Incorporating Climate Change into NOAA's Stewardship 

Responsibilities for Living Marine Resources and Coastal 

Ecosystems: A Strategy for Progress 

R. B. Griffis, R. L. Feldman, N. K. Beller-Simms, K. E. Osgood, and N. Cyr 

(editors) 

U.S. Department of Commerce 

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration 

National Marine Fisheries Service 

NOAA Technical Memorandum NMFS-F/SPO-95 

December 2008
 
 

Incorporating Climate Change into NOAA's Stewardship 

Responsibilities for Living Marine Resources and Coastal 

Ecosystems: A Strategy for Progress 

R. B. Griffis, R. L. Feldman, N. K. Beller-Simms, K. E. Osgood, and N. Cyr (editors)

NOAA Technical Memorandum NMFS-F/SPO-95 

December 2008

U.S. Department of Commerce 

Carlos M. Gutiérrez, Secretary 

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration 

William Brennan, Acting Under Secretary for Oceans and Atmosphere 

National Marine Fisheries Service 

James W. Balsiger, Acting Assistant Administrator for Fisheries
 ii

Suggested citation: 

Griffis, R. B., R. L. Feldman, N. K. Beller-Simms, K. E. Osgood, and N. Cyr (editors). 2008. 

Incorporating Climate Change into NOAA's Stewardship Responsibilities for Living Marine 

Resources and Coastal Ecosystems: A Strategy for Progress. U.S. Dep. Commerce, NOAA Tech. 

Memo. NMFS-F/SPO-95, 89 p.

A copy of this report may be obtained from:

Office of Science & Technology 

NOAA, NMFS 

1315 East-West Highway, F/ST7 

Silver Spring, MD 20910 

Or online at: 

http://spo.nmfs.noaa.gov/tm/ 
 iii

Preface 

NOAA is committed to improving society’s ability to plan for and respond to climate variability 

and change. This includes enhancing the conservation and management of living marine 

resources, coastal resources and coastal communities to meet economic, social, and 

environmental needs. Climate change is already having impacts on ocean/coastal resources and 

communities, and these impacts are expected to increase in scale and scope over time. The 

demand is high from multiple sectors for NOAA to provide increased information and services 

on (1) how climate change will impact marine life, coastal resources and the communities that 

depend on them, and (2) what can be done to mitigate and/or adapt to these impacts. Decision 

makers across the public and private sector are formulating strategies now and need tools and 

information to prepare, mitigate and adapt to impacts of climate change on ocean and coastal 

ecosystems. 

As both a producer and user of climate information, NOAA can better meet its mandates by 

integrating climate, coastal, and marine ecosystem observations and predictions, improving 

delivery of regionally-focused climate information to ocean and coastal decision-makers, and 

providing tools to effectively use this information to assess risks and implement effective 

management strategies. 

NOAA convened two internal workshops in 2008 to respond to a request from the NOAA 

Administrator for strategies to better incorporate climate change information in fulfilling 

NOAA’s management responsibilities related to living marine resources, coastal resources and 

coastal communities. The workshops were also part of NOAA’s commitment to “engage in 

consultations within the agency to identify climate information needs and capacities,” as part of 

NOAA’s response to a 2007 Government Accountability Office (GAO) report, Climate Change: 

Agencies Should Develop Guidance for Addressing the Effects on Federal Land and Water 

Resources. GAO recommended that “the Secretaries of Agriculture, Commerce, and the Interior 

develop guidance incorporating agencies’ best practices, which advises managers on how to 

address climate change effects on the resources they manage and gather the information needed 

to do so.” 

The two workshops focused on (1) climate information needed to fulfill NOAA’s living marine 

resource management requirements, and (2) climate information and other tools needed to 

strengthen NOAA and its partners’ capacity to address climate impacts on coastal communities 

and ecosystems. Representatives from all five of NOAA’s Line Offices were present and 

included climate scientists, coastal and marine resource managers, mapping and geopositioning 

experts, biologists, ecologists, oceanographers, fishery scientists, meteorologists, social 

scientists, outreach coordinators, communicators, and senior NOAA leadership. 

