scispace - formally typeset
Search or ask a question
Author

Clair Hanson

Other affiliations: University of East Anglia
Bio: Clair Hanson is an academic researcher from Imperial College London. The author has contributed to research in topics: Climate change & Land use, land-use change and forestry. The author has an hindex of 8, co-authored 8 publications receiving 9375 citations. Previous affiliations of Clair Hanson include University of East Anglia.

Papers
More filters
Book
01 Jan 2007
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present a cross-chapter case study on climate change and sustainability in natural and managed systems and assess key vulnerabilities and the risk from climate change, and assess adaptation practices, options, constraints and capacity.
Abstract: Foreword Preface Introduction Summary for policymakers Technical summary 1. Assessment of observed changes and responses in natural and managed systems 2. New assessment methodologies and the characterisation of future conditions 3. Fresh water resources and their management 4. Ecosystems, their properties, goods and services 5. Food, fibre and forest products 6. Coastal systems and low-lying areas 7. Industry, settlement and society 8. Human health 9. Africa 10. Asia 11. Australia and New Zealand 12. Europe 13. Latin America 14. North America 15. Polar regions (Arctic and Antarctic) 16. Small islands 17. Assessment of adaptation practices, options, constraints and capacity 18. Inter-relationships between adaptation and mitigation 19. Assessing key vulnerabilities and the risk from climate change 20. Perspectives on climate change and sustainability - 811 Cross-chapter case studies Appendix I. Glossary Appendix II. Contributors to the IPCC WGII Fourth Assessment Report Appendix III. Reviewers of the IPCC WGII Fourth Assessment Report Appendix IV. Acronyms and abbreviations Appendix V. Index and database of regional content Index CD-ROM.

8,465 citations

01 Jan 2007
TL;DR: The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was set up jointly by the World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations Environment Programme to provide an authoritative international statement of scientific understanding of climate change.
Abstract: The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was set up jointly by the World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations Environment Programme to provide an authoritative international statement of scientific understanding of climate change. The IPCC’s periodic assessments of the causes, impacts and possible response strategies to climate change are the most comprehensive and up-to-date reports available on the subject, and form the standard reference for all concerned with climate change in academia, government and industry worldwide. Through three working groups, many hundreds of international experts assess climate change in this Fourth Assessment Report.

627 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
30 Apr 2009-Nature
TL;DR: The authors will probably overshoot the current climate targets, so policies of adaptation and recovery need much more attention, say Martin Parry, Jason Lowe and Clair Hanson.
Abstract: We will probably overshoot our current climate targets, so policies of adaptation and recovery need much more attention, say Martin Parry, Jason Lowe and Clair Hanson.

164 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Both emissions reduction and adaptation will need to be much stronger than currently planned if dangerous global impacts of climate change are to be avoided June's UN talks in Bonn and July's G8 summit present opportunities for world leaders to face this challenge as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: Both emissions reduction and adaptation will need to be much stronger than currently planned if dangerous global impacts of climate change are to be avoided June's UN talks in Bonn and July's G8 summit present opportunities for world leaders to face this challenge

111 citations


Cited by
More filters
Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present the first global assessment of recent tree mortality attributed to drought and heat stress and identify key information gaps and scientific uncertainties that currently hinder our ability to predict tree mortality in response to climate change and emphasizes the need for a globally coordinated observation system.

5,811 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
11 Feb 2010-Nature
TL;DR: A new process for creating plausible scenarios to investigate some of the most challenging and important questions about climate change confronting the global community is described.
Abstract: Advances in the science and observation of climate change are providing a clearer understanding of the inherent variability of Earth's climate system and its likely response to human and natural influences. The implications of climate change for the environment and society will depend not only on the response of the Earth system to changes in radiative forcings, but also on how humankind responds through changes in technology, economies, lifestyle and policy. Extensive uncertainties exist in future forcings of and responses to climate change, necessitating the use of scenarios of the future to explore the potential consequences of different response options. To date, such scenarios have not adequately examined crucial possibilities, such as climate change mitigation and adaptation, and have relied on research processes that slowed the exchange of information among physical, biological and social scientists. Here we describe a new process for creating plausible scenarios to investigate some of the most challenging and important questions about climate change confronting the global community.

