Editing IPCC:AR6/WGII/Chapter-15 (section)

== 15.4 Detection and Attribution of Observed Impacts of Climate Change on Small Islands ==

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As highlighted in AR5, detection of climate change impacts on the fragile environments of small islands is challenging because of other non-climate drivers that affect small islands. Determination of attribution to incremental change of climate drivers is also challenging because of the natural climate variability. Therefore, there is limited scientific literature on observed impacts and attribution. A synthesis of findings on the impacts of climate change (Sections 15.3.3 and 15.3.4) shows that there is more information on impacts on ecosystems compared to human systems. There is ''high confidence'' in attribution to climate change of impacts on the coastal and marine as well as terrestrial ecosystems ( [[#Hansen--2015|Hansen and Cramer, 2015]] ; [[#Shope--2016|Shope et al., 2016]] ; [[#van%20Hooidonk--2016|van Hooidonk et al., 2016]] ; [[#Hoegh-Guldberg--2017|Hoegh-Guldberg et al., 2017]] ; [[#Hughes--2017b|Hughes et al., 2017b]] ; [[#Mentaschi--2017|Mentaschi et al., 2017]] ; [[#Shope--2017|Shope et al., 2017]] ; [[#Vitousek--2017|Vitousek et al., 2017]] ; [[#Wadey--2017|Wadey et al., 2017]] ; [[#Ford--2018|Ford et al., 2018]] ; [[#Hughes--2018|Hughes et al., 2018]] ; [[#IPCC--2018|IPCC, 2018]] ; [[#Storlazzi--2018|Storlazzi et al., 2018]] ; [[#Bindoff--2019|Bindoff et al., 2019]] ) and ''medium confidence'' in attribution to climate change of impacts on livelihoods, economics and health (Figure 15.6; [[#McIver--2016|McIver et al., 2016]] ; [[#Eckstein--2018|Eckstein et al., 2018]] ; [[#Santos-Burgoa--2018|Santos-Burgoa et al., 2018]] ; [[#Schütte--2018|Schütte et al., 2018]] ; [[#WHO--2018|WHO, 2018]] ).

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[[File:48049f34e318985506b4685c2256b09b IPCC_AR6_WGII_Figure_15_006.png]]

'''Figure 15.6 |''' '''A comparison of the degree of confidence in the detection of observed impacts of climate change on tropical small islands with the degree of confidence in attribution to climate change drivers.'''

As Figure 15.6 shows, there is ''high confidence'' that climate change causes changes in terrestrial ecosystems as well as coral reef bleaching through increases in SST and submergence and flooding of coastal areas through SLR and increased wave height. With respect to casualties, settlements and infrastructure loss and damage, as well as economic and livelihood loss, although confidence in detection is high, there is at present ''medium confidence'' in the attribution to climate change. ''Medium confidence'' in attribution frequently arises owing to the limited research available on small island environments.

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