Key Concepts in Climate Change
General climate change resources if you want a lightweight primer
Climate Change, Risk and Solutions
Summary
A plain language summary of the history of climate science, the risks posed by climate change, and potential risk management. It endeavors to avoid politicized stances on the information and explain uncertainties around projections.
Key Points
Contains chapters on Climate Science (covering historic and prehistoric temperatures), Climate Change, Risks, and Proposed Solutions.
Chapter 10d covers potential adaptive solutions to certain climate risks.
Includes a PDF version of the information on the website, for those looking for a printable or more accessible version.
Relevance to Digital Stewardship
This offers a plain language summary of some of the risks that will impact society and our collective cultural heritage, including sea level rise, destructive storms, and changes to food and water security, as well as a primer on ways we can adapt our systems to be more resilient to these risks.
Source
This resource is designed by Dr. Kerry Emanuel, Professor of Atmospheric Science at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Full Citation
Emanuel, K. (n.d.). Climate Science, Risk & Solutions: Climate knowledge for everyone. Climate Science, Risk & Solutions. Retrieved June 17, 2024, from https://climateprimer.mit.edu.
Climate Literacy: Essential principles for understanding and addressing climate change
Summary
This guide is designed to bolster climate literacy so that educators and decision-makers — and other stakeholders — can better evaluate evidence of climate change, communicate about it, and make informed decisions. It endeavors to enable people to navigate dense climate information and better advocate effective approaches for mitigation and adaptation. Although it has been updated twice before, it is re-published as information changes and not on a regular cadence.
Key Points
Climate science is based in interdisciplinary, observable, systematic studies, and scientific observations provide evidence that human-enhanced greenhouse effects are accelerating and exacerbating.
Our social systems built on fossil fuels used for transportation, energy, industrial processes, agriculture, and other human activities, and our policies, behaviors, and values around them impact greenhouse gas emissions.
Although natural climate variability is expected, human-enhanced greenhouse effects accelerate and exacerbate global warming.
The rapid change in the climate since 1980 - due to our human activities - are impacting the natural environment, causing extreme weather events, rising sea levels, flooding, heatwaves, forest fires, and more disasters.
These damages impact the stability of human society and threaten global security.
The impacts to human societies are already unequally distributed and unjustly burden marginalized communities, rural populations, and our youngest and oldest citizens.
Adapting to climate risks and building resilience saves lives and is more effective when instituted earlier: “Building a costly seawall today, for example, will be insufficient if water levels rise above the height of the wall in the future. Without mitigation, there will come a time when the impacts of climate change overwhelm our capacity to adapt.”
Relevance to Digital Stewardship
Becoming climate literate supports digital stewardship professionals in their efforts to advocate to peers and administration about the importance of adapting our institutions to protect our digital cultural heritage collections.
Source
This resource is distributed by the United States Global Change Research Program, the same organization that releases the National Climate Assessments (a resource listed under the “Recurring Publications” section of Foundational Resources
Full Citation
USGCRP, 2024: Climate Literacy: Essential Principles for Understanding and Addressing Climate Change. U.S. Global Change Research Program, Washington, D.C., USA. https://doi.org/10.7930/clg2024
Archived version, in case of takedown: https://web.archive.org/web/20240924152219/https://www.globalchange.gov/reports/climate-literacy-guide-third-edition
Global Tipping Points: Report 2023
Summary
This report details the consequences of crossing Earth system tipping points that often negatively and irreversibly alter the state of key environmental factors that we depend on to sustain our livelihoods and stable living conditions. Taking a systems view, the authors present the current state of knowledge and recommend further research in four areas: 1) Earth system tipping points, any of which have profound negative consequences if crossed, 2) the impacts of crossing these tipping points, 3) governance frameworks and mechanisms for managing our approach to these tipping points, and 4) the positive tipping points we can pursue to counterbalance these effects.
