The regional framing of climate change: towards a place-based perspective on regional climate change perception in north Frisia

Numerous studies have begun to tackle the social and cultural dimensions of perceiving and framing climate change. Scholars from geography and environmental psychology in particular have started to highlight the importance of so-called place-based approaches to studying regional and local framings of climate change. This paper stands in this tradition. It reports on findings derived from a nationwide survey of perceptions of and reactions to extreme weather events and interviews conducted with inhabitants of three islands in the coastal region of North Frisia (Germany). Coastal dwellers understand climate change through the lens of local and regional experiences of meteorological phenomena, seasonal changes, knowledge of the sea, and changes in local flora and fauna. Our detailed ecolinguistic analysis revealed six prevailing conceptual metaphors: Climate change is an enemy, preventing climate change is fight/war, climate change is punishment for human sins, climate change is overheating/heat, climate change is hot air/hoax and climate change is eco-dictatorship. These metaphors were used to make sense of climate change at the regional level and provide insights into place-based social and cultural conceptualisations of climate change. An understanding of these meanings should feed into developing more grounded climate change adaptation and mitigation strategies in coastal regions.     

Patterns and biases of climate change threats in the IUCN Red List

International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List assessments rely on published data and expert inputs, and biases can be introduced where underlying definitions and concepts are ambiguous. Consideration of climate change threat is no exception, and recently numerous approaches to assessing the threat of climate change to species have been developed. We explored IUCN Red List assessments of amphibians and birds to determine whether species listed as threatened by climate change display distinct patterns in terms of habitat occupied and additional nonclimatic threats faced. We compared IUCN Red List data with a published data set of species’ biological and ecological traits believed to infer high vulnerability to climate change and determined whether distributions of climate change‐threatened species on the IUCN Red List concur with those of climate change‐threatened species identified with the trait‐based approach and whether species possessing these traits are more likely to have climate change listed as a threat on the IUCN Red List. Species in some ecosystems (e.g., grassland, shrubland) and subject to particular threats (e.g., invasive species) were more likely to have climate change as a listed threat. Geographical patterns of climate change‐threatened amphibians and birds on the IUCN Red List were incongruent with patterns of global species richness and patterns identified using trait‐based approaches. Certain traits were linked to increases or decreases in the likelihood of a species being threatened by climate change. Broad temperature tolerance of a species was consistently related to an increased likelihood of climate change threat, indicating counterintuitive relationships in IUCN assessments. To improve the robustness of species assessments of the vulnerability or extinction risk associated with climate change, we suggest IUCN adopt a more cohesive approach whereby specific traits highlighted by our results are considered in Red List assessments. To achieve this and to strengthen the climate change‐vulnerability assessments approach, it is necessary to identify and implement logical avenues for further research into traits that make species vulnerable to climate change (including population‐level threats).     

Klimaänderungen: Mögliche Ursachen in Vergangenheit und Zukunft

In this overview two definitions of climate are presented, from the meteorological point of view and from the climate system’s point of view. The origin of climate change is discussed, i.e., externally forced variability and free, or internal variability that is caused without external trigger by internal instabilities of the system. Both, forced and free variability can appear as periodic, randomly quasi-periodic, and abrupt climate change. Finally, various possibilities of climate forecast are considered.     

Gehen wir in eine neue Kaltzeit?

Recent climate conditions do not represent the climate of the last 600 million years. Paleoclimatic investigations using geological and biological archives document four-time alterations from ‘icehouse’ to ‘greenhouse’. Since 55 million years, the planet has been facing an ‘Icehouse’ climate decline. Around 30 million years ago, ice formation in Antarctica, and around 2,8 million years ago, ice formation on both hemispheres took place. The oscillation of glacial cycles with periods of ~100,000 years (glacials 80,000 years) and interglacials ~20,000 years) can safely be observed not until before the last ~800,000 years. These climate variabilities on different time scales influence the dynamics of the climate system and are also responsible for the interglacial since 11,660 years B.P. High frequency changes are variations embedded in low frequency periods. This natural climate variability permits to discriminate anthropogenic influences being discussed primarily on the basis of models. However, the detailed discrimination of the causes of the (multicausal) dynamics of the climate system is still in its infancy. This article discusses several scenarios against the background of natural variabilities.     

