This study presents results from a large ensemble of projected changes in seasonal precipitation ... more This study presents results from a large ensemble of projected changes in seasonal precipitation and near-surface air temperature changes for the nation of South Africa. The ensemble is based on a combination of pattern-change responses derived from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP-5) climate models along with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Integrated Global Systems Model (MIT-IGSM), an intermediate complexity earth-system model coupled to a global economic model that evaluates uncertainty in socio-economic growth, anthropogenic emissions, and global environmental response. Numerical experimentation with the MIT-IGSM considered four scenarios of future climate and socio-economic development to span a range of possible global actions to abate greenhouse gas emissions through the 21st century. We evaluate distributions of surface-air temperature and precipitation change over three regions across South Africa: western (WSoAfr), central (CSoAfr), and ea...
Water is at the center of a complex and dynamic system involving climatic, biological, hydro- log... more Water is at the center of a complex and dynamic system involving climatic, biological, hydro- logical, physical, and human interactions. We demonstrate a new modeling system that integrates cli- matic and hydrological determinants of water supply with economic and biological drivers of sectoral and regional water requirement while taking into account constraints of engineered water storage and trans- port systems. This modeling system is an extension of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Integrated Global System Model framework and is unique in its consistent treatment of factors affecting water resources and water requirements. Irrigation demand, for example, is driven by the same climatic conditions that drive evapotranspiration in natural systems and runoff, and future scenarios of water demand for power plant cooling are consistent with energy scenarios driving climate change. To illustrate the modeling system we select "wet" and "dry" patterns o...
Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems, 2013
[1] Through the integration of a water resource system (WRS) component, the MIT Integrated Global... more [1] Through the integration of a water resource system (WRS) component, the MIT Integrated Global System Model (IGSM) framework has been enhanced to study the effects of climate change on managed water-resource systems. Development of the WRS involves the downscaling of temperature and precipitation from the zonal representation of the IGSM to regional (latitude-longitude) scale, and the translation of the resulting surface hydrology to runoff at the scale of river basins, referred to as assessment subregions (ASRs). The model of water supply is combined with analysis of water use in agricultural and nonagricultural sectors and with a model of water system management that allocates water among uses and over time and routes water among ASRs. Results of the IGSM-WRS framework include measures of water adequacy and ways it is influenced by climate change. Here we document the design of WRS and its linkage to other components of the IGSM and present tests of consistency of model simulation with the historical record.
Australia’s wind resource is considered to be very good, and the utilization of this renewable en... more Australia’s wind resource is considered to be very good, and the utilization of this renewable energy resource is increasing rapidly: wind power installed capacity increased by 35 % from 2006 to 2011 and is predicted to account for over 12 % of Australia’s electricity generation in 2030. Due to this growth in the utilization of the wind resource and the increasing importance of wind power in Australia’s energy mix, this study sets out to analyze and interpret the nature of Australia’s wind resources using robust metrics of the abundance, variability and intermittency of wind power density, and analyzes the variation of these characteristics with current and potential wind turbine hub heights. We also assess the extent to which wind intermittency, on hourly or greater timescales, can potentially be mitigated by the aggregation of geographically dispersed wind farms, and in so doing, lessen the severe impact on wind power economic viability of long lulls in wind and power generated. O...
analysis, and public education in global environmental change. It seeks to provide leadership in ... more analysis, and public education in global environmental change. It seeks to provide leadership in understanding scientific, economic, and ecological aspects of this difficult issue, and combining them into policy assessments that serve the needs of ongoing national and international discussions. To this end, the Program brings together an interdisciplinary group from two established research centers at MIT: the Center for Global Change Science (CGCS) and the Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research (CEEPR). These two centers bridge many key areas of the needed intellectual work, and additional essential areas are covered by other MIT departments, by collaboration with the Ecosystems Center of the Marine Biology Laboratory (MBL) at Woods Hole, and by short- and long-term visitors to the Program. The Program involves sponsorship and active participation by industry, government, and non-profit organizations. To inform processes of policy development and implementation, climat...
independent policy analysis, and public education in global environmental change. It seeks to pro... more independent policy analysis, and public education in global environmental change. It seeks to provide leadership in understanding scientific, economic, and ecological aspects of this difficult issue, and combining them into policy assessments that serve the needs of ongoing national and international discussions. To this end, the Program brings together an interdisciplinary group from two established research centers at MIT: the Center for Global Change Science (CGCS) and the Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research (CEEPR). These two centers bridge many key areas of the needed intellectual work, and additional essential areas are covered by other MIT departments, by collaboration with the Ecosystems Center of the Marine Biology Laboratory (MBL) at Woods Hole, and by short- and long-term visitors to the Program. The Program involves sponsorship and active participation by industry, government, and non-profit organizations. To inform processes of policy development and imp...
