Abstract
Climate information is an important support for national adaptation plan processes, but there is at the same time a general desire that climate information should be more relevant and appropriate in relation to decision-making contexts. An initial step in such a development towards tailored climate information would be to understand the currently available climate indices, their definitions and contexts. This study systematically reviews the scientific literature on climate indices and factors related to specific climate impacts, and in this way identifies currently available climate indices for Swedish forestry and agriculture. The identified indices are analysed relative to climate change impact categories from the vulnerability assessments and adaptation plans set out by the Swedish Forest Agency and the Swedish Board of Agriculture, to indicate development potentials and research gaps in climate indices.The review identifies 79 definitions of climate indices for forestry and 63 indices for agriculture in Sweden. The reviewed literature has employed or developed climate indices for only 11 of the 25 types of climate impact emphasised as important by the two sectoral authorities. Most of the climate indices identified have been adopted for use in modelling forest growth or crop growth and productivity. The results of the review found indices lacking for a substantial number of impacts that are relevant for Swedish forestry and agriculture. The study shows that scientific literature on climate indices to a very limited degree addresses the specific tailoring of climate indices.Potential reasons for the lack of climate indices are discussed, and the study suggests that there is a need to continue climate model development such that the models better represent relevant processes, to advance research on the co-design of indices together with sectoral stakeholders, and to enhance collaboration between adaptation, impact modelling and climatology research. The results of this study may be used in future research to analyse if and how the identified climate indices can be actionable for different stakeholders, and as a foundation to examine the demands and feasibilities of developing new tailored climate indices.
Highlights
Climate services have been advocated as an important part of the adaptation agenda (e.g., Vaughan and Dessai, 2014) in the call for actions to reduce climate vulnerability and take advantage of the potentials that arises from changed climate conditions
Climate indices identified in scientific studies on Swedish forestry in relation to climate change are mainly temperature indices (n = 48), followed by evapotranspiration (n = 10), precipitation (n = 5), and combined indices that include more than one variable (n = 11)
This study shows that climate indices are lacking for several of the anticipated climate impacts, and the extent to which this lack presents a challenge and indicate possible research gaps is discussed
Summary
Climate services have been advocated as an important part of the adaptation agenda (e.g., Vaughan and Dessai, 2014) in the call for actions to reduce climate vulnerability and take advantage of the potentials that arises from changed climate conditions. Climate Risk Management 34 (2021) 100370 information to support decision making (Hewitt et al, 2012; Vaughan and Dessai, 2014). While the provision of sciencebased climate information is considered to be fundamental in climate risk and vulnerability assessments as well as in planning, pol icy and practice (WMO, 2016), the effectiveness of climate services for actual adaptation-related decisions and implementations re quires further evaluation (Vaughan and Dessai, 2014). A critical part of climate service effectiveness concerns the character and quality of the information included
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