PA12A-01 INVITED
The Regional Integrated Sciences and Assessments (RISA) Program, Climate Services, and Meeting the National Climate Change Adaptation Challenge
The NOAA-led RISA Program has grown steadily to nine regions and a focus that includes both natural climate variability and human-driven climate change. The RISAs are, at their core, university-based and heavily invested in partnerships, particularly with stakeholders, NOAA, and other federal agencies. RISA research, assessment and partnerships have led to new operational climate services within NOAA and other agencies, and have become important foundations in the development of local, state and regional climate change adaptation initiatives. The RISA experience indicates that a national climate service is needed, and must include: (1) services prioritized based on stakeholder needs; (2) sustained, ongoing regional interactions with users, (3) a commitment to improve climate literacy; (4) support for assessment as an ongoing, iterative process; (5) full recognition that stakeholder decisions are seldom made using climate information alone; (6) strong interagency partnership; (7) national implementation and regional in focus; (8) capability spanning local, state, tribal, regional, national and international space scales, and weeks to millennia time scales; and (9) institutional design and scientific support flexible enough to assure the effort is nimble enough to respond to rapidly-changing stakeholder needs. The RISA experience also highlights the central role that universities must play in national climate change adaptation programs. Universities have a tradition of trusted regional stakeholder partnerships, as well as the interdisciplinary expertise – including social science, ecosystem science, law, and economics – required to meet stakeholder climate-related needs; project workforce can also shift rapidly in universities. Universities have a proven ability to build and sustain interagency partnerships. Universities excel in most forms of education and training. And universities often have proven entrepreneurship, technology transfer and private sector partnership capability.
PA12A-02
Science informing decisions: the Pacific Northwest Climate Impacts Group
Since its founding in 1995, the Climate Impacts Group (CIG) at the
University of Washington (UW) has achieved remarkable success at
translating global- and regional-scale science into forms and products
that are useful to, and used by, decision-makers. From GCM scenarios to
research on the connection between global climate patterns and locally
important factors like floods and wildfires, CIG's strong physical science
foundation is matched by a vigorous and successful outreach program. As a
result, CIG and its partner the Office of Washington State Climatologist
at UW are deeply involved in advising all levels of government and many
business interests on adapting to climate variability and change. This
talk will showcase some of the specific activities and tools and
illustrate how such efforts fit into a "National Climate Service."
http://cses.washington.edu/cig/
PA12A-03 INVITED
Research and its Role in Planning for Climate Change: The Oregon Experience
Oregon has an aggressive plan to reduce its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions over the next decades. The state also helped lead the formation of the Western Climate Initiative as part of a comprehensive strategy of emission reductions, cap-and-trade, as well as adaptation to climate change. In support of these plans, state and local agencies as well as Oregon businesses are looking to the research community to provide a broad range of data services and predictive models. The recently-established Oregon Global Warming Commission is developing its research agenda with a focus on 1) developing baseline observing systems to monitor the effectiveness of GHG reduction strategies as well as detect changes in critical climate and ecosystem properties and 2) constructing integrated, regional-scale models for projecting the course of climate change and testing various scenarios. Climate research would be part of a comprehensive decision support system on local and regional scales. Aside from the scientific challenges of regional-scale monitoring and prediction, this approach will challenge the academic research community and its traditional reliance on federally-funded three-year grants that typically focus on the basic science of physical and natural systems. We can no longer separate discovery from application, science from engineering, and natural science from socioeconomic science. I will present some of the experiences in Oregon as we develop new approaches to confront both the climate research challenges and our institutional challenges.
PA12A-04 INVITED
Planning for Adaptation to Climate Change in the City of Chicago
Under Mayor Richard M. Daley's leadership, the City of Chicago initiated the Chicago Climate Action Plan (CCAP) to better understand local implications of global climate change in both higher and lower emissions scenarios, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and implement programs to build future climate change resilience. The City approached this work not only as a way to make Chicago more adaptable in the future, but also to improve Chicago's quality of life today. The Chicago Climate Action Plan adopted stresses the importance of both reducing greenhouse gas emissions in Chicago and preparing for climate changes that may be unavoidable. Building off of the City's significant environmental programs and projects, and based on our analyses of the climate effects and impacts that improved the scientific understanding of future climate change impacts on Chicago, the City then developed a set of climate change adaptation strategies, resulting in the City of Chicago Climate Change Adaptation Summary. This document includes prioritization of climate change adaptations based on relative risk as well as framework strategies for those tactics categorized as "must do/early action." In early 2008, The Mayor's Office asked five Commissioners from its Green Steering Committee to chair adaptation work groups including: extreme heat; extreme precipitation; buildings, infrastructure and equipment; ecosystems; and leadership, planning and communications. Working with staff from relevant departments, sister agencies and other stakeholders, these work groups developed 39 basic adaptation work plans, including plans for enhancing the City's existing projects and programs that relate to climate change adaptation. Climate change adaptation work will be on-going in City Departments under the Mayor's Office leadership. The City intends to continually monitor and improve its response to climate change, resulting in an improved quality of life for Chicago residents.
