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PubMed2002

The relationship between organizational climate and the content of daily life for people with dementia living in a group-dwelling.

1. One factor influencing the outcome of care may be nursing staff's experience of the organizational work climate. The aim of the study was to investigate how people with dementia spend their time in group-dwelling units (GD) with either a creative or less creative organizational climate. 2. For the study, two GD units assessed as having a creative organizational climate and two units assessed as having a less creative climate were selected. Eighteen residents living in the units assessed as creative and 20 residents living in the units assessed as less creative participated in the study. 3. For measuring the organizational climate the Creative Climate Questionnaire was used. Observations of residents' activities were classified according to the Patient Activity Classification. For measuring residents' functional ability the Multi-Dimensional Dementia Assessment Scale was used. Their cognitive capacity was measured with the Mini Mental State Examination. 4. Residents living in the units assessed as having a creative organizational climate spent 45.2% of the time with nursing staff, while those in the less creative climate spent 25.6% (P < 0.001). Time spent with fellow residents in the creative climate was 13.9% and in the less creative climate 31.3% (P < 0.001). There was no significant difference between the units according time spent with relatives and time spent alone. 5. Since the purpose of GD is to offer care adapted to the abilities and psychosocial needs of people suffering from dementia, a less creative climate can be a threat to the aims of GD. In order to maintain these, it is important for managers to be aware of the work climate and its impact on care for people with dementia.

Activities of Daily Living↗
PubMed2000

Hospital safety climate and its relationship with safe work practices and workplace exposure incidents.

BACKGROUND: In the industrial setting, employee perceptions regarding their organization's commitment to safety (i.e., safety climate) have been shown to be important correlates to both the adoption and maintenance of safe work practices and to workplace injury rates. However, safety climate measures specific to the hospital setting have rarely been evaluated. This study was designed to develop a short and effective tool to measure hospital safety climate with respect to institutional commitment to bloodborne pathogen risk management programs and to assess the relationship between hospital safety climate and (1) employee compliance with safe work practices and (2) incidents of workplace exposure to blood and other body fluids. METHODS: A questionnaire, which included 46 safety climate items, was developed and tested on a sample of 789 hospital-based health care workers at risk for bloodborne pathogen exposure incidents. RESULTS: A 20-item hospital safety climate scale that measures hospitals' commitment to bloodborne pathogen risk management programs was extracted through factor analysis from the 46 safety climate items. This new hospital safety climate scale subfactored into 6 different organizational dimensions: (1) senior management support for safety programs, (2) absence of workplace barriers to safe work practices, (3) cleanliness and orderliness of the work site, (4) minimal conflict and good communication among staff members, (5) frequent safety-related feedback/training by supervisors, and (6) availability of personal protective equipment and engineering controls. Of these, senior management support for safety programs, absence of workplace barriers to safe work practices, and cleanliness/orderliness of the work site were significantly related to compliance (P<.05). In addition, both senior management support for safety programs and frequent safety-related feedback/training were significantly related to workplace exposure incidents (P<.05). Thus the most significant finding in terms of enhancing compliance and reducing exposure incidents was the importance of the perception that senior management was supportive of the bloodborne pathogen safety program. CONCLUSIONS: Hospital safety climate with regards to bloodborne pathogens can be measured by using a short, 20-question scale that measures 6 separate dimensions. Whereas all 6 dimensions are essential elements of overall safety climate, 3 dimensions are significantly correlated with compliance, and 1 dimension (senior management support) is especially significant with regard to both compliance and exposure incidents. This short safety climate scale can be a useful tool for evaluating hospital employees' perceptions regarding their organization's bloodborne pathogens management program. In addition, because this scale measures specific dimensions of the safety climate, it can be used to target problem areas and guide the development of intervention strategies to reduce occupational exposure incidents to blood and other body fluids.

