Transcript NERC and Climate Change

NERC and Climate Change
Dr. Tracey Henshaw
Science and Innovation Manager,
Head of Atmospheric Sciences
Presentation by Dr. Pamela Kempton,
Science and Innovation Manager, Head of
Terrestrial and Freshwater Sciences
22 May 2007
Key points
• Climate Systems strategy
• LWEC
• NCAS Core Programme
• CEH Core Programme
• Tyndall Centre
• QUEST
• Other areas of interest…
Climate Systems Strategy
Eight science challenges identified:
• Predictions for decision-making.
• Enabling society through climate science.
• Including chemistry and biology in
climate change research.
• Observations to enable climate change
detection and prediction.
Climate Systems Strategy
Eight science challenges identified:
• Key processes determining the sensitivity
of the climate system.
• Natural variability and the link with
climate change.
• The changing water cycle.
• The role of the Arctic in the global
climate system
LWEC
Challenge (HMT5):
• “Increasing pressures on natural resources and
global climate from rapid economic and
population growth in the developing world and
sustained demand for fossil fuels in advanced
economies”
Response:
• Living with Environmental Change
(LWEC)—a cross-Research Council, multiagency / department initiative.
LWEC
• A ten-year programme, which will “provide
decision makers with the best information to
effectively manage and protect vital ecosystem
services. It will improve our tools and knowledge
needed to build resilience, mitigate problems,
and adapt to environmental change”
• Aligns with Defra high-level policy goals on one
planet living; climate prediction, adaptation and
mitigation; and wise use of natural resources.
Similar alignments with other Departments and
ERFF members, e.g. DFID and SEERAD.
• http://www.nerc.ac.uk/research/programmes/lwec/
NCAS Core Programme
• S2: Understanding climate variability and
predictability from days to decades
• S3: The science of global and regional
climate change
• S4: Regional impacts of climate variability and
change
• S5: Contributing to the UK’s next generation
Earth system model
• S6: Emerging issues in the modelling of
chemistry/climate interactions
• S7: Understanding past composition; predicting
the future
CEH Core Programme
• Detection and Attribution of Change in UK
and European Ecosystems maintains long-term datasets to
monitor ecosystem responses to climate change;
• Eco-hydrological Impacts of Climate Change
uses models and statistical techniques to isolate the impacts of climate change
to improve predictions of how climate change will affect ecology and hydrology;
• Land Surface Feedbacks in the Climate
System measures the role of land-surface feedbacks in the climate system
through energy, water and carbon cycles utilising long-term datasets;
• Environmental Change undertakes research and monitoring
aimed at the early detection and interpretation of environmental change in
terrestrial and freshwater ecosystems;
• Climate and Land Surface Group (EIP) aims to
improve understanding of how the hydrology and climate system of the
biosphere works;
• Biophysical Modelling Group aims to measure interactions
between vegetation, atmosphere, climate and biogeochemistry.
Tyndall
Key themes:
• Decarbonising Modern Societies involves
trans-disciplinary assessments of ways to
reduce carbon dioxide emissions in the
UK.
• Adapting to Climate Change is assessing
how people and the environment can
adapt to unavoidable changes in climate,
whether gradual and continuous or
abrupt and extreme.
QUEST
• Working Group on Climate Prediction for Robust Policy Making
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considers alternatives to the current scenario-based approach to
modelling alternative futures of the global environment;
Core Team Project on ‘Climate effects of radiatively active
atmospheric constituents with very different lifetimes’ such as
O3, H20v, CH4 and CO2
Working Group on Sustainable biofuels (co-sponsored by
Volkswagen) aims to develop certification standards for renewable
transport fuels;
Global Scale Impacts of Climate change will define coordinated
climate, land cover and socio-economic scenarios to drive
impact assessment models;
Environmental Change and Fisheries to assess the vulnerability
of one or more of the major world fisheries
Working Group on the response of UK Soil Carbon to global
change (co-sponsored by the EA)—implications of large losses of
carbon from UK soils for policies to limit carbon emissions
working group in Adaptation to a better understanding of
adaptation to climate change as an interactive process
Other areas of interest….
(Oceans 2025, UKPopNet, APPRAISE, ESPA,
IODP, Ocean Margins, Arctic IPY, COAPEC…)
• Economics of climate change
• Air quality – climate interactions
• Methane release from gas hydrates
• Ocean acidification
• Variations in sea level rise
• Impacts of climate change on ecosystem
services