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Gary W. Yohe

Bio: Gary W. Yohe is an academic researcher from Wesleyan University. The author has contributed to research in topics: Climate change & Political economy of climate change. The author has an hindex of 49, co-authored 172 publications receiving 20358 citations. Previous affiliations of Gary W. Yohe include Carnegie Mellon University & University at Albany, SUNY.


Papers
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Journal ArticleDOI
02 Jan 2003-Nature
TL;DR: A diagnostic fingerprint of temporal and spatial ‘sign-switching’ responses uniquely predicted by twentieth century climate trends is defined and generates ‘very high confidence’ (as laid down by the IPCC) that climate change is already affecting living systems.
Abstract: Causal attribution of recent biological trends to climate change is complicated because non-climatic influences dominate local, short-term biological changes. Any underlying signal from climate change is likely to be revealed by analyses that seek systematic trends across diverse species and geographic regions; however, debates within the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reveal several definitions of a 'systematic trend'. Here, we explore these differences, apply diverse analyses to more than 1,700 species, and show that recent biological trends match climate change predictions. Global meta-analyses documented significant range shifts averaging 6.1 km per decade towards the poles (or metres per decade upward), and significant mean advancement of spring events by 2.3 days per decade. We define a diagnostic fingerprint of temporal and spatial 'sign-switching' responses uniquely predicted by twentieth century climate trends. Among appropriate long-term/large-scale/multi-species data sets, this diagnostic fingerprint was found for 279 species. This suite of analyses generates 'very high confidence' (as laid down by the IPCC) that climate change is already affecting living systems.

9,761 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, a practically motivated method for evaluating systems' abilities to handle external stress is proposed, which is designed to assess the potential contributions of various adaptation options to improving systems' coping capacities by focusing on the underlying determinants of adaptive capacity.
Abstract: This paper offers a practically motivated method for evaluating systems’ abilities to handle external stress. The method is designed to assess the potential contributions of various adaptation options to improving systems’ coping capacities by focusing attention directly on the underlying determinants of adaptive capacity. The method should be sufficiently flexible to accommodate diverse applications whose contexts are location specific and path dependent without imposing the straightjacket constraints of a “one size fits all” cookbook approach. Nonetheless, the method should produce unitless indicators that can be employed to judge the relative vulnerabilities of diverse systems to multiple stresses and to their potential interactions. An artificial application is employed to describe the development of the method and to illustrate how it might be applied. Some empirical evidence is offered to underscore the significance of the determinants of adaptive capacity in determining vulnerability; these are the determinants upon which the method is constructed. The method is, finally, applied directly to expert judgments of six different adaptations that could reduce vulnerability in the Netherlands to increased flooding along the Rhine River.

1,233 citations

01 Jan 2010
TL;DR: These guidance notes are intended to assist the Lead Authors of the Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) in the consistent treatment of uncertainties across all three Working Groups as discussed by the authors, which can be used broadly for developing expert judgments and for evaluating and communicating the degree of certainty in findings of the assessment process.
Abstract: These guidance notes are intended to assist Lead Authors of the Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) in the consistent treatment of uncertainties across all three Working Groups. These notes define a common approach and calibrated language that can be used broadly for developing expert judgments and for evaluating and communicating the degree of certainty in findings of the assessment process. These notes refine background material provided to support the Third and Fourth Assessment Reports [1] and [2]; they represent the results of discussions at a Cross-Working Group Meeting on Consistent Treatment of Uncertainties convened in July of 2010 [3]. They also address key elements of the recommendations made by the 2010 independent review of the IPCC by the InterAcademy Council [4]. Review Editors play an important role in ensuring consistent use of this calibrated language within each Working Group report. Each Working Group will supplement these notes with more specific guidance on particular issues consistent with the common approach given here.

662 citations

Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, Daniela Jacob, Marco Bindi, Sally Brown, I. A. Camilloni, Arona Diedhiou, Riyanti Djalante, Kristie L. Ebi1, Francois Engelbrecht1, Joel Guiot, Yasuaki Hijioka, S. Mehrotra, Antony J. Payne2, Sonia I. Seneviratne3, Adelle Thomas3, Rachel Warren4, G. Zhou4, Sharina Abdul Halim, Michelle Achlatis, Lisa V. Alexander, Myles R. Allen, Peter Berry, Christopher Boyer, Edward Byers, Lorenzo Brilli, Marcos Silveira Buckeridge, William W. L. Cheung, Marlies Craig, Neville Ellis, Jason P. Evans, Hubertus Fischer, Klaus Fraedrich, Sabine Fuss, Anjani Ganase, Jean-Pierre Gattuso, Peter Greve, Tania Guillén Bolaños, Naota Hanasaki, Tomoko Hasegawa, Katie Hayes, Annette L. Hirsch, Chris D. Jones, Thomas Jung, Markku Kanninen, Gerhard Krinner, David M. Lawrence, Timothy M. Lenton, Debora Ley, Diana Liverman, Natalie M. Mahowald, Kathleen L. McInnes, Katrin J. Meissner, Richard J. Millar, Katja Mintenbeck, Daniel M. Mitchell, Alan C. Mix, Dirk Notz, Leonard Nurse, Andrew Emmanuel Okem, Lennart Olsson, Michael Oppenheimer, Shlomit Paz, Juliane Petersen, Jan Petzold, Swantje Preuschmann, Mohammad Feisal Rahman, Joeri Rogelj, Hanna Scheuffele, Carl-Friedrich Schleussner, Daniel Scott, Roland Séférian, Jana Sillmann, Chandni Singh, Raphael Slade, Kimberly Stephenson, Tannecia S. Stephenson, Mouhamadou Bamba Sylla, Mark Tebboth, Petra Tschakert, Robert Vautard, Richard Wartenburger, Michael Wehner, Nora Marie Weyer, Felicia S. Whyte, Gary W. Yohe, Xuebin Zhang, Robert B. Zougmoré 
01 Jan 2018
TL;DR: In this article, the authors present a survey of women's sportswriters in South Africa and Ivory Coast, including: Marco Bindi (Italy), Sally Brown (UK), Ines Camilloni (Argentina), Arona Diedhiou (Ivory Coast/Senegal), Riyanti Djalante (Japan/Indonesia), Kristie L. Ebi (USA), Francois Engelbrecht (South Africa), Joel Guiot (France), Yasuaki Hijioka (Japan), Shagun Mehrotra (USA/India), Ant
Abstract: Lead Authors: Marco Bindi (Italy), Sally Brown (UK), Ines Camilloni (Argentina), Arona Diedhiou (Ivory Coast/Senegal), Riyanti Djalante (Japan/Indonesia), Kristie L. Ebi (USA), Francois Engelbrecht (South Africa), Joel Guiot (France), Yasuaki Hijioka (Japan), Shagun Mehrotra (USA/India), Antony Payne (UK), Sonia I. Seneviratne (Switzerland), Adelle Thomas (Bahamas), Rachel Warren (UK), Guangsheng Zhou (China)

