The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessement Report (AR4) Observed Climate Change Impacts Database contains observed responses to climate change across a wide range of systems as well as regions. These data were taken from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fourth Assessment Report and Rosenzweig et al. (2008). It consists of responses in the the physical, terrestrial biological systems and marine-ecosystems. The observations that were selected include data that demonstrate a statistically significant trend in change in either direction in systems related to temperature or other climate change variable, and the is for at least 20 years between 1970 and 2004, although study periods may extend earlier or later. For each observation, the data series is described in terms of system, region, longitude and latitude, dates and duration, statistical significance, type of impact, and whether or not land use was identified as a driving factor. System changes are taken from ~80 studies (of which ~75 are new since the IPCC Third Assessment Report) containing more than 29,500 data series. Observations in the database are characterized as a ‘change consistent with warming’ or a ‘change not consistent with warming,’ based on information from the underlying studies. The data is distributed by the Columbia University Center for Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN).
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