Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research

About: Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research is a facility organization based out in Potsdam, Germany. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Climate change & Global warming. The organization has 1519 authors who have published 5098 publications receiving 367023 citations.

Position paper: Environmental decision support systems (EDSS) development - Challenges and best practices

Abstract: Despite the perceived value of DSS in informing environmental and natural resource management, DSS tools often fail to be adopted by intended end users. By drawing together the experience of a global group of EDSS developers, we have identified and assessed key challenges in EDSS development and offer recommendations to resolve them. Challenges related to engaging end users in EDSS development emphasise the need for a participatory process that embraces end users and stakeholders throughout the design and development process. Adoption challenges concerned with individual and organisational capacities to use EDSS and the match between EDSS and organisational goals can be overcome through the use of an internal champion to promote the EDSS at different levels of a target organisation; co-ordinate and build capacity within the organisation, and; ensure that developers maintain focus on developing EDSS which are relatively easy and inexpensive to use and update (and which are perceived as such by the target users). Significant challenges exist in relation to ensuring EDSS longevity and financial sustainability. Such business challenges may be met through planning and design that considers the long-term costs of training, support, and maintenance; revenue generation and licensing by instituting processes which support communication and interactions; and by employing software technology which enables easy model expansion and re use to gain an economy of scale and reduce development costs. A final group of perhaps more problematic challenges relate to how the success of EDSS ought to be evaluated. Whilst success can be framed relatively easily in terms of interactions with end users, difficulties of definition and measurability emerge in relation to the extent to which EDSS achieve intended outcomes. To tackle the challenges described, the authors provide a set of best practice recommendations concerned with promoting design for ease of use, design for usefulness, establishing trust and credibility, promoting EDSS acceptance, and starting simple and small in functionality terms. Following these recommendations should enhance the achievement of successful EDSS adoption, but more importantly, help facilitate the achievement of desirable social and environmental outcomes.

Why the right climate target was agreed in Paris

Abstract: The Paris Agreement duly reflects the latest scientific understanding of systemic global warming risks. Limiting the anthropogenic temperature anomaly to 1.5–2 °C is possible, yet requires transformational change across the board of modernity.

Effects of parameter uncertainties on the modeling of terrestrial biosphere dynamics

Abstract: Dynamic global vegetation models (DGVMs) have been shown to broadly reproduce seasonal and interannual patterns of carbon exchange, as well as realistic vegetation dynamics. To assess the uncertainties in these results associated with model parameterization, the Lund-Potsdam-Jena-DGVM (LPJ-DGVM) is analyzed in terms of model robustness and key sensitive parameters. Present-day global land-atmosphere carbon fluxes are relatively well constrained, despite considerable uncertainty in global net primary production mainly propagating from uncertainty in parameters controlling assimilation rate, plant respiration and plant water balance. In response to climate change, water-use efficiency driven increases in net carbon assimilation by plants, transient changes in vegetation composition and global warming effects on soil organic matter dynamics are robust model results. As a consequence, long-term trends in land-atmosphere fluxes are consistently modeled despite an uncertainty range of -3.35 +/- 1.45 PgC yr(-1) at the end of the twenty-first century for the specific scenario used. (Less)

Increased record-breaking precipitation events under global warming

Abstract: In the last decade record-breaking rainfall events have occurred in many places around the world causing severe impacts to human society and the environment including agricultural losses and floodings. There is now medium confidence that human-induced greenhouse gases have contributed to changes in heavy precipitation events at the global scale. Here, we present the first analysis of record-breaking daily rainfall events using observational data. We show that over the last three decades the number of record-breaking events has significantly increased in the global mean. Globally, this increase has led to 12 % more record-breaking rainfall events over 1981–2010 compared to those expected in stationary time series. The number of record-breaking rainfall events peaked in 2010 with an estimated 26 % chance that a new rainfall record is due to long-term climate change. This increase in record-breaking rainfall is explained by a statistical model which accounts for the warming of air and associated increasing water holding capacity only. Our results suggest that whilst the number of rainfall record-breaking events can be related to natural multi-decadal variability over the period from 1901 to 1980, observed record-breaking rainfall events significantly increased afterwards consistent with rising temperatures.

Risk of increased food insecurity under stringent global climate change mitigation policy

Abstract: Food insecurity can be directly exacerbated by climate change due to crop-production-related impacts of warmer and drier conditions that are expected in important agricultural regions1–3. However, efforts to mitigate climate change through comprehensive, economy-wide GHG emissions reductions may also negatively affect food security, due to indirect impacts on prices and supplies of key agricultural commodities4–6. Here we conduct a multiple model assessment on the combined effects of climate change and climate mitigation efforts on agricultural commodity prices, dietary energy availability and the population at risk of hunger. A robust finding is that by 2050, stringent climate mitigation policy, if implemented evenly across all sectors and regions, would have a greater negative impact on global hunger and food consumption than the direct impacts of climate change. The negative impacts would be most prevalent in vulnerable, low-income regions such as sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, where food security problems are already acute.