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Final Prospectus| Home Library
Synthesis and Assessment Products
Product 2.1
Final Prospectus |
Updated
14 December 2005 |
Scenarios of Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Atmospheric Concentrations and Review of Integrated Scenario Development and ApplicationFinal Prospectus for Synthesis and Assessment Product 2.1 |
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This prospectus also is available as a PDF file. To receive occasional notices about this product, add your email address to the SAP 2.1 mailing list This prospectus has been prepared according to the Guidelines for Producing Climate Change Science Program (CCSP) Synthesis and Assessment Products. The prospectus was reviewed and approved by the CCSP Interagency Committee. The document describes the focus of this synthesis and assessment product, and the process that will be used to prepare it. The document does not express any regulatory policies of the United States or any of its agencies, or make any findings of fact that could serve as predicates for regulatory action.
1. OverviewScenario analysis is a widely used intellectual device for decision making in complex and uncertain situations. Scenarios are ‘what ifs’—sketches of future conditions (or alternative sets of future conditions), used as inputs to exercises of decision making or analysis. Scenarios are not predictions. Scenarios have been applied extensively in the climate change context. Examples include emissions scenarios, climate scenarios, and technology scenarios. This product has two components, in conformance with the requirements of the Strategic Plan for the U.S. Climate Change Science Program (CCSP): development of new scenarios of greenhouse gas emissions and atmospheric concentrations (Part A) and a review of integrated scenario development and application (Part B). This product is one part of a larger suite of CCSP scenario analysis products that includes Product 3.2 (Climate projections for research and assessment based on emissions scenarios) and Product 4.5 (Scenario-based analysis of the climatological, environmental, resource, technological, and economic implications of different atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases). This product will contribute to and enhance the ongoing and iterative international process of producing and refining climate-related scenarios and scenario tools. This process has included, among others, efforts undertaken by Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the Climate Change Technology Program (CCTP), and non-governmental forums such as Stanford’s Energy Modeling Forum. Part A will contribute new scenarios to this process based on the evolving state-of-the-art in integrated assessment modeling and building on lessons learned in previous scenario efforts. Part B will guide the development and application of future scenarios. 1.1. Part A: Scenarios of Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Atmospheric ConcentrationsPart A will use integrated assessment models as the foundation for a small group of new global emissions scenarios leading to long-term stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations. The scenarios are intended primarily for decision-makers and analysts who might benefit from enhanced understanding of the potential characteristics and implications of stabilization. For example, technology planners might be interested in enhanced understanding of the potential energy systems implications of stabilization. The scenarios are also intended to serve as a point of departure for further CCSP and other analyses, such as climate scenarios or analyses of mitigation and adaptation options. The development of these scenarios will enhance the capabilities for future scenario analyses that might be conducted by the CCSP or related agencies such as the CCTP. The final product for Part A will include: (1) a summary of the scenarios for interested non-specialists; (2) a technical report that provides documentation and discussion of the scenarios; and (3) a cross-model information set that includes pertinent, aggregate-level, numerical information reported consistently across all scenarios and associated “reference” cases, including, for example, emissions trajectories, energy contributions over time, and population trajectories. Participating modeling teams may also, as appropriate and feasible, make available additional pertinent and meaningful information not included in the cross-model information set or not consistently computed across models. Stabilization in the scenarios will be defined in terms of the radiative forcing resulting from the long-term combined effects of carbon dioxide ( CO 2), nitrous oxide (N 2O), methane (CH 4), hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), perfluorocarbons (PFCs), and sulfur hexafluoride (SF 6). To the extent that participating models have the capability to represent changes in the emissions of other radiatively-important substances (e.g., aerosols, aerosol precursors, tropospheric ozone precursors) with a sufficient level of sophistication and integrity, this information may be made available by the individual modeling teams. Four stabilization levels will be considered as a basis for the stabilization scenarios. The four levels will be constructed so that the CO 2 concentrations resulting from stabilization are roughly 450 ppmv, 550 ppmv, 650 ppmv, and 750 ppmv. The precise specification of the radiative forcing levels will emerge through the scenario development process. Exact CO 2 concentrations will vary among models because the contributions of other GHGs to total radiative forcing at stabilization will vary among models. The scenarios in Part A will be constructed to represent meaningful and plausible futures that would be useful to decisionmakers and analysts. The scenarios will not be constructed and coordinated to span the full range of meaningful and plausible futures, and likelihoods will not be assigned to the scenarios. However, as detailed explorations of futures that lead to stabilization, the scenarios will provide valuable insights into questions such as the following:
