Professor Robert Mendelsohn's study, "Dynamic Forecasts of the Sectoral Impacts of Climate Change," utilizes results from climate impact analyses to project how future climate scenarios will affect each country in the world. The study has looked at the impacts on agriculture, coasts, energy, forestry, and water. The largest of these by magnitude is agriculture. Each study has measured how impacts to the sector change as temperatures and precipitation change. Changes that reduce welfare are considered losses and changes that increase welfare are considered benefits.

The maps use a forecast of climate change from a climate model. [NOTE: Only one map using a model from the Canadian Climate Centre is shown here. Additional models will be mapped in the future - Ed.] Each climate model makes different forecasts for each country and for the world as a whole. The maps also contain two different estimates of impacts. One set was developed from controlled experiments and simulations, and the other set was developed from cross-sectional evidence. The controlled experiments suggest that sectors are more sensitive to changes in climate than the cross-sectional evidence indicates. Both sets of studies suggest that there is a hill shaped relationship between temperature and welfare. Thus, countries that are cool will benefit from warming and countries that are warm will be damaged.

- Professor Robert Mendelsohn [profile]