Conclusions and Summary Once again: Goals and Strategy Integration –Within NCAR, nationally, and internationally Education Management and Budget Future Plans

WCIAS: Overarching Goal To improve society’s ability to manage weather and climate risks by creating and providing research tools and methods at the critical frontiers of impact assessment science.

Goals in Each Theme 1. To support improved responses to weather and climate risks by understanding and characterizing the uncertainties affecting the decision-making process. 2. To increase the resilience of human populations to extreme weather and climate events through improved tools, modeling, and data. 3. To catalyze and nurture an interdisciplinary research community studying the effects of climate on human health.

WCIAS Strategy Filling critical gaps in weather and climate impact assessment science Developing integrating methods Moving toward decision-making as a centerpiece Promoting integration of assessment science activities at NCAR, nationally, and internationally

Integration within NCAR CGD-ESIG-GSP (Flood project) CGD-GSP-RAP-ESIG (Integrated uncertainty analysis in water resources) Expanded role of GSP throughout NCAR Other initiatives (Biogeosciences, Water, Fire, GIS)

Divisional Budget Structure FY04

Links to Other Initiatives GIS Uncertainty Climate / Health Extremes Wildland Fire Cyberinfrastructure Biogeosciences Water Cycle across Scales WCIAS

Initiative Linkages Wildland Fire – developed model to forecast location of housing developments – AI improves predictive model by identifying sensitivity of decisions to people’s understanding of fire risks Water Cycle across Scales – plans to use CRCM outputs in spatial scaling of extremes; analysis of future changes in floods and droughts Cyberinfrastructure – use of structure to develop distribution system for high-resolution climate scenarios

Climate Variability and Uncertainty in Flood Hazard Planning Link between GIS and the Weather and Climate Impact Assessment Initiatives Mapping rainfall data to help better understand past flooding events along Colorado’s Front Range Spatial and temporal variability of extreme precipitation events Good case for spatial statistics Mary Downton, et al.

Land Surface / Atmosphere Interaction Atmosphere / Soil Carbon / Nitrogen Cycling Impacts Assessment Climate Impacts on Hydrology Managed and Unmanaged Ecosystems Biogeosciences Land use/cover change ESM

Initiative Collaboration with the Wider Research Community Significant involvement of university community NARCCAP – integration across NCAR, Universities, CCSP, and International Communities (and highlighting CCSM) Links with international programs – (e.g., PIK, Tyndall Centre)

Recent University Participation Uncertainty – R. Smith (U. North Carolina); M. Mann (U. Virginia); L. Sloan (UC Santa Cruz); W. Gutowski (Iowa State), P. Duffy (UC Berkeley), A. Cullen (U. Washington), J. Feddema (U. Kansas) Extremes – P. Naveau (U. Colorado), E. Gruntfest (U. Colorado), H. Brooks (U. Oklahoma); R. Smith (U. North Carolina) Climate and Health – J. Patz (Johns Hopkins); M. Wilson (U. Michigan); J. Mayer (U. Washington)

NARCCAP North American Regional Climate Change Assessment Program Main Goals: Exploration of multiple uncertainties in regional model and global climate model regional projections Development of multiple high- resolution regional climate scenarios for use in impacts models Multiple AOGCM and RCM Climate Scenarios Project over North America

NARCCAP Domain

A2 Emissions Scenario GFDLCCSM HadCM3 link to European Prudence CGCM current future Provide boundary conditions MM5 Iowa State/ PNNL RegCM3 UC Santa Cruz ICTP CRCM Quebec, Ouranos HadRM3 Hadley Centre RSM Scripps WRF NCAR/ PNNL NARCCAP Plan

Contributions to IPCC AR4 Tebaldi et al. method being used as the main method for integrating new AOGCM simulation results on regional scale WG 1 Technical Support Unit wishes to see other global climate modeling groups perform SRES land cover change experiments similar to WCIAS Initiative

Linkages with International Community Numerous international presentations (Europe, Canada) Formal links (MOUs) being established with PIK and the Tyndall Centre

Educational Components Climate and Health Program – continuation of interdisciplinary education program on climate and health – Climate and Health Summer Colloquium (July 21-28, 2004) Paleo Project – includes subproject of Education and Outreach – educational display on paleo climate (see poster)

Climate and Health Colloquium Summer 2004 Sessions: Climate and Climate Modeling Climate and Infectious Diseases Remote Sensing and GIS Heat Mortality and Air Pollution Societal Responses, Assessment and Communication

