than late-20th-century averages) by mid-century and about 4°C by end of century, if greenhouse-gas emissions continue their current rates of acceleration. Future precipitation changes are much less certain, with as many climate models projecting wetter conditions as drier. However, the same projections agree that precipitation will be more intense when storms do arrive, even as more dry days will separate storms. Warmer temperatures will likely enhance evaporative demands and raise water temperatures. Consequently, climate change is projected to yield both more extreme flood risks and greater drought risks. Sea level rise (SLR) during the 20th century was about 22cm, and is projected to increase by at least 3-fold this century. SLR together with land subsidence threatens the Delta with greater vulnerabilities to inundation and salinity intrusion. Effects on the Delta ecosystem that are traceable to warming include SLR, reduced snowpack, earlier snowmelt and larger storm-driven streamflows, warmer and longer summers, warmer summer water temperatures, and water-quality changes. These changes and their uncertainties will challenge the operations of water projects and uses throughout the Delta’s watershed and delivery areas. Although the effects of climate change on Delta ecosystems may be profound, the end results are difficult to predict, except that native species will fare worse than invaders. Successful preparation for the coming changes will require greater integration of monitoring, modeling, and decision making across time, variables, and space than has been historically normal.

A Paleoclimate Modeling Perspective on the Challenges to Quantifying Paleoelevation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Poulsen, C. J.; Aron, P.; Feng, R.; Fiorella, R.; Shen, H.; Skinner, C. B.

2016-12-01

Surface elevation is a fundamental characteristic of the land surface. Gradients in elevation associated with mountain ranges are a first order control on local and regional climate; weathering, erosion and nutrient transport; and the evolution and biodiversity of organisms. In addition, surface elevations are a proxy for the geodynamic processes that created them. Efforts to quantify paleoelevation have relied on reconstructions of mineralogical and fossil proxies that preserve environmental signals such as surface temperature, moist enthalpy, or surface water isotopic composition that have been observed to systematically vary with elevation. The challenge to estimating paleoelevation from proxies arises because the modern-day elevation dependence of these environmental parameters is not constant and has differed in the past in response to changes in both surface elevation and other climatic forcings, including greenhouse gas and orbital variations. For example, downward mixing of vapor that is isotopically enriched through troposphere warming under greenhouse forcing reduces the isotopic lapse rate. Without considering these factors, paleoelevation estimates for orogenic systems can be in error by hundreds of meters or more. Isotope-enabled climate models provide a tool for separating the climate response to these forcings into elevation and non-elevation components and for identifying the processes that alter the elevation dependence of environmental parameters. Our past and ongoing work has focused on the simulated climate response to surface uplift of the South American Andes, the North American Cordillera, and the Tibetan-Himalyan system during the Cenozoic, and its implication for interpreting proxy records from these regions. This work demonstrates that the climate response to uplift, and the implications for interpreting proxy records, varies tremendously by region. In this presentation, we synthesize climate responses to uplift across orogens, present new results examining the affect of orbital variations on elevation-dependent environmental parameters, and discuss the implications of our work for quantifying paleoelevations.

Land-Atmosphere Interactions in Cold Environments (LATICE): The role of Atmosphere - Biosphere - Cryosphere - Hydrosphere interactions in a changing climate

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Burkhart, J. F.; Tallaksen, L. M.; Stordal, F.; Berntsen, T.; Westermann, S.; Kristjansson, J. E.; Etzelmuller, B.; Hagen, J. O.; Schuler, T.; Hamran, S. E.; Lande, T. S.; Bryn, A.

2015-12-01

Climate change is impacting the high latitudes more rapidly and significantly than any other region of the Earth because of feedback processes between the atmosphere and the underlying surface. A warmer climate has already led to thawing of permafrost, reducing snow cover and a longer growing season; changes, which in turn influence the atmospheric circulation and the hydrological cycle. Still, many studies rely on one-way coupling between the atmosphere and the land surface, thereby neglecting important interactions and feedbacks. The observation, understanding and prediction of such processes from local to regional and global scales, represent a major scientific challenge that requires multidisciplinary scientific effort. The successful integration of earth observations (remote and in-situ data) and model development requires a harmonized research effort between earth system scientists, modelers and the developers of technologies and sensors. LATICE, which is recognized as a priority research area by the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences at the University of Oslo, aims to advance the knowledge base concerning land atmosphere interactions and their role in controlling climate variability and climate change at high northern latitudes. The consortium consists of an interdisciplinary team of experts from the atmospheric and terrestrial (hydrosphere, cryosphere and biosphere) research groups, together with key expertise on earth observations and novel sensor technologies. LATICE addresses critical knowledge gaps in the current climate assessment capacity through: Improving parameterizations of processes in earth system models controlling the interactions and feedbacks between the land (snow, ice, permafrost, soil and vegetation) and the atmosphere at high latitudes, including the boreal, alpine and artic zone. Assessing the influence of climate and land cover changes on water and energy fluxes. Integrating remote earth observations with in-situ data and suitable models to allow studies of finer-scale processes governing land-atmosphere interactions. Addressing observational challenges through the development of novel observational products and networks.

The Challenges of Creating Climate Change Education Cross-Sector Partnerships

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ledley, T. S.