PA12A-05
Creating a New Model for Mainstreaming Climate Change Adaptation for Critical Infrastructure: The New York City Climate Change Adaptation Task Force and the NYC Panel on Climate Change
The New York City Climate Change Adaptation Task Force, launched in August 2008, aims to secure the city's critical infrastructure against rising seas, higher temperatures and fluctuating water supplies projected to result from climate change. The Climate Change Adaptation Task Force is part of PlaNYC, the city's long- term sustainability plan, and is composed of over 30 city and state agencies, public authorities and companies that operate the region's roads, bridges, tunnels, mass transit, and water, sewer, energy and telecommunications systems – all with critical infrastructure identified as vulnerable. It is one of the most comprehensive adaptation efforts yet launched by an urban region. To guide the effort, Mayor Michael Bloomberg has formed the New York City Panel on Climate Change (NPCC), modeled on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Experts on the panel include climatologists, sea-level rise specialists, adaptation experts, and engineers, as well as representatives from the insurance and legal sectors. The NPCC is developing planning tools for use by the Task Force members that provide information about climate risks, adaptation and risk assessment, prioritization frameworks, and climate protection levels. The advisory panel is supplying climate change projections, helping to identify at- risk infrastructure, and assisting the Task Force in developing adaptation strategies and guidelines for design of new structures. The NPCC will also publish an assessment report in 2009 that will serve as the foundation for climate change adaptation in the New York City region, similar to the IPCC reports. Issues that the Climate Change Adaptation Task Force and the NPCC are addressing include decision- making under climate change uncertainty, effective ways for expert knowledge to be incorporated into public actions, and strategies for maintaining consistent and effective attention to long-term climate change even as municipal governments cycle through their administrations.
PA12A-06
Helping Water Utilities Grapple with Climate Change
The Water Research Foundation (WRF), serving the drinking water industry and the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) are collaborating on an effort to develop and implement locally-relevant, structured processes to help water utilities consider the impacts and adaptation options that climate variability and change might have on their water systems. Adopting a case-study approach, the structured process include 1) a problem definition phase, focused on identifying goals, information needs, utility vulnerabilities and possible adaptation options in the face of climate and hydrologic uncertainty; 2) developing and/or modifying system-specific Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM) models and conducting sensitivity analysis to identify critical variables; 3) developing probabilistic climate change scenarios focused on exploring uncertainties identified as important in the sensitivity analysis in step 2; and 4) implementing the structured process and examining approaches decision making under uncertainty. Collaborators include seven drinking water utilities and two state agencies: 1) The Inland Empire Utility Agency, CA; 2) The El Dorado Irrigation District, Placerville CA; 2) Portland Water Bureau, Portland OR; 3) Colorado Springs Utilities, Colo Spgs, CO; 4) Cincinnati Water, Cincinnati, OH; 5) Massachusetts Water Resources Authority (MWRA), Boston, MA; 6) Durham Water, Durham, NC; and 7) Palm Beach County Water (PBCW), Palm Beach, FL. The California Department of Water Resources and the Colorado Water Conservation Board were the state agencies that we have collaborated with.
PA12A-07
Water Providers and Trade Groups Wake Up to Climate Change: Implications for the Research Community
In just the last two years, U.S. water providers and water trade groups have begun to take notice of the impacts of climate change on their water systems and many now realize that they can no longer rely on climate stationarity for operations or for planning. In addition, many of these providers are facing additional stress from rapid population growth, aging infrastructure, emerging pollutants, required environmental flow releases, already allocated water supplies, and the need to mitigate their own, frequently significant, greenhouse gases. They are asking difficult questions of the scientific community about the quality and suitability of current climate theory, data and projections, especially in their region, for the purpose of decision making. Given the potentially very expensive adaptations such as constructing sea walls, building new reservoirs, or acquiring new water, they need answers sooner rather than later and are not about to wait while the normal pace of scientific discourse occurs. Some have already taken matters into their own hands: the American Water Works Research Foundation (soon to become the Water Research Foundation) has established a multi-year strategic initiative at $1m year to identify and fund research projects and is seeking at Congressional authorization for more funding. These entities have significant political resources and clout – the Water Utility Climate Alliance represents over 30m consumers in 5 key states and the Association of Metropolitan Water Agencies serves more than 130m customers. These entities are very likely to demand more and higher quality results from the research and consulting communities in the very near future. How can and how should the scientific community engage with this critical set of stakeholders? How will research be impacted by these new players and demands? And what might the nation do to meet this critical need?
PA12A-08
A Framework for Spatial Assessment of Local Level Vulnerability and Adaptive Capacity to Extreme Heat
Changing climate is predicted to increase the intensity and impacts of heat waves prompting the need to develop preparedness and adaptation strategies that reduce societal vulnerability. Central to understanding societal vulnerability, is adaptive capacity, the potential of a system or population to modify its features/behaviors so as to better cope with existing and anticipated stresses and fluctuations. Adaptive capacity influences adaptation, the actual adjustments made to cope with the impacts from current and future hazardous heat events. Understanding societal risks, vulnerabilities and adaptive capacity to extreme heat events and climate change requires an interdisciplinary approach that includes information about weather and climate, the natural and built environment, social processes and characteristics, interactions with the stakeholders, and an assessment of community vulnerability. This project presents a framework for an interdisciplinary approach and a case study that explore linkages between quantitative and qualitative data for a more comprehensive understanding of local level vulnerability and adaptive capacity to extreme heat events in Phoenix, Arizona. In this talk, we will present a methodological framework for conducting collaborative research on societal vulnerability and adaptive capacity on a local level that includes integration of household surveys into a quantitative spatial assessment of societal vulnerability. We highlight a collaborative partnership among researchers, community leaders and public health officials. Linkages between assessment of local adaptive capacity and development of regional climate change adaptation strategies will be discussed.