Climatology

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Research conducted by: RAND Justice, Infrastructure, and Environment; Environment, Energy, and Economic Development Program; Improving Decisions in a Complex and Changing World

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Modeling Climate Change Threat Can Help Improve Policy Decisions

Climate change presents decisionmakers with a fundamental quandary: how to address a potentially serious, long-term, and uncertain threat. A joint project of RAND Infrastructure, Safety, and Environment and the RAND Pardee Center sought to address this problem through basic research and computer modeling.

All Items (23)

Journal Article

Characterizing Climate-Change Uncertainties for Decision-Makers — Jun 13, 2012

Probability-based estimates can have serious limitations when applied to a problem such as climate change. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change should also consider approaches to decision-making under conditions of uncertainty that do not depend on expert consensus on probabilities.

Commentary

Evidence for Climate Change Is Overwhelming — Mar 8, 2012

In case after case, the theory that best fits the data is the one that also leads inexorably to the conclusion that human influence is one of the most important forces currently changing the climate, writes Robert J. Lempert.

Journal Article

Robust Climate Policies Under Uncertainty: A Comparison of Robust Decision-Making and Info-Gap Methods — Jan 1, 2012

This study compares two widely used approaches for robustness analysis of decision problems: the info-gap method originally developed by Ben-Haim and the robust decision making (RDM) approach originally developed by Lempert, Popper, and Bankes.

Journal Article

Investment Decision Making Under Deep Uncertainty: Application to Climate Change — Jan 1, 2012

This paper summarizes the additional uncertainty that is created by climate change, and reviews the tools that are available to project climate change (including downscaling techniques) and to assess and quantify the corresponding uncertainty.

Journal Article

Some Thoughts on the Role of Robust Control Theory in Climate-Related Decision Support: An Editorial Comment — Aug 1, 2011

Any successful response to climate change--both the challenges of limiting the magnitude of future climate change and adapting to its impacts--will clearly involve policies that evolve over time in response to new information and that are robust over a wide range of difficult-to-predict future conditions.

Commentary

Climate Scientists Should Wear Adam Smith Ties — Mar 30, 2011

If it were really possible to explain millions of years of Earth data with a theory that doesn't also imply a recent human influence on the climate, some ambitious, self-interested team of scientists somewhere in the world would seek scientific renown by doing so, writes Robert Lempert.

Journal Article

Managing Climate Risks in Developing Countries with Robust Decision Making — Jan 1, 2011

The authors present the concept of robust decision making (RDM), which draws on already-existing knowledge of practitioners to choose actions that are viable in both the short- and long-term.

Journal Article

Methods for Long-Term Environmental Policy Challenges — Aug 1, 2009

This article provides a concise overview of methods for analyzing policy choices that have been used in the study of long-term environmental challenges.

Journal Article

Planning for Climate Change in the Inland Empire: Southern California — Jan 1, 2008

Water managers in Southern California, who grapple with how to address climate change in their near-term and long-term plans, are beginning to seek methods for incorporating such changes in their planning processes.

Journal Article

Managing the Risk of Uncertain Threshold Responses: Comparison of Robust, Optimum, and Precautionary Approaches — Jan 1, 2007

This study uses a simple computer simulation model to compare several alternative frameworks for decision making under uncertainty—optimal expected utility, the precautionary principle, and three different approaches to robust decision making—for addressing the challenge of adding pollution to a lake without triggering unwanted and potentially irreversible eutrophication.

Journal Article

Multiple Equilibria in a Stochastic Implementation of DICE with Abrupt Climate Change — Nov 1, 2006

Integrated assessment modeling of global climate change has focused primarily on gradually occurring changes in the climate system. However, atmospheric and earth scientists have become increasingly concerned that the climate system may be subject to abrupt, discontinuous changes on short time scales, and that anthropogenic greenhouse-gas emissions could trigger such shifts.

Journal Article

Assessment of Environmental Kuznets Curves and Socioeconomic Drivers in IPCC's SRES Scenarios — Mar 1, 2005

This study performs a standard econometric analysis on the simulation model outputs from six scenarios from the Special Report on Emissions Scenarios (SRES) to assess the extent to which the projected CO 2 and NO x emissions reflect Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) behavior.

Journal Article

NO2 Vertical Profiles Retrieved from Ground-Based Measurements During Spring 1999 in the Canadian Arctic — Jan 1, 2004

In this paper, we use the optimal estimation technique with a formal characterization of the errors to retrieve NO2 concentration profiles from slant column observations made at Eureka during March and April 1999.

Journal Article

Adaptive Strategies for Climate Change — Jan 1, 2002

In this chapter the authors argue for a different approach to climate-change policy and thus a different use for forecasts.

Journal Article

A New Decision Sciences for Complex Systems — Jan 1, 2002

Computer-Assisted Reasoning, an approach to decision-making under conditions of uncertainty suited to applying complex systems to policy analysis.

Journal Article

Zenith-Sky Observations of Stratospheric Gases: The Sensitivity of Air Mass Factors to Geophysical Parameters and the Influence of Tropospheric Clouds — Mar 1, 2001

The retrieval of accurate vertical column amounts of stratospheric constituents from zenith-sky spectroscopy is dependent on accurately modeling the transfer of radiation through the atmosphere and calculating suitable air mass factors (AMFs).

Journal Article

Climate-change Strategy Needs to Be Robust — Jan 1, 2001

Recommendation for use of ensembles of multiple scenarios to capture what is known about the long-term climate future.

Journal Article

Carrots and Sticks for New Technology: Abating Greenhouse Gas Emissions in a Heterogeneous and Uncertain World — Jan 1, 2000

Many governments use technology incentives as an important component of their greenhouse gas abatement strategies.

Journal Article

Daytime and Nighttime Atmospheric Properties Derived from Rocket and Satellite Observations — Jan 1, 1961

Upper air densities obtained by means of rockets and satellites in the region from 100 to about 800 km are presented.

Journal Article

Reply to Some Comments By Malville Concerning the Midnight Auroral Maximum — Jan 1, 1961

Movement of geomagneticall trapped radiation toward lower latitudes on the night side of the earth.

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