Complexity includes:

• interactions

• feedbacks

• thresholds

• interdependency

• time delays

• accumulations

• nonlinearity / nonstationarity

• emergent behaviors

Complexity contributes to uncertainty

• lack of awareness of full comprehension of components, relationships and interactions (of the system being studied)

Is suppressing complexity unethical? Can it lead to negative outcomes?

Is complexity politicized in the context of climate change?

Are scientists doing a poor job of communicating complexity?

Physical climate system is uncertain

• average, weight, correct bias in multiple global climate models (GCMs)

• what happens once we've down-scaled global models? Uncertainty increases, and communication of it decreases!

Social system / social vulnerability is uncertain

• change over time and scale (time- and scale-dependent)

• finding appropriate indicator data

• uniqueness of place

• unknown future social/cultural capacities and barriers

• long-distance / global connections

climate change problem often framed as:

1. purposeful adjustment to biophysical risk (classic IPCC definition of outcome vulnerability = exposure + sensitivity - adaptive capacity)

2. a simple problem of response to a climate impact

3. a local issue

...but really it is:

1. contextual (a.k.a. starting point vulnerability, contextual vulnerability, sometimes "social" vulnerability)

2. complex

3. influenced by processes at local to global scales

unfortunately climate change assessments have been:

1. top-down & external climate change first

2. focused on impacts

3. local or regional scale

typical climate change assessment workflow

1. global climate model(s) (GCM)

2. downscale to region/locale

3. estimate impacts (response model to estimate how sensitive the system is the the predicted change)

4. choose best adaptations, usually with an economic cost/benefit analysis

bottom-up alternative assessment

1. inventory adaptation options

2. investigate context of social vulnerability

alternative approaches

1. human rights: pro-poor empowerment approach to planning process

2. no regrets: actions yield benefits regardless of future climate changes

3. transformational adaptation: "creation of fundamentally new systems"

Adaptation may lead to increased risk and vulnerability!

• Top-down biophysical exposure-response variety of climate assessment often leads to "hard" adaptations

• increase greenhouse gas emissions

• burden the poor & vulnerable

• constrain/disincentivize range of future adaptations

"Soft" adaptations to increase adaptive capacity have the least chance of becoming maladaptation and increase range of possible future adaptations

One of my favorite references: Kates, R. W. 2000. Cautionary tales: Adaptation and the global poor. Climatic Change 45 (1):5–17.

Question: do you think that we can blame all instances of maladaptation on uncertainty and complexity?

Synthesis

• within / across disciplines

• within / across sectors

• within / across regions

Work at multiple scales

• international

• national

• regional (i.e. sub-national regions)

• local

Focus on component parts / processes of larger complex problems

Can we develop integrated bottom-up / top-down climate change impact assessments?

Global climate modelling

Downscaling global climate models

Response models

Participatory methods

Simulation modeling

Vulnerability indicators / mapping

Acknowledge uncertainty in our writing and research designs (n.b. and cartography/data visualizations!)

Should we (scientists in geography):

• Reduce stridency and appear more neutral?

• Reframe problems in terms of human security (as opposed to physical science)?

• Reframe climate impacts and potential outcomes of uncertainty as positive?

Sustained and flexible interdisciplinary collaboration

Geographers should 'follow' their data through interdisciplinary collaborations, maintaining knowledge of its provenance and uncertainty throughout

Co-produce knowledge with stakeholders / public

Public outreach regarding scientific findings and uncertainty

Geography makes complexity and uncertainty real, addresses overlaps as it has an interdisciplinary nature. Participatory mapping is a useful example of coproduction of knowledge (marilia)

Climate models that attempt to predict the future often fail to account for social and climate uncertainties as they are only able to focus on a few parts of a complex problem. Models can miss social changes and focus on concrete strategies. Response models are for general outcomes. (marilia