Title：What if We Wait? Forecasting Response Time to Environmental Events and Global Climate Change

Speaker：Prof. Daniel S. Zachary

Venue：No.2015 Meeting Room, Environmental Science Building , Jiangwan Campus

Time：16 November,13:30

Host：Prof. WANG Lin

Abstract：The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has recently presented results showing that a unified international effort will be required to keep average global temperatures from raising more than 1.5℃. We turn to historical evidence to see if this is possible. We look at the historical evidence from environmental accidents and natural catastrophes and explore both the cost and the frequencies of events. A new statistical method, the ‘inverse Poisson functional’ is used to study this question. We present the technique, along with calculations from the DICE model (William Nordhaus – 2018 Nobel Laurent in Economics) and compare to IPCC predictions. The model shows that substantial reaction to global climate change (CO2 emissions extremum) will occur in 55 to 120 years (95% CI) with a model prediction of 80 years.