Southeast Regional Workshop on the Impacts of Climate Variability and Change
James J. O'Brien
Ronald L. Ritschard
Southeast Regional Workshop on the Impacts of Climate Variability and Change
James J. O'Brien
Ronald L. Ritschard
The Southeast regional workshop was held in June 1997 and was sponsored by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the U. S. Geological Survey (USGS), and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The purpose of this workshop was to examine the impacts of climate variability and potential vulnerability to future climate change in nine states: North Carolina, South Carolina , Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Florida. Representation by economic sectors varied widely, and as a result, coverage of issues varied as well. For example, the forestry and coastal fisheries sectors were not represented; therefore, gaps in the findings and recommendations exist in those areas.
At the workshop, Jim O'Brien demonstrated the enormous effects that El Niño and its opposite, called El Viejo or La Niña, have on the climate variability of the southeastern U. S. When there is an El Niño in the winter, for example, the Southeast can expect a reduction in hurricanes and tornadoes, more rain, cool temperatures, and an adverse effect on Florida's crops. (This reduction in hurricanes also reduces the water supply, and in Florida, where the population increases by 1000 people per day, hurricanes are badly needed for the water they bring.) On the other hand, when there is a cool tropical Pacific Ocean (an El Viejo or La Niña), the region can expect more hurricanes, forest fires in the coastal regions of the Carolinas and in south Florida, and adverse effects on many crops (see Figure 2.13).
Regarding such events and their impacts, a little information to stakeholders can result in huge benefits. In South Florida, for example, the devastating effects of wild fires that result from El Viejo events can now be ameliorated because they are often known about in advance. Similarly, crops can be timed to coordinate with weather events if these events are predicted and this knowledge is communicated to local farmers. Taking advantage of El Niño forecasts in this way has a potential impact of $250 million per year. Tornado forecasts can save many lives through increased preparedness. Improved precipitation and temperature forecasts have enormous economic benefits for large power producers, and better short-term (48-72 hour) forecasts are helpful for utility load management decisions.
Regarding El Niño events and their impacts, a little information to stakeholders can result in huge benefits.
Figure 2.13
Frequency of U. S. Hurricanes during El Niño (warm phase) and El Viejo or La Niña (cold phase) Source: Bovel, et al., 1998.
El Niño and its opposite, called El Viejo or La Niña, have enormous effects on the climate variability of the southeastern U. S.
Figure 2.14
Temperature and precipitation effects of El Niño (warm phase) in winter in North America. Source: Green, et al., 1997 (see references).
Four basic themes emerged from the workshop. First, the regional infrastructure is already being stressed by resource limitations and near-term weather and climate variations. Meeting day-to-day operations already consumes most of the time and budget of regional stakeholders (such as water and utility managers, park rangers, and coastal management personnel) in the absence of climate-related issues. If the magnitude of climate variability increases or there are more frequent extreme events, these systems will be stressed even further.
Second, although climate predictive skills are improving, especially for short-term forecasts (up to 72 hours) and data are currently available or emerging from the climate community, this information is not widely used by the regional stakeholders (such as farmers, agricultural extension agents, and utility and water managers). There has been inadequate communication of climate risk at the regional and local levels. There is considerable uncertainty at these levels about the nature and extent of climate variability and future climate change. Decision makers at these levels are interested and want additional information on climate change and variability that will help them obtain answers to questions about the magnitude, timing and potential costs of climate impacts. The workshop highlighted new approaches and data emerging from the climate research community such as the use of El Niño/El Viejo data to predict seasonal and interannual climate variability for use in agriculture, water management, hazards management (e. g. , tornadoes and hurricanes) and coastal zone planning. It is anticipated that this workshop and follow-on efforts will help mold these approaches for better use by regional stakeholders.
Regional stakeholders are generally unable to make effective use of the information, data and products currently available from the climate research community.
Third, regional stakeholders are generally unable to make effective use of the information , data and products currently available from the climate research community. A clearer understanding of the products that are or will soon be available is greatly needed. Because individual researchers generally don't communicate their results directly to decision makers, an effort is required to identify scientific results that can be useful to the public and private sectors and can contribute more directly to near-term economic and societal applications. One cause of the current deficiency in this area is that existing delivery or distribution systems ( e. g., county extension programs for agriculture) are not generally linked to the outputs of the climate research community.
