Our Changing Climate; Assessing the Risks to California. A Summary Report from the California Climate Change Center

In 2003, the California Energy Commission’s Public Interest Energy Research (PIER) program established the California Climate Change Center to conduct climate change research relevant to the state. This Center is a virtual organization with core research activities at Scripps Institution of Oceanography and the University of California, Berkeley, complemented by efforts at other research institutions. Priority research areas defined in PIER’s five-year Climate Change Research Plan are: monitoring, analysis, and modeling of climate; analysis of options to reduce greenhouse gas emissions; assessment of physical impacts and of adaptation strategies; and analysis of the economic consequences of both climate change impacts as well as the efforts designed to reduce emissions.

Executive Order #S-3-05, signed by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger on June 1, 2005, called for the California Environmental Protection Agency (CalEPA) to prepare biennial science reports on the potential impact of continued global warming on certain sectors of the California economy. CalEPA entrusted PIER and its California Climate Change Center to lead this effort. The “Climate Scenarios” analysis summarized here is the first of these biennial science reports, and is the product of a multi-institution collaboration among the California Air Resources Board, California Department of Water Resources, California Energy Commission, CalEPA, and the Union of Concerned Scientists.