A fuller picture of the risks we face in a warming world
Dr Lila Warszawski, ISI-MIP Project Manager & Post-doctoral researcher, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.
Abstract:
The impacts of future climate change don't fit neatly into the standard categories of Earth-system research. In many cases, understanding the greatest risks posed by climate change requires us to combine our knowledge of impacts in different sectors, which are traditionally addressed separately. For example, quantifying the impact of dwindling water resources on irrigated crop production requires both hydrological and crop models; or projecting the impact on fish stocks of changes in nutrient levels in river deltas due to climate change demands expert knowledge of both marine ecosystems and river systems.
The Inter-Sectoral Model Intercomparison (ISI-MIP) provides a framework specifically designed to address cross-scale and cross-sectoral impacts of climate change. ISI-MIP is an international, community-driven effort, bringing together over 100 climate impact models in eight sectors, at both the global and regional scale, providing the basis for comprehensive assessments of the differences between the impacts of different levels of global warming.
She will introduce ISI-MIP and present the latest results relating to the impacts of extreme weather and climate events. Special attention will be paid to the unique possibilities offered by the cross-sectorally consistent modelling framework.
Lila Warszawski has been a post-doctoral researcher at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) since October 2011. She has been a member of the coordination team of the Inter-Sectoral Impact Model Intercomparison Project (ISI-MIP, www.isi-mip.org), which aims to quantify the impacts of different levels of global warming in a consistent multi-model, cross-sectoral, cross-scale framework. Her research has focussed on quantifying the risk of shifts in global ecosystems due to climate change. In April, 2014 Lila became project manager for ISI-MIP. Lila has a PhD (2011) in Astrophysics, and bachelor degrees in Science (applied mathematics) and Arts (Italian language) from the University of Melbourne.
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