Physical Climate Risks and the Financial Sector—Synthesis of Investors’ Climate Information Needs

2020 ◽  
pp. 135-156
Author(s):  
Karianne de Bruin ◽  
Romain Hubert ◽  
Julie Evain ◽  
Christa Clapp ◽  
Miriam Stackpole Dahl ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Information Needs ◽  
Financial Sector ◽  
Climate Information ◽  
Climate Risks

scholarly journals Assessing the quality of regional climate information

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-38
Author(s):  
Marina Baldissera Pacchetti ◽  
Suraje Dessai ◽  
Seamus Bradley ◽  
David A. Stainforth
Keyword(s):  
Information Needs ◽  
Regional Climate ◽  
Climate Information

CapsuleA framework for the assessment of quality in regional climate information needs to include dimensions such as: Diversity, Completeness, Theory, Adequacy for purpose, and Transparency.

Understanding the Climate-Sensitive Decisions and Information Needs of Freshwater Resource Managers in Hawaii

2013 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 293-308 ◽  
Author(s):  
Melissa L. Finucane ◽  
Rachel Miller ◽  
L. Kati Corlew ◽  
Victoria W. Keener ◽  
Maxine Burkett ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Information Needs ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Uncertain Information ◽  
Climate Information ◽  
Freshwater Resources ◽  
Freshwater Resource ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Climate Literacy

Abstract Understanding how climate science can be useful in decisions about the management of freshwater resources requires knowledge of decision makers, their climate-sensitive decisions, and the context in which the decisions are being made. A mixed-methods study found that people managing freshwater resources in Hawaii are highly educated and experienced in diverse professions, they perceive climate change as posing a worrisome risk, and they would like to be better informed about how to adapt to climate change. Decision makers with higher climate literacy seem to be more comfortable dealing with uncertain information. Those with lower climate literacy seem to be more trusting of climate information from familiar sources. Freshwater managers in Hawaii make a wide range of climate-sensitive decisions. These decisions can be characterized on several key dimensions including purpose (optimization and evaluation), time horizon (short term and long term), level of information uncertainty (known, uncertain, deeply uncertain, and completely unknown), and information type (quantitative and qualitative). The climate information most relevant to decision makers includes vulnerability assessments incorporating long-term projections about temperature, rainfall distribution, storms, sea level rise, and streamflow changes at an island or statewide scale. The main barriers to using available climate information include insufficient staff time to locate the information and the lack of a clear legal mandate to use the information. Overall, the results suggest that an integrated and systematic approach is needed to determine where and when uncertain climate information is useful and how a larger set of organizational and individual variables affect decision making.

scholarly journals Climatology in support of climate risk management

2015 ◽  
Vol 39 (4) ◽  
pp. 536-553 ◽  
Author(s):  
Glenn McGregor
Keyword(s):  
Risk Management ◽  
Climate Science ◽  
Climate Risk ◽  
Science Literature ◽  
Climate Information ◽  
Climate Data ◽  
Climate Risks ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Climate Risk Management ◽  
Climate Events

Climate risk management has emerged over the last decade as a distinct area of activity within the wider field of climatology. Its focus is on integrating climate and non-climate information in order to enhance the decision-making process in a wide range of climate-sensitive sectors of society, the economy and the environment. Given the burgeoning pure and applied climate science literature that addresses a range of climate risks, the purpose of this progress report is to provide an overview of recent developments in the field of climatology that may contribute to the risk assessment component of climate risk management. Data rescue and climate database construction, hurricanes and droughts as examples of extreme climate events and seasonal climate forecasting are focused on in this report and are privileged over other topics because of either their fundamental importance for establishing event probability or scale of societal impact. The review of the literature finds that historical data rescue, climate reconstruction and the compilation of climate data bases has assisted immensely in understanding past climate events and increasing the information base for managing climate risk. Advances in the scientific understanding of the causes and the characterization of hurricanes and droughts stand to benefit the management of these two extreme events while work focused on unravelling the nature of ocean–atmosphere interactions and associated climate anomalies at the seasonal timescale has provided the basis for the possible seasonal forecasting of a range of climate events. The report also acknowledges that despite the potential of climate information to assist with managing climate risk, its uptake by decision makers should not be automatically assumed by the climatological community.

