Integrated Modeling to Characterize Climate Change Impacts and Support Decision Making
February 1 & 2, 2011
Atlanta, GA

Registration is FREE and open to everyone! (Be sure to consider the Poster Session): http://www.scgcorp.com/crem/registration.asp

Official Workshop Website (Agenda, announcements, and up to date information): http://www.epa.gov/CREM/2011climate.html

Dear Colleagues,

The workshop on Integrated Modeling to Characterize Climate Change Impacts and Support Decision Making is rapidly approaching (February 1-2, 2011 in Atlanta, GA) and we encourage your participation!

Increased temperature, sea level rise, altered precipitation patterns, and changes in air and water quality are among the emerging climate change impacts facing our nation. Taking action on climate change requires cross-media, transdisciplinary tools and an integrated systems-analysis modeling approach. The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is convening this workshop to facilitate the use of integrated modeling to inform and improve local, regional and national policy decisions relevant to climate mitigation and adaptation strategies.

Workshop Purpose

• Bring together empirical scientists, modelers, economists, social scientists, and public policy experts to help ensure that model development aligns with climate change policy design, management and decision-making needs.
• Connect the climate change data producers with the climate change data users.  Make existing resources accessible to stakeholders in the field.
• Highlight successful case studies of intra-agency, inter-agency, academic, public, and private sector systems analysis and integrated modeling for climate change impacts.

Draft agenda

Workshop Outputs
The workshop will include a mix of plenary presentations, panel discussions, and break out sessions.  The discussions will facilitate the development of a white paper on future needs of integrated modeling for the assessment and response to climate change impacts.

Why you should attend

• Learn about and share your expertise with using integrated modeling to support decision making
• Bring integrated modeling tools and ideas home to facilitate regional, state, and local climate action plans
• Discover the emerging trends and network with the leading researchers in applying systems analysis and systems thinking to climate change decision making
• Gain a practicable understanding of how integrated modeling can be used to better assess climate change impacts
• Work with EPA scientists to identify the current gaps in climate impacts and systems thinking efforts inside and outside EPA to create a framework of a strategy for a more integrated, systems-based, and cross-media approach to addressing climate impacts, adaptation, and mitigation.
• Organize a white paper on and practical guide for a systems based approach to adapting to climate change.

Participation and registration:
This is a public meeting and participation is open to individuals from within and outside EPA. The workshop should be of particular interest to individuals seeking to understand how science based modeling systems can be used to inform the design of innovative policies, including those that combine traditional regulatory approaches with market mechanisms. We are expecting participation from a diverse audience representing a wide range of sectors (Federal, State and Local government, NGOs, academic, private sector), including policy analysts, ecologists, environmental engineers, economists, IT specialists, and program managers in general.

Participants may submit an abstract for a poster or demonstration via the registration link.

Additional information, including the preliminary workshop agenda and a link to the workshop registration website are available at:   http://www.epa.gov/CREM/2011climate.html

Workshop Website (up to date information): http://www.epa.gov/CREM/2011climate.html

Workshop Registration: http://www.scgcorp.com/crem/registration.asp

Workshop Logistics (hotel information): http://www.scgcorp.com/crem/logistics.asp

Announcement PDF
Please share this announcement with other colleagues who may be interested!  We look forward to your participation.

Sincerely,
The Workshop Organizing Committee
Catherine Allen, EPA Office of Policy, Economics and Innovation
Amanda Babson, EPA Office of Research and Development
Jennifer Brady, EPA Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response
Ed Coe, EPA Office of Air and Radiation
Pat Dolwick, EPA Office of Air and Radiation
Rich Dumas, EPA Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention
Rick Durbrow, EPA Region 4
Robert Elleman, EPA Region 10
Laura Farris, EPA Region 8
Tom Fontaine, EPA Office of Research and Development
Noha Gaber, EPA Office of the Science Advisor
Tim Gleason, EPA Region 1
Michael Hiscock, EPA Office of the Science Advisor
Serpil Kayin, EPA Office of Air and Radiation
Patrick Kelly, EPA Region 6
Robyn Kenney, EPA Office of Air and Radiation
David Kryak, EPA Office of Research and Development
Edward Linky, EPA Region 2
Dan Loughlin, EPA Office of Research and Development
George Luber, CDC Climate Change Program
Jeremy Martinich, EPA Office of Air and Radiation
Mahri Monson, EPA Office of Enforcement and Compliance
Chris Moore, EPA National Center for Environmental Economics
Philip Morefield, EPA Office of Research and Development
Michael Morton, EPA Region 6
Gabriel Olchin, EPA Office of the Science Advisor
Rob Pinder, EPA Office of Research and Development
John Powers, EPA Office of Water
Sarah Rizk, EPA Region 9
Shubhayu Saha, CDC Climate Change Program
Winona Victery, EPA Region 9
Stephanie Waldhoff, EPA Office of Air and Radiation

Integrated modeling for integrated environmental decision making is a system analysis-based approach that includes a set of multi-disciplinary, interdependent, science based components (models, data, assessments, polls, expert elicitation) that together form the basis for constructing a modeling system capable of simulating environmental systems relevant to a well specified problem statement.