scholarly journals ESD Ideas: Global climate response scenarios for IPCC AR6

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rowan T. Sutton ◽  
Ed Hawkins
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Climate System ◽  
Climate Response

Abstract. Policy making on climate change routinely employs socio-economic scenarios to sample the uncertainty in future forcing of the climate system, but the IPCC has not developed similar discrete scenarios to sample the uncertainty in the global climate response. Here we argue that to enable development of robust policies this gap should be addressed, and we propose a simple methodology.

From “Inconvenient Truth” to Effective Governance

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Passarelli ◽  
David Michel ◽  
William Durch
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Climate System ◽  
Global Public Good ◽  
Environmental Groups ◽  
Quarter Century ◽  
Effective Governance ◽  
Political Response ◽  
Earth’S Climate ◽  
National Governments

The Earth’s climate system is a global public good. Maintaining it is a collective action problem. This chapter looks at a quarter-century of efforts to understand and respond to the challenges posed by global climate change and why the collective political response, until very recently, has seemed to lag so far behind our scientific knowledge of the problem. The chapter tracks the efforts of the main global, intergovernmental process for negotiating both useful and politically acceptable responses to climate change, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, but also highlights efforts by scientific and environmental groups and, more recently, networks of sub-national governments—especially cities—and of businesses to redefine interests so as to meet the dangers of climate system disruption.

Climate Variability in the Context of Climate Change: El Niño and Other Oscillations

2008 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cynthia Rosenzweig ◽  
Daniel Hillel
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Climate Variability ◽  
North Atlantic ◽  
El Niño ◽  
El Nino ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Climate System ◽  
The Arctic ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
Earth’S Climate

The climate system envelops our planet, with swirling fluxes of mass, momentum, and energy through air, water, and land. Its processes are partly regular and partly chaotic. The regularity of diurnal and seasonal fluctuations in these processes is well understood. Recently, there has been significant progress in understanding some of the mechanisms that induce deviations from that regularity in many parts of the globe. These mechanisms include a set of combined oceanic–atmospheric phenomena with quasi-regular manifestations. The largest of these is centered in the Pacific Ocean and is known as the El Niño–Southern Oscillation. The term “oscillation” refers to a shifting pattern of atmospheric pressure gradients that has distinct manifestations in its alternating phases. In the Arctic and North Atlantic regions, the occurrence of somewhat analogous but less regular interactions known as the Arctic Oscillation and its offshoot, the North Atlantic Oscillation, are also being studied. These and other major oscillations influence climate patterns in many parts of the globe. Examples of other large-scale interactive ocean–atmosphere– land processes are the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, the Madden-Julian Oscillation, the Pacific/North American pattern, the Tropical Atlantic Variability, the West Pacific pattern, the Quasi-Biennial Oscillation, and the Indian Ocean Dipole. In this chapter we review the earth’s climate system in general, define climate variability, and describe the processes related to ENSO and the other major systems and their interactions. We then consider the possible connections of the major climate variability systems to anthropogenic global climate change. The climate system consists of a series of fluxes and transformations of energy (radiation, sensible and latent heat, and momentum), as well as transports and changes in the state of matter (air, water, solid matter, and biota) as conveyed and influenced by the atmosphere, the ocean, and the land masses. Acting like a giant engine, this dynamic system is driven by the infusion, transformation, and redistribution of energy.

scholarly journals Expanding use of archaeology in climate change response by changing its social environment

2020 ◽  
Vol 117 (15) ◽  
pp. 8295-8302 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marcy Rockman ◽  
Carrie Hritz
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Social Environment ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Climate Science ◽  
Cultural Resources ◽  
Climate Response ◽  
Social Environments ◽  
Structural Barriers ◽  
Us Federal Government ◽  
Site Significance

Climate science has outlined targets for reductions of greenhouse gas emissions necessary to provide a substantial chance of avoiding the worst impacts of climate change on both natural and human systems. How to reach those targets, however, requires balancing physical realities of the natural environment with the complexity of the human social environment, including histories, cultures, and values. Archaeology is the study of interactions of natural and social environments through time and across space. As well, the field of cultural resources management, which includes archaeology, regularly engages with values such as site significance and allocation of funding that the modern social environment ascribes to its own history. Through these two approaches, archaeology has potential to provide both data for and methods of addressing challenges the global community faces through climate change. To date, however, archaeology and related areas of cultural heritage have had relatively little role in the global climate response. Here, we assess the social environment of archaeology and climate change and resulting structural barriers that have limited use of archaeology in and for climate change with a case study of the US federal government. On this basis, we provide recommendations to the fields of archaeology and climate response about how to more fully realize the multiple potential uses of archaeology for the challenges of climate change.

