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Indicators have been proposed as critical elements for sustained climate assessment. Indicators provide a foundation for assessing change on an ongoing basis and presenting that information in a manner that is relevant to a broad range of decisions. As part of a sustained US National Climate Assessment, a pilot indicator system was implemented, informed by recommendations and (Kenney et al. 2014; Janetos and Kenney 2015; Kenney et al. Clim Chang 135(1):85–96, 2016). This paper extends this work to recommend a framework and topical categories for a system of climate indicators for the nation. We provide an overview of the indicator system as a whole: its goals, the design criteria for the indicators and the system as a whole, the selection of sectors, the use of conceptual models to transparently identify relevant indicators, examples of the actual indicators proposed, our vision for how the overall network can be used, and how it could evolve over time. Individual papers as part of this special issue provide system or sector-specific details as to how to operationalize the conceptual framework; these recommendations do not imply any decisions that are made ultimately by US federal agencies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of the present paper is to examine a selection of macro- and micro-linguistic features (at text and sentence/word level respectively) of the South-African Green Paper 'National Climate Change Response' from 2010. Our overarching assumption is that the Green Paper needs to handle competing interests, beliefs and voices in a narrative structure favouring specific courses of action. How does the government portray the complex natural and societal phenomenon of climate change, and how does it take into account the many and often competing national and international views and interests which come into play? Our hypothesis is that the Green Paper constructs a narrative and that it relates to a number of voices other than that of the authors, through linguistic markers of polyphony, such as negation, sentence connectives, adverbs and reported speech. Thus we propose a narrative and polyphonic analysis of the Green Paper, at the level of the text as a whole (macro-level) but also with attention to linguistic constructions of polyphony or 'multi-voicedness' (micro-level). We find that the narrative-polyphonic properties of the Green Paper contribute to a strategy for building consensus on climate change policy. The South African government assumes the role of main hero in its own climate change 'story', and there are subtle forms of interaction with different and typically non-identified voices, such as concessive constructions and presuppositions. These results support our overarching interpretation of the whole document as striving to impose a South African consensus on the issue of climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The effects of climate changes on the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority's water supply management techniques are discussed. Topics include financing of water resource planning, and the forecasted yields of the Quabbin reservoir.

The article offers information on the adaptation research published through the journal "Climatic Change." It presents analysis on the published papers related to adaptation which are predominantly based scenario-driven perspective. It proposes questions to be addressed when organising future adaptation research including the way the adaptation to climate will occur, the implementation of effective adaptation, and the effectiveness of adaptation in response to consequences of climate change.

This paper presents the results of a detailed review of the research literature on how nomadic pastoralists are being affected by climate change, how they are adapting, and challenges with using traditional knowledge in adaptation. It focuses on research that investigates local, and particularly traditional, knowledge of water, pasture, their variability, and livestock. This knowledge underpins nomadic livelihoods, so is a foundation for effective adaptation. Changes in the total amount of precipitation, and particularly shifts in its timing, and increases in the frequency and intensity of extreme events, are having the greatest impacts on herding livelihoods. Herders in drylands worldwide face common adaptation challenges: declining traditional water sources and pasture degradation. Herders' adaptation strategies fall into five major categories: movement to areas with better water and pasture, improving seasonal access to water, improving seasonal access to feed, shifts in herd composition, and livelihood diversification. Movement is central to nomads' adaptation, yet, as climate change takes hold, restrictions on movement are increasing for both socio-economic reasons and climate reasons. Many papers emphasised the importance of combining traditional knowledge and current science to guide adaptation decision-making at household, locality, and national levels. There is widespread concern about the decline in traditional knowledge. All the papers reviewed emphasised the need to support passing on traditional know-how. Herder women's know-how, in particular, is marginalised in the research literature, so their traditional knowledge should be a focus in further research. Herders' adaptations are mostly localised, incremental, and have a relatively short-term focus. As nomadic pastoralism moves further outside the range of historical experience, the possibility of more profound transformations looms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The politicization of climate change and the difficulty of achieving multi-level or sectoral stakeholder coordination are common institutional barriers to effective climate change adaptation governance outcomes. In the U.S., quasi-government organizations (QGOs) were designed to overcome such barriers, albeit traditionally for non-climatic purposes. This study’s objective is to illustrate how the design characteristics of QGOs may be useful for overcoming the above climate adaptation barriers. Methodologically, this paper analyzes six case studies, selected to illustrate the major characteristics of QGOs, of climate-focused and non climate-focused QGOs at the sub-national level in the U.S. Non climate-focused examples are included for comparison with, and to supplement, the limited number of QGOs currently working on climate efforts. For each case, this study focuses on eight design characteristics: seven that represent measures of political and financial independence, and one focused on board composition, to illustrate the extent to which QGOs enable multi-level and multi-sectoral stakeholder coordination. This study finds that among the assortment of existing QGO designs some are particularly well suited to overcoming either the politicization of climate adaptation policy or obstacles to enhancing policy coordination, while some reduce both, albeit to a lesser