Economic costs of achieving current conservation goals in the future as climate changes

Conservation of biologically diverse regions has thus far been accomplished largely through the establishment and maintenance of protected areas. Climate change is expected to shift climate space of many species outside existing reserve boundaries. We used climate-envelope models to examine shifts in climate space of 11 species that are representative of the Mount Hamilton Project area (MHPA) (California, U.S.A.), which includes areas within Alameda, Santa Clara, San Joaquin, Stanislaus, Merced, and San Benito counties and is in the state's Central Coast ecoregion. We used Marxan site-selection software to determine the minimum area required as climate changes to achieve a baseline conservation goal equal to 80% of existing climate space for all species in the MHPA through 2050 and 2100. Additionally, we assessed the costs associated with use of existing conservation strategies (land acquisition and management actions such as species translocation, monitoring, and captive breeding) necessary to meet current species-conservation goals as climate changes. Meeting conservation goals as climate changes through 2050 required an additional 256,000 ha (332%) of protected area, primarily to the south and west of the MHPA. Through 2050 the total cost of land acquisition and management was estimated at US$1.67-1.79 billion, or 139-149% of the cost of achieving the same conservation goals with no climate change. To maintain 80% of climate space through 2100 required nearly 380,000 additional hectares that would cost $2.46-2.62 billion, or 209-219% of the cost of achieving the same conservation goals with no climate change. Furthermore, maintaining 80% of existing climate space within California for 27% of the focal species was not possible by 2100 because climate space for these species did not exist in the state. The high costs of conserving species as the climate changes-that we found in an assessment of one conservation project-highlights the need for tools that will aid in iterative goal setting given the uncertainty of the effects of climate change and adaptive management that includes new conservation strategies and consideration of the long-term economic costs of conservation.     

Potential effects of climate change on ecosystem and tree species distribution in British Columbia

A new ecosystem-based climate envelope modeling approach was applied to assess potential climate change impacts on forest communities and tree species. Four orthogonal canonical discriminant functions were used to describe the realized climate space for British Columbia's ecosystems and to model portions of the realized niche space for tree species under current and predicted future climates. This conceptually simple model is capable of predicting species ranges at high spatial resolutions far beyond the study area, including outlying populations and southern range limits for many species. We analyzed how the realized climate space of current ecosystems changes in extent, elevation, and spatial distribution under climate change scenarios and evaluated the implications for potential tree species habitat. Tree species with their northern range limit in British Columbia gain potential habitat at a pace of at least 100 km per decade, common hardwoods appear to be generally unaffected by climate change, and some of the most important conifer species in British Columbia are expected to lose a large portion of their suitable habitat. The extent of spatial redistribution of realized climate space for ecosystems is considerable, with currently important sub-boreal and montane climate regions rapidly disappearing. Local predictions of changes to tree species frequencies were generated as a basis for systematic surveys of biological response to climate change.     

Climate change and poverty in Africa

Africa is most vulnerable to climate change, although it makes the least contribution to factors that result in global and regional climatic changes. High levels of vulnerability and low adaptive capacity across the continent have been linked to, among other things, poverty. This paper discusses and analyses the relationship between climate change and poverty in Africa. It investigates the relationship between climate change and poverty patterns in Africa, analyses the resultant impact, and discusses potential adaptation policies for moderating the consequences of climatic changes on poverty in the region. The record shows that climate change is happening. What is not discussed or is little researched is the potential devastating impact of climate change on socio-economic development in Africa and the policy measures available to the continent for adaptation.     

Climate change and human security in Africa

Climate change poses a major threat to human security and poverty in Africa. In Africa, where livelihoods are mainly based on climate-dependent resources and environment, the effect of climate change will be disproportionate and severe. Moreover, Africa's capacity to adapt to and cope with the adverse effects of climate variability is generally weak. This article discusses how climate change affects human security in Africa. It also assesses the policy options available to policymakers in terms of mitigation and adaptation to climate change to reduce vulnerability and human insecurity in Africa.     

Risk assessment in the face of a changing environment: gypsy moth and climate change in Utah.

