{"title":"Impact of Droughts on Farms’ Financing Choices: Empirical Evidence from New Zealand","authors":"S. Kamal, Ilan Noy","doi":"10.1175/wcas-d-21-0193.1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1175/wcas-d-21-0193.1","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000The interaction between climate change, agriculture, and financial markets is a topic that has been researched relatively little thus far. This paper intends to extend the literature by empirically testing the relationships between droughts and farms’ financing choices (measured in terms of real debt and equity) in New Zealand. Using microeconomic farm-level financial records available from the tax authorities, we quantify how past droughts (measured by the New Zealand Pasture Growth Index) impact farms' financing choices. We show a statistically significant positive impact of droughts on short-term and long-term debts, equity for dairy farms, and short-term debt for sheep and beef farms.","PeriodicalId":48971,"journal":{"name":"Weather Climate and Society","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2022-12-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"64711600","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
N. Ulibarri, Claudia Valencia-Uribe, B. Sanders, J. Schubert, R. Matthew, F. Forman, M. Allaire, David Brady
{"title":"Framing the Problem of Flood Risk and Flood Management in Metropolitan Los Angeles","authors":"N. Ulibarri, Claudia Valencia-Uribe, B. Sanders, J. Schubert, R. Matthew, F. Forman, M. Allaire, David Brady","doi":"10.1175/wcas-d-22-0013.1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1175/wcas-d-22-0013.1","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000This paper develops the concept of flood problem framing to understand decision-makers’ priorities in flood risk management in the Los Angeles Metropolitan Region, California. Problem frames shape an individual’s preferences for particular management strategies and their future behaviors. While flooding is a complex, multifaceted problem, with multiple causes and multiple impacts, a decision-maker is most likely to manage only those dimensions of flooding about which they are aware or concerned. To evaluate flood decision-makers’ primary concerns related to flood exposure, vulnerability, and management in the LA Metro, we draw on focus groups with flood control districts, city planners, nonprofit organizations, and other flood-related decision makers. We identify numerous concerns, including concerns about specific types of floods (e.g., fluvial versus pluvial) and impacts to diverse infrastructure and communities. Our analyses demonstrate that flood concerns aggregate into three problem frames: one concerned with large fluvial floods exacerbated by climate change and their housing, economic, and infrastructure impacts; one concerned with pluvial nuisance flooding, pollution, and historic underinvestment in communities; and one concerned with coastal and fluvial flooding’s ecosystem impacts. While each individual typically articulated concerns that overlapped with only one problem frame, each problem frame was discussed by numerous organization types, suggesting low barriers to cross-organizational coordination in flood planning and response. This paper also advances our understanding of flood risk perception in a region that does not face frequent large floods.","PeriodicalId":48971,"journal":{"name":"Weather Climate and Society","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2022-11-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46580359","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Andrew Noviello, Sameer Menghani, Shaan Choudhri, Ian Lee, B. Mohanraj, Alexander Noviello
{"title":"Guiding Environmental Messaging by Quantifying the Effect of Extreme Weather Events on Public Discourse Surrounding Anthropogenic Climate Change","authors":"Andrew Noviello, Sameer Menghani, Shaan Choudhri, Ian Lee, B. Mohanraj, Alexander Noviello","doi":"10.1175/wcas-d-22-0053.1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1175/wcas-d-22-0053.1","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000Anthropogenic climate change promises to bring existential changes to human society in the coming years. One such example of these changes is the increasing frequency of extreme weather, capable of causing significant damage. Despite this, many Americans are acutely unaware of the relationship between climate change and extreme weather events, perhaps due to a lack of direct messaging about it. This study analyzed the effects of natural disasters on climate change discussion sentiment and volume through news media and Twitter posts. The study hypothesized that specific major natural disasters would lead to increases in the number of climate-change-related Twitter posts and news articles, as well as more positive climate sentiment, indicative of belief in the severity of global warming. Through an analysis of almost 35 million climate-change-related tweets and 300,000+ news articles, along with the collection of over 130 million natural-disaster-related tweets published in the United States between 2010 and 2020, media volume rose an average of 10% around specific extreme weather events, corroborating the first aspect of the hypothesis. The ratio of positive to negative sentiment tweets, however, decreased, suggesting the tendency of extreme weather to elicit more response from climate change deniers than supporters. Thus, increased