"Understanding our global environment and our role in it is the first step toward living in better harmony with nature."
Reports to the Nation: Our Changing Planet

CSI

Research/
Publications

Videos

Funded Projects

Events

Contact Info

Framing the question: Can coping with today’s variable climate offer a blueprint for future adaptation?

The NOAA Office of Global Programs recently convened a workshop on Insights and Tools for Adaptation: Learning from Climate Variability (18-20 November 2003; Washington, DC). The workshop sought to synthesize key adaptation lessons generated by NOAA-supported research and applications on interannual timescales (e.g., El Niño), and to explore the practical implications of these insights for climate change adaptation research, decision making, and development planning in the U.S. and overseas.

Workshop participants were drawn from a cross-section of leading researchers, managers and decision-makers involved with NOAA’s Climate and Societal Interactions (CSI) effort. The CSI program effort stimulates and supports innovative research on climate-human interactions, and the use of this insight for the development, prototype implementation and evaluation of decision support tools and mechanisms. Key workshop findings and recommendations were presented to a broader group of stakeholders at a Synthesis Session chaired by Dr. James R. Mahoney (Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere and NOAA Deputy Administrator) immediately following the workshop.

Representative themes addressed by the workshop include the following:

• What coping strategies have been effective (and ineffective) in the face of current climate variability (e.g., droughts and floods and their impacts on water management, agriculture, public health and safety, forest management, urban planning) and how well would these hold up in the face of long-term change?

• How can lessons learned about the importance of scale (temporal, spatial, societal) be incorporated into (1) an on-going dialogue with stakeholders and (2) the development of the research agenda and its products?

• What insight does experience with climate variability offer about how people make decisions under uncertainty and what roles do social, political, and economic factors play in how individuals and societies cope with climate variability? How can capacity to support decision-making under uncertainty be enhanced?

• What dissemination channels, information formats and communication methods have been effective in communicating climate information for decision-making? What criteria and methods have been used to evaluate communication? What role has communication played in helping societies and economies adapt to the present climate? What are the implications for longer-term adaptation?

• What are the best practices developed on interannual timescales for improving interactions between stakeholders and the research community, and supporting public discussion of and participation in planning, adaptive management, and policymaking? How might these approaches apply to climate change adaptation, and what are the limits of their applicability?

• Where have society and the scientific community been successful in transferring research beyond individual insights and into operational change? Which of the tools and products designed to help societies adapt to climate variability which might also be helpful in adapting to climate change?

• Where can experience with seasonal to internnual offer insights/recommendations back to the climate observations/modeling/research/forecasting community in terms of the production of climate information (e.g., downscaling, articulating the effects of climate change on the skill of seasonal predictions)?

Workshop insights and recommendations:

Experience with climate variability offers the scientific community and society useable insights for longer-term adaptation, but a focused effort is needed to effectively and systematically evaluate and apply these lessons in a practical research and applications.

The workshop established that experience with how society copes with climate variability provides a valuable foundation for longer-term adaptation, as it offers familiarity with climate and its socioeconomic impacts; decision support tools and methods for addressing today’s challenges which may be extended to longer timescales; and growing capacity in the form of methods, institutions and individuals to produce, disseminate and apply climate information. Specific lessons learned from a 15 year investment in seasonal to interannual research, assessments and applications work by NOAA and its numerous national and international partners are incorporated in the workshop report, which will be published this spring (many of these lessons are articulated in the workshop’s background materials, which are currently available on the workshop website; see address below). It is clear from the workshop, however, that there is a need for a focused, systematic effort to address adaptation from a multidisciplinary, multi-institutional perspective, with substantial involvement of stakeholders. NOAA/CSI hopes to explore the issue with its partners in the US and abroad.

For additional information about the workshop, including agenda, list of participants and issue-focused background papers prepared by participants, please visit http://www.climateadaptation.net. For information about NOAA’s Climate and Societal Interactions (CSI) effort, please consult the “Programs” section of the NOAA/OGP website: http://www.ogp.noaa.gov.