Governing Uncertainty: Science, Risk, and Practice Series

Session 1: AI-Accelerated Climate Science: A New Approach to Understanding Risk

Climate risk and weather forecasting are often confused, but they answer very different questions, on very different timescales, with very different levels of uncertainty.

This opening session explored the fundamentals governance practitioners need to interpret climate risk information accurately: what risk and uncertainty mean in a climate context, how input assumptions shape model outputs, and how downscaling translates global climate data into local, decision-relevant information. 

The session also introduced a new generation of AI-accelerated climate modeling — an approach that promises faster, higher-resolution risk information than traditional methods have allowed. Speakers discussed what this shift makes possible, and what governance practitioners should understand about its strengths and limits.

Speakers: Tapio Schneider, Theodore Y. Wu Professor of Environmental Science and Engineering, Caltech, and Lead, Climate Modeling Alliance (CliMA)
Ailie Gallant, Associate Professor, School of Earth, Atmosphere and Environment, Monash University
Moderator: Michael Spencer, Research Fellow, Impact Labs, Monash University

Session 2: From Risk Information to Actionable and Investable Decisions

The second in a three-part webinar series around risk information. The International Standing Panel, along with the Extreme Weather Resilience Hub, UC Berkeley based California-China Climate Institute, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and Monash University hosted a presentation and fireside chat between moderator Debra Knopman, formerly of RAND, and Jordan Fischbach of the Water Institute. 

Moderator Debra Knopman, formerly a vice president and senior researcher at RAND, is the co-chair of the board of the Henry Luce Foundation, vice chair of the Council of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, and a professor of policy analysis at the RAND School of Public Policy.

Jordan Fischbach, Vice President for Applied Research and Director of Planning and Policy Research at The Water Institute. He helps to oversee the Institute’s applied research portfolio, manages a research department, and leads policy research projects focused on climate adaptation, urban resilience, coastal planning, flood risk analysis, and post-disaster recovery. His expertise includes Robust Decision Making and other methods for decision making under deep uncertainty (DMDU), risk analysis, and interactive data visualization.