Although the stabilization scenarios will all be designed to lead to long-term stabilization, the study period for the analysis will be the period ending in 2100. For this reason, in many cases, total radiative forcing may lie below the stabilization target at the end of the study period. 1.2. Part B: Review of Integrated Scenario Development and ApplicationA variety of scenarios, including, for example, emissions scenarios, climate scenarios, and technology scenarios, have been created and used for global climate change planning and decision making. Defining and creating scenarios is a complex challenge in both national and international assessment processes (e.g., the IPCC). It requires linking diverse users in a flow of information that stretches from modelers of emissions and land use, to climate modelers, to impacts researchers, and finally to national and regional decisionmakers. Meeting the analytic needs of different users and expediting the flow of information across the diverse fields involved requires careful planning. Part B will review and evaluate how the science and stakeholder communities define, develop, implement, and communicate scenarios in the global climate change context, and how this process might be enhanced or improved. This will include a review of past scenario development and application efforts. The intent of the review is to inform preparation and application of future scenarios by such entities as the CCSP, the IPCC, the CCTP, and other global change research and assessment organizations. The intended audience includes all participants in the integrated scenario development and application process, including integrated assessment modelers, climate modelers, technology planners, impacts researchers, and decisionmakers. The final product of Part B will include (1) a scientific/technical report of findings as well as (2) a summary for interested non-specialists. Part B will explore the following questions:
2. Contact InformationDOE is the lead agency for this product. Agency contacts are presented below: Agency: DOE Agency: EPA Agency: NOAA Agency: NOAA Agency: NASA 3. Lead AuthorsFor Part A, authors will primarily be drawn from the participating modeling teams. Authors for Part A must have records of successful development, evaluation, and/or use of integrated assessment models. Participating models must (1) be global in scale; (2) capable of producing global emissions totals for, at a minimum, CO 2, N 2O, CH 4, HFCs, PFCs, and SF 6, that may serve as inputs to global general circulation models (GCMs) such as the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) Community Climate System Model (CCSM) and the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL) climate model; (3) represent multiple regions; (4) be capable of simulating the radiative forcing from these greenhouse gases (GHGs) and substances; (5) have technological resolution capable of distinguishing between major sources of primary energy (e.g., renewable energy, nuclear energy, biomass, oil, coal, and natural gas) as well as between fossil fuel technologies with and without carbon capture and storage systems; (6) be economics-based and capable of simulating macroeconomic cost implications of stabilization; and (7) look forward to the end of the century or beyond. In addition, modeling teams should have a track record of publications in professional, refereed journals, specifically in the use of their models for the analysis of long-term GHG emission scenarios. This product is the first in a series of CCSP efforts to conduct scenario analyses and explore the scenario process. To facilitate expeditious completion, participation in Part A will be limited to U.S. modeling teams that meet the criteria above. This will include the EPPA model [Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)], the MiniCAM model [Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL)], and the MERGE model (Stanford University and EPRI). A small number of additional models that meet the above criteria may be added. Associated authors include:
Authors for Part B must have records of successful development, evaluation, and/or use of the different components of the scenario development and application system. The set of authors for this product will cover a range of expertise commensurate with range of participants and users of the integrated scenario process, from integrated assessment modelers, to climate modelers, to impacts modelers, to decisionmakers and technology planners. The proposed authors for Part B include:
4. Stakeholder InteractionsFor both Parts A and B, stakeholder input will be solicited through the public comment period for this prospectus and the public comment period for the draft final reports. 