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The Limits to Adaptation: A Systems Approach
Citation:
Felgenhauer, T. The Limits to Adaptation: A Systems Approach. Presented at European Climate Change Adaptation Conference (ECCA), Hamburg, GERMANY, March 18 - 20, 2013.
Impact/Purpose:
This conference abstract and eventual presentation and paper is a step to fulfilling the ACE 166 product requirements for FY2013, related to "The Limits of Adaptation."
Description:
The ability to adapt to climate change is delineated by capacity thresholds, after which climate damages begin to overwhelm the adaptation response. Such thresholds depend upon physical properties (natural processes and engineering parameters), resource constraints (expressed through market prices), and societal preferences (from prices as well as cultural norms). When existing adaptation capacity is exceeded, additional adaptation or new responses that have not yet been developed or tested will need to replace the old approaches. Previous modeling research shows that capacity limited adaptation will play a policy-significant role in future climate change decision-making. The aim of this study is to apply the tools of systems analysis to examine different types of adaptation response and climate damage systems and postulate how these systems might behave when adaptation limits are reached. We hypothesize that this behavior will be governed by the characteristics and level of the adaptation limit, the shape of the damage curve in that specific damage area, and the availability of alternative adaptation responses once the threshold is passed, whether it is a new response type or more of the old technology.
URLs/Downloads:
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2013AGUFMGC13C1090F
http://eccaconf.eu/index.php/page/