Adult↗
PubMed2004

Effect of motivational climate on sportspersonship among competitive youth male and female football players.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the influence of perceived motivational climate and gender on sportspersonship behavior of competitive youth football players. Participants were 512 boy and 202 girl Norwegian youth football players (12-14 years old) competing in an international football tournament. A 2 x 2 x 2 (gender, mastery climate high and low, performance climate high and low) MANOVA produced no multivariate or interaction effects, but main effects for gender, performance climate, and mastery climate did emerge. Post hoc analyses of the simple main effects found that boys and girls were different in sportspersonship, but only in that boys were more sportspersonlike than girls on one of the four sportspersonship dimensions. Players perceiving a high mastery climate endorsed sportspersonship more than those players perceiving a low mastery climate, and players perceiving a high performance climate were less likely to endorse sportspersonship than players perceiving a low performance climate. Canonical correlation analysis revealed that a strong mastery climate was positively associated with commitment, respect for social conventions, and respect for rules and officials. A strong performance climate was negatively associated with respect and concern for social conventions and respect for rules and officials, while a positive association emerged for respect and concern for the opponent. The results of our study suggest that both boys and girls may well perceive the coach emphasizing similar criteria of success and failure and thereby a similar culture of sportspersonship, while in general a strong mastery climate leads to a higher sportspersonship orientation.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2004

The effect of climate on the phenology, acorn crop and radial increment of pedunculate oak (Quercus robur) in the middle Volga region, Tatarstan, Russia.

Our data, collected in the extreme east of Europe, show that a significant biological effect of climate change has been experienced even in territories where temperature increase has been the lowest. This study documents the climatic response of pedunculate oak (Quercus robur) growing near its north-eastern limits in Europe. It demonstrates the potential of oak trees in old-growth forest to act as proxy climate indicators. Many factors may influence the temporal stability of the growth-climate, acorn crop-climate and first leafing-climate relationships. Climate data, climatic fluctuations, reproduction, genetics and tree-age may relate to this instability. Our results stress that an increase in climate variability or climatic warming resulting from warmer winters or summers could affect the oak population in eastern Europe in a similar way to that in western Europe. These findings, from remnants of oak forest in the middle Volga region of Russia, allow a further understanding of how species could be affected by future climates.

Acclimatization↗
PubMed2005

Introduction: food crops in a changing climate.

Changes in both the mean and the variability of climate, whether naturally forced, or due to human activities, pose a threat to crop production globally. This paper summarizes discussions of this issue at a meeting of the Royal Society in April 2005. Recent advances in understanding the sensitivity of crops to weather, climate and the levels of particular gases in the atmosphere indicate that the impact of these factors on crop yields and quality may be more severe than previously thought. There is increasing information on the importance to crop yields of extremes of temperature and rainfall at key stages of crop development. Agriculture will itself impact on the climate system and a greater understanding of these feedbacks is needed. Complex models are required to perform simulations of climate variability and change, together with predictions of how crops will respond to different climate variables. Variability of climate, such as that associated with El Niño events, has large impacts on crop production. If skilful predictions of the probability of such events occurring can be made a season or more in advance, then agricultural and other societal responses can be made. The development of strategies to adapt to variations in the current climate may also build resilience to changes in future climate. Africa will be the part of the world that is most vulnerable to climate variability and change, but knowledge of how to use climate information and the regional impacts of climate variability and change in Africa is rudimentary. In order to develop appropriate adaptation strategies globally, predictions about changes in the quantity and quality of food crops need to be considered in the context of the entire food chain from production to distribution, access and utilization. Recommendations for future research priorities are given.

Climate↗
PubMed2000

The safety climate and its relationship to safety practices, safety of the work environment and occupational accidents in eight wood-processing companies.

Employees continuously observe their work environment and the actions of their fellow workers and superiors, and they use such observations as a basis for the creation of cognitive models associated with safety. These models regulate their actions in the workplace and thus have an influence on safety. This study attempts to define the structure of the safety climate as perceived by workers and the correlations between the safety climate, on the one hand, and the safety practices of the company, the safety level of the work environment and occupational accidents on the other. The variables used in this study were the same as those employed in two previous Finnish safety climate studies carried out in the plywood industry, shipyards, the forestry industry, building construction and stevedoring. The safety climate was measured by means of a questionnaire. Workers from four sawmills, two plywood factories and two parquet plants participated. The total number of participants was 508 in 1990 and 548 in 1993. The variables formed four factors, whose contents and reliabilities closely resembled the results obtained in the earlier studies. These results indicate that the structure of the safety climate among Finnish workers is quite stable. The safety climate correlated both with the safety level of the work environment and with the safety practices of the company, but the correlation between the safety climate and the safety of the work environment was stronger. This result differs from those of the previous studies, in which the safety climate was defined specifically in terms of an individual's perceptions of the safety practices of the company and of the behavior of other employees. The two safety climate factors that described a company's attitudes to safety and its safety precautions correlated with the accident rates. The better the safety climate of the company was, the lower was the accident rate. Four companies with an accident rate below the average for the wood-processing industry had a better safety climate than four similar companies with an accident rate above the average.

