scholarly journals What climate change means for farmers in Africa: A triptych review Middle panel: Introductional matters and consequences of global warming for African farmers

2014 ◽  
Vol 14 (61) ◽  
pp. 8428-8444
Author(s):  
CJ Stigter ◽  
◽  
E Ofori ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Global Warming ◽  
Climate Variability ◽  
Climate Change Adaptation ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
Local Conditions ◽  
Rural Change ◽  
Vulnerable Communities ◽  
Formal Level ◽  
Problem Solving Process

Climate change seriously influences the livelihoods of African farmers. It was, therefore, felt useful to make an inventory of what climate change really means for them. In this review in three parts, climate change is approached by dealing with the three sides from which the danger comes: (i) global warming, (ii) increasing climate variability, (iii) more (and possibly more severe) meteorological and climatological extreme events. These are the three panels of this triptych review. Vulnerable communities already suffer. They are, therefore, urgently in need of assistance aimed at building resilience, and at undertaking climate change adaptation efforts to survive and to maintain their livelihoods. Climate change adaptation projects - especially if implemented in the context of adaptation strategies at the macro level - often mobilize public and private stakeholders, engaging them in the problem-solving process. Scientists have an important role to play in these projects. One of the major problems in guiding rural change, in a rural response to climate change, is the low formal level of education that most farmers have and for which governments have done very little to upgrade it. Improved climate literacy is needed among farmers and a better trained extension that can guide farmers in further rainfall monitoring and rainfall interpretation. Further agro-ecosystem observations that, with the rainfall distribution, explain yields and yield differences are also needed. While it is relatively easy to define technical messages that can be communicated, one must look beyond “adaptation to current climate variability“. The basic vulnerability factors of communities must be targeted. One of the problems faced is that experts on climate variability and climate change do not really know what information the grassroots need in the short- and medium-term. However, people assisting vulnerable communities do not know what science generated products are available and how to use them. In this first part of the paper, the consequences of global warming are dealt with at length. Increasing temperatures and changing rainfall patterns get attention first. Other consequences of increasing atmospheric carbondioxide contents and how they influence agricultural production in Africa are also discussed. Ten text boxes distributed over the three parts illustrate local conditions that must be taken into account to understand the impacts/consequences of climate change for African farmers and how they may cope with them.

scholarly journals Rural Community’s Livelihood Security and Perception of Climate Variability and Change to Better Address Climate Change Adaptation -Case Study in East Central Madagascar

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (9) ◽  
pp. 634-648
Author(s):  
Bam H.R. TIANA
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Climate Variability ◽  
Climate Change Adaptation ◽  
Local Context ◽  
Climate Variability And Change ◽  
Local Conditions ◽  
Address Climate Change ◽  
East Central ◽  
Livelihood Security

Madagascar is exposed to a variety of natural hazards, including seasonal cyclones, floods and droughts that have severe impacts on the national economy, mainly dependent on agriculture. Due to these problems, the security of livelihoods is threatened and although Madagascar people had the historic ability to cope with these threats, it is of prime importance to consider climate change adaptation in a more holistic manner in the face of climate change and variability. However, for adaptation to be appropriately enacted there is a need to understand how local context and conditions are. For that, this study aims to understand livelihood security as well as rural community’s perception to climate variability and change and their impacts in order to better address climate change adaptation. The first step is to understand how local livelihoods are characterized, what local conditions are, and how they are related to occurring changes and impacts through a case study in Alaotra Region in East Central Madagascar. An analysis of livelihood resources (human, natural, social, physical and financial capital), livelihood strategies and outcomes was coupled with an investigation of communities’ perception on the climate variability and impacts on their lives and livelihoods. Findings showed that livelihoods of local communities, living mainly from agriculture and fisheries, are threatened by a degrading environment and related impacts, exacerbated by a changing climate. Households are facing climate extremes which directly affect their livelihoods, already characterized by limited assets and entitlements. Outputs from this study are believed to further contribute to understand the factors that need to be considered to better address adaptation strategies based on the current vulnerability and climate variability, both at present time and in the future.