Fourth, stronger partnerships among federal and academic researchers, regional, state and local stakeholders, and the private sector are needed to adopt and incorporate advanced scientific results, technology, and data products into everyday decision making. Better linkages are required between researchers and regional stakeholders to better define the needs of a broader user community and to identify scientific results that can meet those needs. As was mentioned earlier, the benefits of getting predictive information to those who need it at the local level can be enormous.
Click
image to see photos of Vice President Al Gore addressing the
Southeast Regional Workshop.
Demand for water is beginning to exceed the available supply and competition among water users is intensifying. This competition for water is exacerbated by climate variability and change.
Key Findings and Recommendations
Water Resources
Findings
The overriding water resource issue in the Southeast is that the demand for water is beginning to exceed the available supply and competition among water users is intensifying. This competition for water is exacerbated by climate variability and change.
As water conflicts in the Southeast have intensified, it has become apparent that there are inadequate mechanisms for the equitable allocation of water. Since most of the important water issues are not of a technical nature, but are political, social and institutional issues, a major concern is how to develop flexible and adaptive institutions , legal frameworks, and problem solving mechanisms to allocate water among its competing uses.
Recommendations
Bridges are needed between information regarding future climate variability and change and the information required to understand trade-offs among different water management alternatives. An example of such a bridge would be a hydrologic model that can translate climate information into streamflow, water levels and soil moisture . Decision support systems are also needed.
There is also a need for demonstration or pilot projects to assure that appropriate linkages are made among water resources stakeholders, water system operators, government agencies, and the scientific community. The Global Water and Energy Cycle Continental-scale International Project, which is about to be initiated in the Southeast is encouraged to undertake such pilot projects to accelerate the development of models and information related to the prediction of precipitation, soil moisture, and streamflow and to test their value to the water resources community.
To better allocate water and resolve water conflicts, innovative supply side management (e. g., water credits, pricing strategies, etc.) integrated basin management using multi-governmental and stakeholder teams to solve problems, and flexible institutions and mechanisms for resolving conflict are needed.
Agriculture
Findings
Because agriculture in the Southeast is productive yet diverse both in systems and stresses and because irrigation is not as prevalent as in other parts of the country, the effects of climate variability and change on agriculture can be amplified in this region.
The heterogeneous nature of topography, soil structure and quality, and climate is unique in the Southeast. The interrelationships among these characteristics and their roles in sustaining productivity is not well understood.
Recommendations
In the agricultural sector, a need exists to develop, validate, and evaluate new technology capabilities such as climate forecasting, use of remotely sensed data, biophysical modeling, and precision agriculture using a multidisciplinary approach that includes producers, researchers, government agencies, farmers and others in the private sector.
There is a need to explore the transfer and communication of relevant information on climate variability/change over a full spectrum of temporal and spatial scales to users and user-specified applications. This may be best realized through the support of demonstration or pilot projects with the county extension system or similar outreach programs.
Urban Areas and Human Health
Findings
Air quality is a major concern of urban areas and it contributes to a host of environmental and human health problems (e. g., secondary air pollutants such as tropospheric ozone and chronic and acute respiratory diseases). These problems can be exacerbated by climate variability and change.
Urban heat islands, land use changes, and urbanization in general contribute both to air quality degradation through their influence on photochemical processes and to the local and regional climate (e. g. elevated air temperatures, altered precipitation patterns, changes in surface albedo, etc.).
Recommendations
Data are needed to identify susceptible populations that will be affected by changes in climate extremes and variability, to correlate respiratory health with air quality changes resulting from climate variability, and to evaluate the cost of local and regional climate variability on urban areas for urban planners and decision makers.
Improved education of both the public and decision makers and effective communication by scientists to the public on the effects of climate variability and change on urban areas and human health and on how urban areas affect local and regional climate is essential in developing mitigation strategies.
Air quality is a major concern of urban areas and it contributes to a host of environmental and human health problems which can be exacerbated by climate variability and change.
Coastal Areas
Findings
Populations on and near the coast of the southeastern U. S. grew by over 70 percent over the past 30 years leading to complex social and economic concerns related to mitigating the impact of climate variability and change such as sea level rise, storm surges and extreme events.
