Lessons Learned from IPCC’s Underestimation of Climate Change Impacts About the Need for a Precautionary Climate Change Science

The intersectoral workshop held in December 2016 among the Ibero-American networks on water (CODIA), climate change (RIOCC) and meteorology (CIMHET) identified the need to dispose of downscaled climate change scenarios for Central America. Such scenarios would be developed by National Meteorological and Hydrological Services (NMHS) in the region, based on a common methodology, allowing the assessment of climate change impacts on water resources and extreme hydro-meteorological events.One final outcome of the project has been a freely accessible web viewer, installed on the Centro Clima webpage (https://centroclima.org/escenarios-cambio-climatico/), managed by CRRH-SICA, where all information generated during the project is available for consultation and data downloading by the different sectors of users.A key element in this project has been to integrate many downscaled projections based on different methods (dynamical and statistical), totalizing 45 different projections, and aiming at estimating the uncertainty coming from different sources in the best possible way.Another essential element has been the strong involvement of the different user sectors through national workshops, first, at the beginning of the project for the identification and definition of viewer features the project, and then for the presentation of results and planning of its use by prioritized sectors.In a second phase of the project, a regional working group made up of experts from the NMHSs will be in charge of viewer maintenance and upgrade, including new sectoral parameters, developed in collaboration with interested users, and computation and addition of new downscaled projections from CMIP 6 in collaboration with AEMET.Finally, following the request of CIMHET, the possibility of replicating this project for other areas of Ibero-America is being evaluated.

Using Satellites to Track Indicators of Global Air Pollution and Climate Change Impacts: Lessons Learned From a NASA‐Supported Science‐Stakeholder Collaborative

GeoHealth ◽

10.1029/2020gh000270 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 4 (7) ◽

Author(s):

Susan C. Anenberg ◽

Matilyn Bindl ◽

Michael Brauer ◽

Juan J. Castillo ◽

Sandra Cavalieri ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Air Pollution ◽

Climate Change Impacts ◽

Lessons Learned

Communicating climate change in a “post-factual” society: lessons learned from the Pole to Paris campaign

Geoscience Communication ◽

10.5194/gc-2-83-2019 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 2 (1) ◽

pp. 83-93

Author(s):

Erlend M. Knudsen ◽

Oria J. de Bolsée

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Social Media ◽

Science Communication ◽

Lessons Learned ◽

Polar Regions ◽

Awareness Campaign ◽

Climate Change Science ◽

Climate Action ◽

The Impact

Abstract. The politicization of and societal debate on climate change science have increased over the last decades. Here, the authors argue that the role of climate scientists in our society needs to adapt in accordance with this development. We share our experiences from the awareness campaign Pole to Paris, which engaged non-academic audiences on climate change issues on the roads from the polar regions to Paris and through conventional and social media. By running and cycling across a third of the globe, the scientists behind the initiative established connections on the audiences' terms. Propitiously for other outreach efforts, the exertions were not in themselves the most attractive; among our social media followers, the messages of climate change science and action were more favourable, as measured by video statistics and a follower survey. Communicating climate action in itself challenges our positions as scientists, and here we discuss the impact such messages have on our credibility as researchers. Based on these reflections, as well as those from other science communication initiatives, we suggest a way forward for climate scientists in the post-factual society, who should be better trained in interaction with non-academic audiences and pseudoscepticism.

Climate change impacts and adaptations: lessons learned from the greater Zambeze River Valley and beyond

Climatic Change ◽

10.1007/s10584-015-1401-7 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 130 (1) ◽

pp. 1-8

Author(s):

Channing Arndt ◽

Finn Tarp

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Climate Change Impacts ◽

River Valley ◽

Lessons Learned

From marine climate change impacts to marine legislation: lessons from the science-policy interface

10.7287/peerj.preprints.26528 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Matthew Frost ◽

John Baxter ◽

Paul Buckley ◽

Stephen Dye ◽

Bethany Stoker

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Science Policy ◽

Climate Change Impacts ◽

Lessons Learned ◽

The Body ◽

Scientific Integrity ◽

Marine Biodiversity ◽

Science Policy Interface ◽

The Impact ◽

Marine Climate

In recent decades, the body of evidence on climate change including that for marine impacts has grown rapidly leading to a number of challenges, including the need to collate and summarise a large volume of information and to be able to analyse and interpret complex messages for a wide variety of stakeholders from scientists to policy-makers and the wider public. The Marine Climate Change Impacts Partnership (MCCIP) has been functioning at the science-policy interface for over ten years collating, assessing and interpreting information on marine climate change impacts. This experience, and the fact that the MCCIP model is being more widely adopted nationally and globally, provides an opportunity to look at lessons learned in working in the science-policy interface with a focus on the Scientific Integrity and Independence Risk Management Scheme (SIIRMS). This scheme was developed by MCCIP as a framework for providing climate information and advice to policy and decision-makers. Examples are provided of the impact of MCCIP on policy and the development of marine legislation along with other examples of how marine biodiversity information being utilized for policy needs.

