Final Report: Projecting Future Climate, Vegetation, and Hydrology in the Pacific Northwest
Dates
Date Reported
2014-10-07
Citation
Final Report: Projecting Future Climate, Vegetation, and Hydrology in the Pacific Northwest: .
Summary
Climate change is expected to have different effects in different parts of the world. For this reason, regionally-specific projections of climate and environmental change are important to help those who need to plan how best to adapt. The goal of this project was to use the latest global climate models and state of the science models of vegetation and hydrology, to describe what the latest science says about the Northwest’s future climate, vegetation, and hydrology. Researchers in the project began by evaluating the ability of climate models to simulate observed climate patterns in the Northwest region. The best performing models were ‘downscaled’, that is, remapped onto the finer grids used in models of hydrology and vegetation. The [...]
Summary
Climate change is expected to have different effects in different parts of the world. For this reason, regionally-specific projections of climate and environmental change are important to help those who need to plan how best to adapt. The goal of this project was to use the latest global climate models and state of the science models of vegetation and hydrology, to describe what the latest science says about the Northwest’s future climate, vegetation, and hydrology. Researchers in the project began by evaluating the ability of climate models to simulate observed climate patterns in the Northwest region. The best performing models were ‘downscaled’, that is, remapped onto the finer grids used in models of hydrology and vegetation. The researchers used the best performing models to project likely future changes to the Northwest’s climate, hydrology, and vegetation. One product of this work is a series of freely available datasets that can be used to address specific management questions. These datasets are compatible with other hydrological and ecological modeling efforts and represent a next-generation climate change framework for land managers. This framework supports a range of management activities to increase the resilience of Northwest ecosystems, agricultural systems, and built environments. It allows the development of tools to help land managers identify the most vulnerable areas in the region and to develop strategies for reducing the impacts of climate change.
This project was funded jointly by the Department of the Interior’s Northwest Climate Science Center and by the National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration’s Climate Impacts Research Consortium. To learn more about the project visit: http://pnwcirc.org/a-look-at-our-integrated-scenarios-project-with-video/ or contact Phil Mote at pmote@coas.oregonstate.edu.