analysis, and public education in global environmental change. It seeks to provide leadership in ... more analysis, and public education in global environmental change. It seeks to provide leadership in understanding scientific, economic, and ecological aspects of this difficult issue, and combining them into policy assessments that serve the needs of ongoing national and international discussions. To this end, the Program brings together an interdisciplinary group from two established research centers at MIT: the Center for Global Change Science (CGCS) and the Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research (CEEPR). These two centers bridge many key areas of the needed intellectual work, and additional essential areas are covered by other MIT departments, by collaboration with the Ecosystems Center of the Marine Biology Laboratory (MBL) at Woods Hole, and by short- and long-term visitors to the Program. The Program involves sponsorship and active participation by industry, government, and non-profit organizations. To inform processes of policy development and implementation, climat...
analysis, and public education in global environmental change. It seeks to provide leadership in ... more analysis, and public education in global environmental change. It seeks to provide leadership in understanding scientific, economic, and ecological aspects of this difficult issue, and combining them into policy assessments that serve the needs of ongoing national and international discussions. To this end, the Program brings together an interdisciplinary group from two established research centers at MIT: the Center for Global Change Science (CGCS) and the Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research (CEEPR). These two centers bridge many key areas of the needed intellectual work, and additional essential areas are covered by other MIT departments, by collaboration with the Ecosystems Center of the Marine Biology Laboratory (MBL) at Woods Hole, and by short- and long-term visitors to the Program. The Program involves sponsorship and active participation by industry, government, and non-profit organizations. To inform processes of policy development and implementation, climat...
analysis, and public education in global environmental change. It seeks to provide leadership in ... more analysis, and public education in global environmental change. It seeks to provide leadership in understanding scientific, economic, and ecological aspects of this difficult issue, and combining them into policy assessments that serve the needs of ongoing national and international discussions. To this end, the Program brings together an interdisciplinary group from two established research centers at MIT: the Center for Global Change Science (CGCS) and the Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research (CEEPR). These two centers bridge many key areas of the needed intellectual work, and additional essential areas are covered by other MIT departments, by collaboration with the Ecosystems Center of the Marine Biology Laboratory (MBL) at Woods Hole, and by short- and long-term visitors to the Program. The Program involves sponsorship and active participation by industry, government, and non-profit organizations. To inform processes of policy development and implementation, climat...
17:00–18:00 Registration Foyer, Falzea Gallery and Courtyard, Palazzo Corsini, Accademia dei Linc... more 17:00–18:00 Registration Foyer, Falzea Gallery and Courtyard, Palazzo Corsini, Accademia dei Lincei17:30–18:45 Reception Falzea Courtyard, Palazzo Corsini, Accademia dei Lincei19:00 DinnerWelcoming Remarksand Forum OverviewFalzea Gallery, Palazzo Corsini, Accademia dei LinceiProfessor Henry D. Jacoby,
This work was supported by the Concrete Sustainability Hub at MIT, with sponsorship provided by t... more This work was supported by the Concrete Sustainability Hub at MIT, with sponsorship provided by the Portland Cement Association and the RMC Research & Education Foundation, and by the US Department of Energy, Office of Biological and Environmental Research, under grant DE-FG02-94ER61937. The MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change is funded by a number of federal agencies and a consortium of 40 industrial and foundation sponsors. For a complete list of sponsors, see http://globalchange.mit.edu.
This work was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy under grant #DE-FG02-94ER61937 and other... more This work was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy under grant #DE-FG02-94ER61937 and other government, industry and foundation sponsors of the MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change. For a complete list of sponsors and U.S. government funding sources, see http://globalchange.mit.edu/sponsors.
We investigate the implications of the development of a global biofuels industry for land use and... more We investigate the implications of the development of a global biofuels industry for land use and the carbon emissions that result from land conversion. We develop an approach to integrate the MIT Emissions Prediction and Policy Analysis (EPPA) to the Terrestrial Ecosystem Model (TEM) to capture first-order interactions among land use, climate, and economy. EPPA is a computable general equilibrium (CGE) model that explicitly represents conversion of land from natural areas to agricultural uses and considers alternative formulations of land supply. Biomass production in EPPA is represented as a “second generation” cellulosic conversion technology. TEM models the biogeochemistry of land systems, including carbon consequences of land use change, and is able to estimate productivity of natural terrestrial ecosystems and agricultural land driven by changes in climate, CO2, and tropospheric ozone. We develop a downscaling method to translate the regional land use changes in EPPA to a 0.5o...
