Research and its Role in Planning for Climate Change: The Oregon Experience
Abstract
Oregon has an aggressive plan to reduce its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions over the next decades. The state also helped lead the formation of the Western Climate Initiative as part of a comprehensive strategy of emission reductions, cap-and-trade, as well as adaptation to climate change. In support of these plans, state and local agencies as well as Oregon businesses are looking to the research community to provide a broad range of data services and predictive models. The recently-established Oregon Global Warming Commission is developing its research agenda with a focus on 1) developing baseline observing systems to monitor the effectiveness of GHG reduction strategies as well as detect changes in critical climate and ecosystem properties and 2) constructing integrated, regional-scale models for projecting the course of climate change and testing various scenarios. Climate research would be part of a comprehensive decision support system on local and regional scales. Aside from the scientific challenges of regional-scale monitoring and prediction, this approach will challenge the academic research community and its traditional reliance on federally-funded three-year grants that typically focus on the basic science of physical and natural systems. We can no longer separate discovery from application, science from engineering, and natural science from socioeconomic science. I will present some of the experiences in Oregon as we develop new approaches to confront both the climate research challenges and our institutional challenges.
- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2008
- Bibcode:
- 2008AGUFMPA12A..03A
- Keywords:
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- 1630 Impacts of global change (1225);
- 1637 Regional climate change;
- 6309 Decision making under uncertainty;
- 6319 Institutions;
- 6334 Regional planning (1880)