climate change discussion around major natural disasters represents a missed opportunity for continuing to drive forward climate change messaging and awareness in the United States.","PeriodicalId":48971,"journal":{"name":"Weather Climate and Society","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2022-10-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46214468","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Intended Response to Tornado Watches among Tennessee Residents","authors":"D. Burow, Kelsey N. Ellis, Jennifer M. First","doi":"10.1175/wcas-d-22-0066.1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1175/wcas-d-22-0066.1","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000Tornado watches are issued by the National Weather Service when conditions are favorable for tornado formation. An individual’s response to a tornado watch may affect their ability to seek shelter before a tornado strikes. Here, survey data of Tennessee residents were used to determine common patterns in intended responses to two tornado watch scenarios: one during daytime, and the other at nighttime. Three common patterns were identified for a daytime watch: doing nothing; seeking information using technology; or seeking shelter and praying for safety. The two patterns for a nighttime watch were either to do nothing or to react actively, by seeking further information, shelter, and contacting friends and family. Logistic regressions indicated younger participants, those with prior tornado experience, and those who understood a tornado watch were less likely to intend to seek shelter and pray for safety during the daytime. Older participants and those without strong self-efficacy beliefs were less likely to use technology to find further information. For the nighttime scenario, participants living in East Tennessee and those who believed that bodies of water provide protection from tornadoes were more likely to respond actively, while wealthier participants and those living in single- or multi-family houses were less likely to respond actively. These results show that intended watch response is influenced by many factors, including age, income, self-efficacy beliefs, as well as knowledge of and experience with tornadoes. Additionally, those who do not understand the meaning of a tornado watch may be more likely to seek shelter prematurely.","PeriodicalId":48971,"journal":{"name":"Weather Climate and Society","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2022-10-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44483545","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Jihad Ait Soussane, D. Mansouri, Mohamed Yassine Fakhouri, Z. Mansouri
{"title":"Does climate change constitute a financial risk to Foreign Direct Investment? An empirical analysis on 200 countries from 1970 to 2020.","authors":"Jihad Ait Soussane, D. Mansouri, Mohamed Yassine Fakhouri, Z. Mansouri","doi":"10.1175/wcas-d-22-0027.1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1175/wcas-d-22-0027.1","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000The present paper aims to study the role of climate change as a financial risk for foreign investors. Multinational enterprises (MNE) seek to internationalize where financial risk is at the minimum level, including the climate change risk on profitability and productivity. Thereby, we conducted an empirical analysis of the effect of climate change on inward Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) net inflows using data from 200 countries and times series from 1970 to 2020 and employing two categories of climate change indicators: Climatology and climate-related natural hazards. Using the estimation methods of FMOLS and RWLS, we concluded that the rise of climatology indicators (mean annual temperature and precipitations) negatively impacts inward FDI. Secondly, we conclude that most climate-related natural hazards (coastal/rural/urban floods, landslides, and cyclones) deter FDI while extreme heat and wildfires show no significant effect. In addition, the results show that the negative impact of climate change is more severe when the host economy depends on agricultural activities and there is no significant investment in Research & Development compared to countries depending on service and manufacturing activities and are more innovative and invest in technology infrastructure. Furthermore, we conclude that poorer host countries experience more severe effects of climate change on FDI than rich countries in terms of GDP per capita.","PeriodicalId":48971,"journal":{"name":"Weather Climate and Society","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2022-10-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43199769","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Flash Flood Risk Assessment in the context of Economic Change Scenarios","authors":"Liutong Chen, Qian Li, Yingjun Xu","doi":"10.1175/wcas-d-21-0141.1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1175/wcas-d-21-0141.1","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000Flash flood disasters pose a constant threat to socioeconomic factors in southeastern China. This study analyzes the risk change of flash floods in the Yantanxi River Basin, southeastern China, under five economic scenarios (SSP1, SSP2, SSP3, SSP4 and SSP5). We built a regional flash flood hazard assessment model by combining hydrological and hydrodynamic models with field work. Asset value was used to represent regional