2017-12-01

Communities will have to address the impacts of climate change on their environment whether it is for adaptation - to build resilience and establish preparedness, or for mitigation - to migrate to cleaner energy sources and reduce energy use. To effectively address these impacts community leaders and professionals will need to develop an understanding of and solutions to the problems that result from climate change. The effort will need to be conducted with a cross-sector approach as all members of a community (individuals and organizations/businesses/ groups) will be impacted. Students should be involved in this effort to help them develop the critical thinking and data analysis skills they will need in the future to make responsible decisions for themselves, their community, and professionally. However, engaging businesses, organizations, and government in a coherent aligned partnership that addresses short and long term local impacts of climate change as well as the longer-term goal of preparing the future climate ready workforce has multiple challenges. Each business, organization and government agency has it own mission and goals, and metrics of achieving them. In creating an effective cross-sector partnership it is essential to determine for each partner where their mission, services, products, and activities can benefit the partnership and where the partnership can help them improve their multiple bottom lines (financial, social, envionmental) and show the value of their participation to their boards and leadership. Cross-sector partnerships have begun to form in many communities, however, financing them is difficult and most do not include education, a critical leverage element, for either the future workforce or to support current decision makers. In this presentation we will examine community partnerships that are working to address local climate issues and explore the obstacles to integrating education in these cross-sector climate change partnerships and how to overcome them.

Tri-Agency Coordination: Challenges and Successes in Creating a Community of Practice among Climate Change Education Principal Investigators funded by NASA, NOAA, and NSF

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Schoedinger, S. E.; McDougall, C.; Karsten, J. L.; Campbell, D.; Pippin, M. R.; Chambers, L. H.

2013-12-01

The effort needed for comprehensive climate change education is far greater than any one institution, education sector, or even federal agency can handle. Recognizing a need to synergistically combine efforts, NSF, NASA, and NOAA have created a collaborative community of their climate change education principal investigators (PIs) through tri-agency coordination. The goals of this tri-agency collaboration are to leverage existing resources, minimize duplicate efforts, and facilitate communication among this emergent community of scientists and educators. NASA, NOAA, and NSF work together to strategically coordinate and support a portfolio of projects focused on climate literacy and education in formal and informal learning environments. The activities of the tri-agency collaboration, including annual meetings for PIs, a catalog of the agencies collective investments in climate change education and the ongoing development of a nascent common evaluation framework, have created a strong national network for effectively engaging diverse audiences with the principles of climate literacy (see Eos Vol. 92, No. 24, 14 June 2011). Last year, after 3 years of active collaboration, similar programs underway at other U.S. Global Change Research Program agencies: the EPA, National Institutes for Environmental Health Sciences, and USDA, were engaged in the collaboration. And, in an attempt to understand the interests of the private sector in this arena, conversations have begun with private philanthropic organizations. This year, as many of the funded projects are maturing, the PI meeting will have a focus on bringing this community together to create a science-theme based tangible outcome that can move the field of climate change education forward. Additional outcomes from this PI meeting will be presented as well as the challenges that were encountered in bringing together institutions with diverse missions, and approaches developed to ensure all parties feel they're benefiting from the collaboration.

Emerging Climate-data Needs in the Air Transport Sector

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Thompson, T. R.

2014-12-01

This paper addresses the nature of climate information needed within the air-transport sector. Air transport is not a single economic sector with uniform needs for climate data: airport, airline, and air-navigation services are the principal sub-sectors, each with their own particular climate-related decision contexts. For example, airports function as fixed infrastructure that is primarily affected by probabilities of extreme events that could hamper runway/taxiway operations, interfere with worker availability, or impede travel to and from the airport by passengers. Airlines, in contrast, are more concerned with changes in atmospheric conditions (upper-air turbulence, convective weather events, etc.) that might require consideration in long-term decisions related to flight-planning processes and aircraft equipage. Air-navigation service providers have needs that are primarily concerned with assurance of safe spatial separation of aircraft via sensor data and communications links. In addition to present-day commercial air transport, we discuss what climate data may be needed for new types of air transport that may emerge in the next couple of decades. These include, for example, small aircraft provided on-demand to non-pilot travelers, high-altitude supersonic business and commercial jets, and very large numbers of un-manned aircraft. Finally, we give examples relating to key technical challenges in providing decision-relevant climate data to the air-transport sector. These include: (1) identifying what types of climate data are most relevant the different decisions facing the several segments of this industry; (2) determining decision-appropriate time horizons for forecasts of this data; and (3) coupling the uncertainties inherent in these forecasts to the decision process.

Incorporating phosphorus cycling into global modeling efforts: a worthwhile, tractable endeavor.

PubMed

Reed, Sasha C; Yang, Xiaojuan; Thornton, Peter E

2015-10-01

324 I. 324 II. 325 III. 326 IV. 327 328 References 328 SUMMARY: Myriad field, laboratory, and modeling studies show that nutrient availability plays a fundamental role in regulating CO2 exchange between the Earth's biosphere and atmosphere, and in determining how carbon pools and fluxes respond to climatic change. Accordingly, global models that incorporate coupled climate-carbon cycle feedbacks made a significant advance with the introduction of a prognostic nitrogen cycle. Here we propose that incorporating phosphorus cycling represents an important next step in coupled climate-carbon cycling model development, particularly for lowland tropical forests where phosphorus availability is often presumed to limit primary production. We highlight challenges to including phosphorus in modeling efforts and provide suggestions for how to move forward. No claim to original US government works New Phytologist © 2015 New Phytologist Trust.

Climate change challenges for central banks and financial regulators

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Campiglio, Emanuele; Dafermos, Yannis; Monnin, Pierre; Ryan-Collins, Josh; Schotten, Guido; Tanaka, Misa

2018-06-01

The academic and policy debate regarding the role of central banks and financial regulators in addressing climate-related financial risks has rapidly expanded in recent years. This Perspective presents the key controversies and discusses potential research and policy avenues for the future. Developing a comprehensive analytical framework to assess the potential impact of climate change and the low-carbon transition on financial stability seems to be the first crucial challenge. These enhanced risk measures could then be incorporated in setting financial regulations and implementing the policies of central banks.

