Using Climatic Credits to Pay the Climatic Debt. (February 2021)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Vaughan, Ian P.; Gotelli, Nicholas J.
• Is Part Of: Trends in ecology & evolution. Volume 36:Number 2(2021)
• Page Start: 104
• Page End: 112
• Publication Date: 2021-02
• Subjects: climate change -- adaptation -- extinction debt -- transient dynamics; Ecology -- Periodicals; Evolution (Biology) -- Periodicals; 576.8
• DOI: 10.1016/j.tree.2020.10.002
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0169-5347

Abstract

Abstract : Many organisms are accumulating climatic debt as they respond more slowly than expected to rising global temperatures, leading to disequilibrium of species diversity with contemporary climate. The resulting transient dynamics are complex and may cause overoptimistic biodiversity assessments. We propose a simple budget framework to integrate climatic debt with two classes of intervention: (i) climatic credits that pay some of the debt, reducing the overall biological change required to reach a new equilibrium; and (ii) options to adjust the debt repayment rate, either making a system more responsive by increasing the rate or temporarily reducing the rate to buy more time for local adaptation and credit implementation. We illustrate how this budget can be created and highlight limitations and challenges. Highlights: Many taxa respond relatively slowly to rising global temperatures, resulting in a disequilibrium between observed and expected biodiversity known as the 'climatic debt'. Recent empirical work has demonstrated how local-scale climate adaptation options can be conceptualised as climatic credits that pay part of the debt. Other adaptation options focus on adjusting the rate at which debt is repaid (allowing equilibrium to be restored), attempting to make ecosystems more or less responsive to climatic change. A climatic budget can be assembled by uniting climatic debt with options to supply credit and alter the repayment rate, providing a simple way to capture transient dynamics and communicate different management scenarios.