Resolving the Adaptation Paradox: Exploring the Potential for Deliberative Adaptation Policy-Making in Bangladesh

2011 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 62-88 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jessica Ayers
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Climate Change Policy ◽  
Vulnerable Groups ◽  
Local Context ◽  
Global Risk ◽  
Adaptation Policy ◽  
Change Policy ◽  
Starting Point

Climate change adaptation presents a paradox: climate change is a global risk, yet vulnerability is locally experienced. Effective adaptation therefore depends on understanding the local context of vulnerability, which requires deliberative and participatory approaches to adaptation policy-making. But, how can local inclusiveness be achieved in the context of global environmental risk, and what sorts of institutions are needed? This article examines one avenue for the participation of vulnerable groups in adaptation policy-making: National Adaptation Programmes of Actions (NAPAs). Drawing on the case study of Bangladesh, this article shows that the “adaptation paradox” creates a tension between local and global definitions of climate change risk, affecting the legitimacy of participatory processes under the NAPA. I propose that early analysis and engagement of existing local institutional frameworks as a starting point for national adaptation planning is one possible entry point for meaningful local deliberation in global climate change policy-making processes.

scholarly journals Grenada

2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (193) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Strategic Alliances ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Coastal Flooding ◽  
Climate Finance ◽  
International Support ◽  
Hurricane Ivan ◽  
Climate Resilience ◽  
Increased Risk

Grenada has made significant strides to counter climate change but meeting the daunting remaining challenges will require domestic policy actions and sustained international support. Climate change is an existential threat to Grenada. Increasing frequency and intensity of coastal storms threatens infrastructure and livelihoods, as do increased risk of coastal flooding and drought. Notably, Hurricane Ivan in 2004 caused damages of over 200 percent of GDP. Grenada has recognized this by placing climate resilience at the center of its policy making and forging strategic alliances with key global climate finance providers. However, the challenges facing the country remain daunting and will require large increases in international support, both financial and technical, to assist the Grenadian authorities turn their impressive resilience plans into action.

A review of recent developments in climate change science. Part I: Understanding of future change in the large-scale climate system

2011 ◽  
Vol 35 (3) ◽  
pp. 281-296 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Good ◽  
John Caesar ◽  
Dan Bernie ◽  
Jason A. Lowe ◽  
Paul van der Linden ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Scientific Progress ◽  
Meridional Overturning Circulation ◽  
Climate System ◽  
Intergovernmental Panel ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
Substantial Progress ◽  
Multiple Experts

This article reviews some of the major lines of recent scientific progress relevant to the choice of global climate policy targets, focusing on changes in understanding since publication of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fourth Assessment Report (IPCC AR4). Developments are highlighted in the following major climate system components: ice sheets; sea ice; the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation; tropical forests; and accelerated carbon release from permafrost and ocean hydrates. The most significant developments in each component are identified by synthesizing input from multiple experts from each field. Overall, while large uncertainties remain in all fields, some substantial progress in understanding is revealed.

Preliminary Study on Regional SD Model of Low-Carbon Economy

2012 ◽  
Vol 524-527 ◽  
pp. 2607-2610 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yuan Yuan He
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Global Climate Change ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Social Orientation ◽  
Low Carbon ◽  
Low Carbon Economy ◽  
Preliminary Study ◽  
The Cost ◽  
Carbon Economy

In response to global climate change, how to develop low-carbon economy in the longer term has become a hot topic in current research. The realization of low-carbon economy is not simply been technical but policy-making methods need to be conducted in-depth research. A social orientation would only display its deviation after being practiced, but we may not have the chance to bear the cost. So the inevitable choice could be that we simulate and predict the possible consequence and analyze possible scenarios before the orientation being developed. In this paper, a regional low-carbon economic system has been developed based on the innovation of existing research on sustainable development.

scholarly journals The Role of Ocean Heat Transport in the Global Climate Response to Projected Arctic Sea Ice Loss

2016 ◽  
Vol 29 (19) ◽  
pp. 6841-6859 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert A. Tomas ◽  
Clara Deser ◽  
Lantao Sun
Keyword(s):  
Sea Ice ◽  
Heat Transport ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Arctic Sea Ice ◽  
Climate System ◽  
Climate Response ◽  
Ocean Heat Transport ◽  
Dynamic Coupling ◽  
Arctic Sea ◽  
Arctic Sea Ice Loss

Abstract The purpose of this study is to elucidate the individual and combined roles of thermodynamic and dynamic ocean–atmosphere coupling in the equilibrium global climate response to projected Arctic sea ice loss using a suite of experiments conducted with Community Climate System Model, version 4, at 1° latitude–longitude spatial resolution. The results highlight the contrasting spatial structures and partially compensating effects of thermodynamic and dynamic coupling. In combination, thermodynamic and dynamic coupling produce a response pattern that is largely symmetric about the equator, whereas thermodynamic coupling alone yields an antisymmetric response. The latter is characterized by an interhemispheric sea surface temperature (SST) gradient, with maximum warming at high northern latitudes decreasing toward the equator, which displaces the intertropical convergence zone (ITCZ) and Hadley circulation northward. In contrast, the fully coupled response shows enhanced warming at high latitudes of both hemispheres and along the equator; the equatorial warming is driven by anomalous ocean heat transport convergence and is accompanied by a narrow equatorward intensification of the northern and southern branches of the ITCZ. In both cases, the tropical precipitation response to Arctic sea ice loss feeds back onto the atmospheric circulation at midlatitudes via Rossby wave dynamics, highlighting the global interconnectivity of the coupled climate system. This study demonstrates the importance of ocean dynamics in mediating the equilibrium global climate response to Arctic sea ice loss.

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