Less Rain and More Heat”: Smallholders’ Perception and Climate Change Adaptation Strategies in Tropical Environments

2019 ◽  
pp. 77-104 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karla Diana Infante Ramírez ◽  
Ana Minerva Arce Ibarra
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Climate Variability ◽  
Tropical Forest ◽  
Climate Change Adaptation ◽  
Coastal Zone ◽  
Weather Forecasting ◽  
Adaptation Strategies ◽  
Seasonal Migration ◽  
Forest Zone ◽  
Climate Change Adaptation Strategies

The main objective of this study was to analyze local perceptions of climate variability and the different adaptation strategies of four communities in the southern Yucatán Peninsula, using the Social-Ecological System (SES) approach. Four SESs were considered: two in the coastal zone and two in the tropical forest zone. Data were collected using different qualitative methodological tools (interviews, participant observation, and focal groups) and the information collected from each site was triangulated. In all four sites, changes in climate variability were perceived as “less rain and more heat”. In the tropical forest (or Maya) zone, an ancestral indigenous weather forecasting system, known as “Xook k’íin” (or “las cabañuelas”), was recorded and the main activity affected by climate variability was found to be slash-and burn farming or the milpa. In the coastal zone, the main activities affected are fishing and tourism. In all the cases analyzed, local climate change adaptation strategies include undertaking alternative work, and changing the calendar of daily, seasonal and annual labor and seasonal migration. The population of all four SESs displayed concern and uncertainty as regards dealing with these changes and possible changes in the future.

scholarly journals Malaria trends in Ethiopian highlands track the 2000 ‘slowdown’ in global warming

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Xavier Rodó ◽  
Pamela P. Martinez ◽  
Amir Siraj ◽  
Mercedes Pascual
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Global Warming ◽  
Climate Variability ◽  
Marked Decrease ◽  
Transmission Model ◽  
Pronounced Increase ◽  
Ethiopian Highland ◽  
Epidemic Size ◽  
Seasonal Epidemic ◽  
Malaria Trends

AbstractA counterargument to the importance of climate change for malaria transmission has been that regions where an effect of warmer temperatures is expected, have experienced a marked decrease in seasonal epidemic size since the turn of the new century. This decline has been observed in the densely populated highlands of East Africa at the center of the earlier debate on causes of the pronounced increase in epidemic size from the 1970s to the 1990s. The turnaround of the incidence trend around 2000 is documented here with an extensive temporal record for malaria cases for both Plasmodium falciparum and Plasmodium vivax in an Ethiopian highland. With statistical analyses and a process-based transmission model, we show that this decline was driven by the transient slowdown in global warming and associated changes in climate variability, especially ENSO. Decadal changes in temperature and concurrent climate variability facilitated rather than opposed the effect of interventions.

scholarly journals Recent natural variability in global warming weakened phenological mismatch and selection on seasonal timing in great tits ( Parus major )

2021 ◽  
Vol 288 (1963) ◽  
Author(s):  
Marcel E. Visser ◽  
Melanie Lindner ◽  
Phillip Gienapp ◽  
Matthew C. Long ◽  
Stephanie Jenouvrier
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Global Warming ◽  
Climate Variability ◽  
Parus Major ◽  
Great Tit ◽  
Trophic Levels ◽  
Natural Climate Variability ◽  
Seasonal Timing ◽  
Phenological Mismatch ◽  
Natural Climate

Climate change has led to phenological shifts in many species, but with large variation in magnitude among species and trophic levels. The poster child example of the resulting phenological mismatches between the phenology of predators and their prey is the great tit ( Parus major ), where this mismatch led to directional selection for earlier seasonal breeding. Natural climate variability can obscure the impacts of climate change over certain periods, weakening phenological mismatching and selection. Here, we show that selection on seasonal timing indeed weakened significantly over the past two decades as increases in late spring temperatures have slowed down. Consequently, there has been no further advancement in the date of peak caterpillar food abundance, while great tit phenology has continued to advance, thereby weakening the phenological mismatch. We thus show that the relationships between temperature, phenologies of prey and predator, and selection on predator phenology are robust, also in times of a slowdown of warming. Using projected temperatures from a large ensemble of climate simulations that take natural climate variability into account, we show that prey phenology is again projected to advance faster than great tit phenology in the coming decades, and therefore that long-term global warming will intensify phenological mismatches.

