Transcript Bcg kickoff list of studies 20 min

IAV Directions and
Challenges:
NAS Workshop
Perspectives
Cynthia Rosenzweig
Workshop on IAV
Community
Coordination
Boulder, CO
January 8, 2009
Goddard Institute for Space Studies
New York, N.Y.
NAS Workshop New Directions in Impacts,
Adaptation, and Vulnerability
• Held March 26-27, 2008 in Washington, DC
• Host NRC Com. on Human Dimension of Global Change
• US researchers, IPCC AR4 WGII CLAs and LAs, WGII
Co-Chair and Head of TSU, US federal agency staff
involved in IAV research
• Topics discussed:
– New research directions that arose from IPCC
Working Group II Fourth Assessment Report (AR4)
– Role of IAV community in generation of new
scenarios for future assessments
– IPCC process in general and Working Group II in
particular, especially in US context
IAV Directions – Changes in Context
• Climate change may be headed for more severe
magnitudes than have been studied and considered in
policymaking.
– Some impacts, e.g., icemelt, are emerging more rapidly
than expected.
– Some observations that GHG emissions are rising
more rapidly than assumed in scenarios
• WGII moving toward center of policy-making.
• Prospects for increases in research support seem to be
improving.
• There is a rising interest in increasing active
collaboration among different parts of the climate change
research community, e.g., WGs I, II, and III.
IAV Research Challenges
• Moving on parallel tracks with different frameworks
involving a common base of knowledge and expertise:
– Rapid assessments of vulnerability, impacts, and
interactive mitigation and adaptation options to meet
urgent requirements as decision-makers begin to
mainstream climate change into on-going and new
programs and policies
– In-depth research that is focused on key unknowns
and uncertainties in IAV topics
• Human and natural system sensitivities to climate
change, e.g., thresholds/’tipping points’, and costs of and
limits to adaptation.
• Integration across temporal and spatial scales, sectors,
and mitigation/adaptation responses – e.g., agriculture
and water, urban areas, regional case studies
Challenges Continued…
• Cross-cutting methodology issues regarding quality,
consistency, and transparency – e.g., mental constructs,
data, standards of evidence. Need for model
intercomparisons.
• Better characterization of non-monetary and social risks.
• Putting climate change impacts and responses in
context.
– Impacts vary depending on development pathways,
evolving socioeconomic conditions, and presence of
multiple stresses.
– Responses occur in the context of complex
programmatic, budgetary, and regulatory conditions
• The IAV community needs to catalyze an effective selforganization process . . . Hence this meeting!