Key Points
Tipping point: “moments when something changes abruptly… [when] the previous state… has been replaced by a new state” that is often irreversible, such as balancing on the back legs of a chair until you push too far and end up on the floor (Tipping Points Policy Brief). Certain tipping points can be crossed with positive impacts, but many will put human societies at risk. The risks posed by crossing Earth system tipping points will be unprecedented, compound into multiple environmental as well as economic, political, and societal crises, and be felt on a global scale.
Scientists have identified more than 25 Earth systems tipping points in the cryosphere, biosphere, and ocean and atmosphere circulations. Climate change and environmental destruction push us closer to many of these natural tipping points faster than ever before. Many environmental tipping points are also tightly coupled; if one is crossed, others are prone to follow and “the ultimate risk presented by Earth system tipping points is that they cascade, creating a growing momentum that undermines our collective ability to deal with the vicious cycles of escalating consequences” (page 9).
Not all negative tipping points can be avoided at this point, however we can make coordinated, equitable, and strategic interventions to better understand harmful tipping points and reach positive tipping points. This will accelerate our transition to just sustainability and enable us to build capacity and resilience. As with negative tipping points, positive ones will cascade into further benefits.
Relevance to Digital Stewardship
Illustrates the importance of taking a systems approach to risk assessment.
Can support advocacy efforts as a concise picture of the current state of our environment and global risks.
Source
“Global Tipping Points is led by Professor Tim Lenton from the University of Exeter’s Global Systems Institute with the support of more than 200 researchers from over 90 organisations in 26 countries.”
Full Citation
University of Exeter’s Global Systems Institute. (2023). Global Tipping Points: Report 2023. https://report-2023.global-tipping-points.org
Climate Change in a Nutshell: The gathering storm
Summary
Although it is titled “in a nutshell,” this is an in-depth and comprehensive summary of our current climate situation, initially prepared as part of the federal Juliana v. United States lawsuit.
Key Points
Distinguishes between natural climate changes and human-forced climate changes and describes the significant consequences of human-derived greenhouse gases, particularly carbon dioxide emissions.
Outlines the definitive consequences of our past and present actions on future generations, such as regional temperature changes that will force mass emigration.
Defines required actions for avoiding dangerous consequences of human-forced climate change.
Relevance to Digital Stewardship
Multiple consequences of human-forced climate change that Dr. Hansen outlines will undermine digital stewardship of cultural heritage, from how we select data centers due to sea level rise to how our labor and funding will be affected by food scarcity and emigration.
Source
Dr. James Hansen, formerly Director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, is an Adjunct Professor at Columbia University’s Earth Institute, where he directs a program in Climate Science.
Full Citation
Hansen, J. (2018). Climate Change in a Nutshell: The Gathering Storm. Retrieved from https://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2018/20181206_Nutshell.pdf.
World Weather Attribution: Exploring the contribution of climate change to extreme weather events
Summary
The World Weather Attribution initiative studies and provides rapid assessments of extreme weather events and disasters to determine how and the extent to which climate change and other compounding factors (e.g., deforestation) led to the event.
Key Points
The Analyses tab on the landing page has a helpful categorization of major climate events (Drought, Extreme rainfall, Storms, Cold spells, Wildfire); additionally, viewers can click on tags based on geographical location and year of event.
Other referenced resources include the Climate Shift Index: Ocean.
Relevance to Digital Stewardship
Can inform regional/local risk assessments and profiling for disaster planning, as well as advocacy.
Source
World Weather Attribution. The WWA initiative was formed in 2015 by Dr Geert Jan van Oldenborgh and Dr Friederike Otto. According to their website, “WWA’s rapid attribution studies follow established methods, which have been peer-reviewed and assessed as scientifically reliable.”
Full Citation
World Weather Attribution – Exploring the contribution of climate change to extreme weather events. (n.d.). Retrieved June 17, 2024, from https://www.worldweatherattribution.org/