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Against an academic and policy backdrop of interest in (and concerns about) the issue, this paper draws on a range of academic writing in various disciplines to explore visual strategies of climate change communication. The geographic scope of the investigation is the United Kingdom, with particular attention to recognizable icons of climate change in UK media and the images used in political campaigns. The paper is in two parts. The first part concentrates on various efforts to put a 'face' on the climate change issue, while part two suggests that weather and renewable energy are the dominant alternative motifs. The paper draws a basic distinction between fear-laden representations of climate change and a variety of visual efforts to use so-called inspirational imagery. All of the images reviewed suggest an affirmative answer to the question in the title, there are multiple efforts underway to move beyond polar bears and represent climate change in more creative and meaningful ways. The bigger question addressed is one raised already by photographers as well as academics, i.e. whether documentary photography (rather than particular types of images) is the more fundamental issue. The answer in the paper is that photographs are no different from other visual images in their capacity to draw attention to messages. The challenge is to use visuals creatively, in ways that prompt positive engagement with climate change without enhancing public disengagement and fatalism. Copyright © 2010 Royal Meteorological Society [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reviews the geo-engineering approach to tackling climate change. The failure of the 15 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP15) to obtain a legally binding emissions reduction agreement makes the deployment of geo-engineering solutions an increasingly attractive proposition. This review looks at a variety of global and local approaches to geo-engineering covering solar radiation management and carbon cycle engineering and attempts to assess the feasibility of the technologies from an engineering perspective. However, despite the plethora of ideas generated by the science community, it still appears that much work remains to be done in the initial engineering assessment of these techniques and this is a major hurdle to overcome before any geo-engineering scheme can be fully considered. Hence, the paper concludes by calling for the instigation of national and international programmes of research at the feasibility level, to inform discussions regarding future possible deployment of small scale, local geo-engineering and adaptation measures. Copyright © 2011 Royal Meteorological Society [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Global warming is projected to have major implications on global health. It is however not yet clear how this will translate to impacts on the healthcare system. By linking changes in temperature with changes in required bed days at a hospital level, through the use of a simple bed model, we quantify the projected impacts UK hospitals will need to adapt to. We show that there is already a local peak of bed days required in the main summer months due to hot temperatures. The results further show that there will be a significant increase during the main summer in both the mean and maximum number of beds needed, but a non‐significant decrease during the peak winter months. These changes lead to a more constant need of care of the year and shift the seasonal cycle of lowest hospital needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study spatial and temporal variations of climatic growing season parameters in western Anatolia, Turkey, during 1966-2015 are analysed. The beginning of the growing season (end of the growing season) for all threshold values of 5, 7 and 10°C is delayed (advances) from the southwest to the northeast over the study area. The growing season length (GSL) increases from northeast to southwest. The growing season start (GSS), growing season end (GSE) and GSL are strongly correlated with elevation, low-elevation stations having earlier GSS, later GSE and longer GSL than stations at higher elevations. The regional average GSS shifted 7.3, 10.0 and 10.5 days earlier, while the regional average GSE moved 4.8, 6.1 and 6.2 days later, increasing the GSL by 12.0, 16.6 and 15.9 days for 5, 7 and 10°C, respectively. A comparison of mean values between subperiods documented significant changes at more than 50% of stations for GSS and GSL from the subperiod 1977-1997 to the subperiod 1998-2015 and almost no significant change between 1966-1976 and 1977-1997 for all thresholds. Correlation analysis showed that the East Atlantic Pattern was the main driver for GSS and the North Sea--Caspian Pattern for GSE, followed by the East Atlantic/Western Russia Pattern and the North Atlantic Oscillation, respectively. Monthly and annual precipitation totals and precipitation distribution within a year have not changed significantly, suggesting that air temperature has become more influential on GSS and GSE. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The devastating socioeconomic impacts of recent droughts in the Western Cape have intensified the quest for future drought mitigation measures. While ongoing global warming may increase atmospheric evaporative demand and worsen drought conditions, most studies on drought in the Western Cape have overlooked the role of potential evapotranspiration (PET). The present study examines the role of PET on future drought characteristics, focusing on four river catchments. Two drought indices, the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) and the Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI), were analysed. The capability of the Co‐ordinated Regional Downscaling Experiment simulations to reproduce the drought characteristics was evaluated by comparing present‐day climate simulations with observations. The impacts of different global warming levels (GWLs) on the SPI and SPEI projections were assessed using self‐organizing map (SOM) classifications. The results project that a robust drying signal across the Western Cape, but the magnitudes of the projections, which vary across the river catchments, increase with the GWLs. The changes in the