Department of Environmental Earth System Science Seminar:
Assessing Climate Change Vulnerability
Michael Mastrandrea
Woods Institute for the Environment
Stanford University
When: 12:15pm, Wednesday, October 29th
Where: Yang and Yamazaki Energy and Environment Building, Room 111
Refreshments served at noon
*** Students and post docs are invited to lunch with the speaker, 1:30-2:30pm, Y2E2 Room 105 ***
Mitigation and adaptation policy decisions must be made in the face of the uncertainty that is inherent in projections of future climate conditions. These strategies must be concurrent, as emissions reduction choices will determine the severity of future climate change, and adaptation will enhance the capacity to cope with current and future impacts that cannot be avoided. Quantitative vulnerability assessment is an important tool to inform such decisions. I will describe two examples from my research: (1) Past research focused on quantifying the risk associated with future emissions scenarios in terms of the likelihood of exceeding potential thresholds for “dangerous” climate change; (2) New projections of changes in the frequency and intensity of extreme events in California across climate models, emissions scenarios, and downscaling methods for producing regional climate projections.