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PubMed1986

The use of a factor-analytic procedure for assessing the validity of an employee safety climate model.

This paper assesses the validity of a safety climate measure proposed by Zohar (Safety climate in industrial organizations: Theoretical and applied implications. J. Appl. Psychol. 65(1), 96-101, 1980.) on an American sample of production workers. Using LISREL, confirmatory factor analyses were carried out to test the hypothesis of similar variance-covariance structures (validation of the proposed model). The originally proposed climate model was not supported by the data. An exploratory factor analytic algorithm is then discussed as a means of refining the climate model. A smaller safety climate model was then extracted from the data, and comparisons were made for two groups of employees (accidents versus no accidents). Factorial invariance tests were conducted to test the hypotheses of similar factor patterns, equal units of measurement, equal accuracy of measurement, and equal covariance across factors, between the two groups. The results indicated that the climate structures did not differ between the two groups of interest, subsequently providing a valid and reliable climate measure across the groups. Groups were then compared on climate scores, with differences in climate perception being detected between the groups.

Accident Prevention↗
PubMed1994

Climate of the earth: an overview.

Climate has varied over a large range in the recent history of the Earth, with extremes represented by equable environments of the Cretaceous and Eocene and the comparatively frigid conditions of the ice ages that punctuated the past few million years. It is suggested that major shifts in climate are controlled largely by variations in CO(2) with related fluctuations in modes of ocean circulation. Changes in climate can proceed rapidly, on time scales as short as centuries or even decades, as indicated by data for the Younger Dryas (a period of globally cold conditions interrupting recovery of the Earth from the last ice age) and the Little Ice Age (a cold snap extending from about 1250 to about 1850 ad). Rapid fluctuations in climate appear to be linked to changes in production of deep water in the North Atlantic, possibly also to variations in circulation of intermediate waters in the Pacific. Mechanisms are discussed whereby changes in ocean circulation can result in shifts of climate on a global scale. A 10 000 year record of climate from Norway is used to provide context for a discussion of possible changes in climate today arising as a result of the build-up of industrially related greenhouse gases. Brief, somewhat pessimistic, comments are offered concerning the prospects for meaningful near-term predictions of the response of climate to increased concentrations of greenhouse gases. Studies of past climates, by drawing attention to important processes and feedbacks, can play a valuable role in the development of credible models for the future.

Journal Article↗
PubMed2004

Exploratory analysis of the safety climate and safety behavior relationship.

PROBLEM: Safety climate refers to the degree to which employees believe true priority is given to organizational safety performance, and its measurement is thought to provide an "early warning" of potential safety system failure(s). However, researchers have struggled over the last 25 years to find empirical evidence to demonstrate actual links between safety climate and safety performance. METHOD: A safety climate measure was distributed to manufacturing employees at the beginning of a behavioral safety initiative and redistributed one year later. RESULTS: Multiple regression analysis demonstrated that perceptions of the importance of safety training were predictive of actual levels of safety behavior. The results also demonstrate that the magnitude of change in perceptual safety climate scores will not necessarily match actual changes (r=0.56, n.s.) in employee's safety behavior. DISCUSSION: This study obtained empirical links between safety climate scores and actual safety behavior. Confirming and contradicting findings within the extant safety climate literature, the results strongly suggest that the hypothesized climate-behavior-accident path is not as clear cut as commonly assumed. SUMMARY: A statistical link between safety climate perceptions and safety behavior will be obtained when sufficient behavioral data is collected. IMPACT ON INDUSTRY: The study further supports the use of safety climate measures as useful diagnostic tools in ascertaining employee's perceptions of the way that safety is being operationalized.

Accidents, Occupational↗
PubMed2006

Impacts of climate change on the fate and behaviour of pesticides in surface and groundwater--A UK perspective.

Over the last two decades significant effort has been dedicated to understanding the fate and transport of pesticides in surface water and groundwater and to use this understanding in the development of environmental policy and regulation. However, there have been few studies that have investigated the relationships between pesticides and climate change, and where this work has been undertaken it has principally been in relation to the impacts of climate change on agricultural production rather than in the context of environmental protection. This study addresses that gap by reviewing how climate change may impact the fate and transport of pesticides in surface and groundwaters as a pre-cursor to quantitative studies. In order to structure the review, we have adopted a source-pathway-receptor approach where climate sensitivities of pesticide source terms, environmental pathways and receptors are reviewed. The main climate drivers for changing pesticide fate and behaviour are thought to be changes in rainfall seasonality and intensity and increased temperatures, but the effect of climate change on pesticide fate and transport is likely to be very variable and difficult to predict. In the long-term, indirect impacts, such as land-use change driven by changes in climate, may have a more significant effect on pesticides in surface and groundwaters than the direct impacts of climate change on pesticide fate and transport. The review focuses on climate change scenarios and case studies from the UK; however, the general conclusions can be applied more widely.