The potential range of climate-related impacts on ocean and coastal resources has been fairly well documented but a comprehensive assessment of the magnitude of environmental and economic costs associated with coastal impacts and hazards is still lacking.
Recommendations
Better compilations of life history data for coastal ecosystems and improved understanding of carrying capacities for sensitive species are needed so that managers can better understand the range of impacts and assess mitigative actions. These data need to be merged with socioeconomic and climate variables to improve our understanding of and ability to communication the potential impacts.
The current natural systems approach, which relies on biogeographical provinces, needs to be expanded to include climatic relationships. Further, various controlled-use sites (e. g., National Wildlife Refuges, National Estuarine Research Sites) in the region should be linked to develop a baseline reference system for studying change.
Parks and Public Lands
Findings
The Southeast region is forecast as the fastest growing in the country. U. S. population has grown at a rate of about 6.7 percent over the past five years, while the Southeast has grown by close to 10 percent over the same period. Florida and Georgia populations have grown at an even greater rate. This rapid growth causes expansion of stresses on parks and public lands (introduction of non-native invasive species, habitat fragmentation, island biomes, water and air quality issues), while at the same time, current fiscal conditions are placing stress on public land managers. Managers are not well-equipped to deal with extreme climate events and they have specific information needs related to decadal climate fluctuation, storm predictability , and extreme events.
Populations on and near the coast of the southeastern U. S. grew by over 70 percent over the past 30 years leading to complex social and economic concerns related to mitigating the impact of climate variability and change.
Recommendations
There is a need to develop firm federal policy on infrastructure in public areas so as not to exacerbate or expand development pressures from outside the public area or create more fragmented systems.
Regional cooperation among federal, state and local agencies and the private sector needs to be encouraged for maintenance of community continuity to allow for adaptive change in habitats and biological communities. Southern Appalachian Assessment might serve as an example of multiagency cooperation for integrated planning and development of information for use in local and regional decisions.
Extreme Climate Events
Finding
Extreme climate/weather events have a considerable impact on stakeholders in the Southeast associated with sectors that include energy, emergency management, and water resources. The Southeast is becoming increasingly vulnerable to extreme events including hurricanes, floods, droughts, ice storms, heat waves, and tornadoes because of rapid population growth and development in vulnerable coastal locations.
Recommendations
There is a need to maintain and extend our ability to collect, analyze, and disseminate data related to climate over the long term. In the case of extremes, such data have a demonstrable relationship to decision making. Given that societal and environmental problems associated with climate extremes are complex, data must also be collected on non-climate factors (e. g., social and economic impacts and causes).
Bridge-building may increase to develop processes to determine what climate information and tools would be of use to stakeholders. Existing organizations such as the National Climate Data Center, Regional Climate Centers, and State Climatologists should be used to enhance the linkage between climate science and regional stakeholders.
Education
Finding
Since education cuts across each of the breakout topics, there are many opportunities for the educational community to contribute to the climate research agenda, to use scientific results to enhance educational programs, and to educate future generations of teachers to implement Earth systems science programs.
The Southeast is becoming increasingly vulnerable to extreme events because of rapid population growth and development in vulnerable coastal locations.
Recommendation
From the educational perspective, the most important recommendation is to promote the adoption and expansion of existing programs, such as Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment (GLOBE), that involve students and their teachers in data collection, manipulation and interpretation. The upcoming The Global Water and Energy Cycle Continental-scale International Project in the Southeast was suggested as a candidate program for establishing a partnership between the scientific and educational communities to demonstrate this approach.
References
Bovel, Mark C., James B. Elsner, Chris W. Landsea, Xufeng Niu, and James J. O'Brien, 1998. The Effect of El Niño on U. S. Landfalling Hurricanes, Revisited, submitted to the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society as a short note.
Green, P. M., D. M. Legler, C. J. Miranda V, and J. J. O'Brien, 1997. The North American Climate Patterns Associated with the El Niño-Southern Oscillation, COAPS Project Report Series 97-1, Center For Ocean-Atmospheric Prediction Studies, Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida. The complete report can be found at http:/ /www.coaps.fsu.edu/lib/booklet
Given that societal and environmental problems associated with climate extremes are complex, data must also be collected on non-climate factors (e. g., social and economic impacts and causes).
Forward to Next Section//Back to Table of Contents//AGCI Homepage//Comments: agcimail@agci.org