Mistreatment of the economic impacts of extreme events in the Stern Review Report on the Economics of Climate Change

The Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change has focused debate on the costs and benefits of alternative courses of action on climate change. This refocusing has helped to move debate away from science of the climate system and on to issues of policy. However, a careful examination of the Stern Review's treatment of the economics of extreme events in developed countries, such as floods and tropical cyclones, shows that the report is selective in its presentation of relevant impact studies and repeats a common error in impacts studies by confusing sensitivity analyses with projections of future impacts. The Stern Review's treatment of extreme events is misleading because it overestimates the future costs of extreme weather events in developed countries by an order of magnitude. Because the Stern Report extends these findings globally, the overestimate propagates through the report's estimate of future global losses. When extreme events are viewed more comprehensively the resulting perspective can be used to expand the scope of choice available to decision makers seeking to grapple with future disasters in the context of climate change. In particular, a more comprehensive analysis underscores the importance of adaptation in any comprehensive portfolio of responses to climate change.     

气候与气候系统研究进展

2011年,气候系统研究所在气候系统模式研发、陆面过程对我国气候的影响以及我国云南持续性干旱的成因等方面开展了深入研究,取得可喜的进展。     

Climate Change Prediction

The concept of climate change prediction in response to anthropogenic forcings at multi-decadal time scales is reviewed. This is identified as a predictability problem with characteristics of both first kind and second kind (due to the slow components of the climate system). It is argued that, because of the non-linear and stochastic aspects of the climate system and of the anthropogenic and natural forcings, climate change contains an intrinsic level of uncertainty. As a result, climate change prediction needs to be approached in a probabilistic way. This requires a characterization and quantification of the uncertainties associated with the sequence of steps involved in a climate change prediction. A review is presented of different approaches recently proposed to produce probabilistic climate change predictions. The additional difficulties found when extending the prediction from the global to the regional scale and the implications that these have on the choice of prediction strategy are finally discussed.     

气候变化承诺

全球气候变暖是当代最受关注的问题之一。当然,人们首先想知道变暖究竟能达到什么程度。既然变暖的主要原因是人类活动造成温室气体增加,使温室效应加剧,则未来变暖的程度显然取决于过去排放了多少温室气体,以及今后以什么速度、排     

气候和气候变化领域的研究进展

该文回顾了过去几十年来中国气象科学研究院在气候和气候变化研究方面的成果, 主要包括对我国历史气候资料的恢复、重建和整理, 气候区划, 对我国气温和降水的研究, 对青藏高原温度和降水、近地层与边界层地-气过程, 大气热源特征和臭氧变化的研究, 古气候模拟, 对气候变化的预测理论和方法以及气候和气候变化对我国社会、经济的影响等方面的研究。近50年中国气象科学研究院收集大量气候资料并整理出版了《中国近五百年旱涝分布图集》; 对风能等资源进行了气候区划; 明确了近几十年中国地区在20世纪40年代和90年代出现了两个暖期, 20世纪50—60年代出现了相对冷期; 在全球变暖的背景下, 以四川为中心的西南地区自20世纪50年代到80年代一直在变冷; 20世纪80年代以后, 多雨带由华北南移到长江中下游地区; 提出青藏高原近地层与边界层地-气过程的综合物理图像; 发现青藏高原夏季臭氧低值中心; 模拟出青藏高原隆起过程中中国气候变化特征; 揭示出东亚季风环流系统及其成员; 设计了多种预报方法; 还将气候和气候变化研究成果向国家经济转化。     

气候系统与气候变化研究进展

2010年度气候系统研究所在准双周振荡结构与起源、东部地区降水年代际演变特征、13变化机理、降水评估和古气候研究等方面取得明显进展,主要研究成果如下。     

Stochastic Hydrology in the Context of Climate Change

Hydrologic trends, real (physical) or perceived (statistical), suggest that water management be predicated on the assumption of hydrologic nonstationarity. The assumption leaves open the question to what extent will the "trends" be sustained locally and regionally over the future 25, 50 or 100 years corresponding to the economic time horizons of water projects. Whether hydrologic trends are real or perceived, record events of hydrologic extremes, floods and droughts, will be broken with exceedingly high probabilities over the economic lives of water projects. Before the assumption of hydrologic nonstationarity is accepted, the ability to cope with the uncertain impacts of global warming on water management via the operational assumption of hydrologic stationarity should be carefully examined. In the absence of strong physical evidence, trends cannot be unequivocally distinguished from slow oscillations. Slow oscillations can be mimicked by persistence in stationary processes. It is time to examine the relative merits of the assumptions of stationarity and nonstationarity in the operational context of water management. The strategy of wait-and-see, i.e. delaying the making of important, expensive and essentially irreversible capital investments, could served water managers well in coping with the uncertainties regarding climate change.     

