Global Environmental Modeling and Analysis
EP&E Global Environmental Analysis capability focuses on the relationship between technology adoption and climate changes. EP&E has been developing and using a set of integrated assessment models to analyze the role that technology plays in determining future emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs) and the economic implications of reducing these emissions. Global environment models examine the competition among technologies in a variety of markets, and explore conditions under which new markets could emerge.
EP&E provide the appropriate framework and analyses to assist the evaluation of possible social and economic impacts of present and future global environmental changes on life. EP&E Staff implemented large number of studies on the economic, environmental, social, regional and private cost of greenhouse gases emissions. The EP&E staff published a large number of studies related to the structure of emission trading systems, and emissions mitigation and sequestration.
Tools include PNNL's GCAM model. GCAM is an integrated assessment model of global change with a focus on the world's energy and agriculture systems. GCAM incorporates carbon capture and sequestration technology options, a hydrogen fuel option, a global market for biomass energy, and agriculture and land use.
Another example of tools used at the EP&E group is the System Assessment Capability (SAC) used for the Groundwater/Vadose Zone (GW/VZ) Integration Project at the Hanford Site in Washington State is currently developing the tools and supporting data to assess the cumulative impact to human and ecological health and the region's economy and cultures from waste that will remain at the Hanford Site after the site closes. This integrated system of new and legacy models and data is known as the System Assessment Capability (SAC). The environmental transport modules of the SAC modeling system provide estimates of contaminant concentrations from Hanford Site sources in a time-dependent manner in the Vadose zone, groundwater, and the Columbia River and its associated sediments. The Risk/Impact Module uses these estimates of media- and time-specific concentrations to estimate potential impacts on the ecology of the Columbia River corridor, the health of persons who might live in or use the corridor or the upland Hanford environment, the local economy, and the cultural resources. The Monte Carlo realizations from the SAC modeling system demonstrate the feasibility of large-scale uncertainty analysis of the complex relationships in environmental transport on the one hand and ecological, human, cultural, and economic risk on the other.
EP&E Staff are involve in number of projects at the national, regional, state and local levels and they apply the appropriate tools to study the climate change impacts on specific industries including energy, agriculture, forestry, fisheries, and transportation.
For further information on Global Environmental Modeling and Analysis, contact Casie Davidson, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), at (509) 372-6259.