Nested scenario meta-analyses to systematically address individual and societal consequences of climate change

Many important socioeconomic determinants of vulnerability across scales \– such as styles of governance, power differentials, or indicators of social cohesion \– may be better represented qualitatively. However, qualitative factors can pose challenges for traditional approaches to aggregation (e.g. downscaling, upscaling). Nevertheless, approaches for aggregating findings from localized case studies are needed to arrive at a comprehensive view of the individual and societal consequences of climate change. Where the ability to aggregate difficult-to-quantify factors is desired, nested scenarios containing both qualitative and quantitative information may fill the gap. In this paper, recent scholarship is summarized that demonstrates (1) there may be inherent limitations to current approaches for aggregation and cross-scale bridging for some important socioeconomic determinants of vulnerability that are difficult to quantify, (2) through new scenario methods that are more objective, socioeconomic scenarios containing qualitative components can be shown to be internally consistent, and (3) such scenarios developed at more than one scale could be coupled in an internally consistent way. These new conceptual and methodological developments point the way toward systematically addressing individual and societal consequences of climate change across scales and potentially to improving analytical tools for identifying socio-ecological tipping points.