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By contrast, geographic and climatic factors in pre-colonial Africa made establishing absolute control over particular pieces of land prohibitively costly. [37] For example, because African farmers relied on rain-fed agriculture and consequently invested little in particular pieces of land, they could easily flee rulers rather than fight.
Climate surveys can provide concrete evidence of how this works in action. Organisational climate surveying enables the impact of human resource (HR) strategies to be evaluated to create HR return on investment (HRROI) calculations. This data has been found to be highly effective in changing the perspective of people-based initiatives as being ...
Human activities can also impose forcings, for example, through changing the composition of Earth's atmosphere. Radiative forcing is a measure of how various factors alter the energy balance of planet Earth. [12] A positive radiative forcing will lead towards a warming of the surface and, over time, the climate system.
In the 1980s, the terms global warming and climate change became more common, often being used interchangeably. [29] [30] [31] Scientifically, global warming refers only to increased surface warming, while climate change describes both global warming and its effects on Earth's climate system, such as precipitation changes. [28]
In terms of quantitative elements, they provide data accompanying the scenarios on national population, urbanization and GDP (per capita). [6] The SSPs can be quantified with various Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs) to explore possible future pathways both with regards to socioeconomic and climate pathways. [4] [5] [6] The five scenarios are:
"In human systems, as the process of adjustment to actual or expected climate and its effects in order to moderate harm or take advantage of beneficial opportunities." [9]: 5 "In natural systems, adaptation is the process of adjustment to actual climate and its effects; human intervention may facilitate this." [9]: 5
Over the years, the definitions of climate variability and the related term climate change have shifted. While the term climate change now implies change that is both long-term and of human causation, in the 1960s the word climate change was used for what we now describe as climate variability, that is, climatic inconsistencies and anomalies. [28]
The abiotic factors that environmental gradients consist of can have a direct ramifications on organismal survival. Generally, organismal distribution is tied to those abiotic factors, but even an environmental gradient of one abiotic factor yields insight into how a species distribution might look.