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Climate adaptation supports organizations in dealing with the current and projected effects of climate change by recognizing challenges as opportunities and increasing their economic efficiency. Based on the regional climate model REMO and 13 expert interviews with representatives from mainly manufacturing companies analyzed by the Grounded Theory methodology, this contribution aims to outline actual and future challenges of climate adaptation in the investigated region. We analyze how manufacturing companies respond to climate change and assess the main promoters and barriers of organizational learning in the context of climate adaptation. The expert interviews confirm the importance for companies of having a concrete business case for any strategies and of increasingly making their processes and manufacturing more transparent, through supply chain assessments. In accordance, a focus on strategic management levels is crucial for organizational learning processes as they are responsible for development, mobilization of resources and realization of adaptation concepts.

ABSTRACT As main mode of interannual climate variability with worldwide teleconnections, El Niño-Southern Oscillation ( ENSO) holds high ecological, economical and social relevance. So far, studies on future ENSO changes draw a rather incoherent picture across climate models and ENSO indices. Here, we assess climate change signals and respective uncertainties in the frequency and variance of ENSO events using a comprehensive multidimensional approach: 10 different ENSO indices based on five climate variables and derived from four CMIP3 and nine CMIP5 models are investigated and compared systematically. Finally, one dimension of the problem (of various indices and various models as well as realizations) is removed by combining the 10 ENSO indices to a single 'super'-index, defined in the Empirical Orthogonal Function space. The most common signal across models and indices is found to be an increase of year-to-year variability of ENSO events until the end of our century, especially in the combined index. A significant strengthening in frequency occurs only in terms of La Niña events in some indices, whereas El Niño events appear to be barely sensitive to radiative forcing during the 21st century. This study highlights the importance of taking a more holistic multi-model and multi-index viewpoint when assessing future changes in ENSO behaviour and addressing higher-moment characteristics of ENSO. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]