Integrating climate change impacts to improve understanding of coastal climate change: heavy rains, strong winds, and high seas in coastal Hawaii, Alaska and the Pacific Northwest

摘要

Coastal storms, and the strong winds, heavy rains, and high seas that accompany them pose a serious threat to theudlives and livelihoods of the peoples of the Pacific basin, from the tropics to the high latitudes. To reduce theirudvulnerability to the economic, social, and environmental risks associated with these phenomena (and correspondingly enhance their resiliency), decision-makers in coastal communities require timely access to accurate information that affords them an opportunity to plan and respond accordingly. This includes information about the potential for coastal flooding, inundation and erosion at time scales ranging from hours to years, as well as the longterm climatological context of this information.ududThe Pacific Storms Climatology Project (PSCP) was formed in 2006 with the intent of improving scientific understanding of patterns and trends of storm frequency and intensity - “storminess”- and related impacts of these extreme events. The project is currently developing a suite of integrated information products that can be used by emergency managers, mitigation planners, government agencies and decision-makers in key sectors, including: water and natural resource management, agriculture and fisheries, transportation and communication, and recreation and tourism.ududThe PSCP is exploring how the climate-related processes that govern extreme storm events are expressed within andudbetween three primary thematic areas: heavy rains, strong winds, and high seas. To address these thematic areas,udPSCP has focused on developing analyses of historical climate records collected throughout the Pacific region, andudthe integration of these climatological analyses with near-real time observations to put recent weather and climate events into a longer-term perspective.(PDF contains 4 pages)