drought intensity and frequency are weaker when using the SPI than the SPEI, suggesting that SPI projections may underestimate the influence of global warming on drought because they do not account for the influence of PET. The SOM classification confirms the differences between the two drought indices reveals the drought patterns that are not seen in the drought ensemble means. Nevertheless, the study underscores the need to mitigate future drought impacts over the Western Cape, but with careful consideration on the drought index used in characterizing the droughts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The past few decades have witnessed a change in precipitation patterns around the world. This change includes an increase in heavy precipitation and a decrease in light and moderate precipitation. Global/regional warming has been attributed as one of the major factors causing the observed change in precipitation patterns. Past studies over the Indian region have not focused much on quantification of the impact of warming on changes in precipitation patterns. The present research quantifies the impact of warming on precipitation patterns over the Indian region. For this purpose, rain gauge‐based high‐resolution gridded precipitation data from the India Meteorological Department (IMD) for 113 years between 1901 and 2013 are used to link the changes in precipitation patterns over India during the South West (SW) monsoon season with warming using a new method that focuses on inter‐annual differences rather than time series. It has been reported that during the SW monsoon period, there is an increase of about 51.85% ± 19% in the top 10% precipitation for each degree (K) increase in temperature. Decreases of about 15–30%/K in low and moderate precipitation have also been reported per 1 K increase in temperature. The impact of warming is more severe over Western and North Eastern India and during July and August. An increase in heavy rainy days of about 46.53% ± 14% per 1 K increase in temperature has been reported over the Indian region. Low and moderate rainy days show a decrease of about 24.67% ± 9.53% for a unit degree increase in temperature. Results reported in this research point out increasing trends in droughts and floods due to increased heavy precipitation and decreased low and moderate precipitation in a warming environment. Study focuses on examination of precipitation patterns in changing climate over India. Results report an increase in heavy precipitation and decrease in low and moderate precipitation. Impacts of ENSO and IOD have been examined separately. Seasonal variation of heavy precipitation anomaly over Indian region (I) along with global temperature anomaly. Smoothing has been done to eliminate the fluctuation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT The reliable prediction of climate variables at finer temporal resolutions, e.g. daily scale, is essential for climate change impact analysis. However, humidity variables remain less focused, although probable changes under changing climate conditions and their effect on impact studies can be significant. The potential of the daily minimum air temperature ( Tn) downscaled from general circulation models ( GCMs) to predict ground-scale relative humidity in climate change studies is presented. Daily data over 50 years for Sendai city were obtained from the Japan Meteorological Agency. For GCM data, the INMCM4 model developed by the Institute for Numerical Mathematics, Russia, was selected. Statistically downscaled Tn was used with the linear or second order polynomial relationships developed for each calendar month using observed relative humidity and Tn. This produced predicted relative humidity using the alternative method. Furthermore, relative humidity was directly downscaled using the relative humidity results from the GCM. The results from the two methods were compared with the observed relative humidity data based on the root mean square error and the Kolmogorov- Smirnov test. Results based on root mean square error indicate that the predictions made using the downscaled Tn were less satisfied only for June and September compared to the results from the direct downscaling method. Moreover, the predicted relative humidity using the downscaled Tn matched rather well with the observations for 8 months (except for March, July, August and October) with calculated p values above the 0.05 level. Notably, the proposed method achieved better performance in the winter months when the directly downscaled method failed to satisfy the Kolmogorov- Smirnov test. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT Climate change is a topic of enormous interest due to its direct impact and long-term consequences. The ongoing climate warming is triggering global impacts and it is likely to alter natural systems at the local scale, too. The observed climate variability in the Romanian Carpathians has been tackled by several researchers and the negative impact of climate change on groundwater vulnerability has also been assessed. A temporal analysis of four climate indices (De Martonne, UNEP Index, Johansson Continentality Index and Pinna Combinative Index) and crop evapotranspiration over the past 50 years was performed to understand the climate trends in the Beliş district, to estimate the effective precipitation in the area and to assess the effects of climate change on groundwater resources. Land cover data were extracted from satellite images and crop evapotranspiration data were evaluated based on field co-efficients. An examination of the climate index trends and change points was carried out using the Rodionov test. In the study area, the climate indices indicated very humid and marine climate conditions. At the same time, it was noticed that the crop evapotranspiration values increased from 1961 to 2013 and the annual effective precipitation ranged between 200-300 mm. In order to understand the impacts of climate change on groundwater resources, an innovative method was proposed using an inference matrix that combines the climate indices and effective precipitation. Based on this method, the climate indices and effective precipitation for four decades indicated a low impact of climate change on groundwater resources in the Beliş district. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]