David J Griggs

• Monash University (Australia)

The UN 2030 Agenda’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the COVID-19 pandemic share two important characteristics. They are global challenges that if not met, pose risks to all citizens. Furthermore, responses need to be system-level, rather than sectoral. COVID-19 has illuminated three complementary, compelling actions that can address...

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Paris Agreement on climate are the key international agreements to deliver a sustainable future. They are a compromise between the scientifically necessary and politically possible to achieve global sustainability. Agreed in 2015, they constitute a radical departure for international policy with no p...

Pursuing integrated research and decision-making to advance action on the sustainable development goals (SDGs) fundamentally depends on understanding interactions between the SDGs, both negative ones (“trade-offs”) and positive ones (“co-benefits”). This quest, triggered by the 2030 Agenda, has however pointed to a gap in current research and polic...

On 25 September, 2015, world leaders met at the United Nations in New York, where they adopted the Sustainable Development Goals. These 17 goals and 169 targets set out an agenda for sustainable development for all nations that embraces economic growth, social inclusion, and environmental protection. Now, the agenda moves from agreeing the goals to...

Rapid urbanisation generates risks and opportunities for sustainable development. Urban policy and decision makers are challenged by the complexity of cities as social–ecological–technical systems. Consequently there is an increasing need for collaborative knowledge development that supports a whole-of-system view, and transformational change at mu...

Geographic information systems are a means to develop a common framework for the integration of a range of perspectives into natural resources management decisions. The incorporation of these perspectives presents more than a technical challenge—diverse knowledge systems make demands on the structure of geodatabases, the ways in which data are coll...

We at World Nutrition came late to climate disruption. In May and October last year we featured climate on our cover. See also the links below. Some readers wondered what is the connection with public health nutrition. This is easy to answer. Both the president of the World Bank and the chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have co...

Dave Griggs relishes Jeffrey Sachs's analysis of the policy and practice key to a viable future for people and planet.

The United Nations (UN) Rio+20 summit committed nations to develop a set of universal sustainable development goals (SDGs) to build on the millennium development goals (MDGs) set to expire in 2015. Research now indicates that humanity’s impact on Earth’s life support system is so great that further global environmental change risks undermining long...

United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has invited world leaders to come to the Climate Summit on September 23, 2014 to deliver “bold pledges” to tackle climate change. This paper was prepared at the request of the Republic of Nauru, Chair of the Alliance of Small Island States, as part of their answer to that call.1 We believe the path to th...

The growing body of knowledge and experience in weather and climate risk management in the energy industry has driven a rapidly growing research interest in establishing links between weather, climate, and energy. Weather and climate information is also critical to managing the energy supply from other energy sectors along with better understanding...

Planetary stability must be integrated with United Nations targets to fight poverty and secure human well-being, argue David Griggs and colleagues.

This project investigated how the deep knowledge of the Yorta Yorta people can be used to strengthen their participation and influence in the complex national and regional processes that determine how their traditional lands, which are in the highly-contested Murray-Darling Basin, are managed, leading to improved adaptation decisions both for the Y...

The issue considered by this research report revolves around the broad themes or questions such as: what are we adapting to?; who or what adapts?; and, how does adaptation occur? The challenge that these questions create is that the concept of an adapted settlement encompasses both ‘visual’ and ‘process’ dimensions. Therefore, there is a need to un...

The Murray–Darling Basin incorporates Australia’s three longest rivers and spans four states and one territory. It is important for an agricultural industry worth more than AUS$9 billion per year, but is also the life source and the spirit of the Indigenous Yorta Yorta people. Here, we address whether the interests of the Yorta Yorta people can enc...

The Murray-Darling Basin incorporates Australia's three longest rivers and is important for an agricultural industry worth more than $9 billion per annum, a rich biodiversity of habitat and species, and the very life of its traditional owners. The complex and sometimes enigmatic relationships between modes of variability and Australian regional rai...

