Why Analyze Mental Models of Local Climate Change? A Case from Southern Mozambique

Abstract

People construct mental models of local climate change based on their observations and experiences of past climate events and changes. These mental models offer critical insight into locally important factors that trigger responses to new climate conditions and can be used to ground-truth regional climate models. In this paper, the authors explore mental models of changes to local climate patterns and climate-associated environmental changes over the past 45 years (1963–2008) in two rural communities in Matutúine District, Mozambique. Interview results are compared to data from a regional weather station. Residents discuss temperature increases, short-term and long-term precipitation changes, and altered seasonal timing. Measurable climate change in this region includes increasing temperatures and more erratic rainfall leading to drought and altered season timing. The climate-associated environmental changes residents observed draw attention to links between local livelihood practices and climate, as well as emphasize changes that would not necessarily appear in regional climate models. Such changes include reduced crop and wild fruit production, fewer cattle, variable forest size, increased wildfires and elephant conflict, drying up of water sources, poor health, and cultural change. Differences between adjacent communities highlight the potential interaction of landscape and vegetation variability, gender, and livelihoods in observations and experiences of climate change and demonstrate how mental models can provide insight into local ecological patterns and processes.

Cultural knowledge and local vulnerability in African American communities

“…To elicit cultural knowledge about climate change we employed the cognitive and psychometric methods of free listing, pile sorting, multidimensional scaling (MDS) and cluster analysis [32][33][34][35] with ethnographic data, these methods allow us to visualize the content and structure of cultural knowledge about climate change. Specifically, we had individuals in each community sort terms related to climate change into piles, aggregated those piles, and then used MDS to visualize the relationships between the terms.…”

Climate Change, Justice, and Adaptation among African American Communities in the Chesapeake Bay Region

“…We used approaches familiar to cognitive and environmental anthropologists for eliciting shared core knowledge of environmental phenomena (cf. Atran et al 2005;Kempton et al 1995;Paolisso 2002Paolisso , 2007Shaffer and Naiene 2011). More specifically, to elicit cultural knowledge about climate change we used cognitive and psychometric approaches: specifically, free listing, pile sorting, and multidimensional scaling (MDS) (Bernard 2006;Kruskal and Wish 1978;Weller and Romney 1988).…”

Rain Rituals as a Barometer of Vulnerability in an Uncertain Climate

“…A previous study showed that 81 percent of respondents consistently attributed the droughts in this region-especially those post-civil war-to failed rain rituals (Shaffer and Naiene 2011). This widespread emphasis during interviews of the failure of rain rituals, despite the exposure of community members to Western scientific explanations for climate change through school or work with non-governmental organizations, encouraged me to pursue additional questions about local ritual practice and outcomes, reasons for failure, observed alterations to rain rituals, and explanations for these changes to better understand local perceptions of climate vulnerability.…”

“…Locals appreciate the animals, but weak governmental responses to crop raiding and reduced resource access with no compensation frustrates them as their families suffer from reduced household production. Rising temperatures and shifting rainfall patterns over the district have been observed by local residents and measured at the nearest weather station (Shaffer and Naiene 2011). Residents state these changes have affected household production and livelihood activity through declines in crop and wild fruit production, increased elephant crop raiding, more wildfires, and water insecurity.…”