Figure 11.1 Environmental variability and coping ranges (modified from Smit and Wandel, 2006). The coping range of the past (light blue) handles historical variability in the external environment, with rare extremes overwhelming this capacity. Going forward, increased adaptive capacity (darker blue) will be needed to handle increasing environmental variability and new extreme events. Among the different types of variability, climate variability is the one for which science can best provide long-term projections, with estimates of uncertainty. Socio-economic and political variability and extremes are less predictable.