What's New?

Adaptation Fund 2012- 2013

2011-08-12

NS Environment is now calling for proposals for the 2012-2013  Climate Change Adaptation Fund. Click here for the fund description and application form.

Conference 'Climate Change: Getting Ready'

2012-02-03

Results of the Atlantic Climate Adaptation Solutions (ACAS) program in Nova Scotia will be presented and discussed in Halifax, March 5-6, 2012.

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Adaptation Glossary


Here are definitions to some of the most commonly used terms in the Adaptation Clearinghouse.  All definitions come from the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).  

  • Adaptation:  Initiatives and measures to reduce the vulnerability of natural and human systems against actual or expected climate change effects.  Various types of adaptation exist, eg. anticipatory and reactive, private and public, and autonomous and planned.  Examples are raising river or coastal dikes, the substitution of more temperature-shock resistant plants for sensitive ones, etc.
  • Adaptive Capacity: The whole of capabilities, resources and institutions of a country or region to implement effective adaptation measures. 
  • Climate:  Climate in a narrow sense is usually defined as the average weather, or more rigorously, as the statistical description in terms of the mean and variability of relevant quantities over a period of time ranging from months to thousands or millions of years.  The classical period for averaging these variables is 30 years, as defined by the World Meteorological Organization.  The relevant quantities are most often surface variables such as temperature, precipitation and wind.  Climate in a wider sense is the state, including a statistical description, of the climate system.  In various parts of this report different averaging periods, such as a period of 20 years, are also used.
  • Climate Change:  Climate change refers to a change in the state of the climate that can be identified (e.g., by using statistical tests) by changes in the mean and/or the variability of its properties, and that persists for an extended period, typically decades or longer. Climate change may be due to natural internal processes or external forcings, or to persistent anthropogenic changes in the composition of the atmosphere or in land use. Note that the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), in its Article 1, defines climate change as: a change of climate which is attributed directly or indirectly to human activity that alters the composition of the global atmosphere and which is in addition to natural climate variability observed over comparable time periods. The UNFCCC thus makes a distinction between climate change attributable to human activities altering the atmospheric composition, and climate variability attributable to natural causes. See also Climate variability; Detection and Attribution.
  • (Climate) Adaptation Assessment:  The practice of identifying options to adapt to climate change and evaluating them in terms of criteria such as availability, benefits, costs, effectiveness, efficiency, and feasibility.
  • (Climate) Impact Assessment: The practice of identifying and evaluating the detrimental and beneficial consequences of climate change on natural and human systems.