5,670 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors proposed a new approach to global sustainability in which they define planetary boundaries within which they expect that humanity can operate safely. But the proposed concept of "planetary boundaries" lays the groundwork for shifting our approach to governance and management, away from the essentially sectoral analyses of limits to growth aimed at minimizing negative externalities, toward the estimation of the safe space for human development.
Abstract: Anthropogenic pressures on the Earth System have reached a scale where abrupt global environmental change can no longer be excluded. We propose a new approach to global sustainability in which we define planetary boundaries within which we expect that humanity can operate safely. Transgressing one or more planetary boundaries may be deleterious or even catastrophic due to the risk of crossing thresholds that will trigger non-linear, abrupt environmental change within continental- to planetary-scale systems. We have identified nine planetary boundaries and, drawing upon current scientific understanding, we propose quantifications for seven of them. These seven are climate change (CO2 concentration in the atmosphere <350 ppm and/or a maximum change of +1 W m-2 in radiative forcing); ocean acidification (mean surface seawater saturation state with respect to aragonite ≥ 80% of pre-industrial levels); stratospheric ozone (<5% reduction in O3 concentration from pre-industrial level of 290 Dobson Units); biogeochemical nitrogen (N) cycle (limit industrial and agricultural fixation of N2 to 35 Tg N yr-1) and phosphorus (P) cycle (annual P inflow to oceans not to exceed 10 times the natural background weathering of P); global freshwater use (<4000 km3 yr-1 of consumptive use of runoff resources); land system change (<15% of the ice-free land surface under cropland); and the rate at which biological diversity is lost (annual rate of <10 extinctions per million species). The two additional planetary boundaries for which we have not yet been able to determine a boundary level are chemical pollution and atmospheric aerosol loading. We estimate that humanity has already transgressed three planetary boundaries: for climate change, rate of biodiversity loss, and changes to the global nitrogen cycle. Planetary boundaries are interdependent, because transgressing one may both shift the position of other boundaries or cause them to be transgressed. The social impacts of transgressing boundaries will be a function of the social-ecological resilience of the affected societies. Our proposed boundaries are rough, first estimates only, surrounded by large uncertainties and knowledge gaps. Filling these gaps will require major advancements in Earth System and resilience science. The proposed concept of "planetary boundaries" lays the groundwork for shifting our approach to governance and management, away from the essentially sectoral analyses of limits to growth aimed at minimizing negative externalities, toward the estimation of the safe space for human development. Planetary boundaries define, as it were, the boundaries of the "planetary playing field" for humanity if we want to be sure of avoiding major human-induced environmental change on a global scale.

4,771 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
13 Jun 2008-Science
TL;DR: Interdisciplinary science that integrates knowledge of the many interacting climate services of forests with the impacts of global change is necessary to identify and understand as yet unexplored feedbacks in the Earth system and the potential of forests to mitigate climate change.
Abstract: The world's forests influence climate through physical, chemical, and biological processes that affect planetary energetics, the hydrologic cycle, and atmospheric composition. These complex and nonlinear forest-atmosphere interactions can dampen or amplify anthropogenic climate change. Tropical, temperate, and boreal reforestation and afforestation attenuate global warming through carbon sequestration. Biogeophysical feedbacks can enhance or diminish this negative climate forcing. Tropical forests mitigate warming through evaporative cooling, but the low albedo of boreal forests is a positive climate forcing. The evaporative effect of temperate forests is unclear. The net climate forcing from these and other processes is not known. Forests are under tremendous pressure from global change. Interdisciplinary science that integrates knowledge of the many interacting climate services of forests with the impacts of global change is necessary to identify and understand as yet unexplored feedbacks in the Earth system and the potential of forests to mitigate climate change.

4,541 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
06 Oct 2011-Nature
TL;DR: In this article, a new generation of experiments and soil carbon models were proposed to predict the SOM response to global warming, and they showed that molecular structure alone alone does not control SOM stability.
Abstract: Globally, soil organic matter (SOM) contains more than three times as much carbon as either the atmosphere or terrestrial vegetation. Yet it remains largely unknown why some SOM persists for millennia whereas other SOM decomposes readily—and this limits our ability to predict how soils will respond to climate change. Recent analytical and experimental advances have demonstrated that molecular structure alone does not control SOM stability: in fact, environmental and biological controls predominate. Here we propose ways to include this understanding in a new generation of experiments and soil carbon models, thereby improving predictions of the SOM response to global warming.

4,219 citations