Marine Institute, Level 3 Marine Bldg., Plymouth University, Drakes Circus Plymouth, Devon, PL4 8AA, UK.
Ecol Lett. 2013 May;16 Suppl 1:58-71. doi: 10.1111/ele.12098.
There is increasing pressure from policymakers for ecologists to generate more detailed 'attribution' analyses aimed at quantitatively estimating relative contributions of different driving forces, including anthropogenic climate change (ACC), to observed biological changes. Here, we argue that this approach is not productive for ecological studies. Global meta-analyses of diverse species, regions and ecosystems have already given us 'very high confidence' [sensu Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)] that ACC has impacted wild species in a general sense. Further, for well-studied species or systems, synthesis of experiments and models with long-term observations has given us similarly high confidence that they have been impacted by regional climate change (regardless of its cause). However, the role of greenhouse gases in driving these impacts has not been estimated quantitatively. Should this be an ecological research priority? We argue that development of quantitative ecological models for this purpose faces several impediments, particularly the existence of strong, non-additive interactions among different external factors. However, even with current understanding of impacts of global warming, there are myriad climate change adaptation options already developed in the literature that could be, and in fact are being, implemented now.
政策制定者越来越要求生态学家进行更详细的“归因”分析，旨在定量估计不同驱动因素（包括人为气候变化（ACC））对观察到的生物变化的相对贡献。在这里，我们认为这种方法对生态研究没有成效。对不同物种、地区和生态系统的全球荟萃分析已经使我们有“非常高的信心”[政府间气候变化专门委员会（IPCC）]，即 ACC 已经普遍影响了野生物种。此外，对于研究充分的物种或系统，将实验和模型与长期观测进行综合分析也使我们有同样高的信心，即它们已经受到区域气候变化（无论其原因如何）的影响。然而，温室气体在推动这些影响方面的作用尚未被定量估计。这应该成为生态研究的重点吗？我们认为，为此目的开发定量生态模型面临着几个障碍，特别是不同外部因素之间存在强烈的、非加性的相互作用。然而，即使我们目前了解了全球变暖的影响，文献中已经提出了无数种气候变化适应选择方案，实际上现在已经在实施这些方案。