Workshop participants emphasized the need for additional climate data, improved understanding 

of how climate changes impact living marine resources and coastal communities, better internal 

communication and collaboration, improved mechanisms for delivering climate data to decision 

makers, enhanced models and projections (especially those scaled to regional and subregional 

levels), and increased capacity building for vulnerability assessments and adaptation planning. 

The workshops laid the foundation for a NOAA strategy to systematically incorporate climate 
 iv

change into management of ocean and coastal areas, identify key gaps, and address those gaps. 

The workshops also identified opportunities for working across NOAA to better integrate climate 

change information into management of ocean and coastal resources by NOAA and partners. 

Workshop participants have initiated several joint activities to help fulfill these goals. 

Increasing communication and collaboration between NOAA’s climate, ocean and coastal 

activities offers significant benefits for addressing the impacts of climate change, both within 

NOAA and through our partners and stakeholders. NOAA is currently developing a strategic 

approach to integrate its coastal activities, with a specific focus on helping improve risk 

assessment and adaptation to climate change in coastal areas. Significant efforts are underway 

for improving the design, development, and delivery of effective climate services to NOAA and 

other stakeholders through a National Climate Service. These are important vehicles for 

development and implementation of an integrated, end-to-end suite of climate-related products 

and services for use in management of living marine resources and building hazard-resilient 

coastal communities and economies. 

We believe implementing the recommendations from these workshops is critical to fulfilling 

NOAA’s living marine resource and coastal mandates in a changing climate. These 

recommendations provide a solid framework for joint planning and action to address climate 

change impacts on NOAA’s ocean and coastal stewardship missions. 

To help move this forward, we suggest a number of near-term actions, including establishment of 

NOAA working groups to oversee implementation of the recommendations, engaging federal 

agencies and other stakeholders in planning and action, increasing access to climate data and 

decision-support tools, developing specific guidance for incorporating climate change into 

NOAA’s living marine resource and coastal management activities, and organizing annual 

summits to assess needs, opportunities and progress towards our goals. 

Chester J. Koblinsky Steve Murawski 

Climate Goal Lead Ecosystem Goal Lead 
 v

Acknowledgements 

This report was made possible by the hard work and input of approximately 150 individuals who 

participated in the NOAA workshops on how to incorporate climate change into NOAA’s living 

marine resource and coastal missions, summarized in this document. Special thanks go to Steve 

Murawski and Chester Koblinsky for their leadership and the Workshop Committees that 

organized the workshops and assisted in review and drafting of the final report. 
 vi

Table of Contents Page 

Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . iii 

Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . v 

Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 

Summary of Findings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 

Summary of Recommendations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 

Next Steps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 

Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 

Appendix A Climate and LMR Workshop report. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 

Appendix B Climate and Coastal Management Workshop Report . . . . . . . . . . 33 

Appendix C Climate/Ecosystems Observation Needs Assessment . . . . . . . . . . 68 

Appendix D Climate/Transportation/Communities Needs Assessment . . . . . . . . 86 
 1

Background 

Climate change is expected to have significant impacts on ocean and coastal environments and 

the communities that depend on them.1

 Many of these impacts are already well documented. 

