Key uncertainties in climate change policy [electronic resource] : Results from ICAM-2.

Published:: Washington, D.C. : United States. Dept. of Energy. Office of Energy Research, 1995.
Oak Ridge, Tenn. : Distributed by the Office of Scientific and Technical Information, U.S. Dept. of Energy.
Physical Description:: 21 pages : digital, PDF file
Additional Creators:: Carnegie Mellon University. Department of Engineering and Public Policy, United States. Department of Energy. Office of Energy Research, and United States. Department of Energy. Office of Scientific and Technical Information

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Summary:

A critical aspect of climate change decision-making is uncertainties in current understanding of the socioeconomic, climatic and biogeochemical processes involved. Decision-making processes are much better informed if these uncertainties are characterized and their implications understood. Quantitative analysis of these uncertainties serve to: inform decision makers about the likely outcome of policy initiatives; and help set priorities for research so that outcome ambiguities faced by the decision-makers are reduced. A family of integrated assessment models of climate change have been developed at Carnegie Mellon. These models are distinguished from other integrated assessment efforts in that they were designed from the outset to characterize and propagate parameter, model, value, and decision-rule uncertainties. The most recent of these models is ICAM 2.0. This model includes demographics, economic activities, emissions, atmospheric chemistry, climate change, sea level rise and other impact modules and the numerous associated feedbacks. The model has over 700 objects of which over 1/3 are uncertain. These have been grouped into seven different classes of uncertain items. The impact of uncertainties in each of these items can be considered individually or in combinations with the others. In this paper we demonstrate the relative contribution of various sources of uncertainty to different outcomes in the model. The analysis shows that climatic uncertainties are most important, followed by uncertainties in damage calculations, economic uncertainties and direct aerosol forcing uncertainties. Extreme uncertainties in indirect aerosol forcing and behavioral response to climate change (adaptation) were characterized by using bounding analyses; the results suggest that these extreme uncertainties can dominate the choice of policy outcomes.

Report Numbers:

E 1.99:conf-950421--1
conf-950421--1

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Note:

Published through SciTech Connect.
12/31/1995.
"conf-950421--1"
"DE97005238"
6. global warming international conference and expo, San Francisco, CA (United States), 3-6 Apr 1995.
Dowlatabadi, H.; Kandlikar, M.

Funding Information:

FG02-94ER61916

View MARC record | catkey: 14141487