David Viner

Implications of Global Climate Change for Tourism Flows and Seasonality

Tourism is a climate-dependent industry, and many destinations owe their popularity to their pleasant climates during traditional holiday seasons. This article explores the potential implications of climate change for global tourism, with special emphasis on seasonality. Combination of two climate change scenarios with the Tourism Climatic Index reveals that the locations of climatically ideal tourism conditions are likely to shift poleward under projected climate change. Whereas destinations such as the Mediterranean may see shifts in their peak seasons from summer months to current shoulder periods, regions in higher latitudes are likely to experience a lengthening of their summer seasons. The effects of these changes will depend greatly on the flexibility demonstrated by institutions and tourists as they react to climate change, with substantial implications for both spatial and temporal redistribution of tourism activities. The reader is referred to http://www.carrs.msu.edu/Main/People/faculty%20bios/extra/nicho210- journal.pdf to view the full series of color maps accompanying these analyses.

Island-specific preferences of tourists for environmental features: implications of climate change for tourism-dependent states

Climate change may affect important environmental components of holiday destinations, which might have repercussions for tourism-dependent economies. This study documents the importance of environmental attributes in determining the choice and holiday enjoyment of tourists visiting Bonaire and Barbados, two Caribbean islands with markedly different tourism markets and infrastructure. Three hundred and sixteen and 338 participants from Bonaire and Barbados, respectively, completed standardized questionnaires. Warm temperatures, clear waters and low health risks were the most important environmental features determining holiday destination choice. However, tourists in Bonaire thereafter prioritized marine wildlife attributes (i.e. coral and fish diversity and abundance) over other environmental features, whereas tourists in Barbados exhibited stronger preferences for terrestrial features, particularly beach characteristics. The willingness of tourists to revisit these islands was strongly linked to the state of the preferred environmental attributes. More than 80% of tourists in Bonaire and Barbados would be unwilling to return for the same holiday price in the event, respectively, of coral bleaching as a result of elevated sea surface temperatures and reduced beach area as a result of sea level rise. Climate change might have a significant impact on Caribbean tourism economy through alteration of environmental features important to destination selection. Island-specific management strategies, such as focusing resources on the protection of key marine or terrestrial features, may provide a means of reducing the environmental and economic impacts of climate change.

Mediterranean tourism: exploring the future with the Tourism Climatic Index.

This paper examines future climate change scenarios for the Mediterranean region using the Tourism Climatic Index. Currently, an estimated 100 million tourists visit the Mediterranean region annually, largely because of its favourable climate. Experiments with climate change scenarios suggest likely changes, with the Mediterranean becoming too hot in summer, with northern Europe having a more attractive climate, and with the Mediterranean becoming a more pleasant destination in spring and autumn. These spatial and temporal changes in climatic attractiveness could have major impacts on the sustainability of tourism development. Preliminary results for the case study of the Balearic Islands suggest that changes are likely to be detrimental from an economic and social point of view, and neutral or favourable from a resource management and biodiversity perspective.

Climate change scenarios for global impacts studies

We describe a set of global climate change scenarios that have been used in a series of studies investigating the global impacts of climate change on several environmental systems and resources — ecosystems, food security, water resources, malaria and coastal flooding. These scenarios derive from modelling experiments completed by the Hadley Centre over the last four years using successive versions of their coupled ocean–atmosphere global climate model. The scenarios benefit from ensemble simulations (made using HadCM2) and from an un-flux-corrected experiment (made using HadCM3), but consider only the effects of increasing greenhouse gas concentrations. The effects of associated changes in sulphate aerosol concentrations are not considered. The scenarios are presented for three future time periods — 30-year means centred on the 2020s, the 2050s and the 2080s — and are expressed with respect to the mean 1961–1990 climate. A global land observed climatology at 0.5° latitude/longitude resolution is used to describe current climate. Other scenario variables — atmospheric CO2 concentrations, global-mean sea-level rise and non-climatic assumptions relating to population and economy — are also provided. We discuss the limitations of the created scenarios and in particular draw attention to sources of uncertainty that we have not fully sampled.

A Climate Change Scenario for the Tropics

This paper describes the construction of a climate change scenario for a region representing the ‘extended’ Tropics – 30° N to 30° S – using a methodology that combines results from a simple climate model and a Global Climate Model (GCM) transient climate change experiment. The estimated date by which this climate change scenario might be realized ranges from as early as the end of the 2030s to as late as well into the 22nd century. The central estimate is for this scenario to describe the climate of the 2060s, which would represent a global warming rate of about 0.2 °C per decade, with associated atmospheric CO2 concentrations estimated to be about 560 ppmv, 55% higher than 1990 levels. The role of anthropogenic aerosols in offsetting part of this future global warming and altering the regional character of the changes has not been considered. The paper presents changes in mean temperature; mean rainfall; rainfall seasonality, variability, frequency, and intensity and soil moisture. These patterns of change derive from only one GCM climate change experiment; different experiments would yield different patterns for the same global warming. There is also some discussion about possible changes in tropical cyclone (TC) activity, although since TCs remain poorly modelled in GCMs, the full range of possibilities (from reduced activity, through no change, to increased activity) should be considered in any impact assessment.

