An integrated system dynamics model for analyzing behaviour of the social-economic-climatic system

由于人类活动，全球气候现在正在发生变化，预计变化会更快。气候变化的后果可能是毁灭性的，大气中温室气体浓度的增加会导致物理和生物系统发生大规模、高影响、非线性、可能突然和不可逆转的变化。气候模型有助于(A)提高我们对驱动气候系统的物理过程的理解，确定气候系统组成部分内部和之间运行的关系和反馈，并预测未来区域和全球气候的变化，(B)澄清人类活动与地球系统之间的联系，以及(C)帮助政策制定者制定有效的政策和计划，以应对和适应气候变化。全球气候模型通过以不同的分辨率捕捉驱动气候的物理过程的基本行为，提供了了解物理气候系统的最佳方法。然而，这些模型只关注自然系统，并不代表影响自然系统和受自然系统影响的社会经济系统。将社会经济系统和生物物理系统结合起来的最常见方法是应用预测趋势(情景)来“驱动”气候模型。这项研究要解决的问题是：“当经济和环境之间的反馈比以前的工作更全面地模拟时，气候、环境和经济变量的预期路径如何变化？”拟议的研究将改进气候系统和碳循环所涉及的物理过程，并将包括管理与生物物理系统相互作用的社会经济部门和活动，特别是那些影响或控制人为排放的部门和活动。这项研究将有助于确定非线性和反馈在决定社会-经济-气候系统行为方面的重要性。它还将为加拿大政府提供一个科学上可信的政策工具：一个基于系统动力学的气候-经济模型，将科学、治理、经济和环境联系起来。

The global climate is now changing due to human activities and is projected to change even more rapidly. The consequences of climate change could be devastating, with increased atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations resulting in large-scale, high-impact, non-linear, and potentially abrupt and irreversible changes in physical and biological systems. Climate models help (a) to improve our understanding of the physical processes that drive the climate system, to identify the relationships and feedbacks that operate within and between climate system components, and to predict future changes in regional and global climate, (b) to clarify the connections between human actions and the Earth-system, and (c) help policy-makers to enact effective policies and programs to address and to adapt to climate change. Global climate models offer the best approach to understanding the physical climate system by capturing, at various resolutions, the basic behaviour of the physical processes that drive the climate. However, these models focus only on natural systems, and do not represent socio-economic systems that affect and are affected by natural systems. The most common approach to combining socio-economic and biophysical systems involves applying projected trends (scenarios) to 'drive' the climate model. The question to be addressed in this research is: "How do the expected paths of climate, environmental, and economic variables change when feedbacks between the economy and the environment are more fully modeled than in previous work?" The proposed research will provide improved representations of the physical processes involved in the climate system and carbon cycle, and will include the socio-economic sectors and activities that govern interactions with the biophysical system, especially those that influence or control anthropogenic emissions. This research will help to identify the importance of nonlinearities and feedbacks in determining the behaviour of the social-economic-climatic system. It will also provide the Canadian government with a scientifically credible tool useful for policy: a system dynamics-based climate-economy model, connecting science, governance, economics, and the environment.