Despite the increasing scientific evidence that human-induced climate change poses a major risk to human and natural systems, there appears to be a decline in the momentum for action to reduce this risk, and more alarmingly a decline in the trust the public holds in the scientific evidence itself. In this paper we explore the role and responsibilit...

Societal needs for climate information on decadal timescales is confirmed in terms of its potential value and relevance as a driver in sector decision-making, but such information is currently lacking. Predictions and observationally based analyses for decadal climate variability and change are needed. In addition, the following issues have been id...

Societal needs for climate information on decadal timescales is confirmed in terms of its potential value and relevance as a driver in sector decision-making, but such information is currently lacking. Predictions and observationally based analyses for decadal climate variability and change are needed. In addition, the following issues have been id...

The Ethiopian National Meteorological Services Agency (NMSA) has been disseminating weather information and forecasts via the media since 1951. The quality and reach of the NMSA's broadcasts have improved markedly since 1993 after the installation by the Natural Resources Institute (NRI) of an NRI MEDIA System which combines 'blue screen' computer...

Four Meteorological Data Distribution (MDD) systems were installed in African meteorological services in late 1992. The PC-based systems are inexpensive and are intended to he sustainable technology. The MDDs were well received and in each country the MDD immediately enhanced the local information base, improving the quantity of station data availa...

Experiments have shown that if a supercooled drop is accreted on to a rimer in such a way that it lands on an already frozen smaller droplet then it may develop a protuberance as it freezes, presumably because the heat loss is fairly symmetrical. These protuberances were found in the temperature range –3 to –8°C, and their probability of production...

Laboratory experiments have been performed to study the strength of rime and vapour-grown ice crystals to investigate the possibility that fragmentation may occur following collisions in cloud. The results show that fragmentation of rime is very unlikely to occur in natural clouds. Vapour-grown crystals are found to be considerably more fragile, wi...

Predictions of natural climate variability and the human impact on climate are inherently probabilistic, due to uncertainties in the initial conditions of forecasts, the representation of key processes within models, and climatic forcing factors. Hence, reliable estimates of climatic risk can be made only through ensemble integrations of Earth syst...

Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis is the most comprehensive and up-to-date scientific assessment of past, present and future climate change. The report: • Analyses an enormous body of observations of all parts of the climate system. • Catalogues increasing concentrations of atmospheric greenhouse gases. • Assesses our understanding of the p...

This Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Special Report is the most comprehensive assessment available on the effects of aviation on the global atmosphere. The report considers all the gases and particles emitted by aircraft that modify the chemical properties of the atmosphere, leading to changes in radiative properties and climate change, a...

A study was carried out to establish the feasibility of using computer vision to estimate cloud amount. Various techniques were investigated and optimum diagnostic parameters derived. These were then applied to a number of images representing a range of meteorological conditions, and the techniques generally proved applicable. Refinements required...

Experimental evidence is presented to show that when fragments of rime break off a simulated graupel particle in an airflow, significant magnitudes of electric charge are separated only under very specific conditions. Subsidiary experiments indicate that the charging is more likely to occur when the broken fragment makes contact with the graupel pa...

The effects of rimer surface temperature and environment temperature on spike production as supercooled water droplets are accreted by an ice surface immersed in a liquid bath have been investigated. When the rimer surface temperature and the environment temperature were the same, spikes were produced only in the temperature range −3° to −9 °C. How...

A number of precautions which should be taken during the replication of ice crystals using a Formvar solution have been identified. Several different forms of inaccurate and poor quality replicas are illustrated. Their causes have been isolated and are explained.

Laboratory studies of riming have shown that, provided the heat loss is fairly symmetrical, the internal freezing pattern of an accreted drop shows two distinct modes in the temperature range −3°C to −9°C and a transition to a third below this temperature. (1) At high temperatures the freezing is dominated by an ice front growing outwards from the...