End-user engagement for improved projections of local sea-level change and tropical

cyclone activity

Greg Berman(Woods Hole Sea Grant & Cape Cod

Cooperative Extension)

November 18, 2013

Climate Change Adaptation Initiative

Climate Change Adaptation Initiative

Short Answer: We’re not done yet…

ADVANCED REGIONAL AND DECADAL PREDICTIONS OF COASTALINUNDATION FOR THE U.S. ATLANTIC AND GULF COASTS

Benjamin Horton, Jeffrey Donnelly, Reide Corbett, Andrew Kemp,Ken Lindeman,Michael Mann,Dick Peltier,Stefan Rahmstorf

Improving NOAA’s Climate Services for the Coastal Zone: A Special Competition

SLR & Storms

We’re not done yet…

NOAA Project

Hurricane tracks (≥Cat 2 intensity) from the Emanuel (2006) model passing within 100 km of the Woods Hole (17,354 total storms).1049Cat 2 storms (green),1050242 Cat 3 storms (yellow) ,10514 Cat 4 storms (red).

Glacial isostatic adjustment and sea-level change. State of the art report. Pippa Whitehouse, Durham University. April 2009

Natural compaction and subsidence (e.g., LA)Post glacial rebound effects (e.g., US NE)

Gravity effect of ice (e.g., Global)

West Antarctic

Greenland

The Need

Assist in developing reciprocal relationships between resource users/managers and technical info producers in order to facilitate end-user engagement and informed tools for users/managers of those resources.

The Need

Assist in developing reciprocal relationships between resource users/managers and technical info producers in order to facilitate end-user engagement and informed tools for users/managers of those resources.

Workshops

GIS-based geospatial archives, outreach

graphics, web-based data

visualization schemes and

tutorials

Workshop Support

IDENTIFY KEY INFO NEEDS OF END-USERS3 workshops on U. S. eastern seaboard (summer of 2012)

Theme of Sea Level Rise Science and Planning Needs

-What spatial and temporal scientific information do you need to advance inundation planning in your position?

-How do you prefer this information to be provided (format and medium)?

-How can the science be scaled up to have a larger impact across multiple disciplines or regions?

Workshop Results

Temporal scale: Due to the political realities of their positions, local planners see little direct application for 100 yr time scales: 4 yr, 10 yr, 30 yr are the scales that matter.

Spatial Scale: Local, fine scale spatial products (“my property”). “As fine a resolution as possible” was mentioned with much frequency. Watershed and regional scale products also.

Format & medium of product: Inundation maps under varying scenarios (with DEM and shape files) were desired. Not surprisingly, almost every possible format within every medium was desired. This included web-available products, smartphone apps, twitter feeds, etc. We attempted to clarify that we would produce what time and project resources allowed.

Scaling up Concerns focused on:- Tipping points: when are thresholds crossed, Education (case studies mentioned multiple times), Cross-disciplinary partnerships, Economic cost/ benefit analysis, Ecosystem services (before and after etc): biological and watershed impacts, wetland mitigation, Transportation impacts

Multiple Scales and Ranges: Many do not recommend worst case scenarios for storm events.

Historic , “Best Case”, and “Worst Case” …Note that even “Best Case” is not that great!

Progress

GIS-based geospatial archives, outreach

graphics, web-based data

visualization schemes and

tutorials

Workshops