Key climate change impacts on living marine resources, coastal ecosystems and communities 

include: 

• Changes to ocean physical and chemical properties (e.g., ocean temperature, ocean 

circulation, ocean acidification) 

• Changes in sea level and coastal inundation (Note: this includes the Great Lakes, where 

the level is dropping) 

• Loss of sea ice 

• Changes in freshwater supply and quality 

• Changes in frequency and/or severity of severe weather (including hurricanes and nontropical storms) 

These changes have a variety of subsequent impacts on ocean/coastal resources and communities 

for which NOAA has either direct or indirect stewardship responsibilities. NOAA needs to 

address these impacts in fulfilling its stewardship mandates for living marine resources, coastal 

resources and coastal communities including: 

• Direct and indirect impacts of climate on living marine resources and the habitats they 

depend on (productivity, phenology, distribution) 

• Food web impacts of changes to marine systems 

• Socio-economic impacts 

• Impacts on land use and transportation 

• Reduced resilience of communities and natural systems 

• Legal and policy implications 

• Ocean and human health impacts 

In 2008 NOAA’s Climate Program Office worked with numerous NOAA offices to organize two 

workshops to assess capabilities and needs for NOAA to address impacts of climate change on 

its ocean and coastal stewardship missions. The workshops were motivated by internal and 

external calls for increased NOAA action to plan for and address climate change impacts on 

living marine resources and coastal communities and the ecosystems upon which they depend. 

The workshops had three primary objectives: 

• Foster communication and coordination among NOAA offices responsible for producing 

climate information and those responsible for applying climate information in coastal and 

marine settings; 

• Identify needs, gaps and priority actions for incorporating climate information into 

NOAA’s ocean and coastal stewardship activities; and 

 

1

 IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), 2007: Summary for policymakers. In: Climate Change 2007: 

Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability. Contribution of Working Group II to the Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) 

of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Parry, M.L., O.F. Canziani, J.P. Palutikof, P.J. van der Linden, 

and C.E. Hanson (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, and New York, pp. 7-22. 
2

• Advance the development of a NOAA strategy for providing and applying climate 

information in NOAA’s stewardship efforts related to coastal and marine resources. 

The first workshop, addressing Climate and Living Marine Resources (LMR), was held May 14-

15, 2008, at NOAA’s Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory in Seattle, Washington, with 

more than 50 people attending. The second workshop “Strengthening Capacity to Address the 

Impacts of Climate Change on Coastal Communities and Ecosystems” was held June 19-20, 

2008, at the American Geophysical Union in Washington, DC, with approximately 100 

attendees. Participants at both workshops were NOAA employees representing multiple 

headquarters and field offices. A small number of non-NOAA presenters provided management 

and science perspectives during a portion of each workshop. 

NOAA has a variety of goals related to climate and ocean/coastal management including 

understanding and predicting how climate is changing; predicting the impacts these changes are 

having or will have on ocean and coastal resources and communities; assisting NOAA and nonNOAA customers with assessing risks and implementing mitigation and/or adaptation strategies; 

and monitoring and assessing impacts of climate change and our responses over time. Both 

workshops invited participants to review key challenges associated with these goals, as well as to 

discuss available resources (including knowledge, experience, data, data delivery, computational 

and other capacity, technology, and information systems) and important gaps. Workshop 

participants addressed three main questions: 

1. What are the most critical impacts of climate change on living marine resources or coastal 

ecosystems and communities that NOAA should address? 

2. What are the key gaps and needs for NOAA to address these climate impacts? 

3. What key actions should NOAA take in the near (1-2 years) and long-term (3-5 years) to 

address these needs? 

The workshops complemented each other and provided a solid framework for joint planning and 

action, including ongoing and evolving efforts within NOAA’s climate and natural resource 

programs to address climate impacts and adaptation. Dialogues that occurred as a result of the 

workshops will contribute to the development of additional agency efforts for generating and 

applying climate information and services related to natural resource and risk management in 

marine and coastal regions. Needs assessments and potential strategies were discussed for both 

short and long term efforts. 
3

Summary of Findings 

Given the diversity of NOAA’s mandates for living marine resource and coastal management, 

the two workshops had different focal areas. The Climate/Living Marine Resource workshop 

focused heavily on climate information and science needs required to fulfill NOAA’s 

management responsibilities for fisheries, protected species, and place-based stewardship of 

important ocean areas. The Climate/Coastal Communities and Ecosystems workshop identified 

information and capacity needs of NOAA and the partners with whom NOAA works to manage 

the Nation’s coastal areas. The workshops identified many common issues and validated the 

need to better incorporate climate change information in fulfilling NOAA’s mandates. Many of 

the findings echoed the drivers and demands informing the proposed development of a National 