extent. Broadly, this paper concludes that QGOs can strengthen effective action by depoliticizing informational sources and fostering cross scale coordination of planning and implementation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study is a contribution to the ongoing debate about the selection of the approach for carbon accounting in wood products to be used, in the future, in the national greenhouse gas inventories under the UNFCCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change). Two accounting approaches are used in this analysis: the stock-change approach and the atmospheric-flow approach. They are applied to the Portuguese Eucalyptus globulus forest sector. To achieve this objective, the fluxes of wood removed from the forest are tracked through its life cycle, which includes products manufacture (mainly pulp and paper), use and final disposal (landfilling, incineration and composting). This study develops a framework to the estimation of carbon sequestration in the forest of E. globulus, a fast growing species, more specifically, in the calculation of the conversion factors such as bark and foliage percentages and densities, used to convert wood volumes into total biomass. A mass balance approach based on real data from mills is also proposed, in order to assess carbon emissions from wood processing. The results show that E. globulus forest sector was a carbon sink, but the magnitude of the carbon sequestration differs substantially depending on the accounting approach used. The contribution of the forest ecosystem was smaller than the aggregated contribution of wood products in use and in landfills (including industrial waste), which reinforces the role that wood products play in national carbon budgets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is part of a Special Issue on "National Indicators of Climate Changes, Impacts, and Vulnerability" edited by Anthony C. Janetos and Melissa A. Kenney Introduction Climate assessment efforts in the USA are a legally required and important process to share the state of knowledge about status and projected trends of climate changes and impacts and are used to support risk management decisions and policies (Jacobs et al. [11]). Contributions to this special issue The first paper in this special issue is I A framework for national climate indicators i (Kenney et al. [19]). In the first topical paper, I Toward an integrated system of climate change and human health indicators: a conceptual framework i (Liu et al. in preparation), the human health implications of climate change were explored to identify indicators. In I Indicators of climate change in agricultural systems i (Hatfield et al. [10]), the authors develop a conceptual framework that links the climate system to crop and livestock productivity as well as the impacts of land on other grassland and forest systems. [Extracted from the article]

Previous studies have projected a significant role for bioenergy in decarbonizing the global economy and helping realize international climate goals such as limiting global average warming to 2 ˚C or 1.5 ˚C. However, with substantial variability in bioenergy results and significant concerns about potential environmental and social implications, greater transparency and dedicated assessment of the underlying modeling and results and more detailed understanding of the potential role of bioenergy are needed. Stanford University's Energy Modeling Forum (EMF) initiated a 33rd study (EMF-33) to explore the viability of large-scale bioenergy as part of a comprehensive climate management strategy. This special issue presents the papers of the EMF-33 study—a multi-year inter-model comparison project designed to understand and assess global, long-run biomass supply and bioenergy deployment potentials and related uncertainties. Using a novel scenario design with independent biomass supply and bioenergy demand protocols, EMF-33 separately elucidates and explores the modeling of biomass feedstock supplies and bioenergy technologies and their deployment—revealing, comparing, and assessing the modeling that is suggesting that bioenergy could be a key climate containment strategy. This introduction provides an overview of the EMF-33 study design and the overview, thematic, and individual modeling team papers and types of insights that make up this special issue. By providing enhanced transparency and new detailed insights, we hope to inform policy dialogue about the potential role of bioenergy and facilitate new research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Coastal wetlands are significant components of the coastal landscape with important roles in ecosystem service provision and mitigation of climate change. They are also likely to be the system most impacted by climate change, feeling the effects of sea levels rise, temperature increases and rainfall regime changes. Climate change impacts on estuarine coastal wetlands (mangroves, saltmarsh) have been thoroughly investigated; however, the impacts on coastal freshwater wetlands (CFWs) are relatively unknown. To explore the current knowledge of the impacts of climate change on CFWs globally, we undertook a systematic quantitative literature review of peer-reviewed published literature. We found surprisingly little research (110 papers of an initial 678), the majority of which was conducted in the USA, focusing on the effects of sea level rise (SLR) on CFW vegetation or sediment accretion processes. From this research, we know that SLR will lead to reduced productivity, reduced regeneration, and increased mortality in CFW vegetation but little is known regarding the effects of other climate change drivers. Sediment accretion is also not sufficient to keep pace with SLR in many CFWs and again the effects of other climate drivers have not been investigated. The combination of unhealthy vegetation communities and minimal gain in vertical elevation can result in a transition towards a vegetation community of salt-tolerant species but more research is required to understand this process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Today, a major challenge for climate science is to overcome what is called the “usability gap” between the projections derived fromclimate models and the needs of the end-users. Regional Climate Models (RCMs) are expected to provide usable information concerning a variety of impacts and for a wide range of end-users. It is often assumed that the development of more accurate, more complex RCMs with higher spatial resolution should bring process understanding and better local projections, thus overcoming the usability gap. In this paper, I rather assume that the credibility of climate information should be pursued together with two other criteria of usability, which are salience and legitimacy. Based on the Swiss climate change scenarios, I study the attempts at meeting the needs of end-users and outline the trade-off modellers and users have to face with respect to the cascade of uncertainty. A conclusion of this paper is that the