5. Drafting5.1. Part A: Scenarios of Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Atmospheric ConcentrationsPart A will be drafted based on new scenarios developed specifically for this product. The core of Part A will be a group of “scenario sets” developed by the participating modeling teams. Each scenario set will include a reference case and four stabilization scenarios corresponding to the four stabilization levels, with each set based on model assumptions designed by the individual modeling team to represent plausible and meaningful values for critical drivers such as global population growth, technological change, and economic growth. Each modeling group will produce and document at least one scenario set, but each may generate additional scenarios. All scenarios and associated reference cases will assume the continuation of the United States’ greenhouse gas intensity target through 2012 and the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol, which also ends in 2012. The reference case will assume no policies focused explicitly on the global climate beyond these near-term policies. In the stabilization scenarios, these near-term policies will be followed by a notional policy in which all nations of the world participate in emissions reductions and the marginal costs of emissions reductions are equalized across countries and regions. Assumptions regarding land use and land use change as both GHG sources and sinks will be presented and discussed in the final report. Because models have varying capabilities to explicitly consider land use and land use change, however, such consideration will vary across models. Although the choice of alternative stabilization levels and GHGs considered for stabilization in the scenarios will be coordinated across models, all model assumptions (e.g., population growth, technological change, economic growth) will be determined individually by the modeling teams, and will therefore not be standardized across models. Differing assumptions among the models provide useful additional hypotheses about the future. In addition, many parameters are not easily compared across models because they are defined and used in different ways. The final report will include a summary section that addresses issues important for interpreting and using the scenarios, including a discussion of key uncertainties surrounding the scenarios. Each modeling team may produce an independent background report as a way of summarizing and documenting the analysis carried out in support of this effort. As the lead agency, the Department of Energy will be responsible for disseminating this product with respect to meeting the requirements of the Guidelines for Ensuring and Maximizing the Quality, Objectivity, Utility, and Integrity of Information Disseminated by Federal Agencies [see Federal Register, Vol. 67, No. 36, February 22, 2002]. 5.2. Part B: Review of Integrated Scenario Development and ApplicationPart B will be drafted based on a review of accumulated experience developing and using scenarios in past global-change analyses. This review of past experience will be supplemented by insights and concepts drawn from relevant scholarly and research literatures in integrated assessment, decision making under uncertainty, strategic planning, and design of decision and assessment processes. As the lead agency, the Department of Energy also will be responsible for disseminating this product with respect to meeting the requirements of the Guidelines for Ensuring and Maximizing the Quality, Objectivity, Utility, and Integrity of Information Disseminated by Federal Agencies [see Federal Register, Vol. 67, No. 36, February 22, 2002]. 6. ReviewParts A and Part B will follow the process described in the Guidelines for Producing CCSP Synthesis and Assessment Products: (1) a first draft for expert peer review, (2) a second draft released for 45 days for public comment, and (3) a third draft for final review and approval through a FACA committee and the CCSP interagency committee and the National Science and Technology Council (NSTC). The expert peer review process will consist of independent written reviews from five to ten expert peer reviewers. The lead and supporting agencies will develop an appropriate charge for the reviewers and will solicit suggestions for reviewers from relevant boards and committees of the National Research Council. After receiving the reviews, the lead authors will revise the report as appropriate and prepare a response to the reviewers’ comments. The peer review processes for Part A and Part B will be consistent with the Final Information Quality Bulletin for Peer Review [see Federal Register, Vol. 70, No. 10, January 14, 2005]. The report and response to reviewer’s comments will then be posted for public review. Using the public comments, the lead authors will revise the report as appropriate and prepare a response to those reviewers’ comments. A FACA committee will be established to oversee the preparation of the report. Following the public review, the FACA committee will review the report and the responses to peer review and public comments. Following the FACA committee review and subsequent revisions as necessary, the products will be passed to the CCSP interagency committee and the National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) for final approval and dissemination. 7. Related ActivitiesThis product will contribute to and enhance the ongoing and iterative international process of producing and refining climate-related scenarios and scenario tools. This process has included, among others, efforts undertaken by Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the Climate Change Technology Program (CCTP), and non-governmental forums such as Stanford’s Energy Modeling Forum. Part A will contribute new scenarios to this process based on the evolving state-of-the-art in integrated assessment modeling and building on lessons learned in previous scenario efforts. Part B will guide the development and application of future scenarios. This product represents one part of a larger suite of CCSP scenario analysis products that includes Product 3.2 (Climate projections for research and assessment based on emissions scenarios) and Product 4.5 (Scenario-based analysis of the climatological, environmental, resource, technological, and economic implications of different atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases). To leverage synergies between the two products, communication and interaction between the two product teams will be ongoing, primarily through cross-participation in Part A and Part B, along with cross-participation in meetings, conference calls, and other venues for planning and producing the two products. 8. CommunicationHardcopies of the product will be published using the standard format for all CCSP synthesis and assessment products. The final product and the comments received during the expert review and the public comment period will be posted on the CCSP web site. The number of hardcopies and the process for their dissemination will be determined as part of the development of this product. 9. Timeline
