Coastal Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerabilities - Climate ...

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Physical Climate Forces 23that survive within a range of elevations, seasonal temperature, precipitation, and ebband flood tides. For certain species, too much precipitation can have as much impact astoo little precipitation can have. For example, for oysters, spawning is affected by toomuch freshwater in the spring and too much saltwater in the summer, both of which caninduce diseases. An increase in extreme flooding and episodic events can increase turbidity,cause wetland loss, and induce stress to submerged plants and coral reefs.Strong scientific consensus now suggests that the frequency of some climate extremeevents is increasing and evidence exists that some extremes have increased as a result ofanthropogenic influences (Peters et al., 2011). A December 2011 news release by NOAAreported that the U.S. experiences 12 disasters in 2011 that cost a billion or more dollars,totaling losses of about $53 billion. Several were coastal storms and the 2011 losses weregreater than the previous record year in 2008. The global frequency of tropical storms isprojected to remain about the same with an increase in the number of extreme events.“Average tropical cyclone maximum wind speed is likely to increase, although increasesmay not occur in all ocean basins. It is likely that the global frequency of tropical cycloneswill either decrease or remain essentially unchanged” (IPCC, 2011). Hurricanesand episodic storm events have been observed to have many direct physical impacts.These factors are likely to contribute to increased erosion, flooding, wetland loss, anddamage to infrastructure.2.2 Sea-level Rise and Future ScenariosGlobal sea-level rise is expected to continue through the end of the next century andbeyond, which will significantly impact the U.S. and the world. Past trends providevaluable evidence in preparing for future environmental change but are insufficient bythemselves for assessing the risks associated with an uncertain future. The wide range ofestimates for global mean sea-level rise are scattered throughout the scientific literatureand other high profile assessments such as previous reports of the NCA and the IntergovernmentalPanel on Climate Change (IPCC). Currently, no coordinated, interagencyeffort exists in the U.S. to identify agreed upon global mean sea-level rise estimates forthe purposes of coastal planning, policy, and management. This is an important gapbecause identifying global mean sea-level rise estimates is a critical step in assessingcoastal impacts and vulnerabilities. At present, coastal managers are left to identify globalsea-level rise estimates through their own interpretations of scientific literature or theadvice of experts on an adhoc basis. For these reasons, the NCA Development and AdvisoryCommittee requested a report entitled Global Mean Sea-level Rise Scenarios for theU.S. NCA (Parris et al., 2012). This report provides a synthesis of the scientific literatureon global sea-level rise and a set of global mean sea-level rise scenarios to describe futureconditions and assess potential vulnerabilities and impacts.Scenario PlanningScenarios do not predict future changes; instead, they describe future potential conditionsin a manner that supports decision-making under conditions of uncertainty (Gray2011; Moss et al., 2010; Weeks et al., 2011). Scenarios are used to develop and test decisionsunder a range of plausible futures. This approach strengthens an organization’s
24 Coastal Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerabilitiesability to recognize, adapt to, and take advantage of changes over time. Using a commonset of scenarios across different regions and sectors to frame the range of uncertaintiessurrounding future environmental conditions is a relatively new NCA initiative. Thisreport provides scenarios to help assessment experts and their stakeholders analyze thevulnerabilities and impacts associated with uncertain possible futures.Probabilistic projections of future conditions are another form of scenarios not usedin the Sea-level Rise Scenarios because this method remains an area of pending research(Parris et al., 2012). No widely accepted method is currently available for producingprobabilistic projections of sea level rise at actionable regional and local scales. Coastalmanagement decisions based solely on most probable or likely outcome can lead to maladaptedor vulnerable assets (Gray, 2011; Weeks et al., 2011). Given the range of uncertaintyin future global sea-level rise, using multiple scenarios, none more likely than theother, encourages experts and decision makers to consider multiple future conditionsand to develop multiple response options. Scenario planning offers an opportunity toovercome decision-making paralysis and initiate actions now to reduce possible futureimpacts and vulnerabilities. Thus, specific probabilities or likelihoods are not assignedto individual scenarios, and none of these scenarios should be used in isolation.Global Mean Sea-level Rise ScenariosBased on numerous scientific studies, there is very high confidence (>9 in 10 chance) thatglobal mean sea level will rise at least 0.2 meters and no more than 2.0 meters by 2100(Parris et al., 2012). Global mean sea-level rise can be estimated from physical evidencesuch as observations of sea level and land ice variability (Pfeffer et al., 2008), expertjudgment (NRC, 1987, 2011, 2012), general circulation models (GCMs) (IPCC, 2007a),and from semi-empirical methods that utilize both observations and general circulationmodels (Grinsted et al., 2009; Horton et al., 2008; Jevrejeva et al., 2010; Vermeer & Rahmstorf,2009).In recent decades, the dominant contributors to global sea-level rise have been oceanwarming (thermal expansion) and ice sheet loss. Many previous studies, including theIPCC, assume thermal expansion to be the dominant contributor; however, the NRC(2012) recently reports that advances in satellite measurements indicate ice sheet loss asa greater contributor to global sea-level rise than thermal expansion over the period of1993 to 2008. Our scenarios are based on four estimates of global sea-level rise by 2100that reflect different degrees of ocean warming and ice sheet loss (Table 2-2 and Figure2-7).Key Uncertainties on the Global Sea-level Rise ScenariosAt this stage, the greatest uncertainty surrounding estimates of future global sea-levelrise is the rate and magnitude of ice sheet loss, primarily from Greenland and West Antarctica.The Highest Scenario of global sea-level rise by 2100 is derived from a combinationof estimated ocean warming from the IPCC AR4 global sea-level rise projectionsand a calculation of the maximum possible glacier and ice sheet loss by the end of thecentury (Pfeffer et al., 2008). The Highest Scenario should be considered in situationswhere there is little tolerance for risk. Our Intermediate-High Scenario is based on anaverage of the high end of ranges of global mean SLR reported by several studies using
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National Climate Assessment Regiona
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Page 11 and 12: Chapter 3Lead Author: Carlton H. He
Page 16 and 17: ContentsKey TermsAcronymsCommunicat
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Chapter 5Adaptation and MitigationK
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ReferencesAbuodha, P. & Woodroffe,
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Coastal Impacts, Adaptation, and Vu
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