Online matchmaking: It's not just for dating sites anymore! Connecting the Climate Voices Science Speakers Network to Educators

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wegner, K.; Herrin, S.; Schmidt, C.

2015-12-01

Scientists play an integral role in the development of climate literacy skills - for both teachers and students alike. By partnering with local scientists, teachers can gain valuable insights into the science practices highlighted by the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), as well as a deeper understanding of cutting-edge scientific discoveries and local impacts of climate change. For students, connecting to local scientists can provide a relevant connection to climate science and STEM skills. Over the past two years, the Climate Voices Science Speakers Network (climatevoices.org) has grown to a robust network of nearly 400 climate science speakers across the United States. Formal and informal educators, K-12 students, and community groups connect with our speakers through our interactive map-based website and invite them to meet through face-to-face and virtual presentations, such as webinars and podcasts. But creating a common language between scientists and educators requires coaching on both sides. In this presentation, we will present the "nitty-gritty" of setting up scientist-educator collaborations, as well as the challenges and opportunities that arise from these partnerships. We will share the impact of these collaborations through case studies, including anecdotal feedback and metrics.

Global assessment of technological innovation for climate change adaptation and mitigation in developing world.

PubMed

Adenle, Ademola A; Azadi, Hossein; Arbiol, Joseph

2015-09-15

Concerns about mitigating and adapting to climate change resulted in renewing the incentive for agricultural research investments and developing further innovation priorities around the world particularly in developing countries. In the near future, development of new agricultural measures and proper diffusion of technologies will greatly influence the ability of farmers in adaptation and mitigation to climate change. Using bibliometric approaches through output of academic journal publications and patent-based data, we assess the impact of research and development (R&D) for new and existing technologies within the context of climate change mitigation and adaptation. We show that many developing countries invest limited resources for R&D in relevant technologies that have great potential for mitigation and adaption in agricultural production. We also discuss constraints including weak infrastructure, limited research capacity, lack of credit facilities and technology transfer that may hinder the application of innovation in tackling the challenges of climate change. A range of policy measures is also suggested to overcome identified constraints and to ensure that potentials of innovation for climate change mitigation and adaptation are realized. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Online Matchmaking: It's Not Just for Dating Sites Anymore! Connecting the Climate Voices Science Speakers Network to Educators

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Wegner, Kristin; Herrin, Sara; Schmidt, Cynthia

2015-01-01

Scientists play an integral role in the development of climate literacy skills - for both teachers and students alike. By partnering with local scientists, teachers can gain valuable insights into the science practices highlighted by the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), as well as a deeper understanding of cutting-edge scientific discoveries and local impacts of climate change. For students, connecting to local scientists can provide a relevant connection to climate science and STEM skills. Over the past two years, the Climate Voices Science Speakers Network (climatevoices.org) has grown to a robust network of nearly 400 climate science speakers across the United States. Formal and informal educators, K-12 students, and community groups connect with our speakers through our interactive map-based website and invite them to meet through face-to-face and virtual presentations, such as webinars and podcasts. But creating a common language between scientists and educators requires coaching on both sides. In this presentation, we will present the "nitty-gritty" of setting up scientist-educator collaborations, as well as the challenges and opportunities that arise from these partnerships. We will share the impact of these collaborations through case studies, including anecdotal feedback and metrics.

Nonlinear regional warming with increasing CO2 concentrations

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Good, Peter; Lowe, Jason A.; Andrews, Timothy; Wiltshire, Andrew; Chadwick, Robin; Ridley, Jeff K.; Menary, Matthew B.; Bouttes, Nathaelle; Dufresne, Jean Louis; Gregory, Jonathan M.; Schaller, Nathalie; Shiogama, Hideo

2015-02-01

When considering adaptation measures and global climate mitigation goals, stakeholders need regional-scale climate projections, including the range of plausible warming rates. To assist these stakeholders, it is important to understand whether some locations may see disproportionately high or low warming from additional forcing above targets such as 2 K (ref. ). There is a need to narrow uncertainty in this nonlinear warming, which requires understanding how climate changes as forcings increase from medium to high levels. However, quantifying and understanding regional nonlinear processes is challenging. Here we show that regional-scale warming can be strongly superlinear to successive CO2 doublings, using five different climate models. Ensemble-mean warming is superlinear over most land locations. Further, the inter-model spread tends to be amplified at higher forcing levels, as nonlinearities grow--especially when considering changes per kelvin of global warming. Regional nonlinearities in surface warming arise from nonlinearities in global-mean radiative balance, the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation, surface snow/ice cover and evapotranspiration. For robust adaptation and mitigation advice, therefore, potentially avoidable climate change (the difference between business-as-usual and mitigation scenarios) and unavoidable climate change (change under strong mitigation scenarios) may need different analysis methods.

The future of the Amazon: new perspectives from climate, ecosystem and social sciences.

PubMed

Betts, Richard A; Malhi, Yadvinder; Roberts, J Timmons

2008-05-27

The potential loss or large-scale degradation of the tropical rainforests has become one of the iconic images of the impacts of twenty-first century environmental change and may be one of our century's most profound legacies. In the Amazon region, the direct threat of deforestation and degradation is now strongly intertwined with an indirect challenge we are just beginning to understand: the possibility of substantial regional drought driven by global climate change. The Amazon region hosts more than half of the world's remaining tropical forests, and some parts have among the greatest concentrations of biodiversity found anywhere on Earth. Overall, the region is estimated to host about a quarter of all global biodiversity. It acts as one of the major 'flywheels' of global climate, transpiring water and generating clouds, affecting atmospheric circulation across continents and hemispheres, and storing substantial reserves of biomass and soil carbon. Hence, the ongoing degradation of Amazonia is a threat to local climate stability and a contributor to the global atmospheric climate change crisis. Conversely, the stabilization of Amazonian deforestation and degradation would be an opportunity for local adaptation to climate change, as well as a potential global contributor towards mitigation of climate change. However, addressing deforestation in the Amazon raises substantial challenges in policy, governance, sustainability and economic science. This paper introduces a theme issue dedicated to a multidisciplinary analysis of these challenges.