Appendix: Biographical Information for AuthorsLeon ClarkeDr. Clarke is a Senior Research Economist at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory’s (PNNL’s) Joint Global Change Research Institute, a collaboration the University of Maryland at College Park. Dr. Clarke conducts research on the treatment of technological change in integrated assessment models and other large-scale energy and environmental models, and on R&D strategy for climate change. Recent work includes scenario-based analyses for climate change technology planning; the impact of climate uncertainty on optimal R&D; the sources of technological advance and their incorporation into formal models; and investment decision-making under uncertainty. Dr. Clarke is a contributing author on the Working Group III contribution to the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report. Prior to joining PNNL, Dr. Clarke worked at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and as a research assistant at the Energy Modeling Forum as Stanford University. He has also worked on energy efficiency issues as an energy consultant and at Pacific Gas & Electric Company. Dr. Clarke holds a B.S. (1988) and M.S. (1990) in mechanical engineering from the University of California at Berkeley, and a M.S. (1999) and Ph.D. (2002) in Engineering-Economic Systems and Operations Research from Stanford University. James EdmondsDr.Edmonds is a Chief Scientist and Laboratory Fellow at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory’s (PNNL’s) Joint Global Change Research Institute, a collaboration with the University of Maryland at College Park. Dr. Edmonds research has contributed to the development of scenarios and the integrated assessment of climate change since 1978. He has published two books, numerous scientific papers and made countless presentations on topics relating to climate change. He has served as lead author for all three major assessments of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and numerous interim assessment reports. Dr. Edmonds has also served since 1998 as the principal investigator for the Global Energy Technology Strategy Program, an international, public-private research collaboration that explores the role of technology in managing the long-term risks of climate change. Dr. Edmonds received his B.A. from Kalamazoo College in economics (1969) and his M.A. and Ph.D. in economics from Duke University (1972, 1974). Henry JacobyDr. Jacoby is Professor of Management in the M.I.T. Sloan School of Management and Co-Director of the M.I.T. Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change. Dr. Jacoby was formerly Director of the Harvard Environmental Systems Program, Director of the MIT Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research, Associate Director of the MIT Energy Laboratory, and Chair of the MIT Faculty. Professor Jacoby has made contributions to the study of policy and management in the areas of energy, natural resources and environment—writing widely on these topics, including five books. Public involvement has included Chairmanship of the Massachusetts Governor's Emergency Energy Technical Advisory Committee (1973-74); and service on the National Petroleum Council (1975-83), the Climatic Impact Committee of the National Academy of Sciences (1973-75), the AAAS Panel on Climate and Water Resources (1986-89), the NAS/NAE Committee on Alternative Energy R&D Strategies (1989-90), a study by the U.S. Office of Technology Assessment of "Systems at Risk from Climate Change” (1992-93), and an NRC Panel on Metrics for Global Change Research (2004). In 1998-99 he was Environmental Fellow of the American Council on Capital Formation. Dr. Jacoby was an undergraduate mechanical engineer at the University of Texas at Austin, and he holds a Ph.D. in Economics from Harvard University. Hugh PitcherMr. Pitcher is a Staff Scientist at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory’s (PNNL’s) Joint Global Change Research Institute, a collaboration the University of Maryland at College Park. Over the last decade, Mr. Pitcher worked extensively on integrated assessment model development and use, including a wide range of scenario or scenario-related efforts. He is a member of IPCC Task Group on Scenarios for Impact and Climate Assessment, TGICA, participating since its founding. He has been a lead author of Chapter 2, Working Group III, TAR on stabilization scenarios, a lead author of the Special Report on Emissions Scenarios as part of which he prepared the scenarios from PNNL’s MiniCAM model, and a lead author of the Summary for Policy Makers of the Special Report on Emissions Scenarios. His scenario interests include demographics, economic growth including PPP/MER issues, and simple analytic frameworks for uncertainty analysis. Mr. Pitcher holds degrees in economics and mathematics from Oberlin College. John ReillyDr. Reilly is the Associate Director for Research in the Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change and a Senior Research Scientist in the Laboratory for Energy and Environment at MIT. Much of his 24-year research career has focused on the economics of climate change, including modeling of energy use and greenhouse gas emissions and the impacts of climate change on