This study describes how farmers manage climate variability in dryland crop production, and aims to contribute to the theory and practice of decision support for managing climate variability. The intent was to study farmer decision making to see how DSS could be used to deliver information and procedures on climate risk to farmers more effectively. The study investigated whether there are significant differences between farmers' subjective distributions of seasonal rainfall and its derivatives (such as crop yield and fallow recharge) and a probability distribution derived from long-term records and simulation models, and whether these differences in risk assessment lead to changes in the optimum decision. Subjective probability distributions of rainfall and its derivatives were collected from farmers and advisers and it was found the overall match between these and long term records and simulation models was close. This study found little evidence to support the role of DSS for routine decision making, but this does not lessen the value of distributions derived from simulation models. Rather, it provides an opportunity for both farmers and scientists to learn. / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

<p>This MSc thesis contributes with new information on how vulnerability to tropical cyclone (TC) induced flooding has evolved at two coastal lowland study sites in the town of Corinto in Nicaragua over a period of 50 years. The research was done through rain station data analyses, semi-structured interviews, and focus group discussions. Analyses of changing poverty, human mobility, housing conditions, and occurrence of flood-related diseases were used as additional indicators supporting the overall vulnerability assessment.</p><p>The recent increase in the North Atlantic TC activity can not be seen in the data from Corinto. The both studied neighborhoods built on dump-sites and mangrove marsh have clearly become less exposed, less sensitive, and more resilient to external stress brought by TCs. These two sites have been developing into different directions since one has reached a more prosper status whereas the other is still rather marginal. The former has been supported by the local government while the latter has been growing in a less regulated way.</p><p>This thesis suggests that there are coastal communities in developing countries, which are able to cope with and adapt to extreme climate events even though this kind of vulnerability has been predicted to increase due to global warming.</p>

This paper investigates the potential for a carbon tax to induce R&D, and for the consequent induced technical change (ITC) to lower the macroeconomic cost of abating carbon emissions. ITC is modelled within a general equilibrium simulation of the U.S. economy by the effects of emissions restrictions on the level and composition of aggregate R&D, the accumulation of the stock of knowledge, and the industry-level reallocation and substitution of intangible services derived therefrom. Contrary to other authors, I find that ITC's impact is large, positive and dominated by the latter "substitution effect," which mitigates most of the deadweight loss of the tax. / Abstract in HTML and technical report in PDF available on the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change website (http://mit.edu/globalchange/www/). / This research was supported by the Offce of Science (BER), U.S. Department of Energy, Grant No. DE-FG02-02ER63484, and by funding from the MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change, which is supported by a consortium of government, industry and foundation sponsors.

This thesis is about climate change attitudes in Alberta, Canada. It applies a bivariate logistic analysis to the data gathered from a random stratified sampling survey held in Alberta in 2008. It finds that belief in the anthropogenic climate change and Conservative political ideology factors have a high predictive probability on an individuals willingness to pay a tax that addresses the negative effects of climate change. The subjects of individual capacity and reflexivity are examined in the light of these results and suggestions for future researchers are made. It thus offers insights on how to find human potentials within society that can help to cope with the idea of climate change. / Rural Sociology

Ocean acidification (OA) refers to the increase in acidity (decrease in pH) of the ocean’s surface waters resulting from oceanic uptake of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2). Mounting experimental evidence suggests that OA threatens numerous marine organisms, including reef-building corals; however, few studies have focused on the effects on early life history stages. Coral recruitment is critical to the persistence and resilience of coral reefs and is regulated by several early life processes, including: larval availability (gamete production, fertilization, etc.), larval settlement, post-settlement growth, and survival. Environmental factors that disrupt these early life processes can result in compromised or failed recruitment and profoundly affect future population dynamics. To evaluate the effects of OA on the sexual recruitment of corals, sexual reproduction (including fertilization and sperm swimming speeds) and several critical early life history stages (including larval metabolism, larval settlement, and post-settlement growth) were tested in common Caribbean coral species. Three pCO2 levels were used: ambient seawater (380 µatm) and two pCO2 scenarios that are projected to occur by the middle (560 µatm) and end (800 µatm) of the century as determined by the Intergovermental Panel on Climate Change. Results show that fertilization success, larval metabolic rates, larval settlement rates, and post-settlement growth rates are all compromised with increasing pCO2. This dissertation demonstrates that OA has the potential to negatively impact sexual reproduction and multiple early life history processes of several common Caribbean coral species and may contribute to substantial declines in sexual recruitment that are felt at the community and/or ecosystem scale.