Agriculture↗
PubMed2002

Elite athletes' experiences of the motivational climate: the coach matters.

Recent research investigating the effect of the motivational climate has found that even elite athletes benefit from a mastery climate. The purpose of the present study was to obtain a deeper understanding of the importance of the climate surrounding an athlete and the role of the coach for elite athletes by conducting in-depth interviews with a group of athletes (n=7). The athletes also completed the Perception of Success Questionnaire (POSQ) and Perception of Motivational Climate Questionnaire (PMCQ) to measure motivational indices. All the athletes were very high on task orientation and moderate to high on ego orientation. Most of the athletes perceived a high mastery climate and a low performance climate. The athletes emphasized the importance of the coach as the creator of the climate, as well as their preference for a supportive and caring climate. This speaks for an emphasis on a mastery climate for elite athletes.

Adult↗
PubMed2006

When organizational climate is unambiguous, it is also strong.

Several recent studies have addressed the topic of climate strength--the degree to which there is agreement among an organization's members regarding the practices and policies as well as the shared values that characterize the organization. To further investigate antecedents of climate strength, the authors used data from the GLOBE Project, totaling 3,783 individuals from 123 organizations. The authors hypothesized that they would find greater climate strength in organizations with climates reflecting mechanistic as opposed to organic organizational forms. Although the authors did in fact find such a trend, they also unexpectedly uncovered significant and strong nonlinear effects, such that climates that are clearly mechanistic or clearly organic have strong climates, with weaker climates emerging for organizations with more ambiguous climates. These findings provide interesting new avenues to pursue in understanding the origins of climate strength.

Cooperative Behavior↗
PubMed2005

Uncertainty in predictions of the climate response to rising levels of greenhouse gases.

The range of possibilities for future climate evolution needs to be taken into account when planning climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies. This requires ensembles of multi-decadal simulations to assess both chaotic climate variability and model response uncertainty. Statistical estimates of model response uncertainty, based on observations of recent climate change, admit climate sensitivities--defined as the equilibrium response of global mean temperature to doubling levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide--substantially greater than 5 K. But such strong responses are not used in ranges for future climate change because they have not been seen in general circulation models. Here we present results from the 'climateprediction.net' experiment, the first multi-thousand-member grand ensemble of simulations using a general circulation model and thereby explicitly resolving regional details. We find model versions as realistic as other state-of-the-art climate models but with climate sensitivities ranging from less than 2 K to more than 11 K. Models with such extreme sensitivities are critical for the study of the full range of possible responses of the climate system to rising greenhouse gas levels, and for assessing the risks associated with specific targets for stabilizing these levels.

Journal Article↗
PubMed2006

Land-atmosphere coupling and climate change in Europe.

Increasing greenhouse gas concentrations are expected to enhance the interannual variability of summer climate in Europe and other mid-latitude regions, potentially causing more frequent heatwaves. Climate models consistently predict an increase in the variability of summer temperatures in these areas, but the underlying mechanisms responsible for this increase remain uncertain. Here we explore these mechanisms using regional simulations of recent and future climatic conditions with and without land-atmosphere interactions. Our results indicate that the increase in summer temperature variability predicted in central and eastern Europe is mainly due to feedbacks between the land surface and the atmosphere. Furthermore, they suggest that land-atmosphere interactions increase climate variability in this region because climatic regimes in Europe shift northwards in response to increasing greenhouse gas concentrations, creating a new transitional climate zone with strong land-atmosphere coupling in central and eastern Europe. These findings emphasize the importance of soil-moisture-temperature feedbacks (in addition to soil-moisture-precipitation feedbacks) in influencing summer climate variability and the potential migration of climate zones with strong land-atmosphere coupling as a consequence of global warming. This highlights the crucial role of land-atmosphere interactions in future climate change.

Journal Article↗
PubMed2002

Relationship between organizational climate and empowerment of nurses in Hong Kong.

