Hierarchical clustering of a Finnish newspaper article collection with graded relevance assessments

Abstract Search facilitated with agglomerative hierarchical clustering methods was studied in a collection of Finnish newspaper articles (N = 53,893). To allow quick experiments, clustering was applied to a sample (N = 5,000) that was reduced with principal components analysis. The dendrograms were heuristically cut to find an optimal partition, whose clusters were compared with each of the 30 queries to retrieve the best-matching cluster. The fourlevel relevance assessment was collapsed into a binary one by (A) considering all the relevant and (B) only the highly relevant documents relevant, respectively. Single linkage (SL) was the worst method. It created many tiny clusters, and, consequently, searches enabled with it had high precision and low recall. The complete linkage (CL), average linkage (AL), and Ward's methods (WM) returned reasonably-sized clusters typically of 18-32 documents. Their recall (A: 27-52%, B: 50-82%) and precision (A: 83-90%, B: 18-21%) was higher than and comparable to those of the SL clusters, respectively. The AL and WM clustering had 1-8% better effectiveness than nearest neighbor searching (NN), and SL and CL were 1-9% less efficient that NN. However, the differences were statistically insignificant. When evaluated with the liberal assessment A, the results suggest that the AL and WM clustering offer better retrieval ability than NN. Assessment B renders the AL and WM clustering better than NN, when recall is considered more important than precision. The results imply that collections in the highly inflectional and agglutinative languages, such as Finnish, may be clustered as the collections in English, provided that documents are appropriately preprocessed

ISC-UNDRR-RISK KAN Briefing note on systemic risk

Systemic risk is associated with cascading impacts that spread within and across systems and sectors (e.g. ecosystems, health, infrastructure and the food sector) via the movements of people, goods, capital and information within and across boundaries (e.g. regions, countries and continents). The spread of these impacts can lead to potentially existential consequences and system collapse across a range of time horizons. Globalization contributes to systemic risk affecting people worldwide. The impacts of climate change or COVID-19 show how the challenges of addressing systemic risk go beyond conventional risk management and governance. Critical system interdependencies, amplified by underlying vulnerabilities, highlight that there is a growing need to better understand cascading impacts, systemic risks and the possible political (governance) and societal responses. This includes improving our understanding of the root causes of systemic risk, both biophysical and socio-economic, and related information needs. Addressing contemporary challenges in terms of systemic risk requires integrating different systems perspectives and fostering system thinking, while implementing key intergovernmental agendas, such as the Paris Agreement, the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction and the Sustainable Development Goals. This Briefing Note represents an integrated perspective of climate, environmental and disaster risk science and practice regarding systemic risk. It provides an overview of the concepts of systemic risk that have evolved over time and identifies commonalities across terminologies and perspectives associated with systemic risk used in different contexts. Key attributes of systemic risk are outlined without prescribing a single definition, and information and data requirements that are essential for a better and more actionable understanding of the systemic nature of risk are discussed. Finally, the opportunities to connect research and policy for addressing systemic risk are highlighted, followed by recommendations for future work in science, policy and practice on systemic risk. The Briefing Note is based on insights and knowledge gained from an expert workshop, literature review and expert elicitation

Using a game to engage stakeholders in extreme event attribution science

The impacts of weather and climate-related disasters are increasing, and climate change can exacerbate many disasters. Effectively communicating climate risk and integrating science into policy requires scientists and stakeholders to work together. But dialogue between scientists and policymakers can be challenging given the inherently multidimensional nature of the issues at stake when managing climate risks. Building on the growing use of serious games to create dialogue between stakeholders, we present a new game for policymakers called Climate Attribution Under Loss and Damage: Risking, Observing,co-Negotiating (CAULDRON). CAULDRON aims to communicate understanding of the science attributing extreme events to climate change in a memorable and compelling way, and create space for dialogue around policy decisions addressing changing risks and loss and damage from climate change. We describe the process of developing CAULDRON, and draw on observations of players and their feedback to demonstrate its potential to facilitate the interpretation of probabilistic climate information and the understanding of its relevance to informing policy. Scientists looking to engage with stakeholders can learn valuable lessons in adopting similar innovative approaches. The suitability of games depends on the policy context but, if used appropriately, experiential learning can drive co-produced understanding and meaningful dialogue

Science for loss and damage. Findings and propositions

The debate on “Loss and Damage” (L&D) has gained traction over the last few years. Supported by growing scientific evidence of anthropogenic climate change amplifying frequency, intensity and duration of climate-related hazards as well as observed increases in climate-related impacts and risks in many regions, the “Warsaw International Mechanism for Loss and Damage” was established in 2013 and further supported through the Paris Agreement in 2015. Despite advances, the debate currently is broad, diffuse and somewhat confusing, while concepts, methods and tools, as well as directions for policy remain vague and often contested. This book, a joint effort of the Loss and Damage Network—a partnership effort by scientists and practitioners from around the globe—provides evidence-based insight into the L&D discourse by highlighting state-of-the-art research conducted across multiple disciplines, by showcasing applications in practice and by providing insight into policy contexts and salient policy options. This introductory chapter summarises key findings of the twenty-two book chapters in terms of five propositions. These propositions, each building on relevant findings linked to forward-looking suggestions for research, policy and practice, reflect the architecture of the book, whose sections proceed from setting the stage to critical issues, followed by a section on methods and tools, to chapters that provide geographic perspectives, and finally to a section that identifies potential policy options. The propositions comprise (1) Risk management can be an effective entry point for aligning perspectives and debates, if framed comprehensively, coupled with climate justice considerations and linked to established risk management and adaptation practice; (2) Attribution science is advancing rapidly and fundamental to informing actions to minimise, avert, and address losses and damages; (3) Climate change research, in addition to identifying physical/hard limits to adaptation, needs to more systematically examine soft limits to adaptation, for which we find some evidence across several geographies globally; (4) Climate risk insurance mechanisms can serve the prevention and cure aspects emphasised in the L&D debate but solidarity and accountability aspects need further attention, for which we find tentative indication in applications around the world; (5) Policy deliberations may need to overcome the perception that L&D constitutes a win-lose negotiation “game” by developing a more inclusive narrative that highlights collective ambition for tackling risks, mutual benefits and the role of transformation

