Climate Change Impact Assessments for International Market Systems (CLIMARK)
Abstract
The vast majority of climate change impact assessments evaluate how local or regional systems and processes may be affected by a future climate. Alternative strategies that extend beyond the local or regional scale are needed when assessing the potential impacts of climate change on international market systems, including agricultural commodities. These industries have multiple production regions that are distributed worldwide and are likely to be differentially impacted by climate change. Furthermore, for many industries and market systems, especially those with long-term climate-dependent investments, temporal dynamics need to be incorporated into the assessment process, including changing patterns of international trade, consumption and production, and evolving adaptation strategies by industry stakeholder groups. A framework for conducting climate change assessments for international market systems, developed as part of the CLIMARK (Climate Change and International Markets) project is outlined, and progress toward applying the framework for an impact assessment for the international tart cherry industry is described. The tart cherry industry was selected for analysis in part because tart cherries are a perennial crop requiring long-term investments by the producer. Components of the project include the preparation of fine resolution climate scenarios, evaluation of phenological models for diverse production regions, the development of a yield model for tart cherry production, new methods for incorporating individual decision making and adaptation options into impact assessments, and modification of international trade models for use in impact studies. Innovative aspects of the project include linkages between model components and evaluation of the mega-uncertainty surrounding the assessment outcomes. Incorporation of spatial and temporal dynamics provides a more comprehensive evaluation of climate change impacts and an assessment product of potentially greater utility to industry stakeholders.
- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2012
- Bibcode:
- 2012AGUFM.B51J..02W
- Keywords:
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- 0402 BIOGEOSCIENCES / Agricultural systems;
- 1630 GLOBAL CHANGE / Impacts of global change