2005年全球气候变化回顾

 编者按：文章内容来源于McCarthy [1]和Hansen et al.[2]发表在网站上的两份报告（其相关内容分别发表在《独立报》和《华盛顿邮报》上）,指出2005年全球气候的主要特征表现为温度、海冰和热带风暴3个方面的明显异常。2005年是有记录以来第2个最暖的年份,几乎超过了1998年。另外,北冰洋等地冰雪的融化与热带风暴的异常都创了历史记录。     

小兴安岭五营林区近49a气候变化趋势及突变分析

利用1958～2006年五营林区的地面资料,采用气候倾向率、累积距平、信噪比等气候统计方法,研究了近49a五营气候的变化趋势、气候突变和异常年份等。结果表明:五营林区近49a气候明显变暖,雪季升温较雨季快。降水量异常的年份增加,年降水量呈显著减少的趋势,-22.44mm/10a。前后10a降水中心生了明显的时空变化。雨季降水日数、年平均气温分别在1974年、1987年发生了气候突变。     

Climate Change Policy Targets and the Role of Technological Change

In this paper, we present results of simulationexperiments with the TIME-model on the issue ofmitigation strategies with regard to greenhouse gases.The TIME-model is an integrated system dynamics worldenergy model that takes into account the fact that the systemhas an inbuilt inertia and endogenouslearning-by-doing dynamics, besides the more commonelements of price-induced demand response and fuelsubstitution. First, we present four scenarios tohighlight the importance of assumptions on innovationsin energy technology in assessing the extent to whichCO₂ emissions have to be reduced. The inertia ofthe energy system seems to make a rise ofCO₂ emissions in the short term almostunavoidable. It is concluded that for the populationand economic growth assumptions of the IPCC IS92ascenario, only a combination of supply- anddemand-side oriented technological innovations incombination with policy measures can bring the targetof CO₂-concentration stabilization at 550 ppmv bythe year 2100 within reach. This will probably beassociated with a temporary increase in the overallenergy expenditures in the world economy. Postponingthe policy measures will be more disadvantageous,and less innovation in energy technology willhappen.     

2007：气候变化年

 从气候变化的角度看,2007年是具有里程碑意义的一年。无论从科学领域的最新研究成果,还是到人们的切身感受,或者到国际社会讨论的焦点问题以及应对气候变化的具体行动,2007年都将当之无愧地成为"气候变化年"。     

Towards the Construction of Climate Change Scenarios

Climate impacts assessments need regional scenarios of climate change for a wide range of projected emissions. General circulation models (GCMs) are the most promising approach to providing such information, but as yet there is considerable uncertainty in their regional projections and they are still too costly to run for a large number of emission scenarios. Simpler models have been used to estimate global-mean temperature changes under a range of scenarios. In this paper we investigate whether a fixed pattern from a GCM experiment scaled by global-mean temperature changes from a simple model provides an acceptable estimate of the regional climate change over a range of scenarios. Changes estimated using this approximate approach are evaluated by comparing them with results from ensembles of a coupled ocean-atmosphere model. Five specific emissions scenarios are considered. For increases in greenhouse gases only, the 'error' in annual mean temperature for the cases considered is smaller than the sampling error due to the model's internal variability. The method may break down for scenarios of stabilisation of concentrations, because the patterns change as the model approaches equilibrium. The inclusion of large local perturbations due to sulphate aerosols can lead to significant deviations of the temperature pattern from that obtained using greenhouse gases alone. Combining separate patterns for the responses to greenhouse gases and aerosols may improve the accuracy of approximation. Finally, the accuracy of the scaling approach is more difficult to assess for deriving changes in regional precipitation because many of the regional changes are not statistically significant in the climate change projections considered here. If precipitation changes are only marginally significant in other models, the apparent disagreement between different models may be as much due to sampling error as to genuine differences in model response.     

2007：气候变化年

从气候变化的角度看,2007年是具有里程碑意义的一年。无论从科学领域的最新研究成果,还是到人们的切身感受,或者到国际社会讨论的焦点问题以及应对气候变化的具体行动,2007年都将当之无愧地成为"气候变化年"。     

全球气候变化对我国气候安全影响的思考

依据政府间气候变化专门委员会 (IPCC) 第5次评估报告以及国内相关科学研究成果,使用最新的观测资料凝练了对全球气候变化的有关认识;从极端天气气候事件和气候承载力角度,分析了气候变化给我国带来的气候风险。研究发现:1961—2015年我国平均高温日数增加了28.4%,暴雨日数增加了8.2%。21世纪以来,登陆我国热带气旋的强度明显增加。在全球气候变暖的背景下,我国气候承载力将发生明显变化,未来面临的气候风险将加大。因此,保障我国气候安全,需要科学认识气候,提高气候风险意识; 主动适应气候,提高应对极端事件能力;努力保护气候,减缓气候变化的影响。     

气候变化及其未来情景

论述了百余年来气候变化的事实及对未来情景的预估。1861年以来,全球平均温度升高了0.6±0.2℃。20世纪90年代是20世纪最暖的10a。近百年来,降水分布也发生了变化,大陆地区尤其是中高纬地区降水增加,非洲等一些地区降水减少。气候模式模拟表明:全球平均地表气温到2100年时将比1990年上升1.4￣5.8℃。21世纪全球平均降水将会增加,但大部分年平均降水增加的区域很可能同时出现大的年际变化。全球平均海平面到2100年时将比1990年上升0.09￣0.88m。北半球雪盖和海冰范围将进一步缩小。未来,若干极端事件发生的频率会增加。     

从2009年度Nature杂志看气候变化研究进展

<正>英国Nature杂志是世界著名的自然科学类综合学术期刊,代表着自然科学各门学科的最前沿研究动态。在大气科学及相关领域研究中,气候变化一直是Nature杂志最关心的内容。随着气候变化加剧、社会瞩目度的不断上