Front-end Evaluation as Part of a Comprehensive Approach to Inform the Development of a New Climate Exhibit at NCAR

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ristvey, J. D., Jr.; Brinkworth, C.; Hatheway, B.; Williams, V.

2015-12-01

In an era of discord in public views of climate change, communicating atmospheric and related sciences to the public at a large research facility like the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) can be a daunting challenge yet one that is filled with many possibilities. The University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR) Center for Science Education (SciEd) is responsible for education and outreach activities at UCAR, including the exhibits program. Over 90,000 people visit the NCAR Mesa Lab each year to enjoy a number of exhibits that showcase our community's research. The current climate exhibit is twelve years old, and with advances in our understanding of climate science and exhibit design, SciEd staff are developing a new exhibit that is as cutting edge as the research conducted at NCAR. Based on listening sessions with NCAR scientists, the following big ideas for the exhibit emerged: How the climate system works The climate system is changing How scientists study our climate Regional impacts Solutions The goal of the new climate exhibit is to reach people using a variety of learning styles, including offerings for visitors who learn by doing, as well as providing informative text and images (Hatheway, 2014). Developers and evaluators are working together to conduct front-end, formative, and summative evaluations to understand of the needs of our visitors and collect ongoing data to inform development. The purpose of the front-end evaluation, conducted in the summer of 2014 was to develop informed data-driven strategies to move forward with exhibit design. The evaluation results to be shared in this session include: The demographics and behaviors of visitors Trends in visitors' experiences Visitor input on exhibit design (Williams and Tarsi, 2014). In this presentation, we will share the results, significance, and application of the front-end evaluation as part of a comprehensive approach to study both how we convey information about climate science and plan for the re-design of a new climate exhibit.

Integrated monitoring and information systems for managing aquatic invasive species in a changing climate.

PubMed

Lee, Henry; Reusser, Deborah A; Olden, Julian D; Smith, Scott S; Graham, Jim; Burkett, Virginia; Dukes, Jeffrey S; Piorkowski, Robert J; McPhedran, John

2008-06-01

Changes in temperature, precipitation, and other climatic drivers and sea-level rise will affect populations of existing native and non-native aquatic species and the vulnerability of aquatic environments to new invasions. Monitoring surveys provide the foundation for assessing the combined effects of climate change and invasions by providing baseline biotic and environmental conditions, although the utility of a survey depends on whether the results are quantitative or qualitative, and other design considerations. The results from a variety of monitoring programs in the United States are available in integrated biological information systems, although many include only non-native species, not native species. Besides including natives, we suggest these systems could be improved through the development of standardized methods that capture habitat and physiological requirements and link regional and national biological databases into distributed Web portals that allow drawing information from multiple sources. Combining the outputs from these biological information systems with environmental data would allow the development of ecological-niche models that predict the potential distribution or abundance of native and non-native species on the basis of current environmental conditions. Environmental projections from climate models can be used in these niche models to project changes in species distributions or abundances under altered climatic conditions and to identify potential high-risk invaders. There are, however, a number of challenges, such as uncertainties associated with projections from climate and niche models and difficulty in integrating data with different temporal and spatial granularity. Even with these uncertainties, integration of biological and environmental information systems, niche models, and climate projections would improve management of aquatic ecosystems under the dual threats of biotic invasions and climate change.

Ice sheet climate modeling: past achievements, ongoing challenges, and future endeavors

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lenaerts, J.

2017-12-01

Fluctuations in surface mass balance (SMB) mask out a substantial portion of contemporary Greenland and Antarctic ice sheet mass loss. That implies that we need accurate, consistent, and long-term SMB time series to isolate the mass loss signal. This in turn requires understanding of the processes driving SMB, and how they interplay. The primary controls on present-day ice sheet SMB are snowfall, which is regulated by large-scale atmospheric variability, and surface meltwater production at the ice sheet's edges, which is a complex result of atmosphere-surface interactions. Additionally, wind-driven snow redistribution and sublimation are large SMB contributors on the downslope areas of the ice sheets. Climate models provide an integrated framework to simulate all these individual ice sheet components. Recent developments in RACMO2, a regional climate model bound by atmospheric reanalyses, have focused on enhancing horizontal resolution, including blowing snow, snow albedo, and meltwater processes. Including these physics not only enhanced our understanding of the ice sheet climate system, but also enabled to obtain increasingly accurate estimates of ice sheet SMB. However, regional models are not suitable to capture the mutual interactions between ice sheet and the remainder of the global climate system in transient climates. To take that next step, global climate models are essential. In this talk, I will highlight our present work on improving ice sheet climate in the Community Earth System Model (CESM). In particular, we focus on an improved representation of polar firn, ice sheet clouds, and precipitation. For this exercise, we extensively use field observations, remote sensing data, as well as RACMO2. Next, I will highlight how CESM is used to enhance our understanding of ice sheet SMB, its drivers, and past and present changes.

