Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

The regional nature of global challenges: a need and strategy for integrated regional modeling

  • Published:
Climatic Change Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

In this paper, we explore the regional nature of global environmental challenges. We take a broad approach by examining the scientific foundation that is needed to support policy and decision making and identifying some of the most important barriers to progress that are truly scale-dependent. In so doing, we hope to show that understanding global environmental changes requires understanding a number of intrinsically regional phenomena, and that successful decision making likewise requires an integrated approach that accounts for a variety of regional Earth system processes—which we define to include both human activities and environmental systems that operate or interact primarily at sub-continental scales. Understanding regional processes and phenomena, including regional decision-making processes and information needs, should thus be an integral part of the global change research agenda. To address some of the key issues and challenges, we propose an integrated regional modeling approach that accounts for the dynamic interactions among physical, ecological, biogeochemical, and human processes and provides relevant information to regional decision makers and stakeholders.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Bennaceur K, Gielen D (2010) Energy technology modelling of major carbon abatement options. Int J Green Gas Control 4(2):309–315. doi:10.1016/j.ijggc.2009.10.002

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bhardwaj AK, Zenone T, Jasrotia P, Robertson GP, Chen J, Hamilton SK (2010) Water and energy footprints of bioenergy crop production on marginal lands. Glob Chang Biol Bioenergy 3(3):208–222

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • CCSP (2008) The effects of climate change on agriculture, land resources, water resources, and biodiversity in the United States. A Report by the U.S. Climate Change Science Program and the Subcommittee on Global Change Research. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Washington, DC., USA, 362 pp

  • Clarke L, Emonds J, Krey V, Richels R, Rose S, Massimo T (2009) International climate policy architectures: overview of the EMF 22 International Scenarios. Energy Econ 31:S64–S81. doi:10.1016/j.eneco.2009.10.013

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dolan KA, Hurtt GC, Chambers J, Dubayah R, Frolking S (2011) Using ICESat’s geoscience laser altimeter system to assess large scale forest disturbance caused by Hurricane Katrina. Remote Sens Environ 115(1):86–96. doi:10.1016/j.rse.2010.08.007

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dooley JJ, Trabucchi C, Patton L (2010a) Design considerations for financing a national trust to advance the deployment of geologic CO2 storage and motivate best practices. Int J Green Gas Control 4(2):381–387. doi:10.1016/j.ijggc.2009.09.009

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dooley JJ, Dahowski RT, Davidson CL (2010b) CO2-driven enhanced oil recovery as a stepping stone to what? PNNL-19557. Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Edmonds JA et al (2001) Global energy technology strategy: addressing climate change–initial findings from a public-private collaboration. Battelle Memorial Institute, Washington, 60 pp

    Google Scholar 

  • Edmonds JA et al (2007) Global energy technology strategy: addressing climate change–phase 2 findings from a public-private sponsored research program. Battelle Memorial Institute, College Park, 142 pp

    Google Scholar 

  • Harte J, El-Gasseir M (1978) Energy and water. Science 199(10):623–634

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Houghton RA (1993) Is carbon accumulating in the northern temperate zone? Global Biogeochem Cycles 7(3):611–617. doi:10.1029/93GB01163

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • IPCC (2007a) Summary for policymakers. In: Parry ML, Canziani OF, Palutikof JP, van der Linden PJ, Hanson CE (eds) Climate change 2007: impacts, adaptation and vulnerability. Contribution of Working Group II to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 7–22

    Google Scholar 

  • IPCC (2007b) Climate change 2007: synthesis report. Contribution of Working Groups I, II and III to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Core Writing Team, Pachauri RK, Reisinger A (eds)]. IPCC, Geneva, Switzerland, 104 pp

  • Israelsson PH, Chow AC, Adams EE (2010) An updated assessment of the acute impacts of ocean carbon sequestration by direct injection. Int J Green Gas Control 4(2):262–271

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Janetos AC, Clarke L, Collins W, Ebi K, Edmonds J, Foster I, Jacoby HJ, Judd K, Leung L, Newell R, Ojima D, Pugh G, Sanstad A, Schultz P, Stevens R, Weyant J, Wilbanks T, Knotek M, Malone E (2009) Science challenges and future directions: climate change integrated assessment research. Dept. of Energy, Washington, 80 pp

    Google Scholar 

  • Loarie SR, Lobell DB, Asner GP, Mu Q, Field CB (2011) Direct impacts on local climate of sugar-cane expansion in Brazil. Nat Clim Chang 1:105–109

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Malewitz J (2011) Persistent drought threatens Texas oil industry, Stateline, October 7, 2011. http://www.stateline.org/live/details/story?contentId=605095

  • McMillan HK, Brasington J (2008) End-to-end flood risk assessment: a coupled model cascade with uncertainty estimation. Water Resour Res 44(W03419):doi:10.1029/2007WR005995

  • Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (2005) Ecosystems and human well-being: synthesis. Island Press, Washington