Accidents, Occupational↗
PubMed2004

Team climate at Antarctic research stations 1996-2000: leadership matters.

INTRODUCTION: The popular assumption is that extreme environments induce a climate of hostility, incompatibility, and tension by intensifying differences and disagreements among team members. Team members' perceptions of team climate are likely to change over time in an extreme environment, and thus team climate should be considered as a dynamic outcome variable resulting from multiple factors. In order to explore team climate as a dynamic outcome, we explored whether variables at multiple levels of analysis contributed to team climate over time for teams living and working in Antarctica. METHOD: Data for this study were collected from volunteers involved in Australian National Antarctic Research Expeditions conducted from 1996 to 2000. Multilevel analysis was used to partition and estimate the variance in team climate and to explore factors explaining variance at the group/team, individual, and weekly levels. RESULTS: Most of the variance in perceptions of team climate was at the individual level (57%). Team climate had less variance at the group level (16%) and at the weekly level (26%). Results indicated that perceived leadership effectiveness was significantly related to team climate. Perceived leadership effectiveness accounted for an estimated 77% of the group level variance, which equated to 14% of the overall variance in team climate. DISCUSSION: Our results suggest that exploring the characteristics and behaviors that constitute effective leadership would contribute to a more complete and useful picture of team climate, as well as guide selection research.

Adult↗
PubMed2002

Signatures of large-scale and local climates on the demography of white-tailed ptarmigan in Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado, USA.

Global climate change may impact wildlife populations by affecting local weather patterns, which, in turn, can impact a variety of ecological processes. However, it is not clear that local variations in ecological processes can be explained by large-scale patterns of climate. The North Atlantic oscillation (NAO) is a large-scale climate phenomenon that has been shown to influence the population dynamics of some animals. Although effects of the NAO on vertebrate population dynamics have been studied, it remains uncertain whether it broadly predicts the impact of weather on species. We examined the ability of local weather data and the NAO to explain the annual variation in population dynamics of white-tailed ptarmigan ( Lagopus leucurus) in Rocky Mountain National Park, USA. We performed canonical correlation analysis on the demographic subspace of ptarmigan and local-climate subspace defined by the empirical orthogonal function (EOF) using data from 1975 to 1999. We found that two subspaces were significantly correlated on the first canonical variable. The Pearson correlation coefficient of the first EOF values of the demographic and local-climate subspaces was significant. The population density and the first EOF of local-climate subspace influenced the ptarmigan population with 1-year lags in the Gompertz model. However, the NAO index was neither related to the first two EOF of local-climate subspace nor to the first EOF of the demographic subspace of ptarmigan. Moreover, the NAO index was not a significant term in the Gompertz model for the ptarmigan population. Therefore, local climate had stronger signature on the demography of ptarmigan than did a large-scale index, i.e., the NAO index. We conclude that local responses of wildlife populations to changing climate may not be adequately explained by models that project large-scale climatic patterns.

Animals↗
PubMed2001

High-resolution record of climate stability in France during the last interglacial period.

The last interglacial period (127-110 kyr ago) has been considered to be an analogue to the present interglacial period, the Holocene, which may help us to understand present climate evolution. But whereas Holocene climate has been essentially stable in Europe, variability in climate during the last interglacial period has remained unresolved, because climate reconstructions from ice cores, continental records and marine sediment cores give conflicting results for this period. Here we present a high-resolution multi-proxy lacustrine record of climate change during the last interglacial period, based on oxygen isotopes in diatom silica, diatom assemblages and pollen-climate transfer functions from the Ribains maar in France. Contrary to a previous study, our data do not show a cold event interrupting the warm interglacial climate. Instead, we find an early temperature maximum with a transition to a colder climate about halfway through the sequence. The end of the interglacial period is clearly marked by an abrupt change in all proxy records. Our study confirms that in southwestern Europe the last interglacial period was a time of climatic stability and is therefore still likely to represent a useful analogue for the present climate.

Animals↗
PubMed1997

Performance of naked neck and normal broilers in hot, warm, and temperate climates.

