Informing Climate-Related Decisions with Earth Systems Models

该项目旨在更深入地了解如何最好地利用下一代地球系统模型（EaSMs）的信息来改进与气候有关的决策。该项目将探索利用来自两个来源的气候信息：来自大气海洋环流模式的高分辨率、动态缩小比例的区域预测，以及来自中等复杂性地球系统模式的运行集的极端气候行为估计。在生物多样性和水资源管理方面的决策支持应用将提供现实世界的实验测试平台，以在不同的空间和时间分辨率水平上以及具有不同的不确定性特征来检验这些气候信息对决策者的价值。实地评估和心理实验将正式衡量可供选择的气候信息类型对更好决策的贡献。这三条研究路线将结合起来解决两个问题，这两个问题对于有效生产和利用来自EaSMs的信息至关重要：(1)随着空间和时间分辨率的提高，气候信息的价值是什么？(2)关于气候系统潜在极端行为的不精确和/或高度不确定信息的价值是什么？该项目将为EaSM跨学科大挑战做出重大贡献，提供具体证据，说明哪些类型的气候信息和不确定性的哪些特征对面临气候相关决策的人最有价值。国家对下一代EaSMs的投资不仅旨在提高对气候和相关系统的基本科学认识，而且还旨在提高决策者主动规划气候变率和变化影响的能力。几十年来对决策制定和决策支持的研究证实，仅仅在气候变化等复杂情况下提供额外的信息并不一定能提高决策的质量。这项研究的结果可能在指导那些设计未来的easm和支持它们的信息系统方面证明是有价值的。此外，该项目旨在(a)改进将气候信息纳入生物多样性和水资源管理决策的方法；(b)推进决策支持科学，特别是对信息需求、不确定性特征和决策支持活动评价的理解；(c)帮助培训国家应对气候变化所需的多学科劳动力。

This project aims to provide a deeper understanding of how best to use information from next-generation Earth System Models (EaSMs) to improve climate-related decisions. The project will explore the use of climate information from two sources: high-resolution, dynamically downscaled, regional projections from Atmospheric Ocean General Circulation Models and estimates of extreme climate behaviors from ensembles of runs from Earth System Models of Intermediate Complexity. Decision-support applications in biodiversity and in water resource management will provide real-world experimental test beds to examine the value to decision makers of this climate information at alternative levels of spatial and temporal resolution and with alternative characterizations of uncertainty. Field evaluations and psychological experiments will formally measure the contributions of the alternative types of climate information towards better decisions. These three lines of research will combine to address two questions that are central to the effective production and use of information from EaSMs: (1) What is the value of climate information with increased spatial and temporal resolution? (2) What is the value of imprecise and/or deeply uncertain information about potentially extreme behaviors of the climate system?The project will make significant contributions towards the EaSM interdisciplinary grand challenge by providing concrete evidence as to what types of climate information and which characterizations of uncertainty prove most valuable to those facing climate-related decisions. The nation's investment in next-generation EaSMs aims not only to improve fundamental scientific understanding of the climate and related systems, but also to improve decision makers' abilities to proactively plan for the impacts of climate variability and change. Decades of research on decision making and decision support confirm that merely providing additional information in complicated situations such as those posed by climate change does not necessarily improve the quality of the decisions. The results from this research may prove valuable in guiding those designing future EaSMs and the information systems that support them. In addition, the project aims to (a) improve methods for incorporating climate information into biodiversity and water management decisions; (b) advance the science of decision support, in particular the understanding of information needs, characterizations of uncertainty, and the evaluation of decision support activities; and (c) help train the multidisciplinary workforce the nation requires to respond to climate change.