Integrated monitoring and information systems for managing aquatic invasive species in a changing climate

USGS Publications Warehouse

Lee, Henry; Reusser, Deborah A.; Olden, Julian D.; Smith, Scott S.; Graham, Jim; Burkett, Virginia; Dukes, Jeffrey S.; Piorkowski, Robert J.; Mcphedran, John

2008-01-01

Changes in temperature, precipitation, and other climatic drivers and sea-level rise will affect populations of existing native and non-native aquatic species and the vulnerability of aquatic environments to new invasions. Monitoring surveys provide the foundation for assessing the combined effects of climate change and invasions by providing baseline biotic and environmental conditions, although the utility of a survey depends on whether the results are quantitative or qualitative, and other design considerations. The results from a variety of monitoring programs in the United States are available in integrated biological information systems, although many include only non-native species, not native species. Besides including natives, we suggest these systems could be improved through the development of standardized methods that capture habitat and physiological requirements and link regional and national biological databases into distributed Web portals that allow drawing information from multiple sources. Combining the outputs from these biological information systems with environmental data would allow the development of ecological-niche models that predict the potential distribution or abundance of native and non-native species on the basis of current environmental conditions. Environmental projections from climate models can be used in these niche models to project changes in species distributions or abundances under altered climatic conditions and to identify potential high-risk invaders. There are, however, a number of challenges, such as uncertainties associated with projections from climate and niche models and difficulty in integrating data with different temporal and spatial granularity. Even with these uncertainties, integration of biological and environmental information systems, niche models, and climate projections would improve management of aquatic ecosystems under the dual threats of biotic invasions and climate change

Climate Change and Arctic Issues in the Marine and Environmental Science Curriculum at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Vlietstra, L.; McConnell, M. C.; Bergondo, D. L.; Mrakovcich, K. L.; Futch, V.; Stutzman, B. S.; Fleischmann, C. M.

2016-02-01

As global climate change becomes more evident, demand will likely increase for experts with a detailed understanding of the scientific basis of climate change, the ocean's role in the earth-atmosphere system, and forecasted impacts, especially in Arctic regions where effects may be most pronounced. As a result, programs in marine and environmental sciences are uniquely poised to prepare graduates for the formidable challenges posed by changing climates. Here we present research evaluating the prevalence and themes of courses focusing on anthropogenic climate change in 125 Marine Science and Environmental Science undergraduate programs at 86 institutions in the United States. These results, in addition to the increasing role of the Coast Guard in the Arctic, led to the development of two new courses in the curriculum. Climate Change Science, a one-credit seminar, includes several student-centered activities supporting key learning objectives. Polar Oceanography, a three-credit course, incorporates a major outreach component to Coast Guard units and members of the scientific community. Given the importance of climate change in Arctic regions in particular, we also propose six essential "Arctic Literacy Principles" around which courses or individual lesson plans may be organized. We show how these principles are incorporated into an additional new three-credit course, Model Arctic Council, which prepares students to participate in a week-long simulation exercise of Arctic Council meetings, held in Fairbanks, Alaska. Students examine the history and mission of the Arctic Council and explore some of the issues on which the council has deliberated. Special attention is paid to priorities of the current U.S. chairmanship of the Arctic Council which include climate change impacts on, and stewardship of, the Arctic Ocean.

Reconciling Scale Mismatch in Water Governance, Hydro-climatic Processes and Infrastructure Systems of Water Supply in Las Vegas

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Garcia, M. E.; Alarcon, T.; Portney, K.; Islam, S.

2013-12-01

Water resource systems are a classic example of a common pool resource due to the high cost of exclusion and the subtractability of the resource; for common pool resources, the performance of governance systems primarily depends on how well matched the institutional arrangements and rules are to the biophysical conditions and social norms. Changes in water governance, hydro-climatic processes and infrastructure systems occur on disparate temporal and spatial scales. A key challenge is the gap between current climate change model resolution, and the spatial and temporal scale of urban water supply decisions. This gap will lead to inappropriate management policies if not mediated through a carefully crafted decision making process. Traditional decision support and planning methods (DSPM) such as classical decision analysis are not equipped to deal with a non-static climate. While emerging methods such as decision scaling, robust decision making and real options are designed to deal with a changing climate, governance systems have evolved under the assumption of a static climate and it is not clear if these methods are well suited to the existing governance regime. In our study, these questions are contextualized by examining an urban water utility that has made significant changes in policy to adapt to changing conditions: the Southern Nevada Water Authority (SNWA) which serves metropolitan Las Vegas. Like most desert cities, Las Vegas exists because of water; the artesian springs of the Las Vegas Valley once provided an ample water supply for Native Americans, ranchers and later a small railroad city. However, population growth has increased demands far beyond local supplies. The area now depends on the Colorado River for the majority of its water supply. Natural climate variability with periodic droughts has further challenged water providers; projected climate changes and further population growth will exacerbate these challenges. Las Vegas is selected as a case study due to the combined challenges of population growth and climate change, common in the arid west, and due its cooperative institutional response to these challenges, unprecedented in the arid west. To begin to disentangle this question we have analyzed the institutional arrangements and rules which govern water decision making in the Las Vegas Valley and evaluated the existing DSPM used by the SNWA and partner utilities. Presented here are the preliminary results from an ongoing project.

Species-free species distribution models describe macroecological properties of protected area networks.

