Storylines: an alternative approach to representing uncertainty in physical aspects of climate change

As climate change research becomes increasingly applied, the need for actionable information is growing rapidly. A key aspect of this requirement is the representation of uncertainties. The conventional approach to representing uncertainty in physical aspects of climate change is probabilistic, based on ensembles of climate model simulations. In the face of deep uncertainties, the known limitations of this approach are becoming increasingly apparent. An alternative is thus emerging which may be called a ‘storyline’ approach. We define a storyline as a physically self-consistent unfolding of past events, or of plausible future events or pathways. No a priori probability of the storyline is assessed; emphasis is placed instead on understanding the driving factors involved, and the plausibility of those factors. We introduce a typology of four reasons for using storylines to represent uncertainty in physical aspects of climate change: (i) improving risk awareness by framing risk in an event-oriented rather than a probabilistic manner, which corresponds more directly to how people perceive and respond to risk; (ii) strengthening decision-making by allowing one to work backward from a particular vulnerability or decision point, combining climate change information with other relevant factors to address compound risk and develop appropriate stress tests; (iii) providing a physical basis for partitioning uncertainty, thereby allowing the use of more credible regional models in a conditioned manner and (iv) exploring the boundaries of plausibility, thereby guarding against false precision and surprise. Storylines also offer a powerful way of linking physical with human aspects of climate change

Towards advancing scientific knowledge of climate change impacts on short-duration rainfall extremes

A large number of recent studies have aimed at understanding short-duration rainfall extremes, due to their impacts on flash floods, landslides and debris flows and potential for these to worsen with global warming. This has been led in a concerted international effort by the INTENSE Crosscutting Project of the GEWEX (Global Energy and Water Exchanges) Hydroclimatology Panel. Here, we summarize the main findings so far and suggest future directions for research, including: the benefits of convection-permitting climate modelling; towards understanding mechanisms of change; the usefulness of temperature-scaling relations; towards detecting and attributing extreme rainfall change; and the need for international coordination and collaboration. Evidence suggests that the intensity of long-duration (1 day+) heavy precipitation increases with climate warming close to the Clausius–Clapeyron (CC) rate (6–7% K−1), although large-scale circulation changes affect this response regionally. However, rare events can scale at higher rates, and localized heavy short-duration (hourly and sub-hourly) intensities can respond more strongly (e.g. 2 × CC instead of CC). Day-to-day scaling of short-duration intensities supports a higher scaling, with mechanisms proposed for this related to local-scale dynamics of convective storms, but its relevance to climate change is not clear. Uncertainty in changes to precipitation extremes remains and is influenced by many factors, including large-scale circulation, convective storm dynamics andstratification. Despite this, recent research has increased confidence in both the detectability and understanding of changes in various aspects of intense short-duration rainfall. To make further progress, the international coordination of datasets, model experiments and evaluations will be required, with consistent and standardized comparison methods and metrics, and recommendations are made for these frameworks

Climate change impacts on the power generation potential of a European mid-century wind farms scenario

Wind energy resource is subject to changes in climate. To investigate the impacts of climate change on future European wind power generation potential, we analyze a multi-model ensemble of the most recent EURO-CORDEX regional climate simulations at the 12 km grid resolution. We developed a mid-century wind power plant scenario to focus the impact assessment on relevant locations for future wind power industry. We found that, under two greenhouse gas concentration scenarios, changes in the annual energy yield of the future European wind farms fleet as a whole will remain within +/- 5% across the 21st century. At country to local scales, wind farm yields will undergo changes up to 15% in magnitude, according to the large majority of models, but smaller than 5% in magnitude for most regions and models. The southern fleets such as the Iberian and Italian fleets are likely to be the most affected. With regard to variability, changes are essentially small or poorly significant from subdaily to interannual time scales

