April 28, 2005
U.S. Climate Change Science Program Workshop: Climate Science in Support of Decisionmaking
ANNOUNCEMENT, INVITATION, AND CALL FOR CONTRIBUTED PRESENTATIONS
U.S. Climate Change Science Program Workshop: Climate Science in Support of Decisionmaking
November 14-16, 2005
Crystal Gateway Marriott
1700 Jefferson Davis Highway
Arlington, VA 22202
Sponsored by the 13 agencies comprising the U.S. Climate Change Science Program
____________
Visit the 2005 CCSP Workshop web site for an HTML version of this
announcement and a full color flyer in PDF:
http://www.climatescience.gov/workshop2005/announcement.htm
http://www.climatescience.gov/workshop2005/CCSPworkshop2005.pdf
Plain text of the announcement follows.
Apologies for multiple postings.
____________
THE WORKSHOP
The U.S. Climate Change Science Program (CCSP) is holding a workshop on November 14-16, 2005, in the Washington, DC, area-addressing the
capability of climate science to inform decisionmaking. The workshop will serve as a forum to address the Program's progress and future plans regarding its three decision support goals:
1) Prepare scientific syntheses and assessments on key climate science issues.
2) Develop and illustrate adaptive management and planning capabilities.
3) Develop and evaluate methods to support climate change policymaking.
The workshop will include discussion of decisionmaker needs for scientific information on climate variability and change, as well as expected outcomes of CCSP's research and assessment activities that are necessary for sound resource management, adaptive planning, and policy formulation.
WHO SHOULD ATTEND?
• Members of the research community interested in exchanging ideas on climate research, observations, and information tools that would be most useful for climate-related planning and decisionmaking.
• Decisionmakers, including resource managers and policy developers, interested in exchanging ideas with the climate science community on the types of information most useful for their decisionmaking needs.
• Representatives of international organizations and countries interested in sharing experiences or learning from U.S. activities related to the application of climate information.
• Individuals who wish to provide input to the evolution of the Program's activities over time.
BACKGROUND
The Climate Change Science Program-sponsored by 13 participating
departments and agencies of the U.S. Government- coordinates and
integrates scientific research on changes in climate and related systems.
The CCSP Strategic Plan emphasizes the application of knowledge from CCSP to develop, improve, and disseminate products for use in decisionmaking related to climate variability and change. Many CCSP programs and activities address these needs-for example, the use of observations and seasonal-to-interannual climate forecasts in the management of natural resources, or application of scientific knowledge in integrated assessments of global change. The CCSP Strategic Plan calls for the development of 21 Synthesis and Assessment (S&A) products that provide current evaluations of climate science issues, complementing other international assessments such as those of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). To maximize the effectiveness of all CCSP products, it is vital that these products account for the science information needs of their users. The workshop will be an opportunity for scientists and user communities to discuss future application and development of climate
science, recognizing the multiple ways in which climate information will be utilized to address societal and scientific challenges. A description and status of the CCSP S&A products can be found at
www.climatescience.gov.
WORKSHOP SESSIONS
The workshop will include both plenary and breakout sessions. The plenary sessions will include presentations by leading figures from the international scientific community and the government, NGO, and private sectors. The breakout sessions will foster interactions among those involved in producing CCSP decision support resources, and representatives of the scientific, resource management, policy development, and other stakeholder communities. The sessions will address topics of significant general interest (e.g., water resources) and will be designed to focus on the following issues:
• Information needs of decisionmakers and other stakeholders
• Advances in climate change science, observations, and related data management systems
• Applications and uses of the scientific information, including the relationship of scientific uncertainties to decision support
• Suggested priorities for future research in view of information needs and science potential, and the prospects for reducing uncertainties.
CALL FOR CONTRIBUTED PRESENTATIONS
Abstracts for contributed presentations at the workshop that focus on
development of scientific resources for decisionmaking are encouraged. Instructions on how to submit abstracts will be
posted by 1 June 2005 at
http://www.climatescience.gov/workshop2005/contribpres.htm.
SPONSORING AGENCIES / DEPARTMENTS
U.S. Department of Agriculture
Department of Commerce
Department of Defense
Department of Energy
Department of Health and Human Services
Department of the Interior
Department of State
Department of Transportation
Environmental Protection Agency
National Aeronautics and Space Administration
National Science Foundation
Smithsonian Institution
U.S. Agency for International Development
REGISTRATION AND LOGISTICAL INFORMATION
Participation will be limited to the first 800 registrants. Webcast of the proceedings may be arranged if demand exceeds this limit. Early registration is strongly encouraged. The registration cost per person is:
By 9/30 After 9/30
General Registration $150 $200
NGOs, Self-Employed, Retired $75 $100
Student (with valid student ID) $0 $25
Links to an on-line registration system (as well as hardcopy form) and hotel and other logistical information are available at
http://www.climatescience.gov/workshop2005
WORKSHOP OBJECTIVES AND PRESENTATION QUESTIONS?
James R. Mahoney, Ph.D.
Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere, and
Director, Climate Change Science Program
workshop@climatescience.gov
Posted by ldilling at 10:13 AM | Comments (0)
April 26, 2005
GAO on CCSP
Over at Prometheus I have a discussion of a GAO report on the CCSP released last week. The GAO finds that the CCSP gives short shrift to impacts of climate change and thus has limited its potential utility to policy makers. In my post I document that this trend goes back a ways. have a look.
Posted by ldilling at 04:23 PM | Comments (0)
February 21, 2005
Learning to Ride a Bike
Metis is a concept from ancient Greece most recently revived by James Scott, Professor of Political Science and Anthropology at Yale University to represent the broad array of “practical skills and acquired intelligence” needed to respond to a changing environment. Metis can be thought of as practical knowledge—not just an idealization of how in theory one might do something—but rather knowledge that comes from experience and trial and error. Scott likens it to the difference between reading a description of how to ride a bike versus knowing how to ride a bike from having experienced the feeling of balancing, pedaling and steering, all while constantly adjusting to the terrain.
How does Metis reflect our approach to climate science policy? Climate science has been justified to the public on its ability to underpin and support decision making. Supporting decisions of any scale with scientific information, it turns out, is a difficult task. The outdated model of simply putting scientific information generated within the research community into publications and hoping that it somehow diffuses out to the appropriate users has been shown to be inadequate, time and time again. We submit that in order for climate science to serve decision makers at any scale, from the local to the international, research agendas must effectively take into account the needs of users—who have the “Metis” of everyday experience in their decision making environment. To incorporate this Metis into climate science research agendas requires close examination of the structures, culture, precedents and opportunities for setting climate science policy. Hence our SPARC project—a five year project funded by the National Science Foundation to study climate science policy in the context of decision making under uncertainty. Read more about SPARC at our website. And please contribute your thoughts to our Metis weblog!
Posted by ldilling at 04:16 PM | Comments (0)