Climate Service within NOAA. The following is a summary of the key findings from the 

workshops (see Appendices for full workshop reports): 

1. NOAA has unique capabilities and responsibilities for providing climate information and 

for managing climate impacts on living marine resources, coastal ecosystems and coastal 

communities. NOAA is unique in its mandates and abilities to provide observations for climate 

predictions and to help address impacts of climate change on LMRs, coastal ecosystems and 

communities. NOAA is both a producer and a consumer of ocean and coastal data used for 

climate assessments, as well as a boundary organization acting as a translator between producers 

(i.e., scientists) and users (i.e., resource managers), providing value-added and capacity building 

for a host of users beyond NOAA. 

2. There is urgent need and high demand from internal and external customers/partners 

for NOAA to provide climate information and decision-support tools that can be used to 

assess risks and adaptation strategies for living marine resources, coastal resources and 

coastal communities. NOAA and its partners are making decisions now about climate-sensitive 

issues (e.g., coastal development, marine transportation, fisheries management and protected 

species listing and recovery). These stakeholders need climate predictions, risk assessments and 

management scenarios to evaluate the best possible solutions to address climate impacts at 

regional to local levels. Many states and other partners are already developing climate adaptation 

and mitigation plans and are looking to NOAA for climate services, information, tools and 

assistance in applying this information to reduce risk and increase resiliency of coastal 

communities and resources. 

3. NOAA needs to do a better job of delivering the climate information it already has.

NOAA has a responsibility to make it easier for stakeholders to identify and access what it has to 

offer, develop new ways of presenting this information, and recognize the importance of 

integrating physical, natural and socioeconomic information. NOAA should provide all available 

relevant data and information to those making decisions now. NOAA should also be working in 

a more integrated fashion to collect new data sets effectively and efficiently (e.g., through an 

Integrated Ocean and Coastal Mapping approach using topographic and bathymetric highresolution Digital Elevation Models). 
4

4. NOAA should provide better ‘service’ focused on user needs.

Both climate and coasts are “integrators” across NOAA. NOAA needs systematic and deliberate 

processes and dedicated funding to connect the communities of scientific knowledge and the 

service providers, decision makers and society. NOAA research should be responsive to formal 

needs assessments and prioritizations, and the transfer of information and tools should be 

accompanied by capacity building and technical support as necessary, so that our customers can 

use the tools and information that NOAA provides. Until NOAA makes these investments, it is 

not going to make the maximum use of the knowledge, information and expertise it has. 

Evaluation mechanisms should be used to track and improve the effectiveness of climate-related 

data delivery. 

5. NOAA does not regularly and consistently apply climate information when developing 

predictions and adaptation plans for LMR management (some exceptions were 

highlighted).

Barriers to the use of climate information in LMR management include: 

• Insufficient understanding of how climate changes impact LMRs 

• Limited communication between the climate and ecosystem communities 

• Lack of awareness about relevant climate information products 

• Lack of support for multi-disciplinary, cross-office efforts 

• Differences in the temporal scales of predictions and information needs 

• Lack of synchronicity between observations (physical, chemical, and biological) 

• Lack of a framework for integrating climate information into LMR management 

• Lack of funding for multi-sector research and management that integrates climate, LMR, 

and coastal information 

6. It is essential for NOAA’s climate projections and scenarios to span the full range of 

possibilities and provide measures of probability.

There is a large range of uncertainty in the physical climate drivers. Ecological responses further 

magnify the uncertainty. For managers to make decisions on the best course of action for the 

resources they manage, they need to know the timescales, probabilities and bounds within which 

their decisions are being made. 