trade-off between salience and credibility sets the conditions under which RCMs can be deemed adequate for the purposes of addressing the needs of end-users and gearing the communication of the projections toward direct use and action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A high risk of overestimating emission reductions would be detrimental to the credibility of forest mitigation. But high-quality information on uncertainties in measuring emissions from forests is hard to obtain because of frequent shortcomings in uncertainty analyses. This paper aims to gauge what precision is achievable by examining data from several contexts (including data from 18 countries that have proposed jurisdictional mitigation programmes to the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility Carbon Fund). Countries reported random uncertainties in measuring forest carbon density (mostly 5–15% of the mean at the 90% confidence level), forest areas and their changes (mostly 0–20% for forest loss and forest degradation and 10–40% for forest gain), and greenhouse gas emissions (mostly 10–30%). It follows that uncertainties may be substantial in estimating emission reductions from forests and land-use change, and that these uncertainties entail significant risks of overestimation. I propose discount factors (between 9 and 44%) to conservatively adjust emission reduction estimates and reduce the overestimation risk. The paper concludes by pointing out that uncertainties are much lower for aggregate emission reductions of several programmes than they are for individual programmes. Discounting individual programmes’ emission reductions could therefore lead to understating the mitigation contribution that forests deliver. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the studies regarding the indigenous people who were said to be suffering from direct and indirect climate change because of their connection to the natural world and decreased on their social-ecological resilience. It mentions the papers with a subject of traditional people and climate change and a special report regarding climate change impacts and adaptation. It adds the papers that discusses the traditional knowledge on small islands in the Asia Pacific region.

This paper presents a methodology for developing a social Cumulative Effects Assessment (CEA) which analyses the impacts of climate change on maritime crime and maritime insecurities. The use of a CEA methodology, including the use of the Effect to Impact Pathway will enable mapping the relationships between certain ‘Activities’ (e.g. human-induced emissions of greenhouse gasses), the ‘Pressure’ engendered (e.g. warming sea temperatures) and their ‘Impacts’ (e.g. food shortages) via ‘Receptors’ (e.g. fishing communities) on specific sectors of society (in this case maritime migration and maritime crime, e.g. illegal fishing). This paper provides a Proof of Concept (PoC) for using such a methodology and shows the applicability of a multidisciplinary approach in understanding causal chains. In this PoC, the authors are generating a Non-Geographic Assessment Map that investigates the ‘Impacts’ that the human-induced greenhouse gas emissions have on maritime security. The proposed analytical tool can then be applied in further studies to assess the dependencies and synergies between climate change and the occurrence of maritime insecurity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Evidence of the health impact of climate change has been extensively documented in recent scholarly literature. In order to mitigate the adverse health effects induced by climate change, the need for conducting vulnerability assessments (VAs) has been emphasised. A higher vulnerability to climate change is often linked with substantial risks to human lives and built environment. Despite the potential of VAs in alleviating risks posed by climate change, only a limited amount of scholarly work in this domain has been conducted in the Indian context. The present research addresses this lacuna and contributes to the limited scholarship on climate change and health VAs in India. Drawing on the VA framework introduced by the fourth assessment report (AR4) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), this paper estimates district-level health vulnerabilities caused by climate change using multi-dimensional indices. The indices are multi-dimensional since they integrate 50 district-level indicators from 8 data sources for all 640 Census 2011 districts. The statistical technique of Principal Component Analysis (PCA) has been used for integrating the indicators. The findings of this paper indicate that nearly 56% of India’s population in 344 districts is highly vulnerable to the health impact of climate change. The results show that high vulnerability in certain districts is mediated by high adaptive capacity (AC). Since climate exposure varies across districts, the paper highlights the need for local-level responses and Complex Adaptive System (CAS) thinking to understand the implications of climate change and human health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the operationalization of climate-related indicators in violent conflict research. The climate-conflict narrative gained traction in recent decades and climate change is often referred to as a 'threat multiplier' by both policy makers and scholars. Yet, the relationships between climate-related phenomena and violent conflict are complex and context-specific. However, limited attention has been given to the climatic indicators applied in climate-conflict research. This paper addresses that gap by analyzing 32 studies published from 2004 to 2020 on the operationalization of climatic indicators and their relationship with violent conflict. It first categorizes climate indicators operationalization into five clusters: natural disasters, basic climate variability, advanced climate variability, freshwater availability, and the ENSO. The study evaluates the climate indicators for each cluster and shows that at an aggregate level these clusters examine 68 different climate representations. When paired with their respective conflict types, it finds a total of 113 climate-conflict combinations. Most operationalizations represent various forms of climate-related phenomena and variability rather than climate change. Some indicators are advancements over time, for example moving from changes in average rainfall to standardized precipitation indices. However, other indicators refer to various natural processes, making it challenging to determine whether climatic variability impacts conflict. The paper then demonstrates a discrepancy between the pathways through which climate may affect violent conflict and the representation of these pathways in the selected climate indicators. It discusses how the selection and operationalization of climate indicators requires careful consideration, and the phenomena researched should be well-specified in research findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]