Chickens suffer at high ambient temperatures because their feather coverage hinders internal heat dissipation. Naked neck broilers (Na/na) and their normally feathered sibs (na/na) were evaluated in three natural climates. Three experiments were conducted in Turkey, during the summer in the extremely hot region of Adana (Ad-Sm), and in the moderate region of Izmir during the spring (Iz-Sp) and summer (Iz-Sm), always following the same experimental protocol. Ambient temperatures averaged 19, 28, and 32 C in Iz-Sp, Iz-Sm, and Ad-Sm, respectively. About 300 birds per genotype were included in each experiment. Feather weight was lower by about 20% in Na/na broilers than in na/na ones, independent of climate, sex, and age (6 or 7 wk). The Na/na broilers exhibited higher breast weight in all cases, from 2.5 to 10.9% higher than their na/na counterparts. Body weight gain from 4 to 7 wk (BWG4-7) clearly reflected the differences in ambient temperature among climates. The effect of the Na/na genotype on BWG4-7 interacted with climate and sex. In the hottest climate (Ad-Sm), both male and female Na/na broilers exhibited a highly significant advantage over their na/na counterparts. In the more moderate climate (Iz-Sm), the Na/na genotype exhibited superior growth only among males, and the magnitude of this advantage was lower than in Ad-Sm. In the cool temperate climate (Iz-Sp), BWG4-7 and BW7 (BW at 7 wk) means were similar for both genotypes. In Iz-Sp, feed efficiency (FE) of the Na/na birds was lower by about 4%, but in the two summer climates (Iz-Sm and Ad-Sm), FE of the Na/na birds was about 9% higher than that of their na/na counterparts. Body temperature was lower in the Na/na broilers than in their na/na counterparts; in all cases, the difference increasing with ambient temperature. The results indicate that the reduction in feather coverage provided relative heat tolerance, and therefore, under hot climates the Na/na broiler were superior to their normally feathered counterparts. It is concluded that naked neck broilers should be preferred in hot climates.

Animals↗
PubMed2005

Multi-agent modelling of climate outlooks and food security on a community garden scheme in Limpopo, South Africa.

Seasonal climate outlooks provide one tool to help decision-makers allocate resources in anticipation of poor, fair or good seasons. The aim of the 'Climate Outlooks and Agent-Based Simulation of Adaptation in South Africa' project has been to investigate whether individuals, who adapt gradually to annual climate variability, are better equipped to respond to longer-term climate variability and change in a sustainable manner. Seasonal climate outlooks provide information on expected annual rainfall and thus can be used to adjust seasonal agricultural strategies to respond to expected climate conditions. A case study of smallholder farmers in a village in Vhembe district, Limpopo Province, South Africa has been used to examine how such climate outlooks might influence agricultural strategies and how this climate information can be improved to be more useful to farmers. Empirical field data has been collected using surveys, participatory approaches and computer-based knowledge elicitation tools to investigate the drivers of decision-making with a focus on the role of climate, market and livelihood needs. This data is used in an agent-based social simulation which incorporates household agents with varying adaptation options which result in differing impacts on crop yields and thus food security, as a result of using or ignoring the seasonal outlook. Key variables are the skill of the forecast, the social communication of the forecast and the range of available household and community-based risk coping strategies. This research provides a novel approach for exploring adaptation within the context of climate change.

Agriculture↗
PubMed2000

Relationship between climate and psychiatric inpatient length of stay in Veterans Health Administration hospitals.

OBJECTIVE: The study examined whether climate has an impact on inpatient psychiatric length of stay in Veterans Health Administration hospitals (VHA). METHOD: Data from the National Weather Service for eight climate variables for the locations of 134 VHA hospitals nationwide were factor analyzed, resulting in two climate factors representing temperature and precipitation. Factor scores were correlated with psychiatric mean lengths of stay from 1994 to 1998 for 99 VHA hospitals with inpatient psychiatric services and for the 22 VHA regional divisions (Veterans Integrated Service Networks). RESULTS: Climate factors correlated modestly but significantly with length of stay, with correlations ranging from -0. 25 to -0.37 at the hospital level and from -0.38 to -0.45 at the VHA regional level; hospitals in warmer and drier climates had shorter lengths of stay. Medical centers in colder climates had the longest lengths of stay in winter and fall. The significant correlation between climate and length of stay was not affected by recent reductions in length of stay in VHA hospitals. CONCLUSIONS: Higher clinical costs associated with longer lengths of stay in colder climates have implications for budget planning. Climate factors must also be recognized for their potential effect on performance monitoring systems focused on hospital utilization. Researchers must continue to consider broader contextual variables such as climate if they are to fully understand the determinants of health care utilization and psychiatric hospitalization costs.

