Climate variability and vulnerability to climate change: a review

By P. K. Thornton, P. Ericksen, Mario Herrero, Andrew J. Challinor. Global Change Biology, 2014

1,086 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The focus of the great majority of climate change impact studies is on changes in mean climate. In terms of climate model output, these changes are more robust than changes in climate variability. By concentrating on changes in climate means, the full impacts of climate change on biological and human systems are probably being seriously underestimated. Here, we briefly review the possible impacts of changes in climate variability and the frequency of extreme events on biological and food systems, with a focus on the developing world. We present new analysis that tentatively links increases in climate variability with increasing food insecurity in the future. We consider the ways in which people deal with climate variability and extremes and how they may adapt in the future. Key knowledge and data gaps are highlighted. These include the timing and interactions of different climatic stresses on plant growth and development, particularly at higher temperatures, and the impacts on crops, livestock and farming systems of changes in climate variability and extreme events on pest‐weed‐disease complexes. We highlight the need to reframe research questions in such a way that they can provide decision makers throughout the food system with actionable answers, and the need for investment in climate and environmental monitoring. Improved understanding of the full range of impacts of climate change on biological and food systems is a critical step in being able to address effectively the effects of climate variability and extreme events on human vulnerability and food security, particularly in agriculturally based developing countries facing the challenge of having to feed rapidly growing populations in the coming decades.

Subfields: Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics, Plant Science, Soil Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/6dd8a75c233b7aa4f77fba5ac286c7eab3c86d0d

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics

1. Felix B. Fritschi
2. P. K. Thornton

In Plant Science

1. James R. Smith
2. Felix B. Fritschi
3. J. Gillman
4. P. K. Thornton
5. A. Raza

In Soil Science

1. B. Campbell
2. Sonja J. Vermeulen
3. P. K. Thornton

Citations in the corpus

• Stormwater management and ecosystem services: a review (2018, background): “Also, inter-annual variability is expected to increase with climate change (Thornton et al 2014), leading to a re-distribution of wet and dry years (Rheinheimer et al 2016, Null and Viers 2013).”
• Impact of Climate Change on Crops Adaptation and Strategies to Tackle Its Outcome: A Review (2019, background): “Environmental extremes and climate variability enhanced the chances of numerous stresses on plants [23].”
• Responding to global change: A theory of change approach to making agricultural research for development outcome-based (2017, background): “This was done as a pilot, involving six new, multiannual projects that were set up via a competitive process (Thornton et al., 2014b); it was envisaged that the approach would be extended to the entire project portfolio in subsequent years.”
• Impact of heat stress during seed development on soybean seed metabolome (2016, background): “Nevertheless, some predictions indicate that summer precipitation patterns may be altered, which could increase the risk and/or severity of drought in the future [(Thornton et al. 2014) http://www.”