Bren Seminar

Using Climate Change Impacts Attribution to Inform Adaptation Action

Mark New, Professor, African Climate and Development Initiative & Department of Environmental and Geographical Science, University of Cape Town
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Bren Hall 1414 / Online
Headshot of Mark New
Mark New

Mark is a renowned climate scientist whose work ranges from assessing climate scenario uncertainty to conducting novel climate change impacts attribution. His seminar will focus on how adaptation can offset food and water security impacts of climate change.
—Tamma Carleton, Assistant Professor, Bren School

Watch a recording of this talk here

ABSTRACT

Climate impacts attribution aims to disentangle the relative contribution of anthropogenic climate change and natural climate variability, perhaps also other non-climatic factors, to observed changes in natural and social system indicators such as water resources, crop productivity, food security, health and even the wider economy.  In this talk I will present some of the work we have been doing on impacts attribution using examples from water security, food security and sovereign catastrophe insurance.  Importantly, in some of these examples we can also test the potential of adaptation options to offset attributable climate impacts, allowing quantification of the effectiveness of adaptation in a manner similar to approaches used in medical treatment studies.

BIO

Mark New was the founding director of the African Climate and Development Initiative (ACDI) at the University of Cape Town (UCT), stepping down after twelve years at the helm in mid-2023.  His research has encompassed development of global climate datasets, detection of climate change trends, regional climate modelling, assessment of uncertainty in climate projections and impacts, attribution of climate change trends and impacts, and climate change adaptation.