General feedback on the Regional Climate homeworks:
[ Follow Ups ] [ Post Followup ] [ Class Discussion Groups ] Posted by James Risbey on October 01, 1997 at 11:36:43:
The following comments are offered to help focus effort on extending
the regional climate reports for the upcoming class session in
mid-November on regional climate - where each group will present their
own report. The verbal report in November will be based on your
regional climate homework, but will be extended to provide more
detail on the possible impacts of climate change and variability. For
specific comments on each report, see the graded versions, which are
available for collection from my office.
Groups did a good job characterizing the current climate of their
region. Groups generally provided less information on possible future
climates of the region. It may be that some groups felt that
projections of future climate are so tentative as to be worthless, but
at least say that if that is the position your group is taking. There
was also little information provided in class on projecting future
climates - mea culpa!
Most groups mentioned extreme events such as floods and droughts in
their region, but did not venture to provide possible
outlines/scenarios of best and worst case changes in these events.
For instance, just how frequent might droughts become assuming a worst
case scenario? What would the impacts of such droughts be - what
sectors of the economy would be most impacted - what would be the
rough magnitude of GDP loss expected on the basis of experience with
recent droughts? What measures are available to adapt to these kinds
of events and how much amelioration of the worst case could be
expected? Further, what is the relative amount of uncertainty in
projecting worst and best case outcomes in changes in extreme events -
what are the factors that contribute to the uncertainty - what are the
prospects of reducing these sources of uncertainty, etc. Also, are there
`surprise' events that could occur to compound the assessment of
impacts - what kinds of surprises have occured in the past (if any),
and is the region vulnerable to the same kinds of surprises? Is the
social and economic infrastructure of the region changing in a way
that may open it up to alternative sources of surprise, etc.
Given the short amount of time available to write the homeworks, you
weren't expected to provide much specific detail on impacts in your
region. By November you will have been exposed to a wider set of
literature, and should endeavour to provide additional detail in this
area. For instance, what are the expected impacts of climate
variability and change on the economy and on the non-market
environment? How do these impacts compare with exisiting economic
variability and with impacts on the economy due to changes in
non-climate processes? That is, what is the general context in which
the impacts occur? The material covered in the upcoming lectures
should help provide some of this context. For now you should think
about how this material relates to your region and what kinds of
interactions occur. We will provide more guidance on the regional
reports closer to November. The upcoming lectures will include
economics and social science blocks that mirror the climate and
ecosystems blocks.
Let me know if you want an expansion of any of the above.
Thanks,
James