Agent Based Modeling and Adaption to Climate Change

Agent based modeling is a technique for simulating complex systems that allows the modeler to investigate both the potential for and the sources of emergent properties: behaviors of the system quite different from the behavior of any of the elements within it. Problems well suited to investigation by agent based models are those with many people solving a similar problem where their individual responses to the problem influence the choices that others make, where new technologies may emerge to assist them solve the problem, and where social dilemmas exist. These features are inherent in many problems of adaptation to climate change. Agent based modeling can not predict the future of a complex adaptive system - no method of modeling can - but it can offer insights into the relationship between features of current systems and the range of possible future adaptations that will be likely in response to climate change.