Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences

Colleagues and I study how people make decisions in adapting to climate variability and change. With support from NOAA, the Western Water
Assessment, and CIRES, we have combined several software tools into an “adaptation testbed” that allows us to test hypotheses about adaptation in systems like agriculture and species conservation (see figure). Our main focus is on the role of extreme events. We found cases in our first round of simulations last year where extremes trip premature and inefficient adaptation by farmers experiencing worsening climate. Our goals this year have been to extend the analysis to other sectors, such as infrastructure maintenance, wastewater management, and habitat conservation, and to explore adaptation decision alternatives that avoid this over-adaptation trap. Though the test-bed is built around quantitative decision models, qualitative, empirical studies of the choices and policy contexts faced by actual decision makers are an important part of the work. Former CIRES master’s student Kristin Gangwer interviewed ranch families in the Rockies to build a rich roster of the options and constraints they face in adapting to drought. Now CIRES graduate student Katie Clifford is surveying land managers in the Gunnison Basin about how climate affects their decisions. Mary Huisenga, a recent geography master’s graduate, has remained with the team part time to develop a decision model for wastewater dischargers
attempting to stay within stream-temperature guidelines. Pressure to adapt is greatest in response to extreme events and in post-disaster situations. But extremes are difficult for climate models to simulate, so our approach was simply to force an arbitrary extreme (often based on a historical event) into the decision simulation. A better method will treat extremes as members of climate distributions, so their occurrence changes as climate varies. Field interviews indicate the need also to include transient events that aren’t necessarily extreme but still dramatically affect decision makers,
such as rapid spring snowmelt in the mountains or cold spells in otherwise mild winters that can kill off a crop meant to survive winter dormancy. We want to know more about how transients and extremes act as pacemakers of adaptation.

The adaptation test-bed is a virtual structure that allows simulation of climate impacts and adaptations in resource-management systems such as a farm or wastewater treatment plant.