agriculture as well as consideration of agriculture and forestry sinks. He has published numerous articles on the economics of climate change and on other issues related to natural resources, technology, and energy use and supply. He was a principal author for the IPCC Second Assessment Report and has served on a variety of U.S. Federal government and international committees. He was the Co-Chair of the recent U.S. National Agricultural Assessment on Climate Change. Prior to joining MIT in 1998, he spent 12 years with the Economic Research Service of USDA, most recently as the Acting Director and Deputy Director for Research of the Resource Economics Division. He has been a scientist with Battelle's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and with the Institute for Energy Analysis, Oak Ridge Associated Universities. He received his Ph.D. in economics from the University of Pennsylvania and holds a B.S. in economics and political science from the University of Wisconsin. Richard RichelsDr. Richels directs global climate change research at EPRI in Palo Alto, California. Dr. Richels has served as a lead author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) Second and Third Scientific Assessments and served on the Synthesis Team for the U.S. National Assessment of Climate Change Impacts on the United States. He currently serves on the Scientific Steering Committee for the U.S. Carbon Cycle Program and the Advisory Committee for Princeton University Carbon Mitigation Initiative. Dr. Richels is a coauthor of “Buying Greenhouse Insurance – the Economic Costs of CO2 Emission Limits”, and has written numerous papers on the economics of climate change. Dr. Richels has served on a number of national and international advisory panels, including committees of the Department of Energy, the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Research Council. He has served as an expert witness at the Department of Energy’s hearings on the National Energy Strategy and testified at Congressional hearings on priorities in global climate change research. Dr. Richels received a B.S. degree in Physics from the College of William and Mary (1968) and an M.S. (1973) and a Ph.D. (1976) from Harvard University’s Division of Applied Sciences. Edward ParsonDr. Parson is Professor of Law and Associate Professor of Natural Resources and Environment at the University of Michigan. He conducts research on environmental policy, particularly its international dimensions; the political economy of regulation; the role of science and technology in public issues; and the analysis of negotiations, collective decisions, and conflicts. Recent projects have examined scientific and technical assessment in international policy-making; the policy implications of carbon-cycle management; the design of international market-based policy instruments; and development of policy exercises, simulation-gaming, and related novel methods for assessment and policy analysis. His recent articles have appeared in Science, Climatic Change, Policy Sciences, Issues in Science and Technology, the Annual Review of Energy and the Environment, and Scientific American. Dr. Parson served as leader of the “Environmental Trends” Project for the Government of Canada and as editor of the resulting book, Governing the Environment: Persistent Challenges, Uncertain Innovations (University of Toronto Press, tr. les Presses de l’Université de Montréal, 2001). His most recent book, Protecting the Ozone Layer: Science and Strategy was published by Oxford University Press in 2003. Dr. Parson holds a B.S. in Physics from the University of Toronto (1975), a M.S. in Management Science from the University of British Columbia (1981), and a Ph.D. in Public Policy from Harvard University (1992). Virginia BurkettDr. Burkett is chief of the Forest Ecology Branch at the National Wetlands Research Center of the U.S. Geological Survey, U.S. Department of Interior. She also serves as an Associate Regional Chief Biologist for the USGS Central Region. Prior to her work for the USGS, she served as Secretary/Director of the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries (1988-90), having previously served as Deputy Director (1984-85). Dr. Burkett has published extensively on the topics of global change and low-lying coastal zones. Nominated by the U.S. Government, she was a Lead Author on the United Nation's IPCC Third Assessment Report (2001) of global climate change and its impacts on coastal and marine ecosystems and she was recently appointed as a lead author of the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment report that will be published in 2007. She was a lead author of U.S. National Assessment of Climate Change and Impacts in 2001. During 2002-2004 she served as a member of the National Research Council’s Panel on River Basin and Coastal Systems Planning. In 2004, she co-authored a report published by The Wildlife Society entitled “Global Climate Change and Wildlife in North America”. She is presently co-leading the CCSP assessment of potential impacts of climate change on the transportation sector in the Gulf Coast region. Dr. Burkett received her master's degree in botany from Northwestern State University (1975) and her doctoral degree in forestry from Stephen F. Austin State University (1996). Karen Fisher-VandenDr. Fisher-Vanden is Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies at Dartmouth College. She has held positions as a Senior Research Scientist in the Global Climate Change Group at Battelle, Pacific Northwest National Laboratories in Washington, D.C. and as an Air Quality Specialist at the South Coast Air Quality Management District (SCAQMD) in Los Angeles. Professor Fisher-Vanden is an environmental economist who has worked in the areas of economic instruments for pollution control, economic and integrated