Innovations in science and scenarios for assessment

Abstract

Scenarios for the Third National Climate Assessment (NCA3) were produced for physical climate and sea level rise with substantial input from disciplinary and regional experts. These scenarios underwent extensive review and were published as NOAA Technical Reports. For land use/cover and socioeconomic conditions, scenarios already developed by other agencies were specified for use in the NCA3. Efforts to enhance participatory scenario planning as an assessment activity were pursued, but with limited success. Issues and challenges included the timing of availability of scenarios, the need for guidance in use of scenarios, the need for approaches to nest information within multiple scales and sectors, engagement and collaboration of end users in scenario development, and development of integrated scenarios. Future assessments would benefit from an earlier start to scenarios development, the provision of training in addition to guidance documents, new and flexible approaches for nesting information, ongoing engagement and advice from both scientific and end user communities, and the development of consistent and integrated scenarios.

Future projections of streamflow magnitude and timing differ across coastal watersheds of the western United States

“…The dominant feature of the changing climate, in many ways, is the variability and uncertainty. Temperature, which is typically more robust of the two variables, has a range of roughly 5 °C at each site, and with GCMs spread fairly evenly across that range (Kunkel et al ., ). The wide range of projected temperatures reinforces the GCM variability inherent throughout this work, and that same degree of uncertainty should be kept in mind when considering the hydrologic outputs.…”

“…An overwhelming body of work has established that the climate of Earth is changing, specifically becoming warmer and wetter at the global scale but with strong regional variations in precipitation (Hartmann et al ., ; Walsh et al ., ). In addition to affecting water resources through changes in precipitation, climate change also causes shifts in evapotranspiration (ET) and infiltration that can lead to altered streamflow quantity and timing (Stewart et al ., ; Hoerling et al ., ; Kunkel et al ., ). Changing climate is closely tied to the hydrologic cycle, which is both critically important and exemplified by the variety of conditions that exist on the west coast of the United States (U.S.).…”

“…Although the change in global average temperature over the 20th century was 0.06 °C per decade (±0.02 °C), analyses of temperature in the western U.S. over the past century show increases of at least 0.1 °C per decade (Mote, ; Hamlet et al ., ). Trends in the Pacific Northwest show increases over the past century of about 0.07 °C per decade, and in California over the same period temperature has increased >0.1 °C (Hoerling et al ., ; Kunkel et al ., ). Assessments of precipitation, by comparison, show less uniform trends (Hartmann et al ., ; Georgakakos et al ., ).…”

Population Health Adaptation Approaches to the Increasing Severity and Frequency of Weather-Related Disasters Resulting From our Changing Climate: A Literature Review and Application to Charleston, South Carolina

“…The extensive chain of barrier islands along its eastern coast are highly vulnerable to GM-SLR as reported in the NOAA Technical Report NESDIS 142–2 20,21 . Projections of GM-SLR by the end of this century indicate partial inundation of some areas of the southeastern coast 22 .…”

Loblolly Pine Productivity and Water Relations in Response to Throughfall Reduction and Fertilizer Application on a Poorly Drained Site in Northern Florida

“…The concentration of atmospheric CO 2 has increased from 280 parts per million (ppm) to over 400 ppm since the start of the Industrial Revolution [1,2]. Climate change simulations using the assumptions of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change A2 scenario, which represents a largely business-as-usual future, suggest that the southeastern U.S. will experience an increase in average temperature of 2.5 to 4.7 • C by 2085 [3]. Estimates for changes in precipitation for this region are much less certain and (1) Control (C): ambient throughfall, no fertilizer application (2) Throughfall Reduction (TR): 30% throughfall reduction, no fertilizer application (3) Fertilizer application (F): ambient throughfall, fertilizer application (4) Fertilizer application and Throughfall Reduction (TR+F): 30% throughfall reduction, fertilizer application.…”