Judith asks:
Rarely are the following questions asked: Is the approach that we are taking to climate modeling adequate? Could other model structural forms be more useful for advancing climate science and informing policy?
I suggest the questions need to be asked by the economists and policy analysts, not the scientists. The scientists need to provide the information needed by policy analysts if they want “action”, which means policy.
Questions the IAMs (and improved IAMs), and robust decision making, need answers to are the following (pdfs needed for each):
• Time to the next abrupt climate change
• Direction of the next abrupt climate change (i.e. warming or cooling)
• Magnitude of the abrupt change
• Duration of the abrupt change and distribution of the rate of change over time
• Impacts of abrupt changes by rate of change, by magnitude of change and by region
• Economic costs and benefits of abrupt changes by rate of change, by magnitude of change and by region.
Those are the questions I want to see (believable) answers to.
