Climate Change Research – What Do We Need Really?

This study presents a comprehensive overview of the evolving landscape of tourism and climate change research over the past decade by leveraging bibliometric analysis and a dataset sourced from the Scopus Database. The study scrutinised over 3400 English language articles. The analysis reveals a remarkable surge in publications, signifying the growing recognition of climate change’s multifaceted impact on tourism. However, a noteworthy geographical disparity emerges, with many regions remaining underrepresented in the literature, particularly in Africa and the Middle East. This oversight is concerning, given the vulnerability of these regions to climate change and their burgeoning tourism industries. The study also highlights the pivotal role of influential scholars, funding organisations, and publication outlets in shaping the research landscape. The European Commission and the National Natural Science Foundation of China are major funders. At the same time, journals like Sustainability and the Journal of Sustainable Tourism serve as prominent platforms for disseminating research findings. The analysis uncovers thematic trends, including the growing focus on climate change modelling and its implications for destination planning. However, research gaps persist, notably in sports tourism and climate resilience within the tourism sector. In conclusion, this study offers valuable insights into the current state of tourism and climate change research, pinpointing areas that demand increased attention and inclusivity. It is a valuable resource for scholars, policymakers, and stakeholders working towards a sustainable and resilient future for the global tourism industry in the face of climate change.

Two key factors which alter the hydrological system are human activity and climate change. They affect the spatial and temporal distribution of water and have unequal influence on hydrological system. Hence, the study of influence of climate change and human activity is of immense importance for planning schemes and strategies for water resources management. As a consequence of urbanization, there has been a change in Land Use and Land Cover (LULC), which resulted in an increase of surface runoff and degradation in water quality. Hydrological modelling is an important tool which is used by researchers all over the world for analyzing the influence of climate change and Land Use Land Cover Change (LULCC) on natural water sources and for predicting potential future impacts from various possible scenarios. Based on the future climate change scenarios, numerous basins may probably experience variation in the mean hydrological characteristics as well as in the magnitude and frequency of extreme events. The main goal of this paper is to give a brief review of studies done to evaluate the impacts of climate change and LULCC on hydrological regime. There is a widespread usage of Landsat series of data for hydrological modelling studies based on the period of analysis. And majority of the hydrological modelling studies used semi-distributed models like SWAT for their analysis as these aren’t much data intensive but gives reasonably accurate results. Based on the results of various modelling studies, it can be concluded that, depending on the characteristics of watershed and scenario assumptions, the combined effects of climate change and LULCC may ameliorate or deteriorate each other’s influence. These effects may vary with the season or land use classes involved in change. Hydrological modelling integrating future climate change and LULCC scenarios can be an effective tool in planning future water resource management strategies.

In this study we simulated the watershed response according to future climate and land use change scenarios through a hydrological model and predicting future hydroclimate changes by applying the Budyko framework. Future climate change scenarios were derived from the UK Earth system model (UKESM1), and future land use changes were predicted using the future land use simulation (FLUS) model. To understand the overall trend of hydroclimatic conditions, the movements in Budyko space were represented as wind rose plots. Moreover, the impacts of climate and land use changes were separated, and the watersheds’ hydroclimatic conditions were classified into five groups. In future scenarios, both increase and decrease of aridity index were observed depending on the watershed, and land use change generally led to a decrease in the evaporation index. The results indicate that as hydroclimatic movement groups are more diversely distributed by region in future periods, regional adaptation strategies could be required to reduce hydroclimatic changes in each region. The results derived from this study can be used as basic data to establish an appropriate water resource management plan and the governments’ land use plan. As an extension of this study, we can consider more diverse land use characteristics and other global climate model (GCMs) in future papers.

Understanding the effects of climate change on land suitability for crop production has become an important issue with respect to food security. The main objective of this study was to evaluate the impacts of climate change on land suitability for rainfed crop diversification under current and future climate change scenario in Legambo sub-watershed. Microcomputer Land Evaluation Information System Decision Support System (MicroLEIS DSS) through the application of Almagra and Terraza models was used. Almagra model assesses the suitability of different soil types to a specific crop. Terraza model provides an experimental prediction for the bioclimatic deficiency. Soil morphological and analytical data were obtained from 4 representative soil profiles and stored in the Soil Database (SDBm). Agro-climatic data for 20 consecutive years (1995-2014), were obtained from National Meteorological Agency and incorporated to the Climate Database (CDBm). A future scenario of climate change was calculated according to the predictions of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) on regions of East Africa under scenario Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) 8.5(high-emission scenario) by 2100. The results show that, the most suitable crops to grow in the study area are sweet potato > sorghum > maize > soybean > wheat in respect of that order. The main limitation factors for land suitability are soil texture and drainage conditions. Bioclimatic deficiency evaluation showed a positive response to climate change, with percent yield reduction decreasing. The net effect of climate change on land suitability is positive for both hypothetical scenarios and therefore, the study area is suitable for rainfed crop production for the selected Land Use Types (LUTs).