Adult↗
PubMed2006

Weak climatic control of stand-scale fire history during the late holocene.

Forest fire occurrence is affected by multiple controls that operate at local to regional scales. At the spatial scale of forest stands, regional climatic controls may be obscured by local controls (e.g., stochastic ignitions, topography, and fuel loads), but the long-term role of such local controls is poorly understood. We report here stand-scale (<100 ha) fire histories of the past 5000 years based on the analysis of sediment charcoal at two lakes 11 km apart in southeastern British Columbia. The two lakes are today located in similar subalpine forests, and they likely have experienced the same late-Holocene climatic changes because of their close proximity. We evaluated two independent properties of fire history: (1) fire-interval distribution, a measure of the overall incidence of fire, and (2) fire synchroneity, a measure of the co-occurrence of fire (here, assessed at centennial to millennial time scales due to the resolution of sediment records). Fire-interval distributions differed between the sites prior to, but not after, 2500 yr before present. When the entire 5000-yr period is considered, no statistical synchrony between fire-episode dates existed between the two sites at any temporal scale, but for the last 2500 yr marginal levels of synchrony occurred at centennial scales. Each individual fire record exhibited little coherency with regional climate changes. In contrast, variations in the composite record (average of both sites) matched variations in climate evidenced by late-Holocene glacial advances. This was probably due to the increased sample size and spatial extent represented by the composite record (up to 200 ha) plus increased regional climatic variability over the last several millennia, which may have partially overridden local, non-climatic controls. We conclude that (1) over past millennia, neighboring stands with similar modern conditions may have experienced different fire intervals and asynchronous patterns in fire episodes, likely because local controls outweighed the synchronizing effect of climate; (2) the influence of climate on fire occurrence is more strongly expressed when climatic variability is relatively great; and (3) multiple records from a region are essential if climate-fire relations are to be reliably described.

British Columbia↗
PubMed2006

Potential effects of climate change on ecosystem and tree species distribution in British Columbia.

A new ecosystem-based climate envelope modeling approach was applied to assess potential climate change impacts on forest communities and tree species. Four orthogonal canonical discriminant functions were used to describe the realized climate space for British Columbia's ecosystems and to model portions of the realized niche space for tree species under current and predicted future climates. This conceptually simple model is capable of predicting species ranges at high spatial resolutions far beyond the study area, including outlying populations and southern range limits for many species. We analyzed how the realized climate space of current ecosystems changes in extent, elevation, and spatial distribution under climate change scenarios and evaluated the implications for potential tree species habitat. Tree species with their northern range limit in British Columbia gain potential habitat at a pace of at least 100 km per decade, common hardwoods appear to be generally unaffected by climate change, and some of the most important conifer species in British Columbia are expected to lose a large portion of their suitable habitat. The extent of spatial redistribution of realized climate space for ecosystems is considerable, with currently important sub-boreal and montane climate regions rapidly disappearing. Local predictions of changes to tree species frequencies were generated as a basis for systematic surveys of biological response to climate change.

British Columbia↗
PubMed2006

[Recent 40 years inter-decadal fluctuation of dry and wet climate boundary and its cause in Liaoning Province].

Based on the 1961 to approximately 2004 observation data of temperature, precipitation, humidity, wind, and solar radiation from 52 weather stations, and by using revised Penman formula, this paper calculated the potential evapotranspiration in Liaoning Province during the past 40 years, with its temporal and spatial distribution and representativeness discussed and the aridity index and water budget in surface soil computed. According to the aridity index, Liaoning Province was compartmentalized into three climatic regions, i. e., semi-arid region, semi-humid region, and humid region. The analysis of the inter-decadal fluctuation of dry and wet climate boundary in Liaoning Province showed that during the past 40 years, the dry and wet climate boundary fluctuated markedly and differentiated greatly, but the semi-humid and humid and the semi-arid and semi-humid climate boundaries did not move forward east and back west synchronously on the inter-decade scale. In 1990' s, the dry and wet climate had an abrupt change. The semi-humid and humid climate boundary moved toward east, and the semi-arid and semi-humid climate boundary moved toward west. The semi-arid and humid areas were reduced, while the semi-humid area was enlarged markedly. The main factors affecting the fluctuations of dry and wet climate boundary and the variations of dry and wet climate in Liaoning Province should be the Southeast Monsoon, Southwest Monsoon, and West Pacific Subtropical High. In western Liaoning, West Pacific Subtropical High and Southeast Monsoon mainly controlled the dry and wet climate status; while in eastern Liaoning, the factor topography precipitation should also be considered.