AIMS: The authors explore the relationship between organizational climate and empowerment among the nursing staff of a regional hospital in Hong Kong. The main purpose of the study was to apply the modified Spreitzer measure of empowerment in a hospital and to examine the relationship of organizational climate to perceptions of empowerment. METHODS: From 658 questionnaires sent out, 331 nurses participated in the study with a response rate of 50.3%. Survey measures administered included the modified Litwin and Stringer Organizational Climate Questionnaire (LSOCQ) and the modified Spreitzer empowerment instrument. The relationships between organizational climate and empowerment were examined in a series of bivariate correlational analyses. The final section of the questionnaire asked the respondents to list three elements in the organizational climate that they perceived would further increase their feelings of empowerment. FINDINGS: Exploratory factor analysis of the modified LSOCQ resulted in six factors: leadership, working harmony, challenge, recognition, teamwork and decision making. There was a positive correlation between organizational climate and psychological empowerment. Using multiple regression analysis, all the six derived climate factors significantly accounted for 44% of the variance. Among the six predicting factors, leadership and teamwork showed the most positive relationship with psychological empowerment. Responses from the open questions on perception of organizational climate that further enhance nurses' feelings of empowerment were categorized into eight areas. They include leadership, communication, working relationship, recognition, structure, training, teamwork and stress management. CONCLUSION: The study echoes previous studies in finding that organizational climate and, in particular, supportive leadership and teamwork are related to empowerment. The findings also suggest that the nurses in the study did not put much emphasis on the importance of participative decision making.

Adult↗
PubMed2005

Dangerous climate change: the role for risk research.

The notion of "dangerous climate change" constitutes an important development of the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. It persists, however, as an ambiguous expression, sustained by multiple definitions of danger. It also implicitly contains the question of how to respond to the complex and multi-disciplinary risk issues that climate change poses. The invaluable role of the climate science community, which relies on risk assessments to characterize system uncertainties and to identify limits beyond which changes may become dangerous, is acknowledged. But this alone will not suffice to develop long-term policy. Decisions need to include other considerations, such as value judgments about potential risks, and societal and individual perceptions of "danger," which are often contested. This article explores links and cross-overs between the climate science and risk communication and perception approaches to defining danger. Drawing upon nine articles in this Special Issue of Risk Analysis, we examine a set of themes: limits of current scientific understanding; differentiated public perceptions of danger from climate change; social and cultural processes amplifying and attenuating perceptions of, and responses to, climate change; risk communication design; and new approaches to climate change decision making. The article reflects upon some of the difficulties inherent in responding to the issue in a coherent, interdisciplinary fashion, concluding nevertheless that action should be taken, while acknowledging the context-specificity of "danger." The need for new policy tools is emphasised, while research on nested solutions should be aimed at overcoming the disjunctures apparent in interpretations of climate change risks.

Journal Article↗
PubMed2005

Validating a Work Group Climate Assessment Tool for improving the performance of public health organizations.

BACKGROUND: This article describes the validation of an instrument to measure work group climate in public health organizations in developing countries. The instrument, the Work Group Climate Assessment Tool (WCA), was applied in Brazil, Mozambique, and Guinea to assess the intermediate outcomes of a program to develop leadership for performance improvement. Data were collected from 305 individuals in 42 work groups, who completed a self-administered questionnaire. METHODS: The WCA was initially validated using Cronbach's alpha reliability coefficient and exploratory factor analysis. This article presents the results of a second validation study to refine the initial analyses to account for nested data, to provide item-level psychometrics, and to establish construct validity. Analyses included eigenvalue decomposition analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, and validity and reliability analyses. RESULTS: This study confirmed the validity and reliability of the WCA across work groups with different demographic characteristics (gender, education, management level, and geographical location). The study showed that there is agreement between the theoretical construct of work climate and the items in the WCA tool across different populations. The WCA captures a single perception of climate rather than individual sub-scales of clarity, support, and challenge. CONCLUSION: The WCA is useful for comparing the climates of different work groups, tracking the changes in climate in a single work group over time, or examining differences among individuals' perceptions of their work group climate. Application of the WCA before and after a leadership development process can help work groups hold a discussion about current climate and select a target for improvement. The WCA provides work groups with a tool to take ownership of their own group climate through a process that is simple and objective and that protects individual confidentiality.

Journal Article↗
PubMed2004

Assessing ozone-related health impacts under a changing climate.

