CSSS 2009 Santa Fe-Modeling-Cluster

Modeling Cluster

Gina La Cerva, Joe Geddes, Regina Clewlow, Ha Nguyen, Christa Brelsford, Adam Wolf

Motivating questions:

13) How can we better quantify uncertainty when we are in uncharted territory of the climate system (where change is happening faster and involving feedbacks we don't yet understand?

14) How do we develop useful integrated models? Are there feedback mechanisms that we don't understand?

27) What methods can be used and developed to quantify interactions between previously developed models of human, physical, and economic systems?

(I think this following question should be taken up by the ecosystem services group:)

31) What technologies or tools are still needed to evaluate environmental impacts?

Overall objectives to modeling

We agree that human-climate interactions are the most critical area of climate science modeling, because these have feedbacks which can either mitigate warming or amplify the consequences of warming. Furthermore these interactions are largely unexplored in a coupled system where feedbacks can be directly evaluated.

Several key human-climate interactions:

+ market dynamics that can lead to decarbonized energy technology implementation. tipping points. policy. investment.

- human migration

- increased energy use in adaptation, e.g. use of air conditioning

- infectious disease

Modeling Objectives

Several uses for models were identified, including

- policy evaluation (sensitivity analysis)

- validation

- forecasting and uncertainty analysis

Types of Models

- agent based modeling of markets, investment, policy

- agent based modeling of control systems

- scaling approaches to evaluate model realism --> implies data against which models can be evaluated