Assessment of climate information needs in the Argentinean Agro-business sector

2009 ◽  
Vol 98 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 551-563 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jean-Philippe Boulanger ◽  
Olga Penalba
Keyword(s):  
Information Needs ◽  
Business Sector ◽  
Climate Information

scholarly journals Integrating Climate Risks into Strategic Urban Planning in Lusaka, Zambia

2021 ◽  
pp. 115-129
Author(s):  
Anna Taylor ◽  
Gilbert Siame ◽  
Brenda Mwalukanga
Keyword(s):  
Urban Planning ◽  
Strategic Planning ◽  
Planning Process ◽  
City Council ◽  
Climate Information ◽  
City Governments ◽  
Legal Policy ◽  
Strategic Planning Process ◽  
Climate Risks ◽  
Related Information

AbstractThis chapter explores opportunities provided by strategic urban planning to mainstream climate risk considerations into the development decisions of city governments. It does so by describing the ways in which the climate-related information co-produced within the Future Resilience of African Cities and Lands (FRACTAL) project was integrated into the preparation of the Lusaka City Council Strategic Plan 2017–21. The chapter concludes by presenting four lessons emerging from the efforts at integrating climate information into the strategic planning process in Lusaka, Zambia: Lesson (1) Trust and relationships are key to sharing data and information needed to build a compelling case for managing climate risks; Lesson (2) Enable a variety of stakeholders to engage with climate information; Lesson (3) There needs to be an enabling legal, policy and financing framework; Lesson (4) Prepare to meet resistance; skilled intermediaries and city exchange visits help.

scholarly journals Delivering Climate Services: Organizational Strategies and Approaches for Producing Useful Climate-Science Information

2012 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 14-26 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth C. McNie
Keyword(s):  
Time Management ◽  
Information Needs ◽  
Social Process ◽  
Basic Research ◽  
Climate Science ◽  
Climate Information ◽  
Organizational Strategies ◽  
Climate Services ◽  
Missed Opportunities ◽  
Science Information

Abstract Despite numerous and widespread calls for more “useful” climate-science information to inform policy, most climate science is still produced in a way that is consistent with the “linear model” of research that favors pure basic research over other approaches, resulting in missed opportunities to link useful climate science with decision makers. To improve the ability to adapt to a changing climate, it is necessary to improve the linkages between the production and supply of climate-science information with users’ needs to ensure that the climate science is contextual, credible, trusted, and understood by the users. This paper reports on research that evaluated how three Regional Integrated Sciences and Assessments (RISA) programs produced useful climate information for improved decision support in a variety of sectors. Research indicates that these organizations utilized several processes and approaches to produce useful climate information, including identifying users’ information needs; translating, communicating, and sharing knowledge; producing and situating social capital; building capacity in the user community to understand and utilize the climate-science information; and maintaining a flexible and nimble organization guided by strong leadership. The process of linking the production and supply of climate-science information with users’ demands is a complex, highly contextual social process that requires ample resources and time management, research agendas that are “end to end” and can respond to changing contexts, and organizational commitment to support “use-inspired” research. Additional research is needed to improve evaluation methods and metrics used to assess climate-service organizations.

scholarly journals Climate information needs of Gascoyne - Murchison pastoralists: a representative study of the Western Australian grazing industry

2005 ◽  
Vol 45 (12) ◽  
pp. 1613 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. U. Keogh ◽  
I. W. Watson ◽  
K. L. Bell ◽  
D. H. Cobon ◽  
S. C. Dutta
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Lead Time ◽  
Information Needs ◽  
Lead Times ◽  
Climate Information ◽  
Test Question ◽  
Research Project ◽  
Climate Research ◽  
Climate Forecasting ◽  
Climate Forecasts