The importance of efficaciously assessing the risk for introduction and establishment of pest species is an increasingly important ecological and economic issue. Evaluation of climate is fundamental to determining the potential success of an introduced or invasive insect pest. However, evaluating climatic suitability poses substantial difficulties; climate can be measured and assessed in a bewildering array of ways. Some physiological filter, in essence a lens that focuses climate through the requirements and constraints of a potential pest introduction, is required. Difficulties in assessing climate suitability are further exacerbated by the effects of climate change. Gypsy moth (Lymantria dispar L.) is an exotic, tree-defoliating insect that is frequently introduced into the western United States. In spite of an abundance of potential host species, these introductions have yet to result in established populations. The success of eradication efforts and the unsuccessful establishment of many detected and undetected introductions may be related to an inhospitable climate. Climatic suitability for gypsy moth in the western United States, however, is potentially improving, perhaps rapidly, due to a general warming trend that began in the mid 1970s and continues today. In this work, we describe the application of a physiologically based climate suitability model for evaluating risk of gypsy moth establishment on a landscape level. Development of this risk assessment system first required amassing databases that integrated the gypsy moth climatic assessment model, with host species distributions, and climate (historical, present, and future). This integrated system was then used to evaluate climate change scenarios for native host species in Utah, with the result that risk of establishment will dramatically increase during the remainder of the 21st century under reasonable climate change scenarios. We then applied the risk assessment system to several case histories of detected gypsy moth introductions in Utah. These applications demonstrated the general utility of the system for predicting risk of establishment and for designing improved risk detection strategies.     

Rewilding in the face of climate change

Expansion of the global protected-area network has been proposed as a strategy to address threats from accelerating climate change and species extinction. A key step in increasing the effectiveness of such expansion is understanding how novel threats to biodiversity from climate change alter concepts such as rewilding, which have underpinned many proposals for large interconnected reserves. We reviewed potential challenges that climate change poses to rewilding and found that the conservation value of large protected areas persists under climate change. Nevertheless, more attention should be given to protection of microrefugia, macrorefugia, complete environmental gradients, and areas that connect current and future suitable climates and to maintaining ecosystem processes and stabilizing feedbacks via conservation strategies that are resilient to uncertainty regarding climate trends. Because a major element of the threat from climate change stems from its novel geographic patterns, we examined, as an example, the implications for climate-adaptation planning of latitudinal, longitudinal (continental to maritime), and elevational gradients in climate-change exposure across the Yellowstone-to-Yukon region, the locus of an iconic conservation proposal initially designed to conserve wide-ranging carnivore species. In addition to a continued emphasis on conserving intact landscapes, restoration of degraded low-elevation areas within the region is needed to capture sites important for landscape-level climate resilience. Extreme climate exposure projected for boreal North America suggests the need for ambitious goals for expansion of the protected-area network there to include refugia created by topography and ecological features, such as peatlands, whose conservation can also reduce emissions from carbon stored in soil. Qualitative understanding of underlying reserve design rules and the geography of climate-change exposure can strengthen the outcomes of inclusive regional planning processes that identify specific sites for protection.     

气候变暖背景下森林土壤碳循环研究进展

由人类活动引起的温室效应以及由此造成的气候变暖对森林牛态系统的影响已引起人们的普遍关注.森林土壤碳循环作为全球碳循环的重要组成部分,是决定未来陆地牛物嘲表现为碳源/碳汇的关键环节,揭示这一作用对于准确理解全球变化背景下陆地生态系统碳循环过程具有重要的指导意义.本文主要通过论述影响土壤碳循环过程的5个方面(土壤呼吸、土壤微生物、土壤酶活性、凋落物输入与分解、土壤碳库),综述了近10 a来全球气候变暖对土壤碳循环过程的影响.近年来,尽管已开展了大量有关土壤碳循环对气候变暖的响应及反馈机制的研究,并取得了一定的成果,但研究结果仍然存在很大的不确定性.整合各种密切关联的全球变化现象,完善研究方法和实验手段,加强根际微生态系统碳循环过程与机理研究将是下一步研究的方向和重点.参70     

干旱胁迫对青海杨不同种群的影响

通过对青海杨的两个分别来自极端干旱和湿润地区的种群进行不同水分处理,研究其在生物量的积累与分配、气体交换、脱落酸积累以及水分利用效率上的种群差异.结果表明:①不同种群在各种生长和形态指标上均表现出了显著性差异,例如株高(Ht)、基径(Bd)、总生物量(Tb)、总叶面积(La)和细根比(Ft).②不同种群在各种生理指标上也表现出了显著性差异,例如净光合速率(A)、蒸腾速率(E)、气孔导度(g)、水分利用效率(WUEi)和脱落酸(ABA)积累.③与来自湿润地区的种群相比,来自干旱地区的种群表现出了较小的生长和形态指标值以及较大的生理指标值.这些对水分可利用性的形态和生理适应性表明,不同种群在其幼苗早期生长和建立方面采用了不同的生存策略,来自湿润地区的杨树种群采用耗水策略从而抗旱性低,而来自干旱地区的杨树采用节水策略从而抗旱性高.这些对干旱的不同反应可以为不同气候地区选择相应的生态型提供一定的参考标准.表4参26     

