Restructuring Federal Climate Research to Meet the Challenges of Climate Change

Restructuring Federal Climate Research to Meet the Challenges of Climate Change PDF Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309131731
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 266

Get Book Here

Book Description
Climate change is one of the most important global environmental problems facing the world today. Policy decisions are already being made to limit or adapt to climate change and its impacts, but there is a need for greater integration between science and decision making. This book proposes six priorities for restructuring the United States' climate change research program to develop a more robust knowledge base and support informed responses: Reorganize the Program Around Integrated Scientific-Societal Issues Establish a U.S. Climate Observing System Support a New Generation of Coupled Earth System Models Strengthen Research on Adaptation, Mitigation, and Vulnerability Initiate a National Assessment of the Risks and Costs of Climate Change Impacts and Options to Respond Coordinate Federal Efforts to Provide Climate Information, Tools, and Forecasts Routinely to Decision Makers

Restructuring Federal Climate Research to Meet the Challenges of Climate Change

Restructuring Federal Climate Research to Meet the Challenges of Climate Change PDF Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309131731
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 266

Get Book Here

Book Description
Climate change is one of the most important global environmental problems facing the world today. Policy decisions are already being made to limit or adapt to climate change and its impacts, but there is a need for greater integration between science and decision making. This book proposes six priorities for restructuring the United States' climate change research program to develop a more robust knowledge base and support informed responses: Reorganize the Program Around Integrated Scientific-Societal Issues Establish a U.S. Climate Observing System Support a New Generation of Coupled Earth System Models Strengthen Research on Adaptation, Mitigation, and Vulnerability Initiate a National Assessment of the Risks and Costs of Climate Change Impacts and Options to Respond Coordinate Federal Efforts to Provide Climate Information, Tools, and Forecasts Routinely to Decision Makers

Restructuring Federal Climate Research to Meet the Challenges of Climate Change

Restructuring Federal Climate Research to Meet the Challenges of Climate Change PDF Author: National Research Council
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780309385947
Category : Climatic changes
Languages : en
Pages : 266

Get Book Here

Book Description
With effective climate change mitigation policies still under development, and with even the most aggressive proposals unable to halt climate change immediately, many decision makers are focusing unprecedented attention on the need for strategies to adapt to climate changes that are now unavoidable. The effects of climate change will touch every corner of the world's economies and societies; adaptation is inevitable. The remaining question is to what extent humans will anticipate and reduce undesired consequences of climate change, or postpone response until after climate change impacts have altered ecological and socioeconomic systems so significantly that opportunities for adaptation become limited. This book summarizes a National Research Council workshop at which presentations and discussion identified specific needs associated with this gap between the demand and supply of scientific information about climate change adaptation.

Advancing the Science of Climate Change

Advancing the Science of Climate Change PDF Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309145880
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 526

Get Book Here

Book Description
Climate change is occurring, is caused largely by human activities, and poses significant risks for-and in many cases is already affecting-a broad range of human and natural systems. The compelling case for these conclusions is provided in Advancing the Science of Climate Change, part of a congressionally requested suite of studies known as America's Climate Choices. While noting that there is always more to learn and that the scientific process is never closed, the book shows that hypotheses about climate change are supported by multiple lines of evidence and have stood firm in the face of serious debate and careful evaluation of alternative explanations. As decision makers respond to these risks, the nation's scientific enterprise can contribute through research that improves understanding of the causes and consequences of climate change and also is useful to decision makers at the local, regional, national, and international levels. The book identifies decisions being made in 12 sectors, ranging from agriculture to transportation, to identify decisions being made in response to climate change. Advancing the Science of Climate Change calls for a single federal entity or program to coordinate a national, multidisciplinary research effort aimed at improving both understanding and responses to climate change. Seven cross-cutting research themes are identified to support this scientific enterprise. In addition, leaders of federal climate research should redouble efforts to deploy a comprehensive climate observing system, improve climate models and other analytical tools, invest in human capital, and improve linkages between research and decisions by forming partnerships with action-oriented programs.

Shock Waves

Shock Waves PDF Author: Stephane Hallegatte
Publisher: World Bank Publications
ISBN: 1464806748
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 227

Get Book Here

Book Description
Ending poverty and stabilizing climate change will be two unprecedented global achievements and two major steps toward sustainable development. But the two objectives cannot be considered in isolation: they need to be jointly tackled through an integrated strategy. This report brings together those two objectives and explores how they can more easily be achieved if considered together. It examines the potential impact of climate change and climate policies on poverty reduction. It also provides guidance on how to create a “win-win†? situation so that climate change policies contribute to poverty reduction and poverty-reduction policies contribute to climate change mitigation and resilience building. The key finding of the report is that climate change represents a significant obstacle to the sustained eradication of poverty, but future impacts on poverty are determined by policy choices: rapid, inclusive, and climate-informed development can prevent most short-term impacts whereas immediate pro-poor, emissions-reduction policies can drastically limit long-term ones.

