High Resolution Earth System Models at Decadal and Regional Scales: Seeking Sustainable Solutions for Rapidly Expanding Urban Areas
Abstract
Challenges associated with a rapidly rising global population require high resolution data driven, physics-based, coupled, dynamic, and predictive capabilities that not only characterize current multi-scale environmental and socio-economic interactions but also enable the prediction of future impacts within growing cities. Pressures - ranging from excessive rainfall causing urban flooding to urban temperature extremes driving air pollution - require more attention to understand, model and predict changes in hazards in urban areas. Feedback loops and nonlinear interactions interconnect physical and human processes. Understanding of emergent regional climate modifiers (urbanization, energy, solar PV, air quality, water, agriculture) on decadal scales cannot be realized simply by studying these components in isolation. Strategic adaptation plans require development to increase production of agricultural commodities, maximize energy and land-use efficiency, enhance community engagement, reduce transportation costs while enhancing profitability, and mitigate adverse impacts such as the urban heat island effect. Predictive modeling and assessment tools at fine spatial resolution are needed to effectively quantify co-benefits and reveal trade-offs prior to any strategy deployment. For example, changes to the world's electrical power systems and grids threaten to require massive infrastructure investment and cost to power utilities, especially increasing population, built environment and electrical energy demands, especially peak summertime air conditioning demands, and mismatches between timing of supply and demand due to increases in renewable energy and/or large demands from new technologies. Scenario-based analysis and data driven modeling serve as a new paradigm for integrated studies of resilience to deterministic and stochastic perturbations in coupled natural-human systems. The advanced data driven physics-based predictive modeling tools are utilized to conduct ensemble-based regional hydroclimate simulations, focusing on a set of rapidly urbanizing megapolitan areas. Several case studies will be presented to diagnose vulnerabilities of urban areas and seek sustainable solutions for energy supply, air pollution and mitigation of high-impact weather events.
- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2019
- Bibcode:
- 2019AGUFM.A24G..06M
- Keywords:
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- 3305 Climate change and variability;
- ATMOSPHERIC PROCESSES;
- 3322 Land/atmosphere interactions;
- ATMOSPHERIC PROCESSES;
- 1632 Land cover change;
- GLOBAL CHANGE;
- 1637 Regional climate change;
- GLOBAL CHANGE