PubMed

Robinson, Jason L; Fordyce, James A

2017-01-01

Among the greatest challenges facing the conservation of plants and animal species in protected areas are threats from a rapidly changing climate. An altered climate creates both challenges and opportunities for improving the management of protected areas in networks. Increasingly, quantitative tools like species distribution modeling are used to assess the performance of protected areas and predict potential responses to changing climates for groups of species, within a predictive framework. At larger geographic domains and scales, protected area network units have spatial geoclimatic properties that can be described in the gap analysis typically used to measure or aggregate the geographic distributions of species (stacked species distribution models, or S-SDM). We extend the use of species distribution modeling techniques in order to model the climate envelope (or "footprint") of individual protected areas within a network of protected areas distributed across the 48 conterminous United States and managed by the US National Park System. In our approach we treat each protected area as the geographic range of a hypothetical endemic species, then use MaxEnt and 5 uncorrelated BioClim variables to model the geographic distribution of the climatic envelope associated with each protected area unit (modeling the geographic area of park units as the range of a species). We describe the individual and aggregated climate envelopes predicted by a large network of 163 protected areas and briefly illustrate how macroecological measures of geodiversity can be derived from our analysis of the landscape ecological context of protected areas. To estimate trajectories of change in the temporal distribution of climatic features within a protected area network, we projected the climate envelopes of protected areas in current conditions onto a dataset of predicted future climatic conditions. Our results suggest that the climate envelopes of some parks may be locally unique or have narrow geographic distributions, and are thus prone to future shifts away from the climatic conditions in these parks in current climates. In other cases, some parks are broadly similar to large geographic regions surrounding the park or have climatic envelopes that may persist into near-term climate change. Larger parks predict larger climatic envelopes, in current conditions, but on average the predicted area of climate envelopes are smaller in our single future conditions scenario. Individual units in a protected area network may vary in the potential for climate adaptation, and adaptive management strategies for the network should account for the landscape contexts of the geodiversity or climate diversity within individual units. Conservation strategies, including maintaining connectivity, assessing the feasibility of assisted migration and other landscape restoration or enhancements can be optimized using analysis methods to assess the spatial properties of protected area networks in biogeographic and macroecological contexts.

Integrated modeling for assessment of energy-water system resilience under changing climate

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Yan, E.; Veselka, T.; Zhou, Z.; Koritarov, V.; Mahalik, M.; Qiu, F.; Mahat, V.; Betrie, G.; Clark, C.

2016-12-01

Energy and water systems are intrinsically interconnected. Due to an increase in climate variability and extreme weather events, interdependency between these two systems has been recently intensified resulting significant impacts on both systems and energy output. To address this challenge, an Integrated Water-Energy Systems Assessment Framework (IWESAF) is being developed to integrate multiple existing or developed models from various sectors. The IWESAF currently includes an extreme climate event generator to predict future extreme weather events, hydrologic and reservoir models, riverine temperature model, power plant water use simulator, and power grid operation and cost optimization model. The IWESAF can facilitate the interaction among the modeling systems and provide insights of the sustainability and resilience of the energy-water system under extreme climate events and economic consequence. The regional case demonstration in the Midwest region will be presented. The detailed information on some of individual modeling components will also be presented in several other abstracts submitted to AGU this year.

Facilitating a stakeholder-led approach to the development of Mediterranean climate services: co-ordinating the CLIM-RUN case studies

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Goodess, C. M.

2012-04-01

The CLIM-RUN case studies provide a real-world context for bringing together experts on the demand and supply side of climate services. They are essential to the CLIM-RUN objective of using iterative and bottom-up (i.e., stakeholder led) approaches for optimizing the two-way information transfer between climate experts and stakeholders. The region of interest for CLIM-RUN is the Mediterranean, which is a recognised climate change hotspot (i.e., a region particularly sensitive and vulnerable to global warming) and which does not currently have developed climate service networks such as exist in a number of Central and Northern European countries. The case studies focus on the energy and tourism sectors, but also include a cross-cutting study on wild fires (an issue of increasing concern in the Mediterranean) as well as a cross-sectorial integrated case study for the Venice lagoon. They span coastal (e.g., Tunisia and Croatia), island (e.g., Cyprus) and mountain (e.g., Savoie) environments, the eastern (e.g., Greece) to western (e.g., Spain, Morocco) Mediterranean regions, and regional to local foci. Stakeholder involvement has been critical from the start of the project in March 2011, with a series of targeted workshops helping to define the framework for each case study. Two specific workshop objectives were to (i) better understand who are the climate services stakeholders and (ii) what they need/want from climate services (both in terms of data products and broader knowledge). Many of the workshops were held in local languages to maximise stakeholder participation, with expert knowledge provided by the CLIM-RUN climate and stakeholder expert teams (the CET and SET). Following the workshops, CET members are 'translating' the user needs into specific requirements from climate observations and models and identifying areas where additional modelling and analysis are required. As part of the central co-ordination of the case studies, a perception and data needs questionnaire was produced to solicit information about stakeholder institutions and organisations, risk perception and current use of climate/weather information, perspectives on climate services, data requirements and handling uncertainties. The questionnaire was designed to be used in a very flexible way, adapted to individual case studies. It has been circulated via email, during and after workshops, made available in on-line form and has also provided the basis for structured interviews with stakeholders. From the preliminary CLIM-RUN work, it is evident that the different sectorial requirements and contexts, including differences in stakeholder expertise and perspectives and the importance of non-climatic considerations in decision making, support the tailored, bottom-up approach adopted. For instance, the energy sector is more keen to use detailed present-day climate information, while tourist stakeholders, although less constrained by climate issues, prefer seasonal timescale information. At the same time, these differences provide a challenge in terms of developing common methodologies and identifying priorities for the provision of climate services. Other challenges relate to the differences in stakeholder engagement across the case studies.

Climate change: challenges and opportunities for global health.

