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- ItemClimate Change in Central and Eastern Europe(Dordrecht : Springer, 2014) Anders, I.; Stagl, J.; Auer, I.; Pavlik, D.Climate change is affecting many fields of the society, policy, economy and environment. Information on changes in the climate during the last centuries and especially in near and far future is essential. Estimation and quantification of changes in climate variables and indices are a necessary precondition for adaptation and mitigation measures. This chapter gives an overview on measures, observations as well as dynamical models, which are available to estimate changes in the past and the present climate as well as for a possible future climate. It summarises the state of knowledge according to the climate change signal in Central and Eastern Europe. Moreover it identifies the limitations and uncertainties of the measures and the derived information.
- ItemClimate Change Impact Modelling Cascade – Benefits and Limitations for Conservation Management(Dordrecht : Springer, 2014) Vohland, K.; Rannow, S.; Stagl, J.Model results can serve as a basis for adaptation in conservation management. They can help understanding the impact of climate change, and support the formulation of management measures. However, model results rely strongly on the quality and the resolution of the input data; they contain significant uncertainties and need to be interpreted in the context of the modelling assumptions. The perception of models and their results differs between disciplines as well as between science and practice. Part of this gap derives from the long ‘model cascade’ used for the assessment of climate related impacts on biodiversity. For this ‘model cascade’ model results from Global Climate Models are often used to drive Regional Downscaled Climate Models and are transferred to hydrological models or distribution models of plants and animals. In fact, most assessments of potential impacts of climate change on biodiversity rely on habitat modelling of plants and animals. But, only few decision makers are trained to analyse the different outcomes of climate impact modelling. If modelling is integrated into conservation management it must be based on an evaluation of the need for information in protected areas and an assessment of model use in the management process, so as to guarantee maximum usability.
- ItemThe LEGATO cross-disciplinary integrated ecosystem service research framework: an example of integrating research results from the analysis of global change impacts and the social, cultural and economic system dynamics of irrigated rice production(Heidelberg : Springer Verlag, 2017) Spangenberg, J.H.; Beaurepaire, A.L.; Bergmeier, E.; Burkhard, B.; van Chien, H.; Cuong, L.Q.; Görg, C.; Grescho, V.; Hai, L.H.; Heong, K.L.; Horgan, F.G.; Hotes, S.; Klotzbücher, A.; Klotzbücher, T.; Kühn, I.; Langerwisch, F.; Marion, G.; Moritz, R.F.A.; Nguyen, Q.A.; Ott, J.; Sann, C.; Sattler, C.; Schädler, M.; Schmidt, A.; Tekken, V.; Thanh, T.D.; Thonicke, K.; Türke, M.; Václavík, T.; Vetterlein, D.; Westphal, C.; Wiemers, M.; Settele, J.In a cross-disciplinary project (LEGATO) combining inter- and transdisciplinary methods, we quantify the dependency of rice-dominated socio-ecological systems on ecosystem functions (ESF) and the ecosystem services (ESS) the integrated system provides. In the collaboration of a large team including geo- and bioscientists, economists, political and cultural scientists, the mutual influences of the biological, climate and soil conditions of the agricultural area and its surrounding natural landscape have been analysed. One focus was on sociocultural and economic backgrounds, another on local as well as regional land use intensity and biodiversity, and the potential impacts of future climate and land use change. LEGATO analysed characteristic elements of three service strands defined by the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA): (a) provisioning services: nutrient cycling and crop production; (b) regulating services: biocontrol and pollination; and (c) cultural services: cultural identity and aesthetics. However, in line with much of the current ESS literature, what the MA called supporting services is treated as ESF within LEGATO. As a core output, LEGATO developed generally applicable principles of ecological engineering (EE), suitable for application in the context of future climate and land use change. EE is an emerging discipline, concerned with the design, monitoring and construction of ecosystems and aims at developing strategies to optimise ecosystem services through exploiting natural regulation mechanisms instead of suppressing them. Along these lines LEGATO also aims to create the knowledge base for decision-making for sustainable land management and livelihoods, including the provision of the corresponding governance and management strategies, technologies and system solutions.
- ItemWhen optimization for governing human-environment tipping elements is neither sustainable nor safe(London : Nature Publishing Group, 2018) Barfuss, W.; Donges, J.F.; Lade, S.J.; Kurths, J.Optimizing economic welfare in environmental governance has been criticized for delivering short-term gains at the expense of long-term environmental degradation. Different from economic optimization, the concepts of sustainability and the more recent safe operating space have been used to derive policies in environmental governance. However, a formal comparison between these three policy paradigms is still missing, leaving policy makers uncertain which paradigm to apply. Here, we develop a better understanding of their interrelationships, using a stylized model of human-environment tipping elements. We find that no paradigm guarantees fulfilling requirements imposed by another paradigm and derive simple heuristics for the conditions under which these trade-offs occur. We show that the absence of such a master paradigm is of special relevance for governing real-world tipping systems such as climate, fisheries, and farming, which may reside in a parameter regime where economic optimization is neither sustainable nor safe.
