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How Can Impacts Models, Information About Them, and Their Use Be Improved?

How Can Impacts Models, Information About Them, and Their Use Be Improved?. By Joel B. Smith Avelino Suarez. THE PROBLEM. Are strengths and weaknesses of methods understood? Do we understand why some methods give some answers and others give different answers

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How Can Impacts Models, Information About Them, and Their Use Be Improved?

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  1. How Can Impacts Models, Information About Them, and Their Use Be Improved? By Joel B. Smith Avelino Suarez

  2. THE PROBLEM • Are strengths and weaknesses of methods understood? • Do we understand why some methods give some answers and others give different answers • Is information on strengths and weaknesses available to users? • How can the methods be improved?

  3. On Method Selection • Development, selection, application of impacts methods is often ad hoc • How often is method selection based on consideration of: • data availability • user technical skill • access to necessary hardware • the research questions being asked

  4. We Will Address • Improving Comparisons of Methods to: • improve understanding of the models • improve the models • Making Information on Methods Useful to Users • to improve methods selection

  5. Improving Comparisons of Methods • Need to better understand: • Are the methods accurately estimating current or historic conditions? • How well do the methods estimate changed conditions?

  6. Also Critical to Understand • Why do the methods differ? • Differences in parameters? • What insights does this provide? • What important considerations are left out? • Are the methods reliable for different climates and socioeconomic conditions?

  7. Example: Importance of Different Assumptions About Adaptation • Titus et al. (1991) • Assuming all developed areas in U.S. protected from 1-M SLR • $73 to $111 billion in damages • Yohe et al. (1996) • Assuming adoption of benefit-cost paradigm and perfect foresight • $36 billion in damages

  8. VEMAP IS A GOOD EXAMPLE OF COMPARING METHODS • Compare methods using common data sets: • Observed climate • Climate change (e.g., GCMs) • Spurs method improvements

  9. We Need More Method Comparisons • Understand why methods are similar or are different • What insights do we get • Do it for important sectors, e.g., water, agriculture, health, coastal zones

  10. Who Should Be Involved • Need to involve methods developers • Also need to involve users • Developing and developed countries • Including stakeholders

  11. Should Also Evaluate Applicability • Data Availability • Hardware Availibility • Training Needs • May need a mix of methods

  12. Making Results Available • Results of such evaluations need to be available to users in a format that is useful and accessible • Web? • Books or Reports? • Clearinghouse?

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