This website uses cookies.

By clicking the "Accept" button or continuing to browse our site, you agree to first-party and session-only cookies being stored on your device to enhance site navigation and analyze site performance and traffic. For more information on our use of cookies, please see our Privacy Policy.

  1. Home
  2. Journals
  3. American Economic Review
  4. May 2016
  5. A Potential Disintegration of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet: Implications for Economic Analyses of Climate Policy

A Potential Disintegration of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet: Implications for Economic Analyses of Climate Policy

  • Delavane Diaz
  • Klaus Keller
American Economic Review
vol. 106, no. 5, May 2016
(pp. 607-11)
Download Full Text PDF

Abstract

The Earth system may react in a nonlinear threshold response to climate forcings. Incorporating threshold responses into integrated assessment models (IAMs) used for climate policy analysis poses nontrivial challenges, for example due to methodological limitations and pervasive deep uncertainties. Here we explore a specific threshold response, a potential disintegration of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS). We review the current scientific understanding of WAIS, identify methodological and conceptual issues, and demonstrate avenues to address some of them through a stochastic hazard IAM framework combining emulation, expert knowledge, and learning. We conclude with a discussion of challenges and research needs.

Citation

Diaz, Delavane, and Klaus Keller. 2016. "A Potential Disintegration of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet: Implications for Economic Analyses of Climate Policy." American Economic Review, 106 (5): 607-11. DOI: 10.1257/aer.p20161103

Additional Materials

JEL Classification

  • Q54 Climate; Natural Disasters and Their Management; Global Warming
  • Q58 Environmental Economics: Government Policy