exposure, which was spatialized using data from industrial structure and land use. Flash flood risk assessment influenced by economic change was developed using different industry responses to flash floods. The results clarify how economic factors drive flash flood risk changes. The return period of the 2019 flash flood in the Yantanxi River Basin is 150-year. In 2019, flash floods affected 5.04% of the river basin; the inundation depth was concentrated at under 2.00 m, resulting in CNY 0.55 billion in economic damage. With economic change, the flash flood risk increases by 91.34% (SSP2- current economic development level) and 94.39% (SSP5-extreme economic development level). This study emphasizes the balance between economic development and disaster management at the river basin scale; additionally, our method provides a reference for risk assessment in flash-flood prone areas lacking statistical information.","PeriodicalId":48971,"journal":{"name":"Weather Climate and Society","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2022-10-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47194912","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Max Mauerman, Emily Black, V. Boult, R. Diro, D. Osgood, H. Greatrex, Thabbie Chillongo
{"title":"An Information-Theoretic Approach to Reconciling Historical Climate Observations and Impacts on Agriculture","authors":"Max Mauerman, Emily Black, V. Boult, R. Diro, D. Osgood, H. Greatrex, Thabbie Chillongo","doi":"10.1175/wcas-d-22-0019.1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1175/wcas-d-22-0019.1","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000Decision-makers in climate risk management often face problems of how to reconcile diverse and conflicting sources of information about weather and its impact on human activity, such as when they are determining a quantitative threshold for when to act on satellite data. For this class of problems, it is important to quantitatively assess how severe a year was relative to other years, accounting for both the level of uncertainty among weather indicators and those indicators’ relationship to humanitarian consequences. We frame this assessment as the task of constructing a probability distribution for the relative severity of each year, incorporating both observational data – such as satellite measurements – and prior information on human impact – such as farmers’ reports – the latter of which may be incompletely measured or partially ordered. We present a simple, extensible statistical method to fit a probability distribution of relative severity to any ordinal data, using the principle of maximum entropy. We demonstrate the utility of the method through application to a weather index insurance project in Malawi, in which the model allows us to quantify the likelihood that satellites would correctly identify damaging drought events as reported by farmers, while accounting for uncertainty both within a set of commonly used satellite indicators and between those indicators and farmers’ ranking of the worst drought years. This approach has immediate utility in the design of weather-index insurance schemes and forecast-based action programs, such as assessing their degree of basis risk or determining the probable needs for post-season food assistance.","PeriodicalId":48971,"journal":{"name":"Weather Climate and Society","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2022-10-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43524330","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Climate Change and Homicide: Global Analysis of the Moderating Role of Information and Communication Technology","authors":"Jiuchang Wei, Qianwen Shao, Yang Liu, D. Marinova","doi":"10.1175/wcas-d-22-0001.1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1175/wcas-d-22-0001.1","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000The link between climate change and human conflict has received substantial attention in academic research using different measures of “conflict”; however, it is yet to interpret interpersonal violence in terms of homicide. This study takes a global perspective to investigate how climate change, typically represented by temperature and precipitation, directly and indirectly affects national homicide rates across countries. From longitudinal archival data from 171 countries from 2000 to 2018, we detect a direct and positive relationship between higher temperatures and homicide, whereas an indirect pathway between wetter climate and homicide through the occurrence of more natural hazards has also been shown in our empirical results. The relationship between climate change and homicide can be moderated by the level of information and communication technologies (ICT). We conclude that the development of ICT contributes to building the countries’ resilience to climate change with better information and communication technologies to help alleviate the negative impacts of climate change on homicide.","PeriodicalId":48971,"journal":{"name":"Weather Climate and Society","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2022-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48226711","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Yuliya Dzyuban, Graces N. Y. Ching, Sin Kang Yik, Adrian J. Tan, P. Crank, Shreya Banerjee, Rachel Xin Yi Pek, W. Chow
