Climate Change and Tourism - UNEP - Division of Technology ...

Chapter 8
Advances in Climate Change Science and
Implications for the Tourism Sector
Over the past decade quite significant progress has been made in the science of global climate change
and its potential implications for natural and human systems. As indicated in Chapter 7, substantial
progress on the complex interactions between climate change and tourism has occurred in the past
five years. This Chapter first situates the recent concern about the consequences of climate change for
tourism within the context of existing knowledge about the relationship between tourism and climate
and weather, which has developed over the last 30 years. The importance of local-regional scale climate
analysis for tourism is emphasized. The Chapter also provides a brief overview of recent advances in
our understanding of global climate change and an overview of the state of climate change science,
as outlined in the IPCC AR4, is then provided both at a global scale and at a regional level in order to
inform discussion of possible impacts on tourism in subsequent chapters.
8.1 Distinguishing Weather, Climate, and Climate Change
8.1.1 Definitions
Weather is the state of the atmosphere at a moment in time, as determined by the simultaneous
occurrence of several meteorological variables (temperature, wind, cloud cover, precipitation) at a
specific geographical location. Weather is an element of the environment that nobody can escape. That
weather is good or bad is subjective, and depends on personal preferences, activities, and personal
health. Weather is what tourists actually experience when at a destination, affecting their activities and
holiday satisfaction. Weather also affects key aspects of tourism operations, including infrastructure,
activity programming, and operating costs.
Climate is usually defined as ‘average weather’ for a specific location. More rigorously, climate is the
state of the climate system, including a statistical description in terms of the mean and variability of
meteorological variables over a specified period of time. Averages of climate elements calculated over
a uniform and relatively long period covering at least three consecutive ten-year periods are usually
referred to as Climate Normals * under the Technical Regulations. 137 ‘Climatological Standard Normals’
are averages of climate data computed for the specific 30-year periods of 1931–1960, 1961–1990,
and (next) 1991–2020. Climate normals are used as a ‘benchmark’ against which recent or current
observations can be compared, including providing a basis for many anomaly-based climate data sets
such as the time series of global mean temperature anomalies. Climate normals are also used, implicitly
or explicitly, to serve as a prediction of the conditions most likely to be experienced in a given location.
Climate is what a tourist would anticipate experiencing at a specific destination and time, whereas they
might be confronted with weather that may not match these climatic expectations. Climate is a key
factor considered consciously or implicitly during travel planning and it is an important attribute taken
into account in locational planning, infrastructure development and destination marketing.
Climate change refers to a statistically significant variation in either the mean state of the climate or in
its spatial (micro-local) or temporal (seasonal) variability, persisting for an extended period (typically
decades or longer). 138 Tourism depends not only on average, but also on detailed characteristics of
* Note that it is widely recognized that the mean is an incomplete descriptor of climate and that standard deviations, extreme
values, etc, are also essential.
UNWTO, 9 July 2008