Development of the IGSM applied in this research was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, ... more Development of the IGSM applied in this research was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science (DE-FG02-94ER61937); the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, EPRI, and other U.S. government agencies and a consortium of 40 industrial and foundation sponsors. For a complete list see http://globalchange.mit.edu/sponsors/current.html
Many snow models are now used for various applications such as hydrology, global circulation mode... more Many snow models are now used for various applications such as hydrology, global circulation models, snow monitoring, snow physics research and avalanche forecasting. The degree of complexity of these models is highly variable, from simple index methods to multi-layer models simulating the snow cover stratigraphy and texture. The main objective of the intercomparison project SnowMJP (Snow Model Intercomparison Project) is to identify key processes for each application. Four sites have been selected for the representativeness of their snowpack and the quality of the collected data. 26 models have participated in intercomparison by simulating the snowpack with the observed meteorological parameters. The validation of the simulation consists in comparing the results with snow pack observations. In a first step, the analysis focuses on the snow water simulation (compared with weekly snow pits). In particular, the snow water equivalent (SWE) maximum and the snow cover duration are two in...
We present results from large ensembles of projected twenty-first century changes in seasonal pre... more We present results from large ensembles of projected twenty-first century changes in seasonal precipitation and near-surface air temperature for the nation of South Africa. These ensembles are a result of combining Monte Carlo projections from a human-Earth system model of intermediate complexity with pattern-scaled responses from climate models of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5). These future ensemble scenarios consider a range of global actions to abate emissions through the twenty-first century. We evaluate distributions of surface-air temperature and precipitation change over three sub-national regions: western, central, and eastern South Africa. In all regions, we find that without any emissions or climate targets in place, there is a greater than 50% likelihood that mid-century temperatures will increase threefold over the current climate’s two-standard deviation range of variability. However, scenarios that consider more aggressive climate targets al...
This study presents results from a large ensemble of projected changes in seasonal precipitation ... more This study presents results from a large ensemble of projected changes in seasonal precipitation and near-surface air temperature changes for the nation of South Africa. The ensemble is based on a combination of pattern-change responses derived from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP-5) climate models along with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Integrated Global Systems Model (MIT-IGSM), an intermediate complexity earth-system model coupled to a global economic model that evaluates uncertainty in socio-economic growth, anthropogenic emissions, and global environmental response. Numerical experimentation with the MIT-IGSM considered four scenarios of future climate and socio-economic development to span a range of possible global actions to abate greenhouse gas emissions through the 21st century. We evaluate distributions of surface-air temperature and precipitation change over three regions across South Africa: western (WSoAfr), central (CSoAfr), and ea...
Water is at the center of a complex and dynamic system involving climatic, biological, hydro- log... more Water is at the center of a complex and dynamic system involving climatic, biological, hydro- logical, physical, and human interactions. We demonstrate a new modeling system that integrates cli- matic and hydrological determinants of water supply with economic and biological drivers of sectoral and regional water requirement while taking into account constraints of engineered water storage and trans- port systems. This modeling system is an extension of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Integrated Global System Model framework and is unique in its consistent treatment of factors affecting water resources and water requirements. Irrigation demand, for example, is driven by the same climatic conditions that drive evapotranspiration in natural systems and runoff, and future scenarios of water demand for power plant cooling are consistent with energy scenarios driving climate change. To illustrate the modeling system we select "wet" and "dry" patterns o...
Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems, 2013
[1] Through the integration of a water resource system (WRS) component, the MIT Integrated Global... more [1] Through the integration of a water resource system (WRS) component, the MIT Integrated Global System Model (IGSM) framework has been enhanced to study the effects of climate change on managed water-resource systems. Development of the WRS involves the downscaling of temperature and precipitation from the zonal representation of the IGSM to regional (latitude-longitude) scale, and the translation of the resulting surface hydrology to runoff at the scale of river basins, referred to as assessment subregions (ASRs). The model of water supply is combined with analysis of water use in agricultural and nonagricultural sectors and with a model of water system management that allocates water among uses and over time and routes water among ASRs. Results of the IGSM-WRS framework include measures of water adequacy and ways it is influenced by climate change. Here we document the design of WRS and its linkage to other components of the IGSM and present tests of consistency of model simulation with the historical record.