The Gascoyne–Murchison region of Western Australia experiences an arid to semi-arid climate with a highly variable temporal and spatial rainfall distribution. The region has around 39.2 million hectares available for pastoral lease and supports predominantly cattle and sheep grazing leases. In recent years a number of climate forecasting systems have been available offering rainfall probabilities with different lead times and forecast periods; however, the extent to which these systems are capable of fulfilling the requirements of the local pastoralists is still ambiguous. Issues can range from ensuring forecasts are issued with sufficient lead time to enable key planning or decisions to be revoked or altered, to ensuring forecast language is simple and clear, to negate possible misunderstandings in interpretation. A climate research project sought to provide an objective method to determine which available forecasting systems had the greatest forecasting skill at times of the year relevant to local property management. To aid this climate research project, the study reported here was undertaken with an overall objective of exploring local pastoralists’ climate information needs. We also explored how well they understand common climate forecast terms such as ‘mean’, ‘median’ and ‘probability’, and how they interpret and apply forecast information to decisions. A stratified, proportional random sampling was used for the purpose of deriving the representative sample based on rainfall-enterprise combinations. In order to provide more time for decision-making than existing operational forecasts that are issued with zero lead time, pastoralists requested that forecasts be issued for May–July and January–March with lead times counting down from 4 to 0 months. We found forecasts of between 20 and 50 mm break-of-season or follow-up rainfall were likely to influence decisions. Eighty percent of pastoralists demonstrated in a test question that they had a poor technical understanding of how to interpret the standard wording of a probabilistic median rainfall forecast. This is worthy of further research to investigate whether inappropriate management decisions are being made because the forecasts are being misunderstood. We found more than half the respondents regularly access and use weather and climate forecasts or outlook information from a range of sources and almost three-quarters considered climate information or tools useful, with preferred methods for accessing this information by email, faxback service, internet and the Department of Agriculture Western Australia’s Pastoral Memo. Despite differences in enterprise types and rainfall seasonality across the region we found seasonal climate forecasting needs were relatively consistent. It became clear that providing basic training and working with pastoralists to help them understand regional climatic drivers, climate terminology and jargon, and the best ways to apply the forecasts to enhance decision-making are important to improve their use of information. Consideration could also be given to engaging a range of producers to write the climate forecasts themselves in the language they use and understand, in consultation with the scientists who prepare the forecasts.

scholarly journals Transforming Access to and Use of Climate Information Products Derived from Remote Sensing and In Situ Observations

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (22) ◽  
pp. 4721
Author(s):  
Gloriose Nsengiyumva ◽  
Tufa Dinku ◽  
Remi Cousin ◽  
Igor Khomyakov ◽  
Audrey Vadillo ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Remote Sensing ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Information Needs ◽  
Climate Information ◽  
Climate Data ◽  
Climate Services ◽  
International Research Institute ◽  
Combining Data ◽  
Information Products ◽  
User Friendly

Making climate-sensitive economic sectors resilient to climate trends and shocks, through adaptation to climate change and managing uncertainties associated with climate extremes, will require effective use of climate information to help practitioners make climate-informed decisions. The provision of weather and climate information will depend on the availability of climate data and its presentation in formats that are useful for decision making at different levels. However, in many places around the world, including most African countries, the collection of climate data has been seriously inadequate, and even when available, poorly accessible. On the other hand, the availability of climate data by itself may not lead to the uptake and use of such data. These data must be presented in user-friendly formats addressing specific climate information needs in order to be used for decision-making by governments, as well as the public and private sectors. The generated information should also be easily accessible. The Enhancing National Climate Services (ENACTS) initiative, led by Columbia University’s International Research Institute for Climate and Society (IRI), has been making efforts to overcome these challenges by supporting countries to improve the available climate data, as well as access to and use of climate information products at relevant spatial and temporal scales. Challenges to the availability of climate data are alleviated by combining data from the national weather observation network with remote sensing and other global proxies to generate spatially and temporally complete climate datasets. Access to climate information products is enhanced by developing an online mapping service that provides a user-friendly interface for analyzing and visualizing climate information products such as maps and graphs.

scholarly journals Understanding Women’s Needs for Weather and Climate Information in Agrarian Settings: The Case of Ngetou Maleck, Senegal

2016 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 247-264 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edward R. Carr ◽  
Grant Fleming ◽  
Tshibangu Kalala
Keyword(s):  
Information Needs ◽  
Climate Information ◽  
Climate Services ◽  
Social Differences ◽  
Weather Information ◽  
Design And Implementation ◽  
Related Development ◽  
Weather And Climate ◽  
The Village ◽  
Precipitation And Temperature

Abstract While climate services have the potential to reduce precipitation- and temperature-related risks to agrarian livelihoods, such outcomes are possible only when they deliver information that is salient, legitimate, and credible to end users. This is particularly true of climate services intended to address the needs of women in agrarian contexts. The design of such gender-sensitive services is hampered by oversimplified framings of women as a group in both the adaptation and climate services literatures. This paper demonstrates that even at the village level, women have different climate and weather information needs, and differing abilities to act on that information. Therefore, starting with preconceived connections between identities and vulnerability is likely to result in overgeneralizations that hinder the ability to address the climate-related development and adaptation needs of the most vulnerable. Instead, as is demonstrated in this paper, the design and implementation of effective gender-sensitive climate services must start with the relevant social differences that shape people’s livelihoods decisions and outcomes, including but not limited to gender.

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