614 citations


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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Range-restricted species, particularly polar and mountaintop species, show severe range contractions and have been the first groups in which entire species have gone extinct due to recent climate change.
Abstract: Ecological changes in the phenology and distribution of plants and animals are occurring in all well-studied marine, freshwater, and terrestrial groups These observed changes are heavily biased in the directions predicted from global warming and have been linked to local or regional climate change through correlations between climate and biological variation, field and laboratory experiments, and physiological research Range-restricted species, particularly polar and mountaintop species, show severe range contractions and have been the first groups in which entire species have gone extinct due to recent climate change Tropical coral reefs and amphibians have been most negatively affected Predator-prey and plant-insect interactions have been disrupted when interacting species have responded differently to warming Evolutionary adaptations to warmer conditions have occurred in the interiors of species’ ranges, and resource use and dispersal have evolved rapidly at expanding range margins Observed genetic shifts modulate local effects of climate change, but there is little evidence that they will mitigate negative effects at the species level

7,657 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
08 Jan 2004-Nature
TL;DR: Estimates of extinction risks for sample regions that cover some 20% of the Earth's terrestrial surface show the importance of rapid implementation of technologies to decrease greenhouse gas emissions and strategies for carbon sequestration.
Abstract: Climate change over the past approximately 30 years has produced numerous shifts in the distributions and abundances of species and has been implicated in one species-level extinction. Using projections of species' distributions for future climate scenarios, we assess extinction risks for sample regions that cover some 20% of the Earth's terrestrial surface. Exploring three approaches in which the estimated probability of extinction shows a power-law relationship with geographical range size, we predict, on the basis of mid-range climate-warming scenarios for 2050, that 15-37% of species in our sample of regions and taxa will be 'committed to extinction'. When the average of the three methods and two dispersal scenarios is taken, minimal climate-warming scenarios produce lower projections of species committed to extinction ( approximately 18%) than mid-range ( approximately 24%) and maximum-change ( approximately 35%) scenarios. These estimates show the importance of rapid implementation of technologies to decrease greenhouse gas emissions and strategies for carbon sequestration.

7,089 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, a review of adaptation of human communities to global changes, especially climate change, in the context of adaptive capacity and vulnerability is presented, focusing on scholarship that contributes to practical implementation of adaptations at the community scale.
Abstract: This paper reviews the concept of adaptation of human communities to global changes, especially climate change, in the context of adaptive capacity and vulnerability. It focuses on scholarship that contributes to practical implementation of adaptations at the community scale. In numerous social science fields, adaptations are considered as responses to risks associated with the interaction of environmental hazards and human vulnerability or adaptive capacity. In the climate change field, adaptation analyses have been undertaken for several distinct purposes. Impact assessments assume adaptations to estimate damages to longer term climate scenarios with and without adjustments. Evaluations of specified adaptation options aim to identify preferred measures. Vulnerability indices seek to provide relative vulnerability scores for countries, regions or communities. The main purpose of participatory vulnerability assessments is to identify adaptation strategies that are feasible and practical in communities. The distinctive features of adaptation analyses with this purpose are outlined, and common elements of this approach are described. Practical adaptation initiatives tend to focus on risks that are already problematic, climate is considered together with other environmental and social stresses, and adaptations are mostly integrated or mainstreamed into other resource management, disaster preparedness and sustainable development programs. r 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

4,612 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
19 Aug 2011-Science
TL;DR: A meta-analysis shows that species are shifting their distributions in response to climate change at an accelerating rate, and that the range shift of each species depends on multiple internal species traits and external drivers of change.
Abstract: The distributions of many terrestrial organisms are currently shifting in latitude or elevation in response to changing climate Using a meta-analysis, we estimated that the distributions of species have recently shifted to higher elevations at a median rate of 110 meters per decade, and to higher latitudes at a median rate of 169 kilometers per decade These rates are approximately two and three times faster than previously reported The distances moved by species are greatest in studies showing the highest levels of warming, with average latitudinal shifts being generally sufficient to track temperature changes However, individual species vary greatly in their rates of change, suggesting that the range shift of each species depends on multiple internal species traits and external drivers of change Rapid average shifts derive from a wide diversity of responses by individual species

3,986 citations