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Quantifying and Monetizing Potential Climate Change Policy Impacts on Terrestrial Ecosystem Carbon Storage and Wildfires in the United States
Citation:
Quantifying and Monetizing Potential Climate Change Policy Impacts on Terrestrial Ecosystem Carbon Storage and Wildfires in the United States . CLIMATIC CHANGE. Springer Netherlands, , Netherlands.
Impact/Purpose:
Paper part of CIRA project in special journal issue
Description:
This paper quantifies and monetizes climate change impacts on carbon stored in terrestrial vegetation and wildfire incidence in the contiguous United States to assess the benefits of alternative mitigation policies. The MC-1 dynamic global vegetation model was used to develop integrated projections of the biophysical impacts from 2000 to 2100. Our projections incorporate climate data from three general circulation models for a business-as-usual emissions scenario and a greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation policy. Social cost of carbon estimates are used to monetize terrestrial ecosystem carbon storage, and wildfire response costs are applied to projected burned acres. Nationally, the magnitude of the benefits from implementing the mitigation policy for both vegetative carbon storage and acreage burned by wildfires are sensitive to the model selected for the projections. Regional analyses show greater variability with the sign of the benefits varying by location and time across the models. Results highlight the importance of conditions in terms of the area studied, model used, and time periods evaluated when evaluating the impacts of unmitigated climate change and GHG mitigation policies.