近六、七十年来兰州城市发展对城市气候环境的影响

用城郊对比法研究了近六、七十年来兰州城市发展对城市气候环境的影响。通过六、七十年来的气象记录、近年来的环境监测记录及实时遥感图象定量的研究工业发展以来兰州城市气候环境的变化。通过研究发现随着城市的发展兰州的大气、光热,湿度、降水、风场等气候环境趋于恶化,工业化及城市发展造成的气候环境的变化已经危及了人们的生产、生活,同时对整个生态环境的破坏也到了非常严重的地步。结合气候环境恶化的趋势,提出了改善气候环境的具体办法。     

Applying assessments of adaptive capacity to inform natural-resource management in a changing climate

Adaptive capacity (AC)—the ability of a species to cope with or accommodate climate change—is a critical determinant of species vulnerability. Using information on species’ AC in conservation planning is key to ensuring successful outcomes. We identified connections between a list of species’ attributes (e.g., traits, population metrics, and behaviors) that were recently proposed for assessing species’ AC and management actions that may enhance AC for species at risk of extinction. Management actions were identified based on evidence from the literature, a review of actions used in other climate adaptation guidance, and our collective experience in diverse fields of global-change ecology and climate adaptation. Selected management actions support the general AC pathways of persist in place or shift in space, in response to contemporary climate change. Some actions, such as genetic manipulations, can be used to directly alter the ability of species to cope with climate change, whereas other actions can indirectly enhance AC by addressing ecological or anthropogenic constraints on the expression of a species’ innate abilities to adapt. Ours is the first synthesis of potential management actions directly linked to AC. Focusing on AC attributes helps improve understanding of how and why aspects of climate are affecting organisms, as well as the mechanisms by which management interventions affect a species’ AC and climate change vulnerability. Adaptive-capacity-informed climate adaptation is needed to build connections among the causes of vulnerability, AC, and proposed management actions that can facilitate AC and reduce vulnerability in support of evolving conservation paradigms.     

Rising sea and threatened mangroves: a case study on stakeholders,engagement in climate change communication and non-formal education

Scientific consensus shows that the changes related to climate change are already occurring and will intensify in the future. This will likely result in significant alterations to coastal ecosystems such as mangroves, increase coastal hazards and affect lifestyles of coastal communities. There is increasing speculation that mangrove, a socio-economically important ecosystem, will become more fragile and sensitive to uncertain climate variability such as sea level rise. As a result, mangrove-dependent societies may find themselves trapped in a downward spiral of ecological degradation in terms of their livelihoods and life security. Strengthening the resilience capacity of coastal communities to help them cope with this additional threat from climate change and to ensure sustainability calls for immediate action. In this context, this paper critically examines the regional implications of expected sea level rise and threats to mangrove-dependent communities through a case study approach. The main objective is to highlight the requirement for climate change communication and education to impart information that will fulfil three expectations: (1) confer understanding; (2) assess local inference on climate change through a participatory approach; and (3) construct a framework for climate change awareness among mangrove-dependent communities through community-based non-formal climate change education. This scale of approach is attracting increasing attention from policymakers to achieve climate change adaptation and derive policies from a social perspective.     

Incorporating Climate Science in Applications of the U.S. Endangered Species Act for Aquatic Species

Aquatic species are threatened by climate change but have received comparatively less attention than terrestrial species. We gleaned key strategies for scientists and managers seeking to address climate change in aquatic conservation planning from the literature and existing knowledge. We address 3 categories of conservation effort that rely on scientific analysis and have particular application under the U.S. Endangered Species Act (ESA): assessment of overall risk to a species; long‐term recovery planning; and evaluation of effects of specific actions or perturbations. Fewer data are available for aquatic species to support these analyses, and climate effects on aquatic systems are poorly characterized. Thus, we recommend scientists conducting analyses supporting ESA decisions develop a conceptual model that links climate, habitat, ecosystem, and species response to changing conditions and use this model to organize analyses and future research. We recommend that current climate conditions are not appropriate for projections used in ESA analyses and that long‐term projections of climate‐change effects provide temporal context as a species‐wide assessment provides spatial context. In these projections, climate change should not be discounted solely because the magnitude of projected change at a particular time is uncertain when directionality of climate change is clear. Identifying likely future habitat at the species scale will indicate key refuges and potential range shifts. However, the risks and benefits associated with errors in modeling future habitat are not equivalent. The ESA offers mechanisms for increasing the overall resilience and resistance of species to climate changes, including establishing recovery goals requiring increased genetic and phenotypic diversity, specifying critical habitat in areas not currently occupied but likely to become important, and using adaptive management. Incorporación de las Ciencias Climáticas en las Aplicaciones del Acta Estadunidense de Especies en Peligro para Especies Acuáticas     

