Newsletter No 1:11 October 2011
Welcome to the first issue of the Mistra-SWECIA Newsletter 2011!
In this issue of the newsletter, we report on a few recent developments in the programme´s research and communication efforts. These serve well as examples of a consolidation of the work that we have done during the first Mistra-SWECIA programme phase that started in 2008. You may find more examples in our previous newsletters, annual reports, home pages and, of course, various articles and reports. In this newsletter, specifically, we take a look at new results on the impact of a higher temperature on the risk for outbreaks of a willow leaf beetle, a common pest on willows. We will also review two examples of research aiming at improved modelling of the linkages across climate, impacts and economy. The first example deals with climate and vegetation, and the second is on how to improve the description of carbon cycle in climate-economy modelling. Also, we inform about a new master's programme course in climate and economy.
As this newsletter is published, we are finalizing the preparations of moving the Mistra-SWECIA programme into its second phase, starting next year. Our overall goal will be to continue developing useful knowledge for climate adaptation, which we look forward doing both on the science front and together with stakeholders.
Markku Rummukainen
Mistra-SWECIA Programme Director
Climate modelling
Jonas Claesson reports on a parameterisation of climate impacts on vegetation, designed for use in an integrated assessment model (IAM). While the kind of climate conditions that result from the increased atmospheric CO2 may have negative impacts on vegetation growth in different regions, a higher atmospheric CO2 as such can improve plants´ water use efficiency. The overall climate change impact on agriculture is affected by all these effects.Jenny Hedvall reviews on-going efforts on formulsting a simple model of the marine carbon cycle for use in an Integrated Assessment Model (IAM). Presently, most such carbon models do not account for the non-linearities of the carbon chemistry. The importance of these non-linearities is that they cause the fraction of carbon dioxide that is taken up by the oceans to decrease with the amount of carbon emitted into the atmosphere.
Climate-economy modelling
Conny Olovsson writes about a climate-economy course developed for the IIES master´s programme in economics, called “The climate and the economy". The course gives an introduction to how the economy and the climate can be modelled on the macro level. The lecture notes have also been put together into a manuscript. The intention is to produce a textbook on the subject for wider use.Impact modelling and applications
Anna Lilja reports on a recent study on how the risk for outbreaks of a willow leaf beetle species may be affected by higher temperatures. Such outbreaks can substantially reduce growth for instance in plantations used for biomass production. The results show that if climate becomes warmer and there is latent variation among individuals of the beetle species in their temperature response, the probability for outbreaks may indeed increase.Notices
Programnytt (a summary of the newsletter in Swedish)