7. The temporal and spatial scale of climate information provided must match the needs of 

managers.

The use of climate information by managers, to the extent it is available, is growing. LMR 

workshop participants noted that managers need information at annual or shorter time scales for 

seasonal and annual management decisions, but there is an emerging need for longer term (10-30 

years) climate and climate impact projections for long range planning. Speakers and participants 

at the Climate/Coastal Communities and Ecosystems workshop highlighted the need for 

increased data resolution to meet planning needs at regional to local scales. 

8. A mix of standard and custom products will be required.

There are a wide variety of problems and issues related to climate and management of ocean and 

coastal resources. Some can be addressed with standardized products while others will require 

customized research and development of more specialized products. Currently there is little 
5

coordination among NOAA Line Offices in the development of climate-related products (e.g., 

sea level rise projections) for specific applications. 

9. Establish and track environmental baselines to assess impacts of climate change.

There are legal and scientific reasons to establish environmental and other baselines with which 

to judge the implications of climate impacts on LMRs, coastal resources and coastal 

communities. Without adequate baselines, there are no standards for comparing current and 

future conditions and the effectiveness of management actions. This includes clear baselines for 

physical/chemical parameters such as coastal land elevation, ocean temperature and ocean 

acidification as well as other important variables such as productivity, phenology, distribution 

and abundance of species and habitats. 

10. View climate in the context of other stressors. 

The impacts of climate are overlaid on the impacts of other stressors (e.g., extreme events, 

pollution, land and resource use, and invasive species), and these multiple stressors sometimes 

have synergistic effects. For example, changing precipitation patterns will affect the delivery of 

land-based pollutants to coastal waters and changing water temperatures alter species distribution 

and ranges. NOAA research and management must adopt a system-level perspective that 

considers climate patterns, trends and episodes in the context of these other stressors. 

11. Support a proactive approach for risk assessment and adaptation planning.

There is a need to address today’s problems and high priority issues while planning for the 

future. Place-based information is essential to explore possible future scenarios, as well as 

options for adaptation. NOAA is in a position to take the leading role in a collaborative, 

participatory, and iterative planning and implementation process with our customers and 

partners. NOAA should strengthen capacity in communities and within government to take on 

this challenge in a proactive, not reactive manner. 

12. Become an international leader in climate data, modeling, monitoring, research and 

service. 

NOAA is uniquely positioned to help meet the urgent and growing demands from international 

partners for data, products and services to address climate impacts on ocean and coastal 

ecosystems and communities. NOAA should also seek out and learn from international efforts. 

13. NOAA should expand development and delivery of state-of-the-art information and 

decision support tools on climate change and marine and coastal ecosystems. 

As part of assessing NOAA capabilities, existing plans, and feedback from external and internal 

stakeholders, NOAA has developed proposals for expanding planned initiatives, building on 

current efforts, and filling important gaps to directly address many of the highest priority internal 

and external needs. Funding and implementation of these proposals would significantly increase 

the resilience of coastal and living marine resources, ecosystems, and communities to impacts of 

climate change. 

14. There are key gaps in NOAA’s ability to incorporate climate change in its ocean and 

coastal stewardship mandates, and additional investments are needed for NOAA to address 

the impacts of climate change on these resources. 
6

The highest priorities for additional investments by NOAA identified at the workshops were 1) 

expanding integrated climate and ecosystem observations and studies, 2) downscaling climate 

predictions to the appropriate regional or local scale, and 3) expanding NOAA’s products and 

services for assessing risks and implementing adaptation plans that increase community and 

ecosystem resilience to impacts of climate change. The following are some of the specific key 

needs identified at the workshops: 

 