In 1987, Burney and collaborators (Journal of Archaeological Science (1994) 21, 273–281) recovered a ca. 8 m sediment core from the western basin of Laguna Tortuguero, Puerto Rico that spanned the last ca. 7000 calibrated years. They produced a detailed microscopic charcoal record, and from an initial peak in charcoal at ca. 5300 cal yr B.P. suggested that humans had colonized the island some 2000 years earlier than documented by the archaeological evidence then available. In 2008, two sediment cores were recovered from the eastern basin of Laguna Tortuguero. AMS dates on macrofossils indicate the profile extends to 7600 calibrated years, but it includes an interval with missing sediment marked by a layer of shell hash and bracketed by radiocarbon dates of 5144 and 1648 cal yr B.P. Stable carbon and nitrogen isotopic analyses show evidence for a drastic change in depositional environment following this event. Microscopic charcoal concentrations peak just below and at the contact of the shell hash, with the first of three high-charcoal levels positioned immediately above the date of 5144 cal yr B.P. The microscopic charcoal record appears to support the interpretations of Burney et al. (1994) of human colonization around 5300 cal yr B.P., although the fires recorded in the Laguna Tortuguero sediments may also be driven by regional climate shifts. Desiccation of Laguna Tortuguero, a hurricane or multiple hurricanes, or a tsunami could explain the missing sediments and the large change in depositional environment that occurs above the shell hash. AMS dating of sediment from the mud-water interface at the 2008 core site suggests a possible hard-water effect of ca. 1200 cal yr for dates on the algal gyttja above the shell hash, which if true would mean that the event that deposited the shell hash may have occurred as late as ca. 448 cal yr B.P. (A.D. 1502).

This dissertation analyzes the basis for and magnitudes of discount factors based on the characteristics of greenhouse gas emission (GHGE) offsets that are applied to the GHGE reduction projects, concentrating on agricultural projects. Theoretical approaches to discount factors, estimation and incorporation of discount factors procedures are developed. Discount factors would be imposed by credit purchasers due to noncompliance with regulatory program of the credits with GHG program including consideration of shortfall penalties and limited durations. Discount factors are proposed for (i) additionality, (ii) leakage, (iii) permanence, and (iv) uncertainty. Additionality arise when the region where an AO project is being proposed would have substantial adoption of the AO practice in the absence of GHG programs (business as usual GHGE offset). Leakage arises when the effect of a program is offset by an induced increase in economic activity and accompanying emissions elsewhere. The leakage effect depends on demand and supply elasticities. Permanence reflects the saturation and volatility characteristics of carbon sequestration. Carbon is stored in a volatile form and can be released quickly to the atmosphere when an AO practice is discontinued. The permanence discount depends on the project design including practice continuation after the program and the dynamic rate of offset. Also, consideration of multiple offsets is important. Uncertainty arises due to the stochastic nature of project quantity. The uncertainty discount tends to be smaller the larger the size of the offset contract due to aggregation over space and time. The magnitude of these discounts is investigated in Southeast Texas rice discontinuation study. The additionality and the leakage discounts are found to play an important role in case of rice lands conversion to other crops but less so for pasture conversions and yet less for forest conversions. The permanence discount is important when converting to other crops and short rotation forestry. When all discounts are considered, rice lands conversion to forest yields claimable credits amounting to 52.8% ~ 77.5% of the total offset. When converting rice lands to pasture, the claimable credits 45.1% ~ 64.2%, while a conversion of rice lands to other crops yields claimable credits 38.9% ~ 40.4%.