Päivittäisasioinnin palveluketju Case Nooa Säästöpankki Oy

Tein opinnäytetyöni toimeksiantona Nooa Säästöpankki Oy:lle. Työn tavoitteena oli tutkia päivittäisasioinnin palveluketjua. Tarkoituksena oli tuottaa Nooa Säästöpankille henkilöasiakkaan päivittäisasioinnin palveluketjun kuvaus, keskittyen tarkkojen tuote- ja järjestelmäkuvausten sijasta enemmänkin Nooan toimintatapaan, myyntiin ja myyntiprosessiin sekä käytännön vinkkeihin. Kilpailutilanne pankkialalla, kuten muillakin toimialoilla, on kiristynyt. Perinteinen pankkius-kollisuus on muisto vain, ja asiakas saattaa vaihtaa pankkia heti kun saa paremman tarjouksen muualta. Jatkuvasti kiristyvässä kilpailutilanteessa taistelu asiakkaista on kovaa. Sekä asiak-kuuksien saaminen että säilyttäminen on haasteellista. Yksi parhaista tavoista erottua kilpailijoista, on kokonaisvaltainen palvelu. Mitä paremmin asiakasta palvellaan ja mitä laajemmin asiakkaan tarpeet otetaan huomioon ja pyritään ratkaisemaan, sitä korkeampi on asiakkaan kynnys lähteä kilpailuttamaan palveluitaan. Tasaisen korkealaatuinen myyntiprosessi on avain asiakastyytyväisyyteen. Se edellyttää, että jokainen yrityksen työntekijä tuntee yhteiset toimintatavat ja noudattaa niitä. Päivittäisasioinnin prosessi voidaan nähdä yhtenä Nooa Säästöpankin tärkeimpänä prosessina. Päivittäisasioinnin palveluissa toimivat henkilöt ovat yrityksen näkyvin osa ja antavat kasvot yritykselle. Siksi onkin tärkeää, että jokainen päivittäispalveluissa toimiva myyjä, etenkin uusi työntekijä, ymmärtää niin roolinsa pankin kasvoina kuin myös mahdollisuutensa havaita asiakkaan tarpeet ensimmäisenä ja jopa ainoana. Pankin päivittäispalveluissa toimivat henkilöt tapaavat päivässä ylivoimaisesti eniten asiakkaita, ja tämä tosiasia on osattava pankissa hyödyntää. Tutkimus toteutettiin kvalitatiivisena eli laadullisena tutkimuksena. Tutkimusmenetelmäksi valittiin tapaustutkimus koska tutkimuksen kohteena on yksi yksittäinen tapaus, prosessi. Aineisto kerättiin erilaisia kirjallisia ja virtuaalisia dokumentteja tutkien, sekä havainnoimalla. Tutkittava kohde on ainutlaatuinen, ja siitä on vaikea saada syvällistä tietoa muulla tavoin kuin havainnoimalla. Opinnäytetyön tekijä itse on työskennellyt yrityksessä vuodesta 2009 ja päässyt näin ollen tekemään lukuisia havaintoja prosessin kulusta. Nämä havainnot toimivat tärkeänä aineistona tutkimusta tehdessä. Tutkimuksen tuloksena saatu päivittäisasioinnin palveluketjun kuvaus tukee päivittäisasioinnin palveluissa toimivaa henkilöä myynnillisen toimintatavan omaksumisessa. Uskon työstä olevan hyötyä sekä yritykselle sekä loppukäyttäjälle. Työn tuloksia ei suoraan pystytä käyttämään hyväksi muualla, mutta soveltaen siitä voi olla hyötyä myös muille pankeille.The service chain in day-to-day banking – Case Nooa Savings Bank Ltd This thesis was made as an assignment for Nooa Savings Bank. The purpose of this thesis was to investigate the service chain in day-to-day banking for private customers and to produce a description of the process for Nooa Savings Bank. The main focus was on the course of action, the selling process and practical suggestions for improvement rather than just focusing on exact product and system descriptions. Competition in the banking sector is fiercer than ever, and traditional customer loyalty has greatly diminished. Customers are more likely to switch bank if they get a better offer elsewhere, and banks must struggle to acquire new customers as well as retain old ones. The best way to stand out from the competition is to offer a comprehensive service. The better the bank serves its customers and provides solutions to their individual needs the more unlikely it becomes that they might switch to another bank. A fair and high quality selling process is the key to customer satisfaction. This requires that every employee in the company is aware of the goals of the organization and is able to act in accordance with them. The service chain in day-to-day banking can be seen as one of the most important processes in Nooa Savings Bank. The employees involved in the process play a key role and by virtue of their position at the customer interface constitute the face of the company. For this reason it is extremely important that every salesman working in day-to-day banking services and especially new employees understand their roles as the face of the bank as well as their opportunity to be the first and possibly the only one to observe the needs of the customer. These employees meet the overwhelming majority of customers and this is a fact that the bank has to use to its advantage. The research was conducted using a qualitative research method with the case study as chosen research method because the object of the study was a single case and one process. Data was gathered by studying written and virtual documents and by observation. The object of the study is unique and it would be difficult to get significant information in any other way than by observing. The author of the thesis herself has worked at Nooa Savings Bank since 2009 and therefore has been able to make several observations of the course of the process. These observations can be considered as valuable data in this research. The description of the service chain in day-to-day banking which was produced as result of the research can help the new employee to absorb the sales oriented procedures more rapidly. I believe that the results of the thesis will be useful for Nooa Savings Bank as well as for the end user. The results can not directly be taken advantage of by others but indirectly they can be useful for other banks

A universal of human social cognition: Children from 17 communities process gaze in similar ways

Theoretical accounts assume that key features of human social cognition are universal. Here we focus on gaze-following, the bedrock of social interactions and coordinated activities, to test this claim. In this comprehensive cross-cultural study spanning five continents and 17 distinct cultural communities, we examined the development of gaze-following in early childhood. We identified key processing signatures through a computational model that assumes that participants follow an individual’s gaze by estimating a vector emanating from the eye-center through the pupil. Using a single reliable touchscreen-based task, we found these signatures in all communities, suggesting that children worldwide processed gaze in highly similar ways. Absolute differences in performance between groups are accounted for by a cross-culturally consistent relationship between children’s exposure to touchscreens and their performance in the task. These results provide strong evidence for a universal process underlying a foundational socio-cognitive ability in humans that can be reliably inferred even in the presence of cultural variation in overt behavior