Canberra

Seminar Abstract

Wednesday 7 July 2010
10.30am (AEST time)
CSIRO Pye Laboratory, Canberra

Dr Kathy Hibbard
Senior Manager
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, WA USA

Climate, energy and integrated assessment modeling at regional scales: a new Earth system approach

Understanding the regional response of human systems to changes in the climate system requires an integrated set of tools that can allow the consistent representation of interactions between the global, regional, and local scales. Integrated assessment models provide insight into global policy and emission targets through the intersect of energy, demography and land use, but regional integrated assessment modeling approaches are largely unexplored. Several questions can be posed to understand the implications of integrated modeling at regional scales, and how those insights might differ from those derived from models at coarser spatial scales such as: what are the regional characteristics and opportunities for mitigation and adaptation strategies, how do changes in mean climate and climate variability affect adaptation and mitigation strategies, what are the interactions between management decisions and natural processes that contribute to rapid, or nonlinear changes in the environment; and how will adaptation and mitigation strategies interact in the next few decades? New ideas for developing and applying an integrated modeling framework that has the capability to simulate several human, climate and environmental sectors simultaneously will be discussed.

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Location:
CSIRO = Pye Laboratory, Black Mountain, Canberra

Last updated 29/06/10