PubMed

Patz, Jonathan A; Frumkin, Howard; Holloway, Tracey; Vimont, Daniel J; Haines, Andrew

2014-10-15

Health is inextricably linked to climate change. It is important for clinicians to understand this relationship in order to discuss associated health risks with their patients and to inform public policy. To provide new US-based temperature projections from downscaled climate modeling and to review recent studies on health risks related to climate change and the cobenefits of efforts to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions. We searched PubMed and Google Scholar from 2009 to 2014 for articles related to climate change and health, focused on governmental reports, predictive models, and empirical epidemiological studies. Of the more than 250 abstracts reviewed, 56 articles were selected. In addition, we analyzed climate data averaged over 13 climate models and based future projections on downscaled probability distributions of the daily maximum temperature for 2046-2065. We also compared maximum daily 8-hour average ozone with air temperature data taken from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, National Climate Data Center. By 2050, many US cities may experience more frequent extreme heat days. For example, New York and Milwaukee may have 3 times their current average number of days hotter than 32°C (90°F). High temperatures are also strongly associated with ozone exceedance days, for example, in Chicago, Illinois. The adverse health aspects related to climate change may include heat-related disorders, such as heat stress and economic consequences of reduced work capacity; respiratory disorders, including those exacerbated by air pollution and aeroallergens, such as asthma; infectious diseases, including vectorborne diseases and waterborne diseases, such as childhood gastrointestinal diseases; food insecurity, including reduced crop yields and an increase in plant diseases; and mental health disorders, such as posttraumatic stress disorder and depression, that are associated with natural disasters. Substantial health and economic cobenefits could be associated with reductions in fossil fuel combustion. For example, greenhouse gas emission policies may yield net economic benefit, with health benefits from air quality improvements potentially offsetting the cost of US and international carbon policies. Evidence over the past 20 years indicates that climate change can be associated with adverse health outcomes. Health care professionals have an important role in understanding and communicating the related potential health concerns and the cobenefits from policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Development of an Empirically-Based Conditional Learning Progression for Climate Change

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Breslyn, Wayne; Drewes, Andrea; McGinnis, J. Randy; Hestness, Emily; Mouza, Chrystalla

2017-01-01

Climate change encompasses a broad and complex set of concepts that is often challenging for students and educators. Using a learning progressions (LPs) knowledge system, we developed a LP that described student learning of climate change. In this exploratory study, we present findings from written assessments of climate change (n = 294) and…

Quick Guide on Making School Climate Improvements. School Climate Improvement Resource Package

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

National Center on Safe Supportive Learning Environments, 2016

2016-01-01

Students learn best when they are in environments in which they feel safe, supported, challenged, and accepted. In addition, environments that have strong school climates foster the social, emotional, and academic well-being of all students. Research shows that when schools and districts effectively focus on improving school climate, students are…

Climate Project Screening Tool

Treesearch

Forest Service U.S. Department of Agriculture

2011-01-01

Climate change poses a challenge for resource managers as they review current management practices. Adaptation is a critical means of addressing climate change in the near future because, due to inherent time lags in climate impacts, the effects of increased atmospheric greenhouse gases will be felt for decades even if effective mitigation begins now. To address the...

Climate change, ecosystem impacts, and management for Pacific salmon

Treesearch

D.E. Schindler; X. Augerot; E. Fleishman; N.J. Mantua; B. Riddell; M. Ruckelshaus; J. Seeb; M. Webster

2008-01-01

As climate change intensifies, there is increasing interest in developing models that reduce uncertainties in projections of global climate and refine these projections to finer spatial scales. Forecasts of climate impacts on ecosystems are far more challenging and their uncertainties even larger because of a limited understanding of physical controls on biological...

Expanding the Foundation: Climate Change and Opportunities for Educational Research

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Henderson, Joseph; Long, David; Berger, Paul; Russell, Constance; Drewes, Andrea

2017-01-01

Human-caused climate change is a dominant global challenge. Unlike other disciplines and fields, there has as yet been only limited attention to climate change in educational research generally, and in educational foundations in particular. Education is key to assisting humanity in mitigating and adapting to climate change, and educational…

Climate Cases: Learning about Student Conceptualizations of Global Climate Change

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Tierney, Benjamin P.

2013-01-01

The complex topic of global climate change continues to be a challenging yet important topic among science educators and researchers. This mixed methods study adds to the growing research by investigating student conceptions of climate change from a system theory perspective (Von Bertalanffy, 1968) by asking the question, "How do differences…

Climate Change and the Canadian Higher Education System: An Institutional Policy Analysis

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Henderson, Joseph; Bieler, Andrew; McKenzie, Marcia

2017-01-01

Climate change is a pressing concern. Higher education can address the challenge, but systematic analyses of climate change in education policy are sparse. This paper addresses this gap in the literature by reporting on how Canadian postsecondary educational institutions have engaged with climate change through policy actions. We used descriptive…

Undergraduate Climate Education: Motivations, Strategies, Successes, and Support

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kirk, Karin B.; Gold, Anne U.; Ledley, Tamara Shapiro; Sullivan, Susan Buhr; Manduca, Cathryn A.; Mogk, David W.; Wiese, Katryn

2014-01-01

Climate literacy is an essential component of a strategy to comprehend and confront the grand challenge of global climate change. However, scientific complexity, societal implications, and political associations make climate change a difficult but important topic to teach. In this paper we report on the results of a survey of undergraduate faculty…

Climate change and regional human pressures as challenges for management in oceanic islands, South Atlantic.