Antagonistic effect of natural habitat conversion on community adjustment to climate warming in nonbreeding waterbirds

Although the impacts of climate and land-use changes on biodiversity have been widely documented, their joint effects remain poorly understood. We evaluated how nonbreeding waterbird communities adjust to climate warming along a gradient of land-use change. Using midwinter waterbird counts (132 species) at 164 major nonbreeding sites in 22 Mediterranean countries, we assessed the changes in species composition from 1991 to 2010, relative to thermal niche position and breadth, in response to regional and local winter temperature anomalies and conversion of natural habitats. We observed a low-level, nonsignificant community adjustment to the temperature increase where natural habitat conversion occurred. At the sites affected by natural habitat conversion, the relative increase of warm-dwelling species in response to climate warming was 6 times lower and the relative species decline was 3 times higher than in the sites without natural habitat conversion. We found no evidence of community adjustment to climate warming when natural habitat conversion was >5% over 15 years. This strong negative effect suggests an antagonistic interaction between climate warming and habitat change. These results underline the importance of habitat conservation in community adjustment to climate warming.     

千岛湖流域旅游开发项目的气候评价

根据千岛湖流域的气候特点,对夏季避暑度假旅游、休闲观光农业和季节性旅游项目的开发进行了气候评估,将有利于促进千岛湖流域旅游业的发展     

Choosing and Using Climate‐Change Scenarios for Ecological‐Impact Assessments and Conservation Decisions

Increased concern over climate change is demonstrated by the many efforts to assess climate effects and develop adaptation strategies. Scientists, resource managers, and decision makers are increasingly expected to use climate information, but they struggle with its uncertainty. With the current proliferation of climate simulations and downscaling methods, scientifically credible strategies for selecting a subset for analysis and decision making are needed. Drawing on a rich literature in climate science and impact assessment and on experience working with natural resource scientists and decision makers, we devised guidelines for choosing climate‐change scenarios for ecological impact assessment that recognize irreducible uncertainty in climate projections and address common misconceptions about this uncertainty. This approach involves identifying primary local climate drivers by climate sensitivity of the biological system of interest; determining appropriate sources of information for future changes in those drivers; considering how well processes controlling local climate are spatially resolved; and selecting scenarios based on considering observed emission trends, relative importance of natural climate variability, and risk tolerance and time horizon of the associated decision. The most appropriate scenarios for a particular analysis will not necessarily be the most appropriate for another due to differences in local climate drivers, biophysical linkages to climate, decision characteristics, and how well a model simulates the climate parameters and processes of interest. Given these complexities, we recommend interaction among climate scientists, natural and physical scientists, and decision makers throughout the process of choosing and using climate‐change scenarios for ecological impact assessment. Selección y Uso de Escenarios de Cambio Climático para Estudios de Impacto Ecológico y Decisiones de Conservación     

Connecting today's climates to future climate analogs to facilitate movement of species under climate change

Increasing connectivity is an important strategy for facilitating species range shifts and maintaining biodiversity in the face of climate change. To date, however, few researchers have included future climate projections in efforts to prioritize areas for increasing connectivity. We identified key areas likely to facilitate climate‐induced species’ movement across western North America. Using historical climate data sets and future climate projections, we mapped potential species’ movement routes that link current climate conditions to analogous climate conditions in the future (i.e., future climate analogs) with a novel moving‐window analysis based on electrical circuit theory. In addition to tracing shifting climates, the approach accounted for landscape permeability and empirically derived species’ dispersal capabilities. We compared connectivity maps generated with our climate‐change‐informed approach with maps of connectivity based solely on the degree of human modification of the landscape. Including future climate projections in connectivity models substantially shifted and constrained priority areas for movement to a smaller proportion of the landscape than when climate projections were not considered. Potential movement, measured as current flow, decreased in all ecoregions when climate projections were included, particularly when dispersal was limited, which made climate analogs inaccessible. Many areas emerged as important for connectivity only when climate change was modeled in 2 time steps rather than in a single time step. Our results illustrate that movement routes needed to track changing climatic conditions may differ from those that connect present‐day landscapes. Incorporating future climate projections into connectivity modeling is an important step toward facilitating successful species movement and population persistence in a changing climate.