Es gibt bereits viele Hinweise dafür, dass Seen sehr sensibel auf die anthropogen verursachte Klimaerwärmung reagiert haben. Bis jetzt haben sich die Studien der Klimafolgenforschung hauptsächlichst auf die Auswirkungen der Erwärmung im Winter und Frühling konzentriert. Über den Einfluss der Klimaerwärmung auf Seen in den gemäßigten Breiten im Sommer ist weniger bekannt. In der vorliegenden Doktorarbeit habe ich einige Faktoren, welche die Reaktion von Seen auf die Erwärmung im Sommer vermutlich stark mitbestimmt haben, untersucht. Der Schwerpunkt lag dabei auf klimatisch induzierten Auswirkungen auf die thermische Charakteristik und die Phänologie und Abundanz des Planktons eines flachen und polymiktischen Sees (Müggelsee, Berlin). Zuerst wurde der Einfluss der Klimaerwärmung auf die Phänologie und Abundanz des Planktons in verschiedenen Jahreszeiten untersucht. Das schnellwachsende Phyto- und Zooplankton (Daphnia) im Frühjahr hat sich vorwiegend synchron vorverschoben, wohingegen Veränderungen des Sommerzooplanktons deutlich artspezifisch und nicht synchron waren. Die Phänologie oder Abundanz einiger Sommercopepoden hat sich entsprechend der individuellen thermischen Anforderungen innerhalb bestimmter Entwicklungsstufen, wie zum Beispiel der Emergenz von der Diapause im Frühling, verändert. Die Studie unterstreicht, dass nicht nur der Grad der Erwärmung, sondern auch dessen Zeitpunkt innerhalb des Jahres von großer ökologischer Bedeutung ist. Um die Auswirkungen des Klimawandels auf die thermischen Eigenschaften des Sees zu erforschen, habe ich die Langzeitentwicklung der täglichen epilimnischen Temperaturextrema während des Sommers untersucht. Durch diese Studie wurde zum ersten Mal für Seen gezeigt, dass die täglichen epilimnischen Minima (Nacht) stärker angestiegen sind als die Maxima (Tag), wodurch sich der tägliche epilimnische Temperaturbereich deutlich verringert hat. Diese Tag-Nacht-Asymmetrie in der epilimnischen Temperatur wurde durch eine erhöhte Emission von Langwellenstrahlung aus der Atmosphäre während der Nacht verursacht. Dies unterstreicht, dass nicht nur Erhöhungen der Lufttemperatur, sondern auch Änderungen anderer meteorologischer Variablen wie der Windgeschwindigkeit, der Luftfeuchte und der Bewölkung eine wichtige Rolle bei der Bestimmung der Seetemperatur im Hinblick auf weitere Klimaveränderungen spielen werden. Zudem wurde eine Kurzzeitanalyse zum Schichtungsverhalten des polymiktischen Sees durchgeführt, um die Häufigkeit und Dauer von Schichtungsereignissen und deren Einfluss auf den gelösten Sauerstoff, die gelösten Nährstoffe und das Phytoplankton zu untersuchen. Selbst während der längsten Schichtungsereignisse (Hitzewellen 2003 und 2006) unterschieden sich die Auswirkungen auf den See von denen, welche in flachen dimiktischen Seen während der kontinuierlichen Sommerschichtung auftreten. Die hypolimnische Temperatur war höher, was die Sauerstoffzehrung und die Akkumulation von gelösten Nährstoffen begünstigt hat. Die thermische Schichtung wird in Zukunft sehr wahrscheinlich zunehmen. Dies lässt darauf schließen, dass polymiktische Seen sehr anfällig gegenüber Änderungen im Hinblick auf projizierte Klimaveränderungen sein werden. Abschließend wurde eine Studie über Lang- und Kurzzeitveränderungen in der Entwicklung der planktischen Larven der Muschel Dreissena polymorpha durchgeführt, um den Einfluss der Veränderungen im thermischen und trophischen Regime des Sees zu analysieren. Die Klimaerwärmung und die Verringerung in der externen Nährstofffracht haben die Abundanz der Larven stark beeinflusst indem sie jeweils auf bestimmte Entwicklungsphasen dieser Art während der warmen Jahreszeiten gewirkt haben. Der Anstieg in der Abundanz und der Länge der Larven stand im Zusammenhang mit dem Rückgang der Nährstofffracht und der Veränderung der Phytoplanktonzusammensetzung. Die Hitzewellen in den Jahren 2003 und 2006 haben diesen positiven Effekt auf die Larvenabundanz jedoch durch ungünstige Sauerstoffkonzentrationen während der sehr langen Schichtung aufgehoben. Die Klimaerwärmung kann demzufolge entgegenwirkende Effekte in produktiven flachen Seen, in welchen die externe Nährstofffracht reduziert wurde, auslösen. Aus diesen Ergebnissen schließe ich, dass nicht nur die Art des Klimawandels und damit der Zeitpunkt der Erwärmung und das Auftreten von Extremen wie Hitzewellen, sondern auch standortspezifische Bedingungen wie Schichtungsverhalten und Trophiegrad entscheidende Faktoren sind, welche die Auswirkungen der Klimaerwärmung auf interne Seeprozesse im Sommer bestimmen. Somit sollte sich die weiterführende Klimafolgenforschung für Seen darauf konzentrieren, wie verschiedene Seetypen auf die komplexen Umweltveränderungen im Sommer reagieren, damit ein umfassenderes Verständnis über den Einfluss von anthropogen verursachten Veränderungen auf Seen der gemäßigten Breiten erreicht wird. / There is already strong evidence that temperate lakes have been highly vulnerable to human induced climate warming during the last century. Hitherto climate impact studies have mainly focussed on the impacts of the recent long-term warming in winter and spring and little is known on the influence of climate warming on temperate lakes in summer. In the present thesis, I studied some aspects, which may have been strongly involved in determining the response of a lake to climate warming in summer. Thereby I have focussed on climate induced impacts on the thermal characteristics and the phenology and abundance of summer plankton in a shallow polymictic lake (Müggelsee, Germany). First, the influence of climate warming on the phenology and abundance of the lake plankton was investigated across seasons. Fast-growing spring phytoplankton and zooplankton (Daphnia) advanced largely synchronously, whereas long-term changes in the phenology of slow-growing summer zooplankton were clearly species-specific and not synchronised. The phenology and/or abundance of several summer copepod species changed according to their individual thermal requirements at decisive developmental stages such as emergence from diapause in spring. The study emphasises that not only the degree of warming, but also its timing within the annual cycle is of great ecological importance. To analyse the impact of climate change on the thermal characteristics of the lake, I examined the long-term development of the daily epilimnetic temperature extrema during summer. The study demonstrated for the first time for lakes that the daily epilimnetic minima (during nighttime) have increased more rapidly than the daily epilimnetic maxima (during daytime), resulting in a distinct decrease in the daily epilimnetic temperature range. This day-night asymmetry in epilimnetic temperature was likely caused by an increased nighttime emission of long-wave radiation from the atmosphere. This underlines that not only increases in air temperature, but also changes in other meteorological variables such as wind speed, relative humidity and cloud cover may play an important role in determining the lake temperature with respect to further climate change. Furthermore, a short-term analysis on the mixing regime of the polymictic lake was conducted to examine the frequency and duration of stratification events and their impacts on dissolved oxygen, dissolved nutrients and summer phytoplankton. Even during the longest stratification events (heatwaves in 2003 and 2006) the thermal characteristics of the lake differed from those typically found in shallow dimictic lakes, which exhibit a continuous stratification during summer. Particularly, hypolimnetic temperatures were higher, favouring the depletion of oxygen and the accumulation of dissolved nutrient in the hypolimnion. Thermal stratification will be very likely amplified in the future, thus, I conclude that polymictic lakes will be very vulnerable to alterations in the thermal regime with respect to projections of further climate change during summer. Finally, a long-term case study on the long and short-term changes in the development of the planktonic larvae of the freshwater mussel Dreissena polymorpha was performed to analyse the impacts of simultaneous changes in the thermal and in the trophic regime of the lake. Both the climate warming and the decrease in external nutrient load were important in determining the abundance of the pelagic larvae by affecting different features of the life-history of this species throughout the warm season. The long-term increase in the abundance and length of larvae was related to the decrease in external nutrient loading and the change in phytoplankton composition. However, the recent heatwaves in 2003 and 2006 have offset this positive effect on larval abundance, due to unfavourable low oxygen concentrations that had resulted from extremely long stratification events, mimicking the effects of nutrient enrichment. Climate warming may thus induce counteracting effects in productive shallow lakes that underwent lake restoration through a decrease in external nutrient loading. I conclude that not only the nature of climate change and thus the timing of climate warming throughout the seasons and the occurrence of climatic extremes as heatwaves, but also site-specific lake conditions as the thermal mixing regime and the trophic state are crucial factors governing the impacts of climate warming on internal lake processes during summer. Consequently, further climate impact research on lake functioning should focus on how the different lake types respond to the complex environmental forcing in summer, to allow for a comprehensive understanding of human induced environmental changes in lakes.