Climate change may increase the frequency and intensity of ozone episodes in future summers in the United States. However, only recently have models become available that can assess the impact of climate change on O3 concentrations and health effects at regional and local scales that are relevant to adaptive planning. We developed and applied an integrated modeling framework to assess potential O3-related health impacts in future decades under a changing climate. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration-Goddard Institute for Space Studies global climate model at 4 degrees x 5 degrees resolution was linked to the Penn State/National Center for Atmospheric Research Mesoscale Model 5 and the Community Multiscale Air Quality atmospheric chemistry model at 36 km horizontal grid resolution to simulate hourly regional meteorology and O3 in five summers of the 2050s decade across the 31-county New York metropolitan region. We assessed changes in O3-related impacts on summer mortality resulting from climate change alone and with climate change superimposed on changes in O3 precursor emissions and population growth. Considering climate change alone, there was a median 4.5% increase in O3-related acute mortality across the 31 counties. Incorporating O3 precursor emission increases along with climate change yielded similar results. When population growth was factored into the projections, absolute impacts increased substantially. Counties with the highest percent increases in projected O3 mortality spread beyond the urban core into less densely populated suburban counties. This modeling framework provides a potentially useful new tool for assessing the health risks of climate change.

Forecasting↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Phototherapeutic keratectomy for climatic droplet keratopathy, KKESH Excimer Laser Study Group. King Khaled Eye Specialist Hospital.

BACKGROUND: Phototherapeutic keratectomy (PTK) is an effective treatment for many superficial corneal disorders. The efficacy of PTK for the treatment of climatic droplet keratopathy (CDK) has not been reported. METHODS: We report the results of excimer laser (Summit Technology, Inc, Waltham, Mass) PTK on 75 eyes (67 patients) with "smooth" climatic droplet keratopathy (55 eyes) and "irregular" climatic droplet keratopathy (20 eyes) in whom more than 6 months of follow up are available. RESULTS: PTK was successful in reducing corneal opacification in both smooth (98%) climatic droplet keratopathy and irregular (80%) climatic droplet keratopathy. Achievement of a clear or mildly hazy cornea following PTK was more likely to occur with smooth (80%) climatic droplet keratopathy than irregular (25%) climatic droplet keratopathy (P = 0.01). Eyes with smooth climatic droplet keratopathy were more likely to obtain more than one line of improved uncorrected (56% vs. 25%) or spectacle-corrected visual acuity (61.8% vs. 21.2%) than those with irregular climatic droplet keratopathy (P = 0.03 and 0.005, respectively). Delayed re-epithelialization (longer than 14 days) was more common in irregular CDK (21%) than in smooth CDK (9%), as was the incidence of secondary microbial keratitis (10.0% vs. 1.8%). CONCLUSIONS: PTK is effective in reducing superficial corneal opacification in CDK, although serious complications may occur, especially in advanced irregular CDK.

Aged↗
PubMed2003

Potential effect of climate change on malaria transmission in Africa.

BACKGROUND: Climate change is likely to affect transmission of vector-borne diseases such as malaria. We quantitatively estimated current malaria exposure and assessed the potential effect of projected climate scenarios on malaria transmission. METHODS: We produced a spatiotemporally validated (against 3791 parasite surveys) model of Plasmodium falciparum malaria transmission in Africa. Using different climate scenarios from the Hadley Centre global climate model (HAD CM3) climate experiments, we projected the potential effect of climate change on transmission patterns. FINDINGS: Our model showed sensitivity and specificity of 63% and 96%, respectively (within 1 month temporal accuracy), when compared with the parasite surveys. We estimate that on average there are 3.1 billion person-months of exposure (445 million people exposed) in Africa per year. The projected scenarios would estimate a 5-7% potential increase (mainly altitudinal) in malaria distribution with surprisingly little increase in the latitudinal extents of the disease by 2100. Of the overall potential increase (although transmission will decrease in some countries) of 16-28% in person-months of exposure (assuming a constant population), a large proportion will be seen in areas of existing transmission. INTERPRETATION: The effect of projected climate change indicates that a prolonged transmission season is as important as geographical expansion in correct assessment of the effect of changes in transmission patterns. Our model constitutes a valid baseline against which climate scenarios can be assessed and interventions planned.

Africa↗
PubMed2026

Landscape Genomics Reveals Divergent Adaptation Modes and Predicts Climate Vulnerability in Xinjiang Indigenous Sheep.

Climate change increasingly endangers precious indigenous sheep germplasm resources distributed across diverse Chinese landscapes, and systematically decoding their polygenic climate-adaptive genetic mechanisms is essential for targeted breed conservation and long-term sustainable pastoral production. Whole-genome resequencing data from 93 individuals covering six representative local sheep breeds were analyzed in this work. After filtering highly collinear climate variables, three mature landscape genomic approaches were jointly applied to identify environment-linked gene variants, while two predictive metrics across ten CMIP6 future climate scenarios quantified each breed's long-term adaptive risks. Six temperature- and water-related environmental factors jointly drove sheep population genetic differentiation, with temperature fluctuation indices showing markedly stronger explanatory power. Detected adaptive genes were significantly enriched in ion transport, energy metabolism and cellular stress response pathways. Future projections indicated western breeds (Bayinbuluke, Cele Black, Xiahe) face severe maladaptation risks under high-emission SSP370 scenarios by 2100, whereas central and eastern breeds possess much broader climate tolerance. This study systematically reveals the core genomic basis of ovine climate adaptation and quantifies distinct breed-specific climate vulnerability, providing solid reliable theoretical support for precision germplasm conservation and selective breeding of climate-resilient sheep varieties.

adaptive loci↗
PubMed2005

Effects of climate variation on timing of nesting, reproductive success, and offspring sex ratios of red-winged blackbirds.

