Professor Ann Bostrom is working with students at the Evans School and internationally to investigate mental models of climate change and how they influence risk perceptions and decision-making. Building on research she conducted with colleagues at Carnegie Melon University in the early 1990s, Bostrom and fellow researchers Travis Reynolds, Ph.D. student at the Evans School, and Daniel Read, Professor of Behavioral Economics at the University of Durham, England, wanted to know if mental models of global warming had changed over the last 15+ years. The 1992 research revealed that educated laypeople frequently conflated climate change with the stratospheric ozone depletion (and the ozone hole) and were relatively unaware of the role of carbon dioxide in relation to global warming. Given the considerable attention climate change has received over the past decade and a half, and its increased presence in the public debate, Bostrom and her colleagues expected to see a dramatic change in people’s knowledge. In 2008, respondents were less likely to confuse stratospheric ozone depletion with the greenhouse effect, but perceptions of climate change remained similar to those found in the early 90’s. Survey respondents (still) did not strongly associate increased concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere with climate change, with many attributing climate change to natural causes. A minority of respondents identified the combustion of fossil fuels as the single most important source of increased carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere. The team’s research findings will help inform and motivate public decisions and policies to mitigate and abate climate change. Bostrom and team are currently preparing their research findings for publication.
>> For further reading see Bostrom, A., & Lashof D. (2007) Mental models and the search for new frames of climate change. In Moser, S.C, & Dilling, L. (Eds.). Creating a climate for change: Communicating climate change and facilitating social change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Uncertainties pervade most decisions, but scientific uncertainties can be particularly daunting in long term decisions about critical infrastructure. In 2005, Professor Alison Cullen and Evans School MPA alumnus Matt Markoff undertook a decision analysis of the impact of climate change on Pacific Northwest hydropower potential. This study was designed to help improve the Northwest Power and Conservation Council’s Portfolio Model, a long term multi-scenario simulation used to construct the lowest risk and lowest cost plan for the Pacific Northwest’s electricity supply. The council’s portfolio model addressed many elements of uncertainty that would affect the availability and cost of electricity over the next 20 years, but did not take into account the effects of climate change on the availability of hydropower generation. The council was interested in the impacts of climate change on the power portfolio, but had limited capacity to tackle the climate and hydrology modeling required.
Cullen and Markoff used decision analysis to quantify the overall uncertainties about how future climate change will affect future hydropower generation. Their analysis identified key contributors to uncertainties currently thwarting decision-making by linking a series of hydrology and climate models that account for future uncertainties critical to regional hydroelectric resources, including temperature, precipitation, streamflow, and dam operation. They found that climate change has the potential to affect Pacific Northwest hydropower generation much more than the council estimated in the 2005 plan. Their analyses also showed that precipitation creates the biggest uncertainties regarding the future of the hydropower capacity, leading to a recommendation for additional research to improve precipitation prediction in climate scenario forecasting. Their findings also point the way toward including climate information more fully in regional power planning by demonstrating an approach for rapid assessment of many climate scenarios. Finally, these results support the development of regional policies and strategies to invest in greenhouse gas emissions reduction and energy conservation to deal with climate change risk.
>> For further reading see Markoff, M., & Cullen A. C. (2008). Impact of climate change on Pacific Northwest hydropower. Climatic Change, 87, 451–469.
Published on February 25, 2010