Structural change in a two-sector model of the climate and the economy introduces issues concerning substitutability among goods in a two-sector economic growth model where emissions from fossil fuels give rise to a climate externality. Substitution is modeled using a CES-production function where the intermediate inputs differ only in their technologies and the way they are affected by the climate externality. I derive a simple formula for optimal taxes and resource allocation over time and highlight model sensitivity w.r.t the elasticity of substitution and distribution parameters. Energy Balance Climate Models and General Equilibrium Optimal Mitigation Policies  develops a one-dimensional energy balance climate model with heat diffusion and anthropogenic forcing across latitudes driven by global fossil fuel use coupled to an economic growth model. Our results suggest that if the implementation of international transfers across latitudes are not possible or costly, then optimal taxes are in general spatially non-uniform and may be lower at poorer latitudes. Energy Balance Climate Models, Damage Reservoirs and the Time Profile of Climate Change Policy explores optimal mitigation policies through the lens of a latitude dependent energy balance climate model coupled to an economic growth model. We associate the movement of an endogenous polar ice cap with the idea of a damage reservoir being a finite source of climate related damages affecting the economy. The analysis shows that the introduction of damage reservoirs  can generate multiple steady states and Skiba points. Assessing Sustainable Development in a DICE World investigates a method for assessing sustainable development under climate change in the Dynamic Integrated model of Climate and the Economy (DICE-2007 model). The analysis shows that the sustainability measure is highly sensitive to the calibration of the inter-temporal elasticity parameter and discount rate of the social welfare function.

