Increasing risks related to landslides from degrading permafrost into new lakes in de-glaciating mountain ranges

Notions of ‘co‐production’ are growing in popularity in social science and humanities research on climate change, although there is some ambiguity about the meanings of the term and how it is being used. It is time to critically and reflexively take stock of this expanding area of scholarship. A comprehensive review of over 130 scientific publications first mapped the scholars using co‐production, relative to characteristics like their discipline, nationality, and research themes. Second, it looked at how this diversity of scientific perspectives has opened up a multiplicity of meanings of co‐production. While most discussions of co‐production stop at a basic distinction between descriptive and normative uses of the term, this review unpacked eight conceptual lenses on co‐production, each discernible by its particular emphases, academic traditions, logic, and criteria of success. There are two important implications of this work. On one hand, it urges self‐reflexive transparency when using co‐production concepts. The multiple meanings attached to co‐production add richness to the concept and open it up to different uses. However, it is important that scholars clearly communicate how they use the term and are mindful of what they ‘buy into’ by using the concept in certain ways. On the other hand, there are tensions between the different perspectives as well as opportunities for combining them into a compound concept of co‐production. In this way, co‐production is reconceptualized as a prism, where each aspect allows different but complimentary insights on the relationship between science, society, and nature. WIREs Clim Change 2017, 8:e482. doi: 10.1002/wcc.482 This article is categorized under: Social Status of Climate Change Knowledge > Knowledge and Practice

Co‐production in climate change research: reviewing different perspectives

CENTRAL AMERICA and the West Indies are attracting so much attention at present that a comprehensive description of them is of especial value to all who are watching the growth of political power in the New World. Hence we may welcome Mr. Keane's work, which, inter alia, treats of their history, physical geography, climate, flora, fauna, ethnology and industries, as well as of their financial and commercial statistics. The volume, although purporting to be a “new issue,” might well claim to have no relation to the old one, edited, a quarter of a century ago, by the well-known naturalist H. W. Bates; for the knowledge of the region which has accumulated during the interval has been largely utilised, although not brought up to date in some important respects. Besides ten carefully executed maps, not overloaded and confused by unimportant names, the work contains numerous illustrations.

/pdf/central-and-south-america-1-1y37v2hhds.pdf

Central and South America. 1

/pdf/rapid-decline-of-snow-and-ice-in-the-tropical-andes-impacts-2kaalvkwsf.pdf

Rapid decline of snow and ice in the tropical Andes – Impacts, uncertainties and challenges ahead

This paper examines the use of interactive models of research in the US regional integrated scientific assessments (RISAS), using as a case study the climate assessment of the Southwest (CLIMAS). It focuses on three components of regional climate assessments: interdisciplinarity, interaction with stakeholders and production of usable knowledge, and on the role of three explanatory variables––the level of ‘fit’ between state of knowledge production and application, disciplinary and personal flexibility, and availability of resources—which affect the co-production of science and policy in the context of integrated assessments. It finds that although no single model can fulfill the multitude of goals of such assessments, it is in highly interactive models that the possibilities of higher levels of innovation and related social impact are most likely to occur.

The Co-Production of Science and Policy in Integrated Climate Assessments

http://www.met.igp.gob.pe/publicaciones/2015/huggel_etal_andesplus_envscipol15.pdf

Elizabeth Silvestre

Papers

A framework for the science contribution in climate adaptation: Experiences from science-policy processes in the Andes