Potential Impacts of Climate Change on International Tourism

Global temperatures rose by over 0.5°C during the 20th century and current estimates suggest that they will continue to rise at between 0.2 and 0.3°C per decade during the course of the 21st century. This increasing trend towards warmer temperatures could have major consequences for the tourism industry, which is heavily dependent on present climatic and environmental conditions. The ecosystems of many international holiday destinations are potentially vulnerable to climate change. This paper reviews the potential impacts of climate change for ten international tourist destinations. The most serious impacts will result from the effects of sea-level rise on small island states. Other impacts likely to affect tourism include coral bleaching, outbreaks of fire, changed migration patterns of animals and birds, flooding, the spread of vector-borne diseases and shorter skiing seasons. Without appropriate adaptive measures, climate change could produce a shift in the comparative attractiveness of tourist destinations around the globe.

CLIMATE CHANGE SCENARIOS FOR THE ASSESSMENTS OF THE CLIMATE CHANGE ON REGIONAL ECOSYSTEMS

Abstract This paper outlines the different methods which may be used for the construction of regional climate change scenarios. The main focus of the paper is the construction of regional climate change scenarios from climate change experiments carried out using General Circulation Models (GCMs). An introduction to some GCM climate change experiments highlights the difference between model types and experiments (e.g. equilibrium or transient). The latest generation of climate change experiments have been performed using fully coupled ocean-atmosphere GCMs. These allow transient simulations of climate change to be performed with respect to a given greenhouse gas forcing scenario. There are, however, a number of problems with these simulations which pose difficulties for the construction of climate change scenarios for use in climate change impacts assessment. The characteristics of the transient climate change experiments which pose difficulties for the construction of climate change scenarios are discussed. Three examples of these problems are: different climate change experiments use different greenhouse gas concentration scenarios; the “cold-start” problem which makes it hard to link future projections of climate change a given calendar year; and the drift of the climate is noticeable in the control simulations. In order to construct climate change scenarios for impacts assessment a method has therefore to be employed which addresses these problems. At present the climate modelling and climate change impacts communities are somewhat polarised in their approach to spatial scales. Current GCMs model the climate at resolutions larger than 2.5° × 3.75°, while the majority of impacts assessment studies are undertaken at scales below 50 km (or 0.5°). This paper concludes by addressing the problems in bringing together these two different modelling perspectives by presenting a number of regional climate change scenarios.

Editorial: Tourism and its Interactions with Climate Change

Anthropogenic climate change is increasingly recognised as a major threat to large sections of both society and the environment. The overwhelming majority of the peer-reviewed literature as reported by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) supports the view that there is a discernible human influence on the climate system (IPCC, 2001a). This statement will be reinforced with the publication of the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) in 2007. The studies undertaken by climate scientists have shown that it is not only the magnitude of changes which are increasingly unprecedented but also the rate of those changes. Although there may appear to be contrary views to the consensus of the IPCC, these are few in number, often fragmented, inconsistent or cannot be supported by scientific evidence. It has also been known, anecdotally, for some time that tourism is closely linked to climate, in terms of the climate of the source country of tourists (e.g. the perception of unreliable summers in, for example, northern Europe), the destination country for tourists (e.g. the perception of reliable summers in the Mediterranean) and climate seasonality (the seasonality contrast that drives demand for summer vacations in the Northern Hemisphere). It was not, however, until work by Lise and Tol (2002) that a scientific basis for this link could be described. It has also been well documented that at local, regional and global scales tourism is an economically very significant industry for which forecasts show increasing growth. Since the late 1980s there has been a considerable amount of research undertaken by scientists examining the potential impacts of climate change upon many sectors of the environment and society. This research has been reviewed and reported by Working Group II of the IPCC (1990, 1995, 2001b). Much of this work has concentrated upon single sector studies (e.g. climate change and its impacts upon hydrology or agriculture) or single species or ecosystem types. Integration of the impacts across multiple sectors within a region was originally confined to desktop analysis and subsequent reports. Examples of these include: UK Climate Change Impacts Review Group (CCIRG, 1991); the United States National Assessment (National Assessment Synthesis Team, 2000) and the EU funded ACACIA Project (Parry, 2000). When reviewing the significant volumes of literature on climate change and its impacts it soon becomes clear that there has been very little emphasis or research on climate change and tourism. For example, there has been a plethora of research undertaken on the impacts of

A qualitative assessment of the sources of uncertainty in climate change impacts assessment studies

This paper, to be used as a guide by impacts assessors, identifies and then presents a qualitative assessment of the sources of uncertainty that are encapsulated in any climate change impacts assessment. The initial source, that of emissions scenarios derived from socio-economic projections is described and from here the cascade of the probable ranges of uncertainty associated with each step in an impacts assessment study is discussed. This assessment of the sources of uncertainty is coupled to the evolution of the science during the course of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) process. This is used to explain (in specific cases) why certain de factostandards have been adopted in climate change research.