General Circulation Models (GCMs), which are mathematical models based on principles of fluid dynamics, thermodynamics and radiative transfer, are the most reliable tools available for projecting climate change. However, the spatial scale on which typical GCMs operate is very coarse as compared to that of a hydrologic process and hence, the output from a GCM cannot be directly used in hydrologic models. Statistical Downscaling (SD) derives a statistical or empirical relationship between the variables simulated by the GCM (predictors) and a point-scale meteorological series (predictand). In this work, a new downscaling model called CRF-downscaling model, is developed where the conditional distribution of the hydrologic predictand sequence, given atmospheric predictor variables, is represented as a conditional random field (CRF) to downscale the predictand in a probabilistic framework. Features defined in the downscaling model capture information about various factors influencing precipitation such as circulation patterns, temperature and pressure gradients and specific humidity levels. Uncertainty in prediction is addressed by projecting future cumulative distribution functions (CDFs) for a number of most likely precipitation sequences. Direct classification of dry/wet days as well as precipitation amount is achieved within a single modeling framework, and changes in the non-parametric distribution of precipitation and dry and wet spell lengths are projected. Application of the method is demonstrated with the case study of downscaling to daily precipitation in the Mahanadi basin in Orissa, with the A1B scenario of the MIROC3.2 GCM from the Center for Climate System Research (CCSR), Japan. An uncertainty modeling framework is presented in this work, which combines GCM, scenario and downscaling uncertainty using the Dempster-Shafer (D-S) evidence theory for representing and combining uncertainty. The methodology for combining uncertainties is applied to projections of hydrologic drought in terms of monsoon standardized streamflow index (SSFI-4) from streamflow projections for the Mahanadi river at Hirakud. The results from the work indicate an increasing probability of extreme, severe and moderate drought and decreasing probability of normal to wet conditions, as a result of a decrease in monsoon streamflow in the Mahanadi river due to climate change. In most studies to date, the nature of the downscaling relationship is assumed stationary, or remaining unchanged in a future climate. In this work, an uncertainty modeling framework is presented in which, in addition to GCM and scenario uncertainty, uncertainty in the downscaling relationship itself is explored by linking downscaling with changes in frequencies of modes of natural variability. Downscaling relationships are derived for each natural variability cluster and used for projections of hydrologic drought. Each projection is weighted with the future projected frequency of occurrence of that cluster, called ‘cluster-linking’, and scaled by the GCM performance with respect to the associated cluster for the present period, called ‘frequency scaling’. The uncertainty modeling framework is applied to a case study of projections of hydrologic drought or SSFI-4 classifications, using projected streamflows for the Mahanadi river at Hirakud. It is shown that a stationary downscaling relationship will either over- or under-predict downscaled hydrologic variable values and associated uncertainty. Results from the work show improved agreement between GCM predictions at the regional scale, which are validated for the 20th century, implying that frequency scaling and cluster-linking may indeed be a valid method for constraining uncertainty. To assess the impact of climate change on reservoir performance, in this study, a range of integrated hydrologic scenarios are projected for the future. The hydrologic scenarios incorporate increased irrigation demands; rule curves dictated by increased need for flood storage and downscaled projections of streamflow from an ensemble of GCMs and emission scenarios. The impact of climate change on multipurpose reservoir performance is quantified, using annual hydropower and RRV criteria, under GCM and scenario uncertainty. The ‘business-as-usual’ case using Standard Operating Policy (SOP) is studied initially for quantifying impacts. Adaptive Stochastic Dynamic Programming (SDP) policies are subsequently derived for the range of future hydrologic scenarios, with the objective of maximizing reliabilities with respect to multiple reservoir purposes of hydropower, irrigation and flood control. It is shown that the hydrologic impact of climate change is likely to result in decreases in performance criteria and annual hydropower generation for Hirakud reservoir. Adaptive policies show that a marginal reduction in irrigation and flood control reliability can achieve increased hydropower reliability in future. Hence, reservoir rules for flood control may have to be revised in the future.