Climate Field Notes. Insights from a NOAA Sea Grant Network Project.

摘要

Helping coastal communities prepare for climate change is vital, as theyface potentially significant effects of climate variability and change during this century. These effects, according to the Nobel-prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, include sea-level rise, coastal erosion, flooding, increasingly intense storms, and changes to the nearshore ocean environment. At least as important as these events themselves is the expected increase in frequency, intensity, and uncertainty of climate-related extreme events. For most people, the future climate is very unlikely to look like that of the past. However, when this project began in 2009, coastal preparations nationally were for the most part only in very early stages. The problem wasnt a lack ofpublic recognition of the risks of climate change. Public polling indicated that while Americans were deeply divided over the causes of global warming, the majority was at least concerned and many were alarmed about its potential consequences. That concern has only increased since 2009, particularly under the apparently increasing frequency of extreme weather events that put Americans in harm's way. But even back then, many local decision makers were acutely concerned about climate-related risks, as clearly demonstrated by surveys of coastal professionals and other stakeholders in California, Oregon, and Maine.