Abstract
Perspectives for risk management and adaptation have received ample attention in the recent IPCC Special Report on Changes in the Oceans and Cryosphere (SROCC). However, several knowledge gaps on the impacts of abrupt changes, cascading effects and compound extreme climatic events have been identified, and need further research. We focus on specific climate change risks identified in the SROCC report, namely: changes in tropical and extratropical cyclones; marine heatwaves; extreme ENSO events; and abrupt changes in the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation. Several of the socioeconomic impacts from these events are not yet well-understood, and the literature is also sparse on specific recommendations for integrated risk management and adaptation options to reduce such risks. Also, past research has mostly focussed on concepts that have seen little application to real-world cases. We discuss relevant research needs and priorities for improved social-ecological impact assessment related to these major physical changes in the climate and oceans. For example, harmonised approaches are needed to better understand impacts from compound events, and cascading impacts across systems. Such information is essential to inform options for adaptation, governance and decision-making. Finally, we highlight research needs for developing transformative adaptation options and their governance.
Highlights
Over the recent years, significant advances have been made in understanding the impact of humaninduced climate change in order to understand potential risks for the planet and people, and options for reducing such risks through mitigation and adaptation
Zscheischler et al (2020) distinguish four types of compound events: (i) preconditioned, where a weather-driven or climatedriven precondition aggravates the impacts of a hazard; (ii) multivariate, where multiple drivers and/or hazards lead to an impact; (iii) temporally compounding, where a succession of hazards leads to an impact; and (iv) spatially compounding, where hazards in multiple connected locations cause an aggregated impact
Gruber et al (2021) stressed that compound physical and biogeochemical ocean extreme events, such as co-occurring marine heatwaves, high acidity, low oxygen, and low nutrient events may be a particular stress for marine life and Le Grix et al (2021) show that such high temperature and low nutrient events are frequent in the equatorial Pacific
Summary
Significant advances have been made in understanding the impact of humaninduced climate change in order to understand potential risks for the planet and people, and options for reducing such risks through mitigation and adaptation. We refer to the current state of the art related to the assessment of impacts and risk management and adaptation options for socioeconomic impacts of several of the extreme and abrupt climatic changes identified in the SROCC report. Current process understanding and modelling capacities are insufficient for projecting future locations of changes in MHWs, to allow adaptation planning Research needs in this area include better understanding of the local and global drivers of MHWs and the generation of baseline information; that is: the natural background and frequency of these high water temperature events for specific locations. SROCC did not provide specific risk management and adaptation options for extreme ENSO events but highlighted the need to closely monitor the ENSO precursors to improve the forecasting of these events, in order to enable early warning and risk reduction measures (Collins et al, 2019). There is a need to better understand compound events, improve the projections of potential high-impact events, and consider an integrated view of detection and attribution across climate scientists, engineers, social scientists, and decisionmakers, who need to work closely together to understand these complex events and their impacts on socio-ecological systems
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