assessment modeling for climate change policy analysis, and the diffusion of efficient technologies in developing and transition economies. Currently, she is studying the effects of market reforms on structural change and technological diffusion in China and implications for energy use and greenhouse gas emissions. Professor Fisher-Vanden holds a B.S in Mathematics and a B.A in Economics both from UC Davis, a M.S. in Management Science from the Anderson Graduate School of Management at UCLA, and a Ph.D. in Public Policy from Harvard University. David KeithDr. Keith is Professor of Economics, Professor of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering, and Canada Research Chair in Energy and the Environment at the University of Calgary, Alberta; and Adjunct Professor of Engineering and Public Policy at Carnegie-Mellon University. Dr. Keith’s work addresses the uncertainty in climate change predictions, geoengineering and carbon management. For more than a decade he has worked near the interface between climate science, energy technology and public policy. He has been a collaborator in research on climate related public policy at Carnegie Mellon University since 1991, and an investigator in the Center for the Integrated Study of the Human Dimensions of Global Change since its inception. Dr. Keith’s current research aims to understand the economic and regulatory implications of current technologies, and to explore the technical potential of advanced technologies for managing carbon. This includes an economic analysis of carbon capture and storage in electric markets, an assessment of the risk and regulation of geological storage of CO 2, and engineering studies of systems that would capture CO 2 from the air. Dr. Keith's work also addresses hydrogen in transportation systems, wind power, biomass, and geoengineering. Dr. Keith holds a B.S. in Physics from the University of Toronto (1986) and a Ph.D. in Experimental Physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1991). Linda MearnsDr. Mearns is a Senior Scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, Colorado and Deputy Director of the Environmental and Societal Impacts Group (ESIG). She has performed research and published in the areas of crop-climate interactions, climate change scenario formation, climate change impacts on agro-ecosystems, and analysis of climate variability and extreme climate events in both observations and climate models. She has contributed to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 1992, 1995, and 2001 Reports on the subjects of climate variability in general circulation models, regional climate change, and climate scenario formation. She is a member of the IPCC Task Group on Scenarios for Climate Impact Assessment, and was co-convening Lead Author for the chapter on Climate Scenario Development in IPCC Working Group I for the IPCC Third Assessment Report (2001), and a Lead Author on two other chapters in Working Groups I and II. She served on the National Academy Panel on Climate, Ecosystems, Infectious Diseases, and Human Health, March 1999-June 2001 and currently serves on the Institute of Medicine Panel on Emerging Infectious Diseases of the 21st Century. She also leads the NCAR Weather and Climate Impacts Assessment Science Initiative. Dr. Mearns holds a M.A. and a Ph.D. in Geography from UCLA (1982, 1988), and B.A. in Philosophy from the University of Wisconsin at Madison (1971). Cynthia RosenzweigDr. Rosenzweig is a Senior Research Scientist at NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies where she heads the Climate Impacts Group. She has organized and led large-scale interdisciplinary regional, national, and international studies of climate change impacts and adaptation. She co-led the Metropolitan East Coast Regional Assessment of the U.S. National Assessment of the Potential Consequences of Climate Variability and Change, sponsored by the U.S. Global Change Research Program. She is a Convening Lead Author of the chapter on observed changes for the IPCC Working Group II Fourth Assessment Report, and served on the IPCC Task Group on Data and Scenarios for Impact and Climate Assessment (TGICA). Dr. Rosenzweig's research involves the development of interdisciplinary methodologies by which to assess the potential impacts of and adaptations to global environmental change. She has joined impact models with global climate models (GCMs) to predict future outcomes of both land-based and urban systems under altered climate conditions. Dr. Rosenzweig holds a B.S. degree in Agricultural Sciences from Cook College (1980); a M.S. degree in Soils and Crops from Rutgers University (1983); and a Ph.D. in Plant and Soil Sciences from the University of Massachusetts (1991). Mort WebsterDr. Webster is Assistant Professor of Public Policy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His research focuses on the role of uncertainty (scientific or otherwise) in policy decisions and in the design of effective environmental policy, with a broad focus on exploring the interface between formal quantitative models and the policy process. His current focus is on two main areas within environmental policy: global climate change and local/regional air quality. His global climate change research explores methodologies for analyzing uncertainty in assessment models of global climate change so as to produce insights that are useful to the policy community, including addressing the role of learning in the future on today’s decision, the effect of uncertainty on multi-stakeholder negotiations, and better means of communicating results to non-experts. Dr. Webster received a Ph.D. (2000) in Technology, Management and Policy from MIT and a B.S.E. (1988) in Computer Science and Engineering from the University of Pennsylvania.
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