Overview: Recent advances in the understanding of the northern Eurasian environments and of the urban air quality in China – a Pan-Eurasian Experiment (PEEX) programme perspective

The Pan-Eurasian Experiment (PEEX) Science Plan, released in 2015, addressed a need for a holistic system understanding and outlined the most urgent research needs for the rapidly changing Arctic-boreal region. Air quality in China, together with the long-range transport of atmospheric pollutants, was also indicated as one of the most crucial topics of the research agenda. These two geographical regions, the northern Eurasian Arctic-boreal region and China, especially the megacities in China, were identified as a “PEEX region”. It is also important to recognize that the PEEX geographical region is an area where science-based policy actions would have significant impacts on the global climate. This paper summarizes results obtained during the last 5 years in the northern Eurasian region, together with recent observations of the air quality in the urban environments in China, in the context of the PEEX programme. The main regions of interest are the Russian Arctic, northern Eurasian boreal forests (Siberia) and peatlands, and the megacities in China. We frame our analysis against research themes introduced in the PEEX Science Plan in 2015. We summarize recent progress towards an enhanced holistic understanding of the land–atmosphere–ocean systems feedbacks. We conclude that although the scientific knowledge in these regions has increased, the new results are in many cases insufficient, and there are still gaps in our understanding of large-scale climate–Earth surface interactions and feedbacks. This arises from limitations in research infrastructures, especially the lack of coordinated, continuous and comprehensive in situ observations of the study region as well as integrative data analyses, hindering a comprehensive system analysis. The fast-changing environment and ecosystem changes driven by climate change, socio-economic activities like the China Silk Road Initiative, and the global trends like urbanization further complicate such analyses. We recognize new topics with an increasing importance in the near future, especially “the enhancing biological sequestration capacity of greenhouse gases into forests and soils to mitigate climate change” and the “socio-economic development to tackle air quality issues”

Pan-Eurasian Experiment (PEEX): Towards a holistic understanding of the feedbacks and interactions in the land-Atmosphere-ocean-society continuum in the northern Eurasian region

The northern Eurasian regions and Arctic Ocean will very likely undergo substantial changes during the next decades. The Arctic-boreal natural environments play a crucial role in the global climate via albedo change, carbon sources and sinks as well as atmospheric aerosol production from biogenic volatile organic compounds. Furthermore, it is expected that global trade activities, demographic movement, and use of natural resources will be increasing in the Arctic regions. There is a need for a novel research approach, which not only identifies and tackles the relevant multi-disciplinary research questions, but also is able to make a holistic system analysis of the expected feedbacks. In this paper, we introduce the research agenda of the Pan-Eurasian Experiment (PEEX), a multi-scale, multi-disciplinary and international program started in 2012 (https://www.atm.helsinki.fi/peex/). PEEX sets a research approach by which large-scale research topics are investigated from a system perspective and which aims to fill the key gaps in our understanding of the feedbacks and interactions between the land-Atmosphere-Aquatic-society continuum in the northern Eurasian region. We introduce here the state of the art for the key topics in the PEEX research agenda and present the future prospects of the research, which we see relevant in this context

Identifying and tracking key climate adaptation actors in the UK

To understand how climate adaptation planning and decision-making will progress, a better understanding is needed as to which organisations are expected to take on key responsibilities. Methodological challenges have impeded efforts to identify and track adaptation actors beyond the coarse scale of nation states. Yet, for effective adaptation to succeed, who do national governments need to engage, support and encourage? Using the UK as a case study, we conducted a systematic review of official government documents on climate adaptation, between 2006 and 2015, to understand which organisations are identified as key to future adaptation efforts and tracked the extent to which these organisations changed over time. Our unique longitudinal dataset found a very large number of organisations (n = 568). These organisations varied in size (small-medium enterprises to large multinationals), type (public, private and not-for-profit), sector (e.g. water, energy, transport and health), scale (local, national and international), and roles and responsibilities (policymaking, decision-making, knowledge production, retail). Importantly, our findings reveal a mismatch between official government policies that repeatedly call on private organisations to drive adaptation, on the one hand, and a clear dominance of the public sector on the other hand. Yet, the capacity of organisations to fulfil the roles and responsibilities assigned to them, particularly in the public sector, is diminishing. Unless addressed, climate adaptation actions could be assigned to those either unable, or unwilling, to implement them