Researchers have documented that observations of climate change impacts reported by Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities coincide with scientific measurements of such impacts. However, insights from Indigenous and Local Knowledge are not yet completely included in international climate change research and policy fora. In this article, we compare observations of climate change impacts detected by Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities from around the world and collected through a literature review (n=198 case studies), with climate scientists' opinions on the relevance of such information for climate change research. Scientists' opinions were collected through a web survey among climate change researchers from universities and research centres in Spain (n=191). In the survey, we asked about the need to collect local level data regarding 68 different groups of indicators of climate change impacts to improve the current knowledge, and about the feasibility of using Indigenous and local knowledge in climate change studies. Results show consensus on the need to continue collecting local level data from all groups of indicators to get a better understanding of climate change impacts, particularly on impacts on the biological system. However, while scientists of our study considered that Indigenous and local knowledge could mostly contribute to detect climate change impacts on the biological and socioeconomic systems, the literature review shows that information on impacts on these systems is rarely collected; researchers instead have mostly documented the impacts on the climatic and physical systems reported by Indigenous and local knowledge.

By growing awareness for and interest in climate change, media coverage enlarges the window of opportunity by which research can engage individuals and collectives in climate actions. However, we question whether the climate change research that gets mediatized is fit for this challenge. From a survey of the 51,230 scientific articles published in 2020 on climate change, we show that the news media preferentially publicizes research outputs found in multidisciplinary journals and journals perceived as top-tier. An in-depth analysis of the content of the top-100 mediatized papers, in comparison to a random subset, reveals that news media showcases a narrow and limited facet of climate change knowledge (i.e., natural science and health). News media selectivity reduces climate change research to the role of a sentinel and whistleblower for the large-scale, observed, or end-of-century consequences of climate change for natural Earth system components. The social, economic, technological, and energy aspects of climate change are curtailed through mediatization, as well as local and short-term scales of processes and solutions. Reviewing the social psychological mechanisms that underlie behavioral change, we challenge the current criteria used to judge newsworthiness and argue that the consequent mediatization of climate change research fails to breed real society engagement in actions. A transformative agenda for the mediatization of climate change research implies aligning newsworthiness with news effectiveness, i.e., addressing the extent to which communication is effective in presenting research that is likely to produce behavioral change.

Left unmitigated, climate change poses a catastrophic risk to human health, demanding an urgent and concerted response from every country. The 2015 Lancet Commission on Health and Climate Change and The Lancet Countdown: Tracking Progress on Health and Climate Change have been initiated to map out the impacts of climate change and the necessary policy responses. To meet these challenges, Tsinghua University, partnering with the University College London and 17 Chinese and international institutions, has prepared the Chinese Lancet Countdown report, which has a national focus and builds on the work of the global Lancet Countdown: Tracking Progress on Health and Climate Change. Drawing on international methodologies and frameworks, this report aims to deepen the understanding of the links between public health and climate change at the national level and track them with 23 indicators. This work is part of the Lancet's Countdown broader efforts to develop regional expertise on this topic, and coincides with the launch of the Lancet Countdown Regional Centre in Asia, based at Tsinghua University. The data and results of this report are presented at the provincial level, where possible, to facilitate targeted response strategies for local decision-makers. Based on the data and findings of the 2020 Chinese Lancet Countdown report, five recommendations are proposed to key stakeholders in health and climate change in China: (1) Enhance inter-departmental cooperation. Climate change is a challenge that demands an integrated response from all sectors, urgently requiring substantial inter-departmental cooperation among health, environment, energy, economic, financial, and education authorities. (2) Strengthen health emergency preparedness. Knowledge and findings on current and future climate-related health threats still lack the required attention and should be fully integrated into the emergency preparedness and response system. (3) Support research and raise awareness. Additional financial support should be allocated to health and climate change research in China to enhance health system adaptation, mitigation measures, and their health benefits. At the same time, media and academia should be fully motivated to raise the public and politicians' awareness of this topic. (4) Increase climate change mitigation. Speeding up the phasing out of coal is necessary to be consistent with China's pledge to be carbon neutral by 2060 and to continue to reduce air pollution. Fossil fuel subsidies must also be phased out. (5) Ensure the recovery from COVID-19 to protect health now and in the future. China's efforts to recover from COVID-19 will shape public health for years to come. Climate change should be a priority in these interventions.

