Climate Change Impacts
A primary objective is to translate simulations from computational climate models to decision support and policy tools, thus bringing climate prediction closer to integrated assessments. The primary research thrust centers around climate extremes, uncertainty and impacts. Climate extremes are defined in this context to include climate-induced severe weather and hydrological events as well as large changes in regional and decadal climate patterns which may result in extreme stresses on complex interacting natural, engineered and human systems. Knowledge discovery approaches, ranging from hypothesis-guided analysis to relatively hypothesis-free discovery processes, are developed which attempt to combine physics-based insights with interdisciplinary computational data sciences. The priorities are uncertainty reduction as well as a comprehensive characterization of uncertainty in climate change and impacts systems, with a focus on cascading uncertainty from emissions to models and impacts. The thrust on impacts includes the use of climate change and extremes in conjunction with population and global change projections for understanding consequences on critical infrastructures like the electric grid and key resources like water and energy.
Projects
- Uncertainty assessment and reduction for climate extremes and climate change impacts
- Climate science support for the US DOD’s Quadrennial Defense Review
- Climate change and impacts assessments
- Multivariate dependence in climate extremes
- Science support for a climate change war game
[Note: Synergistic thrust areas include Geographic Data Sciences, Population and Social Dynamical Modeling, and Emergency Preparedness]
