Global Change Research Needs and Opportunities for 2022-2031 (2021) / Chapter Skim
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5 Crosscutting Research and Data Priorities
5 Crosscutting Research and Data Priorities
Pages 57-76
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From page 57... ...
emissions, including thresholds, tipping points, and physical and carbon-cycle feedbacks. These issues directly inform socioeconomic impacts of climate change, as well as more profound questions such as the carbon emissions budgets associated with different levels of global warming, and even the possibility of uncontrolled GHG emissions from biotic sources.
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From page 58... ...
The output of the suggested research investments would be critical input to National Climate Assessments, coordination with international assessments, and risk communication. This report assumes these activities will continue to be central to USGCRP.
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From page 59... ...
The Climate Science Special Report of the Fourth National Climate Assessment (Kopp et al., 2017) makes climate tipping points -- large-scale, nonlinear shifts in Earth systems -- a major focus of its final chapter.
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From page 60... ...
Examples include a heatwave experienced coincident with an extreme drought or wildfire, king tides (extreme high tides) coincident with storm surges from coastal storms, and extreme inland storms causing extensive erosion of soils made bare by massive wildfires, in turn driven by the convergence of drought and pest outbreaks.
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From page 61... ...
. Given the widely acknowledged need for rapid change in technology and practices to meet the challenge of climate change, USGCRP should give some priority to research that deploys the substantial literature on rapid social change to provide insights into strategies that might quickly enhance uptake of mitigation and adaptation research.
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From page 62... ...
GLOBAL CHANGE RESEARCH NEEDS AND OPPORTUNITIES FOR 2022-2031 FIGURE 5.1. More than a dozen potential tipping points are being monitored, including losses of ice mass from the ice sheets in Greenland and the Antarctic; losses of terrestrial carbon to the atmosphere as CO2 and/or CH4 from ecosystems that span the full latitudinal gradient from tropical forests to tundra ecosystem; shifts in major seasonal weather patterns such as the monsoons in Asia; thermal stress of coral reefs; and disruption of the ocean circulation system.
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From page 63... ...
Third, integrated assessment modeling efforts should be advanced to develop the capacity to link climate and social tipping points (van Ginkel et al., 2020)
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From page 64... ...
Dynamical downscaling refers to techniques that rely on dynamical climate models, either regional climate models or variable resolution models. Empirical statistical downscaling relies on developing relationships between large-scale variables produced by reanalyses of past climate data or GCMs (e.g., 500 mb heights)
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From page 65... ...
For example, urban practitioners are calling for downscaled climate information to understand the likelihood of future extreme events, and their interactions with the built environment, along with projections of possible future distributions of vulnerable populations to facilitate planning for implementing defensive strategies. Coastal states need information about sea level rise, coastal storm frequency and intensity, and socioeconomic projections such as population growth, property values, and availability of insurance to plan for coastal realignment or fortification.
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From page 66... ...
Scenarios to Project Climate Change, Associated Risks, and Effectiveness of Mitigation Policies Over the past decade, the climate change research community developed a scenario framework that instead of providing one set of internally consistent and plausible visions of the future, provided a tool kit that includes GHG emission pathways (RCPs, or Representative Concentration Pathways; published in 2011) , socioeconomic development pathways (SSPs, or Shared Socioeconomic Pathways; published in 2017)
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From page 67... ...
Source: O'Neill et al., 2020. the scenario framework and process for integrating studies combining future climate outcomes, societal conditions, and policy options.
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From page 68... ...
The inclusion of the national security community in these participatory exercises would also benefit decision makers who could gain insight into defense and intelligence agencies' critical expertise. Once decision makers understand possible impacts, they can identify factors needed for policy change, including innovative approaches to reduce environmental hazards, increase resilience, and address inequities in the impacts of climate change and climate policy.
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From page 69... ...
The city is holding public discussions and engaging in planning with international and domestic flood-water management experts and local community members and leaders to develop and implement strategies to ensure that the city remains livable as climate change progresses and flooding frequency and severity increase. 2 The San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission Adapting to Rising Tides program is focused on helping shoreline communities in the San Francisco Bay area, spanning 10 California counties, to plan for sea level rise and other climate impacts.
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From page 70... ...
They also need socioeconomic projections such as population growth, property values, and availability of insurance in order to plan for coastal realignment or fortification. Municipalities dependent on water supplies from distant watersheds need information on future climate, hydrology, and ecology of those watersheds, plus projections of population and business growth in their municipality, to wisely manage future water resources.
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From page 71... ...
The committee suggests that USGCRP plans routinely and directly address actions toward the ends of building greater understanding of equity and climate justice and increasing diversity in the global change research community. MAINTENANCE AND IMPROVEMENT OF DATA AND ANALYSIS FACILITIES Progress in research on the risks and topics discussed in earlier chapters, as well as the previous sections on extremes, tipping points, and scenarios, calls for the design and implementation of augmented analysis frameworks that can more adequately represent these intersecting realms.
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From page 72... ...
There is an urgent need and opportunity to foster socioeconomic observing systems (Sandifer et al., 2020; Stern et al., 2013) that would link the most significant socioeconomic data streams to identify additional needed information and how it should be collected and aggregated so as to be useful for modeling future climate-related risks.
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From page 73... ...
The effort of developing the global carbon budget provides a check on the estimates of its components. USGCRP should consider how to strategically leverage these and other nongovernmental efforts, as well as participate and support however possible, to facilitate long-term records for the annual global carbon budget and other key global change information data sets.
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From page 74... ...
5. Augmentation of existing analysis frameworks and supporting data sets to more adequately represent the many system interactions and yield results in forms that meet the needs of decision makers and the people they represent.
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Each agency can bring to the table multiple dimensions of their work, including social, physical, ecological scientists and engineers, representing the full suite of global change research being carried out. USGCRP is an ideal forum for this integration.
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