Weather variability risks slow climate adaptation: An empirical analysis of forestry
研究了美国东部林地所有者因天气变异性而延迟气候适应决策的现象，发现寒冷天气变异性会显著减缓从耐寒天然林转向高价值松树种植园的速度，且忽视未来天气变异性下降会低估适应路径。
The timing of climate adaptation decisions can have substantial consequences for the assessment of climate damages. Since weather variability can create risks for natural resource management that differ across adaptation choices, such variability has the potential to alter the speed of climate adaptation. This paper estimates the effect of weather variability on the timing of adaptation decisions of forest landowners in the Eastern United States. A discrete-choice econometric model of forest management is estimated and used in a bio-economic simulation that shows how variability in cold temperatures can significantly slow the rate of adapting from cold-tolerant natural hardwood forests to cold-sensitive, but highly valuable pine plantations. The range of weather variability in climate projections and across the landscape generates large differences in adaptation timing. Ignoring projected future decreases in weather variability results in a large downward bias in estimating future paths of climate adaptation. Since pine plantations produce fewer non-market ecosystem services than natural hardwood forests, an important source of future conservation uncertainty is the economic response of private forest landowners to changing weather variability.