BackgroundThere are gaps in translating climate change research into public health action at the global level. Knowledge translation refers to the methods used to bridge the gap between knowledge and action. Given the significant impacts of climate change on health, it is essential to integrate climate research into health decision-making processes. This integration ensures that evidence effectively informs policies and practices at all levels, leading to more timely, equitable, and impactful public health responses.ObjectiveThis scoping review examines key approaches and identifies gaps in knowledge translation methods for integrating climate change research into public health decision-making.MethodsA systematic search of the literature was conducted in PubMed, CINAHL, and Scopus using a predefined search string to identify studies on climate change and health published between January 1, 2003, and March 1, 2024, with no geographic restrictions. Retrieved articles were screened and data extracted using Covidence software. Thematic analysis was performed in ATLAS.TI employing Braun and Clark’s six-step method. The identified knowledge translation approaches were categorized according to the Cochrane Knowledge Translation Framework.FindingsOur findings highlight five primary knowledge translation approaches: (1) monitoring the coverage of climate change and health across media, scientific literature, and government responses; (2) engaging citizens of all ages in participatory activities to address local climate challenges and co-develop policy solutions; (3) integrating knowledge generation, synthesis, and dissemination for effective communication; (4) emphasizing advocacy and education to foster collaborations and gain support from decision-makers; and (5) leveraging health impact assessment tools to guide decision-making related to climate change and health. Nonetheless, we did not find any primary studies on climate change research and knowledge translation in Low- and Middle-Income Countries (LMICs).ConclusionThere is a need for primary studies on the knowledge translation of climate change research, especially in relation to adaptation, into meaningful public health actions that can inform decision-making and contribute to building climate-resilient health systems in LMICs.

Assessing the impact of climate change on rainwater harvesting in the Oum Zessar watershed in Southeastern Tunisia

Background: The U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) have supported climate change and health-relevant research for decades. Through the years 2010 to 2020, annual NIH support for climate change and health research hovered around $10 million funded by 21 NIH components. The NIH Climate Change and Health Initiative, launched in 2021, is an NIH-wide effort to develop the first coordinated NIH plan for research on the impacts of climate change on human health. Methods: The Initiative created a core framework in 2021 that was informed by a month’s long planning and engagement process. Directors of seven Institutes and Centers at the NIH have joined together to create a strategic framework document that highlights the core focus areas of the work. The group released a Public Request for Information to gather input from community organizations and academic scientists and conducted a federal and international landscape assessment to map out organizations working in the space. Internally, NIH conducted a portfolio analysis of funded climate research from the past decade, engaged staff through workshops, and developed an internal data call for planned climate related programs. Results: The strategic framework will guide a community of practice comprising outstanding and committed scientists, trainees, and specialists. Key areas of interest outlined include: Health Effects Research, Health Equity, Intervention Research and Training and Capacity Building. The framework also identifies nine key areas of supporting science for climate change and health research. Conclusions: Climate change is impacting health and communities around the world but there remain many key research knowledge gaps. NIH’s role as a leading funder of biomedical and human health research can play an important role in coordinating research to better understand health impacts, health adaptation, and outcomes in communities impacted related to climate change. There is perhaps no greater opportunity for NIH to fulfill its mission than by providing global leadership in the response to the burgeoning climate change and health crisis. Key words: Climate change; public health; research

Quantitatively projecting the impact of future climate change on the socio-economy and exploring its internal mechanism are of great practical significance to adapt to climate change and prevent climate risks. Based on the economy-climate (C-D-C) model, this paper introduces a yield impact of climate change (YICC) model that can quantitatively project the climate change impact. The model is based on the YICC as its core concept and uses the impact ratio of climate change (IRCC) indicator to assess the response of the economic system to climate change over a long period of time. The YICC is defined as the difference between the economic output under changing climate condition and that under assumed invariant climate condition. The IRCC not only reflects the sensitivity of economic output to climate change but also reveals the mechanism of the nonlinear interaction between climate change and non-climatic factors on the socio-economic system. Using the main grain-producing areas in China as a case study, we use the data of the ensemble average of 5 GCMs in CMIP6 to project the possible impact of climate change on grain production in the next 15–30 years under three future scenarios (SSP1-2.6, SSP2-4.5, SSP5-8.5). The results indicate that the long-term climate change in the future will have a restraining effect on production in North region and enhance production in South region. From 2021 to 2035, climate change will reduce production by 0.60–2.09% in North region, and increase production by 1.80–9.01% in South region under three future scenarios. From 2021 to 2050, compared with the climate change impact in 2021–2035, the negative impact of climate change on production in North region will weaken, and the positive impact on production in South region will enhance with the increase in emission concentration. Among them, climate change will reduce grain output in North region by 0.52–1.99%, and increase output in South region by 1.35–9.56% under the three future scenarios. The combination of economic results and climate change research is expected to provide scientific support for further revealing the economic mechanism of climate change impacts.

