CDI-TYPE II: Building and studying a virtual organization for adaptation to climate change

我们所知道的世界将被气候变化所改变：已知物种的三分之一面临灭绝的威胁，疾病预计将在新的地区出现，为我们提供食物和水的生态系统受到破坏，城市环境面临海平面上升的更大风险。为了减少即将到来的气候变化的负面影响，正在研究各种策略，包括社会适应。提高生态系统容忍度。适应气候变化可以包括一些活动，如物种的管理迁移（如印第安纳州的犰狳），建立栖息地走廊，让物种进入新的合适的栖息地，在动物园和植物园中维持已产生的物种，在新干旱地区种植转基因抗旱作物，种植非本地树木以最大限度地提高碳封存，或者建造大规模的堤坝来保护像曼哈顿这样的低洼沿海地区。相对而言，人们对气候变化适应活动成功的条件或其潜在的灾难性副作用知之甚少。解决这个问题提出了关于人类与超越学科界限的自然系统关系的基本问题。决策者越来越认识到，适应战略的评估必须是综合的、跨学科的，并以环境科学、法律、工程和其他学科的专业知识为依据。适应气候变化需要前所未有的数据、信息和知识的动员、协调和整合，这需要新兴技术和网络基础设施的支持。该奖项创建了一个气候适应虚拟组织，将人们和共享资源联系起来，以实现明智的决策和新颖的研究。适应气候变化合作实验室依靠网络基础设施、数据管理和计算算法，包括生成生态预测的工具、专家意见的调查数据、与适应相关的监管信息交换所、地理信息系统的交互式制图、气候变化问题的社交媒体挖掘，以及整合这些元素以在不确定性下创建预测的数据挖掘算法。该合作实验室承诺在其跨学科整合方面具有变革性，并将引领适应气候变化的科学。最终目标是使合作实验室成为涵盖气候变化适应的多个维度的一站式商店。

The world as we know it will be transformed by climate change with one-third of known species threatened with extinction, diseases projected to emerge in new areas, disruption of the ecosystems that provide our food and water, and urban environments at increased risk from rising sea levels. To diminish the negative impact of impending climate change, various strategies are being investigated, including societal ?adaptation? to increase eco-system tolerance. Climate change adaptation can include activities like managed relocation of species (like armadillos in Indiana), building habitat corridors to allow species to move into newly appropriate habitat, maintaining engendered species in zoos and botanic gardens, growing genetically modified drought-resist crops in newly dry regions, planting non-native trees to maximize carbon sequestration, or constructing large-scale levees to protect low-lying coastal areas like Manhattan. Relatively little is known about the conditions under which climate change adaptation activities can be successful or about their potentially disastrous side effects. Addressing this problem raises fundamental questions about the relationship of humans to natural systems that transcend disciplinary boundaries. Increasingly, policymakers recognize that evaluation of adaptation strategies must be integrative and interdisciplinary, informed by expertise in environmental science, law, engineering, and other disciplines. Adaptation to climate change necessitates an unprecedented mobilization, coordination and integration of data, information, and knowledge, enabled by emerging technologies and cyberinfrastructure. This award creates a climate adaptation virtual organization linking people and shared resources to enable informed decision-making and novel research. The Collaboratory for Adaptation to Climate Change relies on cyber infrastructure, data management, and computational algorithms including tools to generate ecological projections, survey data on expert opinion, an information clearing house on regulation related to adaptation, interactive mapping with geographic information systems, mining of social media on the issue of climate change, and data mining algorithms that integrate these elements to create forecasts under uncertainty. The Collaboratory promises to be transformative in its inter-disciplinary integration and will lead the science of adaptation to climate change. The ultimate goal is to make the Collaboratory a onestop-shop that encompasses multiple dimensions of climate change adaptation.