Fitting the lens of climate change on bird conservation in the twenty-first century

2019 ◽  
pp. 236-256 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter P. Marra ◽  
Benjamin Zuckerberg ◽  
Christiaan Both
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Climate Variability ◽  
Climate Change Adaptation ◽  
Ecological Impacts ◽  
First Century ◽  
Conservation Strategy ◽  
Bird Conservation ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
Negative Impacts ◽  
Species Being

Understanding and predicting future ecological impacts of climate change, and then developing a conservation strategy to minimize the negative impacts on biodiversity, remains one of the greatest environmental challenges of the twenty-first century. We lack a robust understanding of how climate variability (e.g., temperature, precipitation) itself influences the biology of organisms and, when evidence points to a species being vulnerable to the effects of climate change, there is a lack of specific and timely recommendations for managers to reduce that vulnerability. This chapter reviews how we assess which species are most impacted by climate change and then provides a framework and examples of common strategies and tactics managers can use to incorporate climate change adaptation into bird conservation. In doing so, we present a suite of strategies designed to translate broad conservation concepts into targeted and prescriptive actions for birds.

scholarly journals On the Milankovitch sensitivity of the Quaternary deep-sea record

2013 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 1237-1257
Author(s):  
W. H. Berger
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Global Warming ◽  
Climate Variability ◽  
Deep Sea ◽  
Climate System ◽  
Ice Age ◽  
External Forcing ◽  
Orbital Forcing ◽  
Early Pliocene ◽  
System A

Abstract. The response of the climate system to external forcing has become an item of prime interest in the context of global warming, especially with respect to the rate of melting land-based ice masses. The deep-sea record of ice-age climate change has been useful in assessing the sensitivity of the climate system to such forcing, notably to orbital forcing, which is well-known for the last several million years. When comparing response and forcing, one finds that sensitivity varies greatly through time, apparently in dependence on the state of the system. The changing stability of ice masses presumably is the underlying cause for the changing state of the system. A buildup of vulnerable ice masses within the latest Tertiary, when going into the ice ages, is conjectured to cause a stepwise increase of climate variability since the early Pliocene.

The Maghreb will struggle to adapt to climate change

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Global Warming ◽  
Climate Change Adaptation ◽  
Climate Change Impacts ◽  
Adaptation Strategies ◽  
Regional Economies ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Water Scarce ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Climate Change Adaptation Strategies

Subject The impact of climate change on Maghreb countries. Significance The Maghreb is one of the world's most water-scarce regions. Global warming will exacerbate the ecological, social and economic challenges it already faces. Impacts Water misuse will exacerbate the effects of climate change on the region’s water supplies. Renewable energies will not only help ease climate change impacts, but also diversify regional economies and create employment. Unless climate change adaptation strategies accelerate, Maghreb countries will see a deterioration in living conditions.

Some rationales for risk sharing and financing adaptation

2005 ◽  
Vol 51 (5) ◽  
pp. 89-95 ◽  
Author(s):  
L.M. Bouwer ◽  
P. Vellinga
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Water Management ◽  
Climate Change Adaptation ◽  
Risk Sharing ◽  
Developed Countries ◽  
Economic Losses ◽  
Special Focus ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
Disaster Losses ◽  
Financial Arrangements

Current climate variability and anticipated climate change challenge our water systems and our financial resources. The sharing of economic losses due to weather related hazards and the sharing of costs that result from protecting lives and property take place in different forms, but are currently insufficient. In this paper we discuss three different rationales for financing disaster losses through public and private arrangements, as well as options for financing adaptation, with a special focus on water management. We propose that financial arrangements for risk sharing and climate change adaptation should be reconsidered, in a more structured approach, to be able to deal with both disaster losses and the costs that arise because of climate change adaptation, e.g. for water management, in both developing and developed countries.

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