Australia’s primary industries are likely to be uniquely impacted upon by climate change. In February 2011 the inaugural Climate Change Research Strategy for Primary Industries (CCRSPI) conference was held to discuss the current state of climate change research across Australia’s primary industries. Never before had policy makers, producers and scientists from all sectors of our primary industries been brought together in one event to focus on the challenges and opportunities of climate change. This conference was a unique forum to address those challenges and opportunities by sharing knowledge across the various sectors, scientific disciplines and the industry-policy-science divide. While this collection of review papers provides an excellent knowledge base for industry and government to plan and implement policy and make further research investments to address the obvious gaps there is still much to be done in terms of research and the co-ordination of research. The often unrelated research activity in the adaptation and mitigation components of climate change research have the potential to have either synergistic or antagonistic outcomes at several scales and in several sectors ranging from policy to industry and community. The significant injection of research and development funds into this area through the Carbon Farming Futures and other associated programs will provide further impetus to the need for national co-ordination of climate change research in Australia’s Primary Industries. To build on all this knowledge and experience gained at the 2011 CCRSPI Conference, CCRSPI is currently (2012) finalising the national climate change research strategy for the sector, with an associated audit of existing projects and capacity, in order to encourage and advocate the cross-sectoral RDE needs and co-ordination for the future.

news and update ISSN 1948-6596 thesis abstract Potential impacts of climate change on the distribution of fresh- water fishes in French streams and uncertainty of projections Laetitia Buisson PhD, Laboratoire Evolution et Diversite Biologique, Universite Paul Sabatier, Toulouse, and La- boratoire d’Ecologie Fonctionnelle, ENSAT, Castanet-Tolosan, France Current address: Laboratoire Evolution et Diversite Biologique, Universite Paul Sabatier, Tou- louse, France; E-mail: buisson@cict.fr; http://www.edb.ups-tlse.fr/ Climate change and its impact on biodiversity are receiving increasing attention from scientists and people managing natural ecosystems. Recent modifications of climate have induced diverse functional (e.g. phenology, physiology) and struc- tural (e.g. species distribution shifts, range con- traction, local extinctions) responses among or- ganisms (Walther et al. 2002). Given the projec- tions of future climate change, these responses are expected to continue throughout the 21st century and climate change could thus have major consequences on species and assemblages. A common approach to project the potential im- pacts of environmental changes on the distribu- tion of biodiversity is the use of species distribu- tion models (SDM) (e.g. Thuiller 2003). These cor- relative models first relate the present-day spe- cies distribution to a set of climate and other envi- ronmental descriptors. Then, the application of scenarios of future climate changes provides pre- dictions of the habitats potentially suitable in the future for the species. In spite of their widespread use, a growing concern has emerged for the vari- ability in the predicted impacts by such models due to the methodological decisions taken during the modeling process (Thuiller 2004). Improve- ments in the accuracy of predictions combined with an estimation of the uncertainty inherent to those predictions are thus urgently needed. Among freshwater ecosystems, stream fish have no physiological ability to regulate their body temperature and could therefore be very sensitive to climate warming, especially cold-stenotherm fish such as salmonid species. Stream fish also have to cope with hydrological variability of streams and strong anthropogenic pressures (e.g. habitat loss, stream fragmentation). In addition, they have limited dispersal ability within hydro- graphic networks in which they currently live. Yet their response to current and future climate change has been poorly documented and few studies have used SDM to assess the potential consequences of the on-going climate change on freshwater fish species distribution, especially in European streams. In that context, the aim of my PhD thesis was to assess the potential impacts of climate change on fish in French streams, mainly on spe- cies distribution and assemblages’ structure. I used fish data provided by the Office National de l’Eau et des Milieux Aquatiques (ONEMA), the in- stitution in charge of the protection and conserva- tion of freshwater ecosystems in France. These data were combined with climate and environ- mental descriptors through the use of correlative statistical modeling. As my goal was to provide reliable estimates of the future impacts of climate change on stream fish, I have considered recent criticisms (e.g. choice of statistical method, pure bioclimatic models) of species distribution models by justifying each step and optimizing the use of such models. In all, five papers are derived from my PhD work. The first three papers set the bases for the building of the models by considering the uncertainty in predictions, while the latest two assess the impacts of climate change on stream fish species and assemblages. In stream fish ecology, many studies have been conducted to identify the environmental drivers structuring fish assemblages (reviewed in Matthews 1998). It appears that fish species distri- bution and structure of fish assemblages are de- termined by a complex interplay of biotic, abiotic and spatial factors (Jackson et al. 2001). Disentan- © 2009 the authors; journal compilation © 2009 The International Biogeography Society — frontiers of biogeography 1.2, 2009