Australia’s wind resource is considered to be very good, and the utilization of this renewable en... more Australia’s wind resource is considered to be very good, and the utilization of this renewable energy resource is increasing rapidly: wind power installed capacity increased by 35 % from 2006 to 2011 and is predicted to account for over 12 % of Australia’s electricity generation in 2030. Due to this growth in the utilization of the wind resource and the increasing importance of wind power in Australia’s energy mix, this study sets out to analyze and interpret the nature of Australia’s wind resources using robust metrics of the abundance, variability and intermittency of wind power density, and analyzes the variation of these characteristics with current and potential wind turbine hub heights. We also assess the extent to which wind intermittency, on hourly or greater timescales, can potentially be mitigated by the aggregation of geographically dispersed wind farms, and in so doing, lessen the severe impact on wind power economic viability of long lulls in wind and power generated. O...
analysis, and public education in global environmental change. It seeks to provide leadership in ... more analysis, and public education in global environmental change. It seeks to provide leadership in understanding scientific, economic, and ecological aspects of this difficult issue, and combining them into policy assessments that serve the needs of ongoing national and international discussions. To this end, the Program brings together an interdisciplinary group from two established research centers at MIT: the Center for Global Change Science (CGCS) and the Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research (CEEPR). These two centers bridge many key areas of the needed intellectual work, and additional essential areas are covered by other MIT departments, by collaboration with the Ecosystems Center of the Marine Biology Laboratory (MBL) at Woods Hole, and by short- and long-term visitors to the Program. The Program involves sponsorship and active participation by industry, government, and non-profit organizations. To inform processes of policy development and implementation, climat...
independent policy analysis, and public education in global environmental change. It seeks to pro... more independent policy analysis, and public education in global environmental change. It seeks to provide leadership in understanding scientific, economic, and ecological aspects of this difficult issue, and combining them into policy assessments that serve the needs of ongoing national and international discussions. To this end, the Program brings together an interdisciplinary group from two established research centers at MIT: the Center for Global Change Science (CGCS) and the Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research (CEEPR). These two centers bridge many key areas of the needed intellectual work, and additional essential areas are covered by other MIT departments, by collaboration with the Ecosystems Center of the Marine Biology Laboratory (MBL) at Woods Hole, and by short- and long-term visitors to the Program. The Program involves sponsorship and active participation by industry, government, and non-profit organizations. To inform processes of policy development and imp...
analysis, and public education in global environmental change. It seeks to provide leadership in ... more analysis, and public education in global environmental change. It seeks to provide leadership in understanding scientific, economic, and ecological aspects of this difficult issue, and combining them into policy assessments that serve the needs of ongoing national and international discussions. To this end, the Program brings together an interdisciplinary group from two established research centers at MIT: the Center for Global Change Science (CGCS) and the Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research (CEEPR). These two centers bridge many key areas of the needed intellectual work, and additional essential areas are covered by other MIT departments, by collaboration with the Ecosystems Center of the Marine Biology Laboratory (MBL) at Woods Hole, and by short- and long-term visitors to the Program. The Program involves sponsorship and active participation by industry, government, and non-profit organizations. To inform processes of policy development and implementation, climat...
analysis, and public education in global environmental change. It seeks to provide leadership in ... more analysis, and public education in global environmental change. It seeks to provide leadership in understanding scientific, economic, and ecological aspects of this difficult issue, and combining them into policy assessments that serve the needs of ongoing national and international discussions. To this end, the Program brings together an interdisciplinary group from two established research centers at MIT: the Center for Global Change Science (CGCS) and the Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research (CEEPR). These two centers bridge many key areas of the needed intellectual work, and additional essential areas are covered by other MIT departments, by collaboration with the Ecosystems Center of the Marine Biology Laboratory (MBL) at Woods Hole, and by short- and long-term visitors to the Program. The Program involves sponsorship and active participation by industry, government, and non-profit organizations. To inform processes of policy development and implementation, climat...
analysis, and public education in global environmental change. It seeks to provide leadership in ... more analysis, and public education in global environmental change. It seeks to provide leadership in understanding scientific, economic, and ecological aspects of this difficult issue, and combining them into policy assessments that serve the needs of ongoing national and international discussions. To this end, the Program brings together an interdisciplinary group from two established research centers at MIT: the Center for Global Change Science (CGCS) and the Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research (CEEPR). These two centers bridge many key areas of the needed intellectual work, and additional essential areas are covered by other MIT departments, by collaboration with the Ecosystems Center of the Marine Biology Laboratory (MBL) at Woods Hole, and by short- and long-term visitors to the Program. The Program involves sponsorship and active participation by industry, government, and non-profit organizations. To inform processes of policy development and implementation, climat...