    Google Scholar 

  • Morgan MG, Cantor R, Clark WC, Fisher A, Jacoby AD, Janetos AC, Kinzig AP, Melillo J, Street RB, Wilbanks TJ (2005) Learning from the U.S. National Assessment of Climate Change. Environ Sci Technol 39:9023–9032

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • National Assessment Synthesis Team (NAST) (2000) Climate change impacts on the United States: the potential consequences of climate variability and change, overview report. US Global Change Research Program, Washington

    Google Scholar 

  • National Research Council (2010) America’s climate choices: panel on adapting to the impacts of climate change. National Acadamies Press, Washington, 293 pp

    Google Scholar 

  • Nelson GC, Bennett E, Berhe AA, Cassman KG, DeFries R, Dietz T, Dobson A et al (2005) Chapter 7—Drivers of change in ecosystem condition and services. In: S.R. Carpenter, et al. (Eds) Ecosystems and human well-being: Scenarios. Findings of the Scenarios Working Group of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, vol. 2. Island Press, Washington, pp 173–222

  • O'Neill BC et al (2012) The effect of urbanization on energy use in India and China in the iPETS model. Energy Econ. doi:10.1016/j.eneco.2012.04.004

  • Pappenberger F, Beven KJ, Hunter NM, Bates PD, Gouweleeuw BT, Thielen J, de Roo APJ (2005) Cascading model uncertainty form medium range weather forecasts (10 days) through a rainfall-runoff model to flood inundation predictions within the European Flood Forecasting System (EFFS). Hydrol Earth Syst Sci 9(4):381–393

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Raffa KF, Aukema BH, Bentz BJ, Carroll BAL, Hicke JA, Turner MG, Rome WH (2008) Cross-scale drivers of natural disturbances prone to anthropogenic amplification: the dynamics of bark beetle eruptions. BioScience 58(6):501–517

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ramanathan V, Crutzen PJ, Kiehl JT, Rosenfeld D (2001) Aerosols, climate and the hydrologic cycle. Science 294:2119–2124. doi:10.1126/science.1064034

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rausch S, Rutherford TF (2010) Computation of equilibria in OLG models with many heterogeneous households. Comput Econ 36(2):171–189

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Reilly J, Paltsev S (2009) Biomass energy and competition for land. In: Hertel T, Rose S, Tol R (eds) Economic analysis of land use in global climate change policy. Routledge, UK, pp 184–207

  • Rice JS, Moss RH, Runci PJ, Anderson KL, Malone EL (2012) Incorporating stakeholder decision support needs into an integrated regional Earth system model. Mitig Adapt Strateg Glob Chang. doi:10.1007/s11027-011-9345-3

  • Root T, Schneider S (2002) Strategic cyclical scaling: bridging five orders of magnitude scale gaps in climatic and ecological studies. Integr Assess 3(2–3):188–200

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Skaggs R, Hibbard KA (2012) Climate and energy-water-land system interactions: Technical Report to the U.S. Department of Energy in support of the National Climate Assessment. Report No. PNNL-21185. Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, WA, p 152

  • Skamarock WC, Klemp JB, Dudhia J, Gill DO, Barker DM, Duda MG, Huang X-Y, Want W, Powers JG (2008) A description of the advanced research WRF version 3. NCAR Technical Note 475+STR. 113. Pp

  • Tans PP, Fung IY, Takahashi T (1990) Observational constraints on the global atmospheric CO2 budget’. Science 247:1431–1438

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) (2011) Regulatory impact analysis: final national ambient air quality standard for Ozone. 87 pp

  • Van Vuuren DP, Edmonds J, Kainuma M, Riahi K, Thomson A, Hibbard K, Hurtt G, Kram T, Krey V, Lamarque J-F, Masui T, Meinshausen M, Nakicenovic N, Smith SJ, Rose SK (2011) The representative concentration pathways: an overview. Clim Chang 109:5–31

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Voldoire A, Eickhout B, Schaeffer M, Royer J-F, Chauvin F (2007) Climate simulation of the twenty-first century with interactive land-use changes. Clim Dyn 29(2–3):177–193. doi:10.1007/s00382-007-028-y

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wang Y, Leung LR, McGregor JL, Lee D-K, Wang W-C, Ding Y, Kimura F (2004) Regional climate modeling: progress, challenges and prospects. J Meteorol Soc Jpn 82(6):1599–1628

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wise MA, Calvin KV, Thomson AM, Clarke LE, Bond-Lamberty B, Sands RD, Smith SJ, Janetos AC, Edmonds JA (2009) Implications of limiting CO2 concentrations for land use and energy. Science 324(5931):1183–1186

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Pacific Northwest National Lab, Richland, USA

    Kathy A. Hibbard

  2. Pacific Northwest National Lab, College Park, USA

    Anthony C. Janetos

Authors
  1. Kathy A. Hibbard
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Anthony C. Janetos
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Kathy A. Hibbard.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Hibbard, K.A., Janetos, A.C. The regional nature of global challenges: a need and strategy for integrated regional modeling. Climatic Change 118, 565–577 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-012-0674-3

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-012-0674-3

Keywords

Search

Navigation