More empirical work needed on climate impacts and adaptation

I've felt the same way for some time, but it's nice that someone decided to look at this systematically.  (Similar conclusions were reached by Aldy et al (JEL, 2010).)

Modeling Climate Change Adaptation: Challenges, Recent Developments and Future Directions
Karen Fisher-Vanden, Ian Sue Wing, Elisa Lanzi, David Popp


Abstract: This paper offers a critical review of modeling practice in the field of integrated assessment of climate change and ways forward.  Past efforts in integrated assessment have concentrated on developing baseline trajectories of emissions and mitigation scenario analyses.  A key missing component in IAMs is the representation of climate impacts and adaptation responses.  Through the examination of conceptual, theoretical and empirical frameworks for the analysis of climate impacts and adaptation, we identify five characteristics of an ideal IAM: regional and sectoral detail for impacts and adaptation strategies; distinct representation of the three types of adaptation—adaptation through market adjustments, protective/defensive expenditures, and adaptive/coping expenditures; intertemporal decision making under uncertainty; induced innovation in adaptation-related technologies; and  connection with empirical work on impacts and adaptation.  Our review of existing IAMs finds that most models are severely lacking in most of these modeling features.

(h/t Daiju)