climate change on UAE - Stockholm Environment Institute-US Center

8. Glossary
Adaptation: Adjustment in natural or
human systems in response to actual or
expected climatic stimuli or their effects,
which moderates harm or exploits beneficial
opportunities. Various types of adaptation
can be distinguished, including anticipatory,
autonomous and planned adaptation.
Adaptive Capacity: The ability of a system to
adjust to <strong>climate</strong> <strong>change</strong> (including <strong>climate</strong>
variability and extremes) to moderate potential
damages, to take advantage of opportunities, or
to cope with the consequences. (IPCC)
Adaptive Management: Adaptive management
seeks to aggressively use management
intervention as a tool to strategically probe
the functioning of an ecosystem. Interventions
are designed to test key hypotheses about the
functioning of the ecosystem. This approach
is very different from a typical management
approach of ‘informed trial-and-error’ which
uses the best available knowledge to generate a
risk-averse, ‘best guess’ management strategy,
which is then <strong>change</strong>d as new information
modifies the ‘best guess’. Adaptive management
identifies uncertainties, and then establishes
methodologies to test hypotheses concerning
those uncertainties. It uses management as a
tool not only to <strong>change</strong> the system, but as a tool
to learn about the system. It is concerned with
the need to learn and the cost of ignorance,
while traditional management is focused on
the need to preserve and the cost of knowledge.
(www.resalliance.org/565.php)
Climate <strong>change</strong>: Climate <strong>change</strong> refers to a
statistically significant variation in either the
mean state of the <strong>climate</strong> or in its variability,
persisting for an extended period (typically
decades or longer). Climate <strong>change</strong> may be due
to natural internal processes or external forcings,
or to persistent anthropogenic <strong>change</strong>s in the
composition of the atmosphere or in land use
(IPCC, 2001). Note, however, that the United
Nations Framework Convention on Climate
Change (UNFCCC) defines <strong>climate</strong> <strong>change</strong> as:
“a <strong>change</strong> of <strong>climate</strong> which is attributed directly
or indirectly to human activity that alters the
composition of the global atmosphere and
which is in addition to natural <strong>climate</strong> variability
observed over comparable time periods”. The
UNFCCC thus makes a distinction between
“<strong>climate</strong> <strong>change</strong>” attributable to human
activities altering the atmospheric composition,
and “<strong>climate</strong> variability” attributable to natural
causes.
Climate hazards: Climatic hazards are threats
to a system, comprised of perturbations and
stress (and stressors), and the consequences
they produce. A perturbation could be a major
spike in pressure (e.g., a tidal wave or hurricane)
beyond the normal range of variability in which
the system operates. Perturbations commonly
originate beyond the system or location in
question. Hazards can include latent conditions
that may represent future threats and can be
single, sequential or combined in their origin
and effects. Each hazard is characterized by its
location, intensity, frequency and probability.
Climate Model: commonly thought of as a
numerical or mathematical representation of
the physical, chemical and biological properties
(atmosphere, ocean, ice and land surface) of a
climatic system, which incorporates scenarios
(coherent internally consistent and plausible
descriptions of a possible forthcoming states
of the world; Carter et al, 1994) allowing for the
generation of future predictions (Santer et al.,
1990).
Climate variability: Climate variability refers to
variations in the mean state and other statistics
(such as standard deviations, the occurrence of
extremes, etc.) of the <strong>climate</strong> on all temporal
and spatial scales beyond that of individual
weather events. Variability may be due to
natural internal processes within the <strong>climate</strong>
system (internal variability), or to variations
in natural or anthropogenic external forcing
(external variability) (IPCC, 2001).
Climate threshold: The point at which external
forcing of the <strong>climate</strong> system, such as the
increasing atmospheric concentration of
greenhouse gases, triggers a significant climatic
or environmental event which is considered
unalterable, or recoverable only on very long
time-scales, such as widespread bleaching
of corals or a collapse of oceanic circulation
systems (IPCC, 2007).
Climate <strong>change</strong> scenarios: coherent and
internally-consistent descriptions of future
<strong>climate</strong> given certain assumptions about the
growth of the emissions of greenhouse gases and
about other factors that may influence <strong>climate</strong>
in the future. The uncertainties associated with
the modeling of future <strong>climate</strong> scenarios have
Impacts, Vulnerability & Adaptation for
Coastal Zones in the United Arab Emirates
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