Predicting ecological consequences of climate change will be improved by understanding how species are affected by contemporary climate variation, particularly if analyses involve more than single ecological variables and focus on large-scale climate phenomena. I used 18 years of data from red-winged blackbirds (Agelaius phoeniceus) studied over a 25-year period in eastern Ontario to explore chronological and climate-related patterns of reproduction. Although blackbirds started nesting earlier in years with warmer springs, associated with low winter values of the North Atlantic Oscillation Index (NAOI), there was no advance in laying dates over the study. Nesting ended progressively later and the breeding season lasted longer over the study, however, associated with higher spring values of NAOI. As the length of the nesting season increased, offspring sex ratios became more female biased, apparently as a result of females adjusting the sex of the eggs they laid, rather than from sex-biased nestling mortality. Clutch size did not vary systematically over the study or with climate. Opposing trends of declining nest success and increasing productivity of successful nests over the study resulted in no chronological change in productivity per female. Higher productivity of successful nests was associated with higher winter NAOI values, possibly because synchrony between nesting and food availability was higher in years with high NAOI values. Other than the association between the start of nesting and spring temperatures, local weather (e.g., temperature, rainfall) patterns that linked NAOI with reproduction were not identified, suggesting that weather patterns may be complex. Because climate affected most aspects of red-winged blackbird reproduction examined, focusing on associations between climate and single variables (e.g., first-egg dates) will have limited value in predicting how future climates will affect populations.

Animals↗
PubMed2003

Air quality research: perspective from climate change modelling research.

A major component of climate change is a manifestation of changes in air quality. This paper explores the question of air quality from the climate change modelling perspective. It reviews recent research advances on the cause-effect relationships between atmospheric air composition and climate change, primarily based on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assessment of climate change over the past decade. There is a growing degree of confidence that the warming world over the past century was caused by human-related changes in the composition of air. Reliability of projections of future climate change is highly dependent on future emission scenarios that have been identified that in turn depend on a multitude of complicated interacting social-economic factors. Anticipated improvements in the performance of climate models is a major source of optimism for better climate projections in the future, but the real benefits of its contribution will be closely coupled with other sources of uncertainty, and in particular emission projections.

Air Pollutants↗
PubMed2004

Evidence that climate change has caused 'emergence' of tick-borne diseases in Europe?

Even though tick-borne disease systems are highly susceptible to climatic influences, climate change to date is not necessarily the cause of the marked increased incidence of a variety of tick-borne diseases in many parts of Europe over the past two decades. To test for causality, rather than coincidence, we need to examine whether the right sorts of climate change have occurred at the right time and in the right places to account for the observed heterogeneous temporal and spatial patterns of tick-borne disease 'emergence'. Tick-borne encephalitis (TBE) incidence, for example, showed a 3-fold step increase from 1983 to 1986 in Sweden, doubled in 1993 in the Czech Republic, increased even more dramatically in the same year in Lithuania and Poland, but declined markedly in 1997 in Hungary, Croatia and Slovenia. Within each country, TBE incidence has changed to different degrees in different regions. Because other tick-borne diseases, notably Lyme borreliosis, has commonly 'emerged' in parallel with TBE, we should first examine climate variables predicted to have a general effect on tick abundance, which has indeed increased in the past decade. These include temperature and moisture stress, which have seasonally differential impacts. Monthly mean records for 1960-2000 from the UK Climate Research Unit's interpolated global climate surface reveal that mean spring, spring-autumn and winter temperatures have all increased gradually over the past 40 years, but apparently most sharply in the late 1980s, when moisture stress also increased. These climate data do not reveal any obvious differences between sites where TBE did or did not 'emerge', and in Sweden increases in TBE pre-dated the onset of warmer springs and winters. If recorded climate changes cannot yet satisfactorily explain the temporal and spatial patterns of tick-borne disease change in Europe, the impact of biotic factors, such as increases in deer abundance and changing habitat structure, and of socio-political changes following the end of communist rule, demand more detailed quantitative analyses.

Animals↗