Managing groundwater levels in the face of uncertainty and change: a case study from Gnangara

Water Science & Technology Water Supply ◽

10.2166/ws.2011.137 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 12 (3) ◽

pp. 321-328 ◽

Cited By ~ 10

Author(s):

Don McFarlane ◽

Melanie Strawbridge ◽

Roy Stone ◽

Andrew Paton

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Climate Adaptation ◽

Sand Dunes ◽

Climate Change Impacts ◽

Unconfined Aquifer ◽

Current Approach ◽

Lessons Learned ◽

Groundwater Abstraction ◽

Groundwater Levels ◽

Land Water

The Gnangara Groundwater System meets about 50% of all water needs for the Perth–Peel region of Western Australia (population 1.7 million). Much of the water is contained in an unconfined aquifer which occurs in coastal sand dunes and supports ecologically-important throughflow wetlands. The system has been subject to significant climate change since about 1975, although the persistent and unidirectional nature of the change was not recognised for some time. As well as climate, groundwater levels are affected by land use (e.g. plantation forestry, urbanisation) and land management (e.g. how plantations and stormwater are managed) as well as by the amount of groundwater abstraction from each of several inter-connected aquifers. Land, water and forests are managed by different government agencies with their own policy objectives. Maintaining groundwater levels within an agreed range of values to protect the wetlands requires informed and early adaptation by these agencies as well as a supportive community. Adaptation was hampered because there was little or no experience of managing groundwater for climate change and the causes of declining levels were neither clear nor agreed. Even when target water level decisions were agreed, their achievement required the cooperation of parties with different priorities. This paper examines some of the lessons learned from this experience and the current approach to manage the land, water and forest resources to meet multiple objectives in a system that is undergoing transitional change rather than reaching a new equilibrium. Climate change impacts have been progressive and the concept of a system that can respond in a resilient manner after a temporary perturbation is not an appropriate concept in this example. Climate adaptation involves significant social and institutional change as well as biophysical changes to make the most of a changing system.

Pathways and pitfalls in extreme event attribution

Climatic Change ◽

10.1007/s10584-021-03071-7 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 166 (1-2) ◽

Author(s):

Geert Jan van Oldenborgh ◽

Karin van der Wiel ◽

Sarah Kew ◽

Sjoukje Philip ◽

Friederike Otto ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Climate Model ◽

Extreme Event ◽

Climate Change Impacts ◽

Climate Science ◽

Companion Paper ◽

Lessons Learned ◽

Future Climate Change ◽

Practical Applications ◽

Event Attribution

AbstractThe last few years have seen an explosion of interest in extreme event attribution, the science of estimating the influence of human activities or other factors on the probability and other characteristics of an observed extreme weather or climate event. This is driven by public interest, but also has practical applications in decision-making after the event and for raising awareness of current and future climate change impacts. The World Weather Attribution (WWA) collaboration has over the last 5 years developed a methodology to answer these questions in a scientifically rigorous way in the immediate wake of the event when the information is most in demand. This methodology has been developed in the practice of investigating the role of climate change in two dozen extreme events world-wide. In this paper, we highlight the lessons learned through this experience. The methodology itself is documented in a more extensive companion paper. It covers all steps in the attribution process: the event choice and definition, collecting and assessing observations and estimating probability and trends from these, climate model evaluation, estimating modelled hazard trends and their significance, synthesis of the attribution of the hazard, assessment of trends in vulnerability and exposure, and communication. Here, we discuss how each of these steps entails choices that may affect the results, the common problems that can occur and how robust conclusions can (or cannot) be derived from the analysis. Some of these developments also apply to other attribution methodologies and indeed to other problems in climate science.

Lessons learned about the importance of raising risk awareness in the Mediterranean region (north Morocco and west Sardinia, Italy)

Natural Hazards and Earth System Science ◽

10.5194/nhess-21-3749-2021 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 21 (12) ◽

pp. 3749-3765

Author(s):

Ante Ivčević ◽

Hubert Mazurek ◽

Lionel Siame ◽

Raquel Bertoldo ◽

Vania Statzu ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Risk Management ◽

