Tidal flooding, hurricane risk grow along New Jersey coast, new study finds /  by GlobalPolicyLab Member

NJ Coast Image.PNG

New Jersey’s coast is under growing risk of tidal flooding and hurricane-caused floods as the world’s climate continues to change, according to a new report by the Rhodium Group’s Energy & Climate Team and collaborators from the UC Berkeley-based Global Policy Lab and the University of Chicago.

The report finds that frequent flooding risk threatens 23,000 more homes and other buildings worth a total of $13 billion in New Jersey compared to homes and buildings threatened in the state by 1980 sea levels.

Another 62,000 to 86,000 more homes and commercial properties in the state, worth more than $60 billion, sit in areas with a 1-in-30 chance of hurricane flooding, the report finds. That risk extends inland too, with the chance of hurricane-force winds affecting the average New Jersey home outside coastal counties growing from 1 in 200 four decades ago to between 1 in 30 and 1 in 100 in any given year now.

By mid-century, another 33,000 to 58,000 buildings in the state will flood frequently, the report finds.

The report’s authors are Hannah Hess, Michael Delgado, Ali Hamidi and Trevor Houser from the Rhodium Group, Ian Bolliger and Solomon Hsiang of UC Berkeley and Michael Greenstone from the University of Chicago.

International boundaries keep out unauthorized fishing if the price is right, new study finds /  by GlobalPolicyLab Member

A groundbreaking study published today in Nature Sustainability finds that countries can make a big impact in patrolling their coasts and enforcing their Exclusive Economic Zones as long as the benefits of protecting those maritime resources prove lucrative enough.

The study by UC Berkeley researcher Gabriel Englander suggests that such often dismissed international laws can actually play a significant role in protecting the world’s global marine ecosystems.

More than 95% of global marine fish catch occurs inside Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs), and countries have the exclusive right to manage and use all natural resources within their EEZs.

Englander finds that deterrence of unauthorized foreign fishing vessels has been particularly effective off the coasts of Argentina, Peru, Canada, the Marshall Islands, Iceland, the Falkland Islands, the Faroe Islands and Norway.

Those areas, which all have commercially prized fish in their waters, experience pressure but are largely respected by unauthorized foreign fishing vessels. In the study, they make up 97% of the deterrence effect of EEZs as measured by global satellite transponders that monitor individual vessels in real-time. Unauthorized fishing fell by 81% just inside EEZs globally, the study found.

The results are the first to demonstrate that assigning property rights across countries leads to the protection of fisheries from unauthorized fishing. That finding suggests that property rights could be used to protect other wildlife and natural resources as well.

“EEZs are possibly the toughest environmental enforcement problem on the planet", says Englander. “They cover almost two-fifths of the ocean and their boundaries are 200 nautical miles from shore. If we can make unauthorized fishing vessels respect EEZs, I think we have more capacity to protect and sustainably manage marine fisheries than we may have realized.”

Englander is a fifth year PhD Candidate in the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics at UC Berkeley and is a member of the Global Policy Lab.

Climate Impact Lab teams up with Nike on "Move to Zero" campaign /  by GlobalPolicyLab Member

The Climate Impact Lab is working with Nike to bring to life the effects of rising temperatures on snowboarders, runners, soccer players and other athletes as part of the company’s “Move to Zero” campaign raising awareness through sport about climate change.

The campaign debuted in September with testimonials from tennis player Naomi Osaka, runner Joan Benoit Samuelson and other athletes speaking to how their performance has been personally affected by falling snow levels, more frequent extreme temperature days and overall hotter weather.

Backing up those testimonials are maps using Climate Impact Lab analysis that paint a dramatic picture of a world transformed by climate change - rising maximum temperatures during tennis tournament season throughout the world, a drop in the number of days below 32 degrees Fahrenheit, a spike in days with high temperatures above 90 degrees Fahrenheit.

As Samuelson says in the campaign, “When I’m out running I feel like I’m an environmental barometer for climate change.”

Carleton awarded AAEA Dissertation Award /  by Solomon Hsiang

Dr. Mantis

Dr. Mantis

Dr. Tamma Carleton has been awarded the Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation Award from the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association!

Her dissertation examined the effects of climate change on the wellbeing of populations (e.g. effects of extreme heat and crop failure on suicide rates in India), and the extent to which they are able to use resources (e.g. groundwater) to adapt to those changes (sometimes adaptation gaps remain).

Longmate to UC Berkeley PhD Program /  by Solomon Hsiang

old enough to do research

old enough to do research

We are psyched that Julia Longmate will hanging around Berkeley to pursue her doctoral studies in the Energy Resources Group this coming Fall!

Julia has been a central team member on the Quantitative Sustainable Development Project, developing new methods to measure soil and topography value with econometrics, designing systems for identifying water pollution sources, and modeling nasty smells… We won’t miss Julia as much as Sandy, since we are confident she will come by to visit for the free snacks:) But we are still excited to see what comes next for Julia!

Sum to UCSB Bren PhD Program /  by Solomon Hsiang

future Dr Sum!

future Dr Sum!

We are very excited for Sandy Sum who will be heading to UC Santa Barbara’s Bren School of Environmental Science and Management in the Fall to pursue her doctoral studies!

Sandy has been a core team member on the Quantitative Sustainable Development Project for three years, developing new methods of valuing natural capital, modeling pasture growth econometrically, and developing new approaches for contingent valuation using revealed preferences, among many other things. We will miss her, but are very excited for her next big step!

Publication: measuring effects of geoengineering on agriculture using volcanoes /  by Solomon Hsiang

Jon Proctor, Solomon Hsiang, and coauthors published a study in Nature estimating the effect of solar radiation management (SRM) on global agricultural production. The paper exploits the historical eruption of massive volcanoes that inject sulfate aerosols into the stratosphere to understand the effect of changing light conditions on crop yields. The paper finds that benefits from cooling, the intended effect of SRM, are fully offset by harm to yields via shading. 

Read the study ungated here.

A resource page for the article is here.

Press release here.

Visualization of the stratospheric sulfate aerosols injected into the atmosphere after the eruption of Mt Pinatubo. Each frame is a month. Visualization by Jon Proctor & Solomon Hsiang.

WSJ economics column on mortality costs of climate change /  by Solomon Hsiang

Greg Ip discussed our research into the global economic costs of excess mortality risk caused by climate change in his recent Wall Street Journal column.

The research covered in the article is output from the Climate Impact Lab, a collaboration between the GPL at Berkeley, EPIC at U Chicago, The Rutgers Earth System Science & Policy Lab, and the Rhodium Group.

Credit: Wall Street Journal

Credit: Wall Street Journal