CIP session 1: Intro & Climate Impact Assessment Flashcards
Adaptation
adapting to climate change to avoid its consequences
Mitigation
Preventing CLimate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions
Hazard conditions
- Wind speed
- Surge
- Inundation
- Water shortage, etc.
Direct impacts (immediate):
- Property damage
- Infrastructure damage
- Crop losses
- Evacuation
- Injuries
- Casualties
Indirect impacts (short-run):
- Temporary migration
- Business interruption
- Disrupted trade flows
- Reconstruction
- Mental health problems
- Employment effects
- Temporary (negative) effects economic growth
Indirect impacts (long-term):
- Permanent migration
- Structural change market equilibrium
- Structural change trade flows
- Change to a new (lower) economic growth path
Why climate impact assessments?
Explore intensity of (future) climate impacts
* Changes in the climate system
* Changes in socioeconomic conditions
Inform climate policy: how can impacts be reduced?
* Mitigation
* Adaptation
What is the goal of the IPCC?
IPCC reports synthesize the current literature on climate change. The goal is to provide policymakers with regular assessment of the scientific basis of climate change, its impacts and future risks, and options for adaptation and mitigation.
Working Groups IPCC
Three reports
- the physical science basis
- impacts adaptation and vulnerability
- mitigation of climate change)
–> Missing in cycle is he synthesis report
IPPC uncertainty language
- Confidence levels (agreement in literature, amount and quality of evidence)
- Likelihood is about a certain probability and about how sure we are about these impacts
Components needed for climate impact assessment
Climate and Impact models; impact indicators; socioeconomic and climate scenarios
Climate models (what do they do)
- Depict the climate system using a threedimensional grid over the globe
- Physical processes averaged over larger scales (parameterization)
- Used to simulate response global climate system to increasing GHGs
Impact models (what do they do)
- Simulate the effects of physical events, disasters, and climate change on natural/ human systems
- Represent physical and socioeconomic processes
- Different impact models for different sectors
Sources of uncertainty in climate impact assesments
Input data
* Data scarcity
* Measurement errors
* Representativeness of measurement sites
Process understanding & modelling
* Climate change dynamics/natural complexity
* Deficiencies in our knowledge and models
* Parameterization & parameter estimation
Unknown future
* Societal change/change in values
* Stringency of policies
Climate impact assessment usually consist of two types of scenarios, name these two types and explain how they differ from each other.
- Socioeconomic scenarios: describe future potential socioeconomic developments (like population, gdp, urbanization)
- Climate change scenarios: Describe change in climate system as a result of increased GHG emissions.
What is the definition of uncertainty and how do scientists deal differently with uncertainty in comparison to policy makers?
Uncertainty refers to the lack of complete information, as well as incomplete knowledge or disagreement on what is known and knowable. Scientists like to reduce uncertainty by generating more information and improving the knowledge base. Policy makers want to reduce their chances for political mistakes. Policy makers want scientists to give them information with high certainty.
Explain what storylines are, what type of uncertainty they represent, and how they can be used in situations with very high uncertainties.
Storylines provide a physically coherent representation of climate processes, showing specific realisations of climate-impact models that might be relevant for policy makers, instead of the whole range of options (2 point). Storylines based on different physical drivers are a way of representing epistemic uncertainty (2 points). They are especially useful in situations with very high uncertainties, because they allow for stress-testing of a system with highly-unlikely but realistic events (2 points).
What is a scenario (& their goal)?
Want to draw images of the future that could happen, this is what makes scenarios plausible. It is NOT a forecast.
Goal is not to predict future, but to better understand uncertainties in order to reach decisions that are robust under a wide range of possible futures.
Always have a set of scenarios.
RCP (Representative Concentration Pathway)
For anthropogenic climate change. They describe the intensity of radiative forcing (in W/m2) in 2100 compared to 1750.
RCP8.5 (3.2-5.4C):
RCP6 (2.0-3,7C)
RCP4.5 (1.7-3.2C)
RCP2.6 (0.9-2.3C): relies on negative emissions
SSP - shared socioeconomic pathway locations
socioeconomic trends based on challanges for mitigation and adaptation
y xis = mitigation
x axis = adaptation
SSP1 is left bottom
SSP2 is middle
SSP3 is top right
SSP4 is bottom right
SSP5 is top left
SSP1
Sustainability
SSP2
Middle of the road; persisting inequalities lead to moderate challenges for adaptation (
SSP3
regional rivalry; leads to limited socioeconomic development with high population growth in MIC and LIC, slow economic growth, and low urbanization à high challenges for adaptation
SSP4
Inequality; high inequalities across and within regions leads to high challenges for adaptation
SSP5
Fossil-fueled development: development based on fossil fuels with reduction in inequalities, high economic growth and urbanization à low challenges for adaptation
Plausible combinations SSP and RCP
RCP 8.5: SSP5
RCP 6.0: All
RCP 4.5: all
RCP 2.6: SSP1, SSP2, SSP4
SPA (Shared Policy Assumption)
Combining SPA and SSP recult in RCPs
9 forcing scenarios
accomodated Paris Agreement