Natural Hazards ◽

Mediterranean Region ◽

Climate Change Impacts ◽

Lessons Learned ◽

Risk Indicators ◽

North Coast ◽

Risk Awareness ◽

The Mediterranean

Abstract. In order to mitigate the potentially dramatic effects of natural hazards, risk management measures are critical. However, the lack of interdisciplinary indicators and adaptable governance frameworks highlights society's vulnerability in the particular context of global environmental and climate change. This interdisciplinary research aimed at identifying reliable risk indicators and societal responses regarding natural hazards and climate change impacts to provide a governance framework for disaster risk reduction. Different societies face diverse risks and do not necessarily have the same level of local awareness of these risk. To explore the diversity of risks, two sites were selected from the Mediterranean basin, one chosen from the south coast (north Morocco) and the other from the north coast (the Italian island of Sardinia). North Morocco, a region of multi-risks, is characterised by high demographic and economic pressures; west Sardinia has remarkable biodiversity of wetlands and is characterised by high environmental and agricultural pressures, which in both cases intensify the vulnerability of the coastal areas. Testing for the local population's preparedness for future financial protection allowed for discussing the importance of risk awareness sessions or activities as an indicator of risk management. The significance of risk awareness sessions is shown in a quantitative part of the study, and its importance is also discussed with local stakeholders in north Morocco in a qualitative part of the study. It is shown that, although risk awareness sessions are recognised as important in risk management, they are not necessarily implemented. Based on these findings, further ideas on a new series of less descriptive, more dynamic and more user-friendly indicators are suggested. How can risk sessions be a dynamic indicator of a resilient society? The obtained results could serve in future governance frameworks for the mitigation of natural hazards in the Mediterranean region and more widely. Finally, the urgent need for continuous work to overcome the communication gap between the scientific community, risk administrators, civil society and the general population is emphasised.

Physical processes mediating climate change impacts on regional sea ecosystems

Biogeosciences Discussions ◽

10.5194/bgd-11-1909-2014 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 11 (2) ◽

pp. 1909-1975 ◽

Cited By ~ 8

Author(s):

J. Holt ◽

C. Schrum ◽

H. Cannaby ◽

U. Daewel ◽

I. Allen ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Primary Production ◽

Barents Sea ◽

Climate Change Impacts ◽

Open Ocean ◽

Lessons Learned ◽

Global Ocean ◽

Physical Processes ◽

First Order ◽

Wide Range

Abstract. Regional seas are exceptionally vulnerable to climate change, yet are the most directly societally important regions of the marine environment. The combination of widely varying conditions of mixing, forcing, geography (coastline and bathymetry) and exposure to the open-ocean makes these seas subject to a wide range of physical processes that mediates how large scale climate change impacts on these seas' ecosystems. In this paper we explore these physical processes and their biophysical interactions, and the effects of atmospheric, oceanic and terrestrial change on them. Our aim is to elucidate the controlling dynamical processes and how these vary between and within regional seas. We focus on primary production and consider the potential climatic impacts: on long term changes in elemental budgets, on seasonal and mesoscale processes that control phytoplankton's exposure to light and nutrients, and briefly on direct temperature response. We draw examples from the MEECE FP7 project and five regional models systems using ECOSMO, POLCOMS-ERSEM and BIMS_ECO. These cover the Barents Sea, Black Sea, Baltic Sea, North Sea, Celtic Seas, and a region of the Northeast Atlantic, using a common global ocean-atmosphere model as forcing. We consider a common analysis approach, and a more detailed analysis of the POLCOMS-ERSEM model. Comparing projections for the end of the 21st century with mean present day conditions, these simulations generally show an increase in seasonal and permanent stratification (where present). However, the first order (low- and mid-latitude) effect in the open ocean projections of increased permanent stratification leading to reduced nutrient levels, and so to reduced primary production, is largely absent, except in the NE Atlantic. Instead, results show a highly heterogeneous picture of positive and negative change arising from the varying mixing and circulation conditions. Even in the two highly stratified, deep water seas (Black and Baltic Seas) the increase in stratification is not seen as a first order control on primary production. The approaches to downscaled experiment design and lessons learned from the MEECE project are also discussed.

The The Level of Climate Change Science Literacy among Teachers in Seychelles

Asian Journal of Interdisciplinary Research ◽

10.34256/ajir1921 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 2 (2) ◽

pp. 1-13

Author(s):

Raymond Ndubisi Anyanwu

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Public Schools ◽

Science Literacy ◽

Climate Change Impacts ◽

Educational Interventions ◽

Response Strategy ◽

Smooth Transition ◽

Cross Sectional Survey ◽

Cross Sectional ◽

Climate Change Science

Climate change poses a serious threat to the ocean on which the Seychelles economy depends for resources and services. To address this concern, the Seychelles National Climate Change Response Strategy recommends education about climate change in all levels of the education system to nurture young people with the capacity to address climate change impacts. This quantitative, descriptive, cross-sectional survey measures the level of climate change science literacy among teachers in Seychelles on a five-point summated scale (Extremely Low, Low, Medium, High, and Extremely High). Data was collected with a 15-item Climate Change Science Literacy Questionnaire (CCSLQ) from 572 participants representing 42.62% of the population of teachers in public schools at the time of the survey. Ethical considerations relating to access, informed consent, anonymity, and confidentiality were fulfilled. Collected data was analysed statistically with descriptive techniques (percentage, means, standard error of measurement and confidence interval) and inferential technique with the Fisher’s Exact Chi-Square test. Statistical operation was performed with the Statistical Package for the Social Science (SPSS). Results indicate that the majority of the participants (37.4%, n=214) have medium literacy regarding climate change science with misconceptions on all three domains of climate change science: causes, impacts, and solutions. Educational interventions to enhance teachers’ knowledge and understanding of climate change are recommended; otherwise the teachers will transfer inaccurate concepts to the learners. Without young Seychellois with the capacity to take action on climate change, it may be wearisome for Seychelles to achieve a smooth transition to a blue economy.