Based on the RCP2.6, RCP4.5, RCP6.0 and RCP8.5 climate change scenarios produced by the global climate model NorESM1-M and plant isoprene emissions model, the effects of climate change on the isoprene emission rate from leaves of Pleioblastus amarus in Yixing City of Jiangsu Province, Longmen County of Guangdong Province, Yulong Naxi Autonomous County of Yunnan Province and Wanyuan City of Sichuan Province were simulated. The differences of isoprene emission rate from leaves of P. amarus distributed in four regions were compared under future climate change scenarios. The results showed that mean annual air temperature would increase, annual precipitation and radiation intensity would greatly fluctuate, with the coexistence of increasing and decreasing trends in the four regions. In the baseline scenario, daily mean emission rate of isoprene from leaves of P. amarus was 71-470 μg·g-1·d-1, and annual mean value was 25954-171231 μg·g-1·a-1. The daily and annual emission rates in the four regions decreased with the order of Longmen, Yixing, Wanyuan and Yulong. Compared with the baseline scenario, daily mean emission rate of isoprene from leaves of P. amarus was about 4-45 μg·g-1·d-1 higher in future climate change scenario, and which was about 23, 29, 4, and 14 μg·g-1·d-1 higher than that in baseline in Yixing, Longmen, Yulong and Wanyuan, respectively. In addition, the emission rate of isoprene from leaves of P. amarus was more than 5% higher in the future climate change scenario than that in the baseline scenario, which was higher in Wanyuan and Yixing (>13%) than and lower in Longmen and Yulong (>5%). All the four regions reached the highest rate under RCP8.5 scenario (increased by about 11%-18%). Compared with the baseline scenario, annual emission rate of isoprene in the future climate change scenario was about 1500-17000 μg·g-1·a-1, and which was about 8560-13208 μg·g-1·a-1 higher in Yixing, 10862-16131 μg·g-1·a-1 higher in Longmen, 1574-3028 μg·g-1·a-1 higher in Yulong, 5288-8532 μg·g-1·a-1 higher in Wanyuan. In addition, the increasing rate of annual isoprene emission rates was 6%-14%. The rates in Yixing (8%-12%) and Wanyuan (8%-14%) were higher than that in the other two regions, the rate in Yulong (6%-12% increase) was the lowest, with all four regions increasing substantially (9%-14%) under RCP8.5 scenario. The results suggested that climate change would have different effects on the rate of isoprene emissions from leaves of P. amarus distributed in diffe-rent regions.

In the study of ecological and evolutionary responses to climate change, there has been a growing emphasis recently on complexity deriving from biological interactions [1-3]. Such complexity reflects the dynamics of interactions occurring among levels of organization and across scales of space and time. It therefore poses enormous challenges for the management of global environments and resources over the next century. Climate Change Responses is dedicated to publishing research that addresses this complexity and confronts these challenges to understanding biological responses to climate change. With the launch of this journal, we aim to emphasize the frontiers in climate change research, including, for instance, understanding interactions among individuals and species, bi-directional interactions between abiotic and biotic components of natural systems, and evolutionary capacities to respond to changing environments through adaptation and phenotypic plasticity. The probability that the observed changes in climate since the mid 20 century are not caused by human activity is now diminishingly small [4]. Human activity has therefore led to changes in several environmental variables, notably temperature, dissolved oceanic CO2 level, and rainfall patterns. In addition to their individual impact, environmental drivers interact with each other, thereby exacerbating their effects on biological systems. For example, concurrent increases in temperature and CO2 levels can interact to determine metabolism and gene expression profiles in marine invertebrates [5]. Similarly, together temperature and UV-B radiation can determine performance and life history traits in animals [6]. Quantifying climate change at the spatial level at which it is most relevant for ecological responses is, however, far from straightforward [7]. This is because climate change predictions are mostly made at a global scale over relatively long time periods. However, Helmuth et al. [7]