The Regional Impacts of Climate Change

The Regional Impacts of Climate Change PDF Author: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Working Group II.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521634557
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 532

Get Book Here

Book Description
Cambridge, UK : Cambridge University Press, 1998.

Environmental Engineering for the 21st Century

Environmental Engineering for the 21st Century PDF Author: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309476550
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 125

Get Book Here

Book Description
Environmental engineers support the well-being of people and the planet in areas where the two intersect. Over the decades the field has improved countless lives through innovative systems for delivering water, treating waste, and preventing and remediating pollution in air, water, and soil. These achievements are a testament to the multidisciplinary, pragmatic, systems-oriented approach that characterizes environmental engineering. Environmental Engineering for the 21st Century: Addressing Grand Challenges outlines the crucial role for environmental engineers in this period of dramatic growth and change. The report identifies five pressing challenges of the 21st century that environmental engineers are uniquely poised to help advance: sustainably supply food, water, and energy; curb climate change and adapt to its impacts; design a future without pollution and waste; create efficient, healthy, resilient cities; and foster informed decisions and actions.

A Human Health Perspective on Climate Change

A Human Health Perspective on Climate Change PDF Author: Interagency Working Group on Climate Change and Health (U.S.)
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Climatic changes
Languages : en
Pages : 84

Get Book Here

Book Description


A National Strategy for Advancing Climate Modeling

A National Strategy for Advancing Climate Modeling PDF Author: Committee on a National Strategy for Advancing Climate Modeling
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309259789
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 252

Get Book Here

Book Description
As climate change has pushed climate patterns outside of historic norms, the need for detailed projections is growing across all sectors, including agriculture, insurance, and emergency preparedness planning. A National Strategy for Advancing Climate Modeling emphasizes the needs for climate models to evolve substantially in order to deliver climate projections at the scale and level of detail desired by decision makers, this report finds. Despite much recent progress in developing reliable climate models, there are still efficiencies to be gained across the large and diverse U.S. climate modeling community. Evolving to a more unified climate modeling enterprise-in particular by developing a common software infrastructure shared by all climate researchers and holding an annual climate modeling forum-could help speed progress. Throughout this report, several recommendations and guidelines are outlined to accelerate progress in climate modeling. The U.S. supports several climate models, each conceptually similar but with components assembled with slightly different software and data output standards. If all U.S. climate models employed a single software system, it could simplify testing and migration to new computing hardware, and allow scientists to compare and interchange climate model components, such as land surface or ocean models. A National Strategy for Advancing Climate Modeling recommends an annual U.S. climate modeling forum be held to help bring the nation's diverse modeling communities together with the users of climate data. This would provide climate model data users with an opportunity to learn more about the strengths and limitations of models and provide input to modelers on their needs and provide a venue for discussions of priorities for the national modeling enterprise, and bring disparate climate science communities together to design common modeling experiments. In addition, A National Strategy for Advancing Climate Modeling explains that U.S. climate modelers will need to address an expanding breadth of scientific problems while striving to make predictions and projections more accurate. Progress toward this goal can be made through a combination of increasing model resolution, advances in observations, improved model physics, and more complete representations of the Earth system. To address the computing needs of the climate modeling community, the report suggests a two-pronged approach that involves the continued use and upgrading of existing climate-dedicated computing resources at modeling centers, together with research on how to effectively exploit the more complex computer hardware systems expected over the next 10 to 20 years.

Climate Change and Indigenous Peoples in the United States

Climate Change and Indigenous Peoples in the United States PDF Author: Julie Koppel Maldonado
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319052667
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 178

Get Book Here

Book Description
With a long history and deep connection to the Earth’s resources, indigenous peoples have an intimate understanding and ability to observe the impacts linked to climate change. Traditional ecological knowledge and tribal experience play a key role in developing future scientific solutions for adaptation to the impacts. The book explores climate-related issues for indigenous communities in the United States, including loss of traditional knowledge, forests and ecosystems, food security and traditional foods, as well as water, Arctic sea ice loss, permafrost thaw and relocation. The book also highlights how tribal communities and programs are responding to the changing environments. Fifty authors from tribal communities, academia, government agencies and NGOs contributed to the book. Previously published in Climatic Change, Volume 120, Issue 3, 2013.

Facilitating Climate Change Responses

Facilitating Climate Change Responses PDF Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309160324
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 174

Get Book Here

Book Description
The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, understanding the need for policy makers at the national level to entrain the behavioral and social sciences in addressing the challenges of global climate change, called on the National Research Council to organize two workshops to showcase some of the decision-relevant contributions that these sciences have already made and can advance with future efforts. The workshops focused on two broad areas: (1) mitigation (behavioral elements of a strategy to reduce the net future human influence on climate) and (2) adaptation (behavioral and social determinants of societal capacity to minimize the damage from climate changes that are not avoided). Facilitating Climate Change Responses documents the information presented in the workshop presentations and discussions. This material illustrates some of the ways the behavioral and social sciences can contribute to the new era of climate research.