CIM-EARTH
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Computational modeling is the pre-eminent tool for analysis of complex systems and the only feasible approach for understanding the linked energy, economic, and earth systems.
Modeling the Human Dimensions of Climate Change
Ian Foster
Director, Computation Institute; Arthur Holly Compton Distinguished Service Professor of Computer Science
Elisabeth Moyer
Assistant Professor, Department of Geophysical Sciences
Kenneth Judd
Paul H. Bauer Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution
Human prosperity depends fundamentally on energy usage, and that usage must increase many times over if the developing world is to advance out of poverty. Supplying energy to meet human needs is difficult enough; worse still, a byproduct of most energy production-carbon dioxide from fossil fuel burning-leads to unwelcome changes in the world's climate. Growing awareness of these issues is spurring governments to consider, and in some cases implement, regulations, tax policies, and spending programs intended to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. But this eagerness for action has outrun our ability to provide scientific guidance on outcomes, uncertainties, and unintended consequences, and current policies have been implemented without careful analysis. Biofuels mandates, for example, have arguably driven up food prices without much impact on CO2 emissions.
Computational modeling is the pre-eminent tool for analysis of complex systems and the only feasible approach for understanding the linked energy, economic, and earth systems. The CIM-EARTH (Community Integrated Model of Economic and Resource Trajectories for Humankind) Project, a University of Chicago/ Argonne National Laboratory led project will galvanize scientists and institutions around the world to model the human dimensions of climate change in the hope of providing better tools that national and regional policymakers can use to mitigate the effects of climate change. CIM-EARTH leaders believe that coupling social science and economic models with more traditional earth systems models will result in innovative responses from computational scientists to the problems posed by socio-economic modeling. CIM-EARTH scholars hope not only to study how forward-thinking economic agents act in dynamic environments of unknowable risk, but also to model the impacts of potential policy interventions on climate and the economy. Overcoming serious limitations to existing models, CIM-EARTH leaders will make use of the most cutting edge supercomputer architecture, numerical methods, and economic modeling.
Over 25 faculty members at the University of Chicago, the Hoover Institution, the University of Chicago Computation Institute, and Argonne National Laboratory and partner institutions are involved in developing CIM-EARTH, including researchers in business, public policy, computer science, economics, atmospheric science, anthropology, geophysical sciences, statistics, and law.