17:00–18:00 Registration Foyer, Falzea Gallery and Courtyard, Palazzo Corsini, Accademia dei Linc... more 17:00–18:00 Registration Foyer, Falzea Gallery and Courtyard, Palazzo Corsini, Accademia dei Lincei17:30–18:45 Reception Falzea Courtyard, Palazzo Corsini, Accademia dei Lincei19:00 DinnerWelcoming Remarksand Forum OverviewFalzea Gallery, Palazzo Corsini, Accademia dei LinceiProfessor Henry D. Jacoby,
This work was supported by the Concrete Sustainability Hub at MIT, with sponsorship provided by t... more This work was supported by the Concrete Sustainability Hub at MIT, with sponsorship provided by the Portland Cement Association and the RMC Research & Education Foundation, and by the US Department of Energy, Office of Biological and Environmental Research, under grant DE-FG02-94ER61937. The MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change is funded by a number of federal agencies and a consortium of 40 industrial and foundation sponsors. For a complete list of sponsors, see http://globalchange.mit.edu.
This work was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy under grant #DE-FG02-94ER61937 and other... more This work was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy under grant #DE-FG02-94ER61937 and other government, industry and foundation sponsors of the MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change. For a complete list of sponsors and U.S. government funding sources, see http://globalchange.mit.edu/sponsors.
We investigate the implications of the development of a global biofuels industry for land use and... more We investigate the implications of the development of a global biofuels industry for land use and the carbon emissions that result from land conversion. We develop an approach to integrate the MIT Emissions Prediction and Policy Analysis (EPPA) to the Terrestrial Ecosystem Model (TEM) to capture first-order interactions among land use, climate, and economy. EPPA is a computable general equilibrium (CGE) model that explicitly represents conversion of land from natural areas to agricultural uses and considers alternative formulations of land supply. Biomass production in EPPA is represented as a “second generation” cellulosic conversion technology. TEM models the biogeochemistry of land systems, including carbon consequences of land use change, and is able to estimate productivity of natural terrestrial ecosystems and agricultural land driven by changes in climate, CO2, and tropospheric ozone. We develop a downscaling method to translate the regional land use changes in EPPA to a 0.5o...
Development of the IGSM applied in this research was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, ... more Development of the IGSM applied in this research was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science (DE-FG02-94ER61937); the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, EPRI, and other U.S. government agencies and a consortium of 40 industrial and foundation sponsors. For a complete list see http://globalchange.mit.edu/sponsors/current.html
Many snow models are now used for various applications such as hydrology, global circulation mode... more Many snow models are now used for various applications such as hydrology, global circulation models, snow monitoring, snow physics research and avalanche forecasting. The degree of complexity of these models is highly variable, from simple index methods to multi-layer models simulating the snow cover stratigraphy and texture. The main objective of the intercomparison project SnowMJP (Snow Model Intercomparison Project) is to identify key processes for each application. Four sites have been selected for the representativeness of their snowpack and the quality of the collected data. 26 models have participated in intercomparison by simulating the snowpack with the observed meteorological parameters. The validation of the simulation consists in comparing the results with snow pack observations. In a first step, the analysis focuses on the snow water simulation (compared with weekly snow pits). In particular, the snow water equivalent (SWE) maximum and the snow cover duration are two in...
We present results from large ensembles of projected twenty-first century changes in seasonal pre... more We present results from large ensembles of projected twenty-first century changes in seasonal precipitation and near-surface air temperature for the nation of South Africa. These ensembles are a result of combining Monte Carlo projections from a human-Earth system model of intermediate complexity with pattern-scaled responses from climate models of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5). These future ensemble scenarios consider a range of global actions to abate emissions through the twenty-first century. We evaluate distributions of surface-air temperature and precipitation change over three sub-national regions: western, central, and eastern South Africa. In all regions, we find that without any emissions or climate targets in place, there is a greater than 50% likelihood that mid-century temperatures will increase threefold over the current climate’s two-standard deviation range of variability. However, scenarios that consider more aggressive climate targets al...
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