- ItemCommitted sea-level rise under the Paris Agreement and the legacy of delayed mitigation action(London : Nature Publishing Group, 2018) Mengel, M.; Nauels, A.; Rogelj, J.; Schleussner, C.-F.Sea-level rise is a major consequence of climate change that will continue long after emissions of greenhouse gases have stopped. The 2015 Paris Agreement aims at reducing climate-related risks by reducing greenhouse gas emissions to net zero and limiting global-mean temperature increase. Here we quantify the effect of these constraints on global sea-level rise until 2300, including Antarctic ice-sheet instabilities. We estimate median sea-level rise between 0.7 and 1.2 m, if net-zero greenhouse gas emissions are sustained until 2300, varying with the pathway of emissions during this century. Temperature stabilization below 2 °C is insufficient to hold median sea-level rise until 2300 below 1.5 m. We find that each 5-year delay in near-term peaking of CO2 emissions increases median year 2300 sea-level rise estimates by ca. 0.2 m, and extreme sea-level rise estimates at the 95th percentile by up to 1 m. Our results underline the importance of near-term mitigation action for limiting long-term sea-level rise risks.
- ItemClimate analogues suggest limited potential for intensification of production on current croplands under climate change(London : Nature Publishing Group, 2016) Pugh, T.A.M.; Müller, C.; Elliott, J.; Deryng, D.; Folberth, C.; Olin, S.; Schmid, E.; Arneth, A.
- ItemRisk, rationality, and resilience(Beijing : Beijing Normal University Press, 2010) Jaeger, C.Improving our ability to cope with large risks is one of the key challenges for humankind in this century. This article outlines a research program in this perspective. Starting with a concrete example of a relatively small disaster, it questions simplistic ideas of rationality. It then proposes a fresh look at the concepts of probability and utility in the context of socio-ecological systems. This leads first to an emphasis on the problem of equilibrium selection, and then to a distinction between three kinds of resilience that matter both for theory and practice of risk management. They can be investigated by paying attention to the transitions into and out of actual disasters.
- ItemAvoiding the avoidable: Towards a European heat waves risk governance(Beijing : Beijing Normal University Press, 2011) Lass, W.; Haas, A.; Hinkel, J.; Jaeger, C.The death toll of recent heat waves in developed countries has been remarkably high, contradicting the common assumption that high levels of economic and technological development automatically lead to lower vulnerability to weather extremes. Future climate change may further increase this vulnerability. In this article we examine some recent evidence of heat wave-related mortality and we conclude that while economic wealth and technological capacity might be a necessary condition for adequately coping with adverse climate change effects, they are not sufficient. Questions of awareness, preparedness, organizational issues, and actor networks have to be addressed in a proactive and focused manner in order to avoid future heat wave damages. We propose some practical consequences for heat wave adaptation measures by adopting a risk governance framework that can be universally applied, as it is sufficiently flexible to deal with the multi-level and often fragmented reality of existing coping measures.
- ItemUnderstanding the origin of Paris Agreement emission uncertainties(London : Nature Publishing Group, 2017) Rogelj, J.; Fricko, O.; Meinshausen, M.; Krey, V.; Zilliacus, J.J.J.; Riahi, K.The UN Paris Agreement puts in place a legally binding mechanism to increase mitigation action over time. Countries put forward pledges called nationally determined contributions (NDC) whose impact is assessed in global stocktaking exercises. Subsequently, actions can then be strengthened in light of the Paris climate objective: Limiting global mean temperature increase to well below 2 °C and pursuing efforts to limit it further to 1.5 °C. However, pledged actions are currently described ambiguously and this complicates the global stocktaking exercise. Here, we systematically explore possible interpretations of NDC assumptions, and show that this results in estimated emissions for 2030 ranging from 47 to 63 GtCO2e yr-1. We show that this uncertainty has critical implications for the feasibility and cost to limit warming well below 2 °C and further to 1.5 °C. Countries are currently working towards clarifying the modalities of future NDCs. We identify salient avenues to reduce the overall uncertainty by about 10 percentage points through simple, technical clarifications regarding energy accounting rules. Remaining uncertainties depend to a large extent on politically valid choices about how NDCs are expressed, and therefore raise the importance of a thorough and robust process that keeps track of where emissions are heading over time.
- ItemDie deutsche Energiewende: gesellschaftliches Experiment und sozialer Lernprozess(München : Oekom - Gesellschaft fuer Oekologische Kommunikation mbH, 2012) Pahle, M.; Knopf, B.; Edenhofer, O.[No abstract available]
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