Professional Development: Roles of Early Career Scientists Lisa Dilling (ESIG) – AI project manager Caspar Amman (CGD) – PI of paleo project Susi Moser and Lisa Dilling (ESIG) – Leaders of decision-making theme in WCIAS Claudia Tebaldi (ESIG) – Lead author on key papers on regional climate probabilities Dave Yates (RAP) – Key role in hydrology modeling in uncertainty theme Rebecca Morss, Olga Wilhelmi (ESIG) – Key participants in flood project

Intra-Initiative Learning Development of greater interdisciplinarity among the participants in the WCIAS This development is an ongoing process Catalyzes integration within NCAR

Initiative Management and Planning

Four meetings with interested NCAR staff and several ESIG- specific planning meetings held to develop the three themes (second half of 2000 and first half of 2001) Consultation with external collaborators Written contributions from core group of interested staff, including all ESIG scientists Several document iterations One follow-up planning meeting held August 2001 Several more detailed follow-up planning meetings on individual themes held in September/October 2001 Initial funding provided in FY 2002 ($214K) General Planning Process of Assessment Initiative

Budget Structure by Theme

WCIAS Leverages Other Funds NASA, NOAA, NCAR ASP – Climate and Health $92K total NSF – Land cover data bases - $170K HARC – Human dimensions of the Arctic - $60K NSF – CMG: Development of spatio-temporal and multi-resolution methods for detection impacts of volcanic and solar forcings in climate – $300K NOAA-OGP – Scales of decision-making and the carbon cycle – $285K DOE, NSF, NOAA – various amounts for NARCCAP GSP program at NCAR – various amounts

Initiative Management L.O.Mearns Director K. Miller Managing Wildland Fire Risk J.Meehl Climate Model Extremes C. Amman Climate Variability of Past Centuries M. Downton Flood Hazards Planning R.Katz Extremes Toolkit B.Brown Extremes in Aviation G. Bonan Land Cover Uncertainties D. Nychka/D. Yates Uncertainty in Model Simulations Advisory Board J. Meehl T.Wigley K.Miller B.Brown R.Morss D. Nychka Acting Dir. 03 Project Leads (11) H. Brooks Downscaling of Extreme Phenomena L. Mearns/J.Patz Climate and Health L. Dilling Project Manager V. Holzhauer - Financial Administrator J. Oxelson -Webmaster R. Haacker-Santos - Admin. Assistant S. Moser Decision Making and Uncertainty Mentors B. Harriss W. Washington

Management Activities Monthly or bimonthly meetings – –Presentations on project work –Discussions with project advisory board and leads on project status, integration opportunities across projects –Individual project meetings –March 2003-March 2004 management activities lead by Doug Nychka (Acting Director) and L. Dilling (Project Manager)

The (uncertain) Future Near and Long-term

FY05 Selected Plans Land Cover – application of CLM/CCSM to SRES land cover scenarios – inclusion of urban area expansion, interactive crop models, soil degradation effects Regional Probabilities of Climate Change – bivariate model, spatial correlation, expert judgment of climate modelers for formation of priors, role in IPCC – use in impacts and for decision-making (e.g., UKCIP)

Further application of extreme value theory –Analysis of heat waves (i.e., cluster maxima and length) –Determination of field significance of extremes –Detecting trends in extremes in observed data Changes in extreme sea surface temperatures and effects on coral reef health FY05 Selected Plans (cont.)

NCAR-RISA Collaboration Presenting Uncertainty to Decision-Makers (Rand) Feasibility Limits of Adaptation Strategies to Sea-Level Rise Decision-Making at the Climate-Health Interface Societal Use of Weather Information Scales of Decision-Making –Carbon flux management –Water resource management FY05 Selected Plans (cont.) Decision-making focus

Vision – Future Plans Long term goals (5 years and beyond) –NCAR is recognized as national/international leader in Integrated Uncertainty Analysis including Decision Making (ISSE) –NCAR creates a complete, integrated program on extreme events (atmospheric science, statistics, societal vulnerability, decision-making) –Climate and Health Annual Summer Colloquium becomes world-class program in training students in this interdisciplinary field

Long-term Vision The WCIAS Initiative fills a need to bridge between: –Global/regional modeling/observations and regional assessments –Physical sciences knowledge and tools, and environmental and social science –Science/academia and decision-makers To improve society’s ability to manage weather and climate risks by creating and providing research tools and methods at the critical frontiers of impact assessment science.

Our Ongoing Commitment Conduct cutting-edge, innovative research at the nexus of physical and social sciences Build novel partnerships internally and externally Maintain NCAR’s high visibility at the regional, national, and international levels to ensure that needs for advancements in assessment science are being met Create innovative approaches to orient research in assessment science toward decision-making as a central focus

Weather and Climate Impact Assessment Science Global Models Scenarios Statistics and Physical Sciences Decision-making Vulnerability Regional Assessment Health and EcologyInter/national Assessment