Cynthia Rosenzweig

Workshop on IAV Community

CoordinationBoulder, CO

January 8, 2009

IAV Directions and Challenges:

NAS Workshop Perspectives

Goddard Institute for Space StudiesNew York, N.Y.

• 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

NAS Workshop New Directions in Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability

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 self-organization process . . . Hence this meeting!