The Dynamics of Climate Change:
Understanding and Influencing the Planet
Andrew Jones, Climate Interactive
XMILE Webinar – 8 October 2013
My Main Points
•
•
System Dynamics
• Powerful method
Climate Change
• Our insights
• Our contribution
• Need for
communications
across difference
We Use System Dynamics When:
1. Urgent, important problem
2. Disagreements or misunderstandings
about dynamics and cross-system
interactions
3. Ideally, data-rich space. Past and/or
future
Motivation 1: Difficulty Assessing Results
“...delegates [in Bonn] complained that their heads were
spinning as they were trying to understand the science
and assumptions underlying the increasing number of
proposals tabled for Annex I countries’ emission reduction
ranges.”
“They all seem to use
different base years
and assumptions…: how
can we make any sense
of them?”
http://www.iisd.ca/vol12/enb12403e.html
Current Confirmed Proposals
Country
2020
2050
Other
Australia
5% below 2000
60% below 2000
20% renewable
energy by 2020
Brazil
36% below
business-as-usual
Amazon
deforestation
70% below 2009
by 2017
China
Carbon intensity
45% below 2005
Increase forest
coverage 40M
Ha by 2020
EU
20% below 1990
80% below 1990
Russia
20% below 1990
50% below 1990
US
17% below 2005
and so on ...
Compiled by Climate Interactive, Feb. 2 2010 release, http://climateinteractive.org/scoreboard/scoreboard-science-and-data
Motivation 2: Pervasive Misunderstanding of
Climate’s Dynamic Complexity
John Sterman
• Professor and Director of System
Dynamics Group, MIT Sloan
• Understanding Public
Complacency About Climate
Change: Adults' Mental Models of
Climate Change Violate
Conservation of Matter.
–
–
Climatic Change, 80, 213-238.
STERMAN, J. D. & BOOTH SWEENEY, L.
(2007)
Build upon work by our team
Tom Fiddaman
• PhD Thesis, MIT, 1997
– Feedback complexity in
integrated climate-economy
models
• Ventana Systems
Carbon Cycle and
Radiative Balance
• CO2
• CH4, N2O
• PFCs, HFCs, SF6
etc.
Other
Forcings
(10 layers)
9
• Aerosols,
Black carbon
• Carbon &
heat transfer
between
surface &
deep ocean
C-ROADS Scientific Review Panel
• “C-ROADS… This very rapid simulation model
reproduces the response properties of state-of-the-art
three dimensional climate models very well … and
with sufficient precision to provide useful information
for its intended audience.”
• Dr. Robert Watson - Department for Environment, Food and Rural
Affairs (DEFRA) and former chair, IPCC -- Panel Chair
• Dr. Eric Beinhocker - McKinsey Global Institute
• Dr. Klaus Hasselmann - Max-Planck Institut für Meteorologie
• Dr. David Lane - London School of Economics
• Dr. Jorgen Randers - Norwegian School of Management BI
• Dr. Stephen Schneider - Stanford University
• Dr. Bert de Vries - Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency,
RIVM
C-ROADS Calibration to AR4 Scenarios
11
At Copenhagen:
“Country pledges to the UN
are good enough”
President Obama Briefed with
C-ROADS 48 Hours Before Heads of State
Meeting in Copenhagen
U.S. State Dept’s Jonathan Pershing Presenting CROADS Results to the UN
C-ROADS Used by Decision-Makers
“I have to tell you —
C-ROADS works, it is
important, and it is
already getting broad
dissemination, ... I used
it!”
Senator John Kerry
After
UN Climate
• Country pledges to the
UN are not enough
• Process for tracking using
C-ROADS & other models
China Provincial Sim Interface
Meetings in Beijing
At Tsinghua Univ.
Simulation Used
by Chinese
Analysts in
Support of
Chinese
Government
Energy Policy
C-Learn, Free Online Version
The Climate Scoreboard
World Climate – Role Play
Exercise
Play With the Sims
• Beginner
– iPad/iPhone: “Climate Pathways”
• Intermediate
– Search “C-Learn” online sim on “Forio”
• Advanced User (Negotiator version)
– Search “C-ROADS download”
• Advanced Modeler
– Email us and we’ll send the open source Vensim model
• To Be Trained
– Search “Climate Leader Interactive Course” – this winter
ClimateInteractive.org
apjones@ClimateInteractive.org