Recent work on global warming

[Kim Warren]

I am interested to hear of any recent work done on the issue of global
warming - especially any efforts concerning education and communication
of the dynamics of the issue to people with no SD background. All
settings are of interest .. government, education, industry, general
public.

Kim Warren
From: ""Kim Warren"" <Kim@strategydynamics.com>

[Erling Moxnes]

I suppose you are aware of Booth Sweeney and John Sterman's work.
Ali Saysel and I have conducted experiments to test the importance of mental
models, background, attitudes, information policies etc. The paper will be
presented at the conference in Oxfor.

Erling Moxnes
From: Erling Moxnes <Erling.Moxnes@ifi.uib.no>

[Andrew Jones]

SD Community:

Kim Warren asked to hear about efforts to communicate the dynamics of
global warming to a non-SD audience.

Here at Sustainability Institute, we've undertaken three efforts
recently along this front, some of which builds on the excellent work of
Sterman/Booth Sweeney (SD Review Summer 2002) and Fiddaman (SD Review
Summer 2002).

1. Writing short opinion columns on global warming that incorporate a
stock/flow and/or a feedback perspective. Two examples are below.

http://sustainer.org/pubs/columns/07.19.02Jones.html
http://sustainer.org/pubs/columns/09.04.03Sawin.html

2. Developing an interactive model-based flight simulator to be lodged
in a kiosk in a science museum. A consortium of science museums here in
the US has asked us (pending funding) to develop a short museum floor
experience where a learner would be given a challenge such as ""save New
England's sugar maples"" and/or ""stabilize atmospheric carbon."" While a
clock ticks away one year every second, she would input various actions
(e.g., more hydrogen cars, less population growth, more electricity from
renewables and less from coal) and learn about the dynamics of the
system by observing graphs and ""bathtubs"" of variables such as
emissions, net removals, global CO2, global temperature, and a local
""harbinger"" such as the extent of sugar maples in New England.

3. SI's Beth Sawin is developing a global warming curriculum that could
be taught ""in the living room"" from non-technical person to
non-technical person, similar to the successful work of ""Beyond War"" in
the 80s and 90s. It would incorporate SD metaphors such as the climate
bathtub. We've further been experimenting with ways to use stock/flow
mapping and causal loop mapping to explain basic principles of the
climate system to small groups of citizens, students, and policymakers.

Some of our thinking about how System Dynamics can contribute is
captured in a white paper, http://sustainer.org/pubs/siclimate.PDF

Also, Steve Peterson developed a ""Story of the Month"" on climate change
in the past couple of years. I assume it would be available through
isee systems (formerly HPS).

Perhaps Kim and others interested in this thread could meet and talk
about his work over a pint at the Oxford conference. I'd be game for
it.

Drew Jones
apjones@sustainer.org

[Luis Gutierrez]

The Global Warming Information Center
http://www.nationalcenter.org/Kyoto.html

Dynamic Integrated Climate Economy (DICE) Model
http://www.sd3.info/models/

Global Warming and Climate Change Policy Websites
http://gcmd.gsfc.nasa.gov/Resources/poi ... _warm.html


From: Luis Gutierrez <LTG1979@attglobal.net>

[Ali.Saysel@infomedia.uib.no]

Kim,

Erling Moxnes and I worked on misperceptions of dynamics and on several
information policies regarding the CO2 problem. We shall present the paper this
year in Oxford and it should already be available on the society web page.

Best wishes
Ali Saysel
From: Ali.Saysel@infomedia.uib.no

[George Backus]

For those who are interested in the use of a System Dynamics model (in this
case, ENERGY2020) for actual policy-work you can see some state level
efforts at:


http://www.state.hi.us/dbedt/ert/ccap/ccap-toc.html

And for National Kyoto ratification work (the SD model was the sole
energy/environmental model used for the policy support and policy
implementation) see:

http://climatechange.gc.ca/plan_for_can ... index.html

http://www.climatechange.gc.ca/english/ ... tribution/



George


George Backus, D.Engr., President
Policy Assessment Corporation
14604 West 62nd Place
Arvada, CO 80004
Bus: 303-467-3566
Fax: 303-467-3576
Mobile: 303-807-8579
Email: George_Backus@ENERGY2020.com

[Dudley]

One difficulty with generic models of global warming is that they tend to
hide some interesting and important sub features of the global warming
question. As I'm sure most of you know there are some extremely detailed
models of global warming and abundant literature which includes discussion
of these models. This makes it difficult for some of us to absorb that
information.

I came across some very interesting papers discussing a parallel issue which
provide excellent summaries of some of these sub-issues. The papers are
from Ecological Applications 10 (6) which is a special issue on changing
metabolism of terrestrial ecosystems. Several of these papers have
extensive introductions to the subject of global warming and factors
affecting atmospheric CO2.

Some of the titles are:
the carbon balance of the terrestrial biosphere ecosystem models and
atmospheric observations, regional biospheric carbon fluxes as inferred from
atmospheric CO2 measurements,
biosphere responses to CO2 enrichment,
incorporating dynamic vegetation cover within global climate models.

I'm not saying that everyone should run out and do this sort of modeling,
but rather that these papers have a great deal of interesting and perhaps
useful information for people looking at a more generic understanding of the
issues. Plus they are fairly readable!

_____________________
Richard G. Dudley
Bogor, Indonesia
please reply to rgd6@cornell.edu
http://www.people.cornell.edu/pages/rgd6/

[Anastassios Perdicoulis]

Dear friends,

Kim Warren's recent enquiry on the dynamics of global warming created a
few responses on the general SDS listserv. In one of them, Drew Jones
was inviting Kim, and anyone else interested, to an informal discussion.

Since we have (a) a special discussion list for these subjects, the
""SDsustain"", and (b) a special interest group to formally address these
subjects, the ""ED SIG"", I was wondering whether we should be channelling
efforts instead of dispersing them.

I hate being a bureaucrat - and this is clearly not my intention in this
message. I know it takes time and ""nudging"" like this to get used to
using the special tools we have come to create in the SDS. This is for
the sake of concentrating efforts, involving all those who have
expressed special interest, and eventually becoming more competent (and
even influential) in our field of application.

If in due course we discover that special tools (e.g. discussion lists
and interest groups) do not work, then we close them down and proceed
with the general flow. But, for now, let's give it a try, please!

What we can do in this case, for instance, is one or more of the
following: (a) raise a question at the Environmental Dynamics
Roundtable, (b) raise an informal discussion elsewhere, but inform all
interested parties about it, (c) continue an online discussion at the
SDsustain. I volunteer to organize the most appropriate way to get the
discussion going, but for that I'd need to hear from people.

[To subscribe to the SDSustain list visit
http://pobox.une.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/sdsustain ]

Cheers,
Tasso

--
Anastassios Perdicoulis
http://home.utad.pt/~tasso
mailto:tasso@utad.pt