Review and impacts of climate change uncertainties

Impact assessments and policy responses to sea-level rise in three US states: An exploration of human-dimension uncertainties

“…The more reluctant policy-and decision-makers tend to claim scientific uncertainty as the cardinal reason to delay political action on environmental issues, suggesting implicitly that more research would somehow resolve the decision-making dilemmas they face (e.g., Boykoff and Boykoff, 2004;Colglazier, 1991;Fernau et al, 1993;Jamieson, 1995;Pielke Jr. and Conant, 2003;Sarewitz and Pielke Jr., 2000). As Sarewitz (2003, p. 136) describes this position, ''[i]f we have more knowledge about a particular environmental problem, then we will be able to make better decisions because the competition between various interests or values will give way to a rational analysis of the problem''.…”

Urban land planning: The role of a Master Plan in influencing local temperatures

“…There is lack of consistent research to definitively state climate change as an urban phenomenon (Blakely, 2007;Fernau et al, 1993). This difficulty stems from the lack of research on climate change at small scales (Blanco et al, 2009;Dewan & Yamaguchi, 2009;Khare, Beckman, & Crouse, 2011).…”

“…The main difficulty that surrounds the relationship between local and global climate change is the lack of consistent studies to reliably draw links between both phenomena (Blakely, 2007;Fernau et al, 1993). Thus doubts exist on how to assess local level climate change (Bentley, 2007).…”

“…We recovered the following examples of research about cities' temperature variations associated with land use change, covering a diverse range of time (from a decade to almost 60 years) and with annual average temperatures increasing from less than 0.5°C to more than 1°C: Fernau et al (1993) for several US municipalities; Karaca, Tayanç, and Toros (1995) for Istanbul and Ankara, in Turkey; Tayanç and Toros (1997) for four large cities in Turkey; Eliasson and Svensson (2003) for Göteborg, Sweden; for New Jersey, USA; Song, Cannon, and Whitfield (2007) for 720 meteorological stations in China; Hu and Jia (2010) for Guangzhou, China; Elagib and Abdu (2010) for 36 islands of the Arabian Gulf; Moser, Norton, Stein and Georgieva. (2010) for Mombasa, Kenya;Tokairin, Sofyanb, and Kitada (2010) for Jakarta, Indonesia; Gu et al (2011) for the region of the Yangtze River Delta, China; Fischer, Gemmer, Lüliu, and Buda (2011) for Zhujiang River Basin, China; Kim and Kim (2011) for several municipalities of South Korea; and Emmanuel and Krüger (2012) for 561 Japanese meteorological stations located in cities.…”