Climate Change Adaptation in 2011

Climate change adaptation teems with large events and subtle forces. Every day, the news brings more stories of climate-related floods, droughts, forest fires, sea level rise, extreme weather, disasters, ecological stress, and infectious diseases. The field also spans new developments in computer modeling, agriculture, water and land use, paleoclimate, scientific research, insurance, and finance. Climate instability takes a dramatic toll on indigenous peoples and developing countries, but it also warps the psychological and social quality of our lives, and in my blogging I don't neglect these subjects, either. You'll find Carbon Based at http://carbon-based-ghg.blogspot.com. For this year's annual review, I've focused on stories about climate risks, since I view risk as the one way of unifying the thronging variety of climate change adaptation. It's a central topic because one effect of global warming is worsening probabilities, something that is notoriously difficult to detect. It's a natural filter for me because risk has been the subject of many of the articles I've written during 2011.