PubMed

Soares, Marcelo de Oliveira

2018-06-01

This study aimed to determine the main anthropogenic pressures and the effectiveness of management practices in marine protected areas (MPAs) (Rocas Atoll and Fernando de Noronha Archipelago, South Atlantic). The MPAs exhibited high management effectiveness over the last 25 years due to the control of local pressures (i.e., fishing and tourism). However, the increase in regional and global pressures, such as invasive species, marine debris, and climate change stressors (sea-level rise, extreme events, range shifts of species, warming, and ocean acidification), are environmental risks that need to be considered during conservation. Strategies for large scale marine spatial planning, as well as proposals for an integrated management of MPAs (including coral reef islands and seamounts) by the articulation of a network, which reduces regional human pressures and improves ocean governance were discussed. This study provided insights into the challenges faced in the management of MPAs in a rapidly changing ocean. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Risks, Health Consequences, and Response Challenges for Small-Island-Based Populations: Observations From the 2017 Atlantic Hurricane Season.

PubMed

Shultz, James M; Kossin, James P; Shepherd, J Marshall; Ransdell, Justine M; Walshe, Rory; Kelman, Ilan; Galea, Sandro

2018-04-06

ABSTRACTThe intensely active 2017 Atlantic basin hurricane season provided an opportunity to examine how climate drivers, including warming oceans and rising seas, exacerbated tropical cyclone hazards. The season also highlighted the unique vulnerabilities of populations residing on Small Island Developing States (SIDS) to the catastrophic potential of these storms. During 2017, 22 of the 29 Caribbean SIDS were affected by at least one named storm, and multiple SIDS experienced extreme damage. This paper aims to review the multiplicity of storm impacts on Caribbean SIDS throughout the 2017 season, to explicate the influences of climate drivers on storm formation and intensity, to explore the propensity of SIDS to sustain severe damage and prolonged disruption of essential services, to document the spectrum of public health consequences, and to delineate the daunting hurdles that challenged emergency response and recovery operations for island-based, disaster-affected populations. (Disaster Med Public Health Preparedness. 2018;page 1 of 13).

Species data: National inventory of range maps and distribution models

USGS Publications Warehouse

Gergely, Kevin J.; McKerrow, Alexa

2013-01-01

The Gap Analysis Program (GAP) produces data and tools that help meet critical national challenges such as biodiversity conservation, renewable energy development, climate change adaptation, and infrastructure investment. The GAP species data includes vertebrate range maps and distribution models for the continental United States, as well as Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and U.S. Virgin Islands. The vertebrate species include amphibians, birds, mammals, and reptiles. Furthermore, data used to create the distribution models (for example, percent canopy cover, elevation, and so forth) also are available.

Ecosystems Vulnerability Challenge and Prize Competition

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Smith, J. H.; Frame, M. T.; Ferriter, O.; Recker, J.

2014-12-01

Stimulating innovation and private sector entrepreneurship is an important way to advance the preparedness of communities, businesses and individuals for the impacts of climate change on certain aspects of ecosystems, such as: fire regimes; water availability; carbon sequestration; biodiversity conservation; weather-related hazards, and the spread of invasive species. The creation of tools is critical to help communities and natural resource managers better understand the impacts of climate change on ecosystems and the potential resulting implications for ecosystem services and conservation efforts. The Department of the Interior is leading an interagency effort to develop the Ecosystems Vulnerability theme as part of the President's Climate Action Plan. This effort will provide seamless access to relevant datasets that can help address such issues as: risk of wildfires to local communities and federal lands; water sensitivity to climate change; and understanding the role of ecosystems in a changing climate. This session will provide an overview of the proposed Ecosystem Vulnerability Challenge and Prize Competition, outlining the intended audience, scope, goals, and overall timeline. The session will provide an opportunity for participants to offer new ideas. Through the Challenge, access will be made available to critical datasets for software developers, engineers, scientists, students, and researchers to develop and submit applications addressing critical science issues facing our Nation today. Application submission criteria and guidelines will also be discussed. The Challenge will be open to all sectors and organizations (i.e. federal, non-federal, private sector, non-profits, and universities) within the United States. It is anticipated the Challenge will run from early January 2015 until spring of 2015.

Development of risk-based air quality management strategies under impacts of climate change.

PubMed

Liao, Kuo-Jen; Amar, Praveen; Tagaris, Efthimios; Russell, Armistead G

2012-05-01

Climate change is forecast to adversely affect air quality through perturbations in meteorological conditions, photochemical reactions, and precursor emissions. To protect the environment and human health from air pollution, there is an increasing recognition of the necessity of developing effective air quality management strategies under the impacts of climate change. This paper presents a framework for developing risk-based air quality management strategies that can help policy makers improve their decision-making processes in response to current and future climate change about 30-50 years from now. Development of air quality management strategies under the impacts of climate change is fundamentally a risk assessment and risk management process involving four steps: (1) assessment of the impacts of climate change and associated uncertainties; (2) determination of air quality targets; (3) selections of potential air quality management options; and (4) identification of preferred air quality management strategies that minimize control costs, maximize benefits, or limit the adverse effects of climate change on air quality when considering the scarcity of resources. The main challenge relates to the level of uncertainties associated with climate change forecasts and advancements in future control measures, since they will significantly affect the risk assessment results and development of effective air quality management plans. The concept presented in this paper can help decision makers make appropriate responses to climate change, since it provides an integrated approach for climate risk assessment and management when developing air quality management strategies. Development of climate-responsive air quality management strategies is fundamentally a risk assessment and risk management process. The risk assessment process includes quantification of climate change impacts on air quality and associated uncertainties. Risk management for air quality under the impacts of climate change includes determination of air quality targets, selections of potential management options, and identification of effective air quality management strategies through decision-making models. The risk-based decision-making framework can also be applied to develop climate-responsive management strategies for the other environmental dimensions and assess costs and benefits of future environmental management policies.