{"title":"Sentiment Analysis of Weather-Related Tweets from Cities within Hot Climates","authors":"Yuliya Dzyuban, Graces N. Y. Ching, Sin Kang Yik, Adrian J. Tan, P. Crank, Shreya Banerjee, Rachel Xin Yi Pek, W. Chow","doi":"10.1175/wcas-d-21-0159.1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1175/wcas-d-21-0159.1","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000Evidence exists that exposure to weather hazards, particularly in cities subject to heat island and climate change impacts, strongly affects individuals’ physical and mental health. Personal exposure to and sentiments about warm conditions can currently be expressed on social media, and recent research noted that the geotagged, time-stamped, and accessible social media databases can potentially be indicative of the public mood and health for a region. This study attempts to understand the relationships between weather and social media sentiments via Twitter and weather data from 2012 to 2019 for two cities in hot climates: Singapore and Phoenix, Arizona. We first detected weather-related tweets, and subsequently extracted keywords describing weather sensations. Furthermore, we analyzed frequencies of most used words describing weather sensations and created graphs of commonly occurring bigrams to understand connections between them. We further explored the annual trends between keywords describing heat and heat-related thermal discomfort and temperature profiles for two cities. Results showed significant relationships between frequency of heat-related tweets and temperature. For Twitter users exposed to no strong temperature seasonality, we noticed an overall negative cluster around hot sensations. Seasonal variability was more apparent in Phoenix, with more positive weather-related sentiments during the cooler months. This demonstrates the viability of Twitter data as a rapid indicator for periods of higher heat experienced by public and greater negative sentiment toward the weather, and its potential for effective tracking of real-time urban heat stress.\u0000\u0000\u0000Social media such as Twitter allow individuals to broadcast their opinions in real time, including perceptions and sensations related to weather events. Evidence from two cities exposed to hot weather—one equatorial and one desert subtropical—indicates that tweets were sensitive to seasonal temperature differences even within a small range. For Twitter users exposed to no strong temperature seasonality, generally negative sentiments to hot weather were seen year-round. In Phoenix with more pronounced seasonality, tweets were more positive in sentiment during the cooler months. This result shows promise for the medium as a rapid real-time indicator—or a snapshot—for societal sentiment to weather events.","PeriodicalId":48971,"journal":{"name":"Weather Climate and Society","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2022-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41357663","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Do Hoosiers Forget How to Drive in the Snow Each Year?","authors":"Nathan M. Hitchens","doi":"10.1175/wcas-d-22-0055.1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1175/wcas-d-22-0055.1","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000The winter season in many U.S. states includes snowfall, and with it comes comments about how drivers always seem to “forget” how to drive in snow when the first snowfall of the season occurs. This study assesses the accuracy of this popular sentiment during Indiana winters from 2007 to 2020. The number of motor vehicle crashes, injuries, and fatalities during the first snowfall of the season was compared with those during subsequent snow events. A grid of 46 cells was constructed to subdivide the state, and instances of snowfall and crashes were aggregated within each cell each day during the study period. Daily crash, injury, and fatality totals in each cell were normalized by their respective means and standard deviations, allowing for data from all cells to be combined into a single dataset. Four snow accumulation thresholds were examined: 1, 13, 25, and 51 mm. Distributions at each threshold show that more crashes occur on average on days with the first snowfall of the winter season than on other days with snowfall, regardless of the accumulation threshold used. Statistical tests support this result, showing significant differences between the mean numbers of crashes at each of the four snowfall thresholds. There were also significantly more injuries on the first snowfall day and more fatalities, although fatalities were only significant for the 13-mm snowfall threshold.\u0000\u0000\u0000The purpose of my research is to answer the question: are there more motor vehicle crashes on the first day with snow each winter when compared with the number of crashes on other days with snowfall in the state of Indiana? Using four snowfall thresholds of increasing amounts, statistical tests comparing daily crashes on first snowfall and other snowfall days showed that there were significantly more crashes on average on the first day with snowfall each winter, regardless of the amount of snow accumulation. This supports the popular notion that crashes occur more frequently the first time it snows each year, although it is more likely attributed to drivers reacclimating to snowy road conditions than to forgetfulness.","PeriodicalId":48971,"journal":{"name":"Weather Climate and Society","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2022-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41322372","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}