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BookDOI

Managing the risks of extreme events and disasters to advance climate change adaptation. Special report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

TL;DR: In this paper, a special report on Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation (SREX) has been jointly coordinated by Working Groups I (WGI) and II (WGII) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
Abstract: This Special Report on Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation (SREX) has been jointly coordinated by Working Groups I (WGI) and II (WGII) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The report focuses on the relationship between climate change and extreme weather and climate events, the impacts of such events, and the strategies to manage the associated risks. This Special Report, in particular, contributes to frame the challenge of dealing with extreme weather and climate events as an issue in decision making under uncertainty, analyzing response in the context of risk management. The report consists of nine chapters, covering risk management; observed and projected changes in extreme weather and climate events; exposure and vulnerability to as well as losses resulting from such events; adaptation options from the local to the international scale; the role of sustainable development in modulating risks; and insights from specific case studies. (LN)
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Journal ArticleDOI
16 Aug 2012-Nature
TL;DR: This Perspective provides a snapshot of the current energy landscape and discusses several research and development opportunities and pathways that could lead to a prosperous, sustainable and secure energy future for the world.
Abstract: Access to clean, affordable and reliable energy has been a cornerstone of the world's increasing prosperity and economic growth since the beginning of the industrial revolution. Our use of energy in the twenty–first century must also be sustainable. Solar and water–based energy generation, and engineering of microbes to produce biofuels are a few examples of the alternatives. This Perspective puts these opportunities into a larger context by relating them to a number of aspects in the transportation and electricity generation sectors. It also provides a snapshot of the current energy landscape and discusses several research and development opportunities and pathways that could lead to a prosperous, sustainable and secure energy future for the world.

7,721 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, a commonly used drought index and observational data are examined to identify the cause of these discrepancies, and the authors indicate that improvements in the quality and coverage of precipitation data and quantification of natural variability are necessary to provide a better understanding of how drought is changing.
Abstract: Recent studies have produced conflicting results about the impacts of climate change on drought. In this Perspective, a commonly used drought index and observational data are examined to identify the cause of these discrepancies. The authors indicate that improvements in the quality and coverage of precipitation data and quantification of natural variability are necessary to provide a better understanding of how drought is changing.

2,144 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This article used several climate models to estimate the global risk of flooding at the end of the century and showed that vulnerability is dependent on the degree of warming and the interannual variability in precipitation.
Abstract: Flood risk is expected to increase as the climate warms. This study, for the first time, uses several climate models to estimate the global risk of flooding at the end of the century. Projections show a large increase in flood frequency in some areas, whereas other regions can expect a decrease. Vulnerability is dependent on the degree of warming and the interannual variability in precipitation.

1,812 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
11 Mar 2015-PLOS ONE
TL;DR: This work combines spatially explicit estimates of the baseline population with demographic data in order to derive scenario-driven projections of coastal population development and highlights countries and regions with a high degree of exposure to coastal flooding and help identifying regions where policies and adaptive planning for building resilient coastal communities are not only desirable but essential.
Abstract: Coastal zones are exposed to a range of coastal hazards including sea-level rise with its related effects. At the same time, they are more densely populated than the hinterland and exhibit higher rates of population growth and urbanisation. As this trend is expected to continue into the future, we investigate how coastal populations will be affected by such impacts at global and regional scales by the years 2030 and 2060. Starting from baseline population estimates for the year 2000, we assess future population change in the low-elevation coastal zone and trends in exposure to 100-year coastal floods based on four different sea-level and socio-economic scenarios. Our method accounts for differential growth of coastal areas against the land-locked hinterland and for trends of urbanisation and expansive urban growth, as currently observed, but does not explicitly consider possible displacement or out-migration due to factors such as sea-level rise. We combine spatially explicit estimates of the baseline population with demographic data in order to derive scenario-driven projections of coastal population development. Our scenarios show that the number of people living in the low-elevation coastal zone, as well as the number of people exposed to flooding from 1-in-100 year storm surge events, is highest in Asia. China, India, Bangladesh, Indonesia and Viet Nam are estimated to have the highest total coastal population exposure in the baseline year and this ranking is expected to remain largely unchanged in the future. However, Africa is expected to experience the highest rates of population growth and urbanisation in the coastal zone, particularly in Egypt and sub-Saharan countries in Western and Eastern Africa. The results highlight countries and regions with a high degree of exposure to coastal flooding and help identifying regions where policies and adaptive planning for building resilient coastal communities are not only desirable but essential. Furthermore, we identify needs for further research and scope for improvement in this kind of scenario-based exposure analysis.

1,604 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
15 Nov 2012-Nature
TL;DR: It is shown that the previously reported increase in global drought is overestimated because the PDSI uses a simplified model of potential evaporation that responds only to changes in temperature and thus responds incorrectly to global warming in recent decades.
Abstract: A physically based approach to drought modelling shows that there has been little change in drought from 1950 to 2008, contradicting previous work that suggested an increase in recent years. Published assessments of historic changes in drought during recent decades have suggested that the frequency and area of droughts have been increasing. Here Justin Sheffield et al. show that this prior work was flawed, because of an inappropriate calculation of drought metrics. Using a more physically based approach, the team shows that there has in fact been little change in drought during the period 1950 to 2008. Drought is expected to increase in frequency and severity in the future as a result of climate change, mainly as a consequence of decreases in regional precipitation but also because of increasing evaporation driven by global warming1,2,3. Previous assessments of historic changes in drought over the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries indicate that this may already be happening globally. In particular, calculations of the Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI) show a decrease in moisture globally since the 1970s with a commensurate increase in the area in drought that is attributed, in part, to global warming4,5. The simplicity of the PDSI, which is calculated from a simple water-balance model forced by monthly precipitation and temperature data, makes it an attractive tool in large-scale drought assessments, but may give biased results in the context of climate change6. Here we show that the previously reported increase in global drought is overestimated because the PDSI uses a simplified model of potential evaporation7 that responds only to changes in temperature and thus responds incorrectly to global warming in recent decades. More realistic calculations, based on the underlying physical principles8 that take into account changes in available energy, humidity and wind speed, suggest that there has been little change in drought over the past 60 years. The results have implications for how we interpret the impact of global warming on the hydrological cycle and its extremes, and may help to explain why palaeoclimate drought reconstructions based on tree-ring data diverge from the PDSI-based drought record in recent years9,10.

1,563 citations

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