Assessing confidence and communicating meaning: The experience of the LWEC Climate Change Impact Report Cards

Mike Morecroft

LWEC Climate Change Impacts Report Card for Biodiversity and ecosystems

• Accessible high level summary• Underpinned by peer reviewed reviews• Consensus of research community• One of a series of climate change impacts

report cards covering different sectors

http://www.lwec.org.uk/resources/report-cards/biodiversity

Report cardReviewpaper

paper

Review

paper

report

paper

report

book

Review

Peer review:Independent group

Peer review:Working group

Peer review: Review authors

LWEC Climate Change Impacts Report Card for Biodiversity

Evidence on climate change impacts

• Monitoring and survey• Experiment• Theory• Modelling

indicators

Assessing confidence

H H

M M

L L

L M H

agre

emen

t

Amount of evidence

Overall confidence

Over the last century the directions of change in range margins of many animal species are consistent with recorded increases in temperature. H

Lessons for indicators

• Consensus of scientific community • Peer review • Traceability to primary research / monitoring• Assessment of confidence / uncertainty

• Indicators are part of a larger evidence base• Qualitative assessments can be valuable as

well as quantitative• Text can be powerful• Communication matters

There is strong evidence that climate change is already affecting UK biodiversity. Impacts are expected to increase as the magnitude of climate change increases.