China↗
PubMedDate not supplied

[Indications and successes of climate therapy of children].

The indications for courses of climatic treatment are almost the same in various areas. Nevertheless, one should not only work by "trial and error" but should take climatic factors into consideration well in advance. The North Sea is characterised by equable temperatures. Nevertheless, it is a stimulating climate because of the strong wind. The maritime aerosol is a specific factor. The wide horizon enables intensive utilisation of UV radiation. The Baltic is an attenuated stimulating climate with many special features. The effect of mountain climate is attributable to lower temperatures and atmospheric moisture, reduced partial pressure of oxygen as well as greatly increased UV radiation. The medium mountain ranges have a congenial climate in connection with its abundant forests. The action of climatic factors should be considered before establishing indications (diseases of the airways, especially bronchial asthma, diseases of the skin with atopic dermatitis and psoriasis vulgaris as well as hypotensive circulatory disorders). Mild climatic conditions medium mountain ranges and Baltic and also the North Sea in the summer months are to be preferred for infants and the severely ill. According to statistics, improvement was still seen from the physicians point of view in 56% of children after courses of climatic treatment in the mountains lasting for nine months. A very good result was discernible in 56% of the asthma patients after 12 months in the case of the North Sea, and a good result could be discerned in a further 25%. However, it is crucial that the climatic factors are allowed to act in the correct dosage, and that behaviour promoting health via roborant measures, e.g. regular visits to the sauna and avoidance of passive smoking, be practiced at home.

Altitude↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Worksite health and safety climate: scale development and effects of a health promotion intervention.

BACKGROUND: Environmental influences on health and health behavior have an important place in research on worksite health promotion. We tested the validity and internal consistency of a new measure of organizational health and safety climate that was used in a large randomized trial of a worksite cancer prevention program (the Working Well Trial). The resulting scales then were applied to assess intervention effects. METHODS: This study uses data from a subset of 40 worksites in the Working Well Trial. Employees at 20 natural gas pipeline worksite and 20 rural electrical cooperatives completed a cross-sectional questionnaire at baseline and 3-year follow-up. RESULTS: A factor analysis of this self-report instrument produced a two-factor solution. The resulting health and safety climate scales had good internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha = 0.74 and 0.82, respectively) and concurrent validity. The health climate scale was correlated more highly with organizational measures that were indicative of a supportive health climate than those indicating supportive safety climate, while the reverse was true of the safety climate scale. Changes in health climate were associated with the number of smoking and smokeless tobacco programs offered at the worksites at the time of the 3-year follow-up (r = 0.46 and 0.42, respectively). The scales were not correlated with most employee health behaviors. The health climate scores increased at intervention worksites, compared with scores at control worksites (F[1,36] = 7.57, P = 0.009). CONCLUSIONS: The health and safety climate scales developed for this study provide useful instruments for measuring organizational change related to worksite health promotion activities. The Working Well Intervention resulted in a significant improvement in worksite health climate.

Cross-Sectional Studies↗
PubMed1994

Climate change impact on distribution and abundance of wildlife species: an analytical approach using GIS.

An analytical approach to modelling the likely impact of climate change on the distribution and abundance of wildlife species is described using examples from Scotland. Data for present day distribution of wildlife and habitat are analysed using map data describing geographic variation in climatic factors. Climate data for the present day and under specified scenarios of change are themselves modelled within a GIS; climate modelling uses meteorological station data, climate change scenarios developed from GCMs and a variety of spatial interpolation techniques. The analytical procedure generates hypotheses defining ecological relationships between species distribution and climatic factors (monthly, seasonal and annual data). These relationships are then used to model the distribution of the species directly from climate and predict impacts of climate change. The analysis takes account of both direct impacts of climate on wildlife and indirect effects manifested through habitat response to climate change. The analytical procedure is implemented as a generic tool for inductive spatial analysis in GIS.

Journal Article↗