CONCLUSIONS, REMAINING ISSUES, AND NEXT STEPS

The workshop focused on methodologies to assess the impacts of climate change on terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems and their socioeconomic consequences. It did not deal in any detail with the other components (i.e., models designed to estimate changes in atmospheric concentratio ns of greenhouse gases or in climatic factors) of an integrated assess ment shown in Figure 2 of the introduction. This final chapter discuss es some of the issues addressed during the San Diego workshop and high lights a few of the major findings of the papers. Issues discussed bel ow include limitations of past modeling efforts and impediments to dev eloping better models of the impacts of climate change on forest, gras sland, and water resources; suggestions for future research both to de velop better data and models and to employ existing data and modeling capabilities to improve the usefulness of climate impact assessments f or policy purposes; and the need for developing a common assessment fr amework.