Observation Needs 

• Observations and forecasts at relevant spatial and temporal scales 

• Higher-resolution data 

• Better information quality 

• Integration of biological parameters into observing systems 

• Baseline maps of ocean/coastal habitats and other environmental baseline data 

• High Resolution Geospatial Framework (shoreline, bathymetry, etc.) and visualization 

tools 

• Modernization/completion of monitoring networks, e.g., National Water Level 

Observation Network, National Spatial Reference System for accurate elevations, Global 

Ocean Observing Systems 

Research and Modeling Needs 

• Definition of critical thresholds and creation of early warning systems 

• Improved ecological forecasts 

• Research on ecological implications of climate change 

• Research on feedbacks (e.g., biogenic feedbacks, ecosystem impacts on carbon fluxes) 

• Research on adaptive capacity of species and ecosystems 

• Measures and factors affecting resilience 

• Models of economic and health impacts of projected changes 

• Coupling of local monitoring and regional models 

• Model evaluation and validation 

• Research on chemical and physical changes to the oceans 

• Infrastructure for community modeling 

• Computing resources for downscaling models 

• More robust models of the near-shore system 

• Information about uncertainty/confidence, the probabilities of occurrence accompanying 

predictions, and the bounds within which the anticipated effects will fall 

Integration and Capacity Needs 

• Improved integration of climate, LMR, and coastal activities, planning and initiatives 

across and beyond NOAA 

• Integrated Ocean and Coastal Mapping for shoreline and bathymetric data 

• Training on how to interpret climate data and integrate them into products and services 

• Improved access to and use of NOAA knowledge, information, and products and services 

through outreach and extension 

• Improved awareness and utilization of existing data 

• Enhanced data delivery and access 
7

• Tools for risk assessment and scenario planning to evaluate management options 

• Information and guidelines on adaptation options for decision makers 

• Technical and financial assistance to implement adaptation plans 

• Outreach materials and programs to build awareness in the community 
8

Summary of Recommendations 

The final breakout session at both workshops was devoted to identifying recommendations for 

priority short-term and long-term actions to improve NOAA’s capacity to understand and 

address climate impacts on ecosystems and coastal communities. The following are major 

recommendations that call for improvements in: (a) observations and monitoring; (b) 

understanding, predictions and projections; and (c) risk assessment and adaptation (see 

Appendices for full set of recommendations from each workshop). 

Major Recommendations (not prioritized) 

1. Increase internal and external collaboration and communication.

The workshops brought together representatives of NOAA’s climate, LMR, coastal and 

geospatial programs from around the country for the first time to discuss needs and intersections 

among these NOAA mission areas. There was significant benefit in raising awareness of others’ 

expertise, activities, capabilities, products, and future goals. Enhancing the exchange of ideas 

between disciplines and regions will further the development of management tools and products. 

This dialog should be continued and coordinated with new and existing groups (including efforts 

to study establishment of a National Climate Service within NOAA, and to plan and implement 

the NOAA Coastal Enterprise) to increase integration, efficiency and effectiveness of efforts to 

incorporate climate change into fulfillment of NOAA’s ocean and coastal stewardship mandates. 

The NOAA Climate and Ocean/Coastal Management seminar series should be continued and 

NOAA should organize regular workshops among scientists and managers from climate, ocean 

and coastal sectors to help identify key needs and enhance development and exchange of 

improved tools and information. 

2. Establish regional approaches for working with our partners and addressing climate 

impacts.

Given the regional to local nature of climate impacts and issues, a regional approach should be 

used to work with our partners in addressing climate impacts. NOAA should establish and 

maintain nationally coordinated regional climate, coastal, and living marine resource research 

and management programs. Regional collaboration teams should include appropriate climate, 

coastal, ocean, living marine resource, social, and economic scientists, managers and regulators, 

and regional stakeholders. NOAA should support place-based projects at regional to local levels. 

3. Improve Observations and Monitoring 

• Enhance delivery of and access to the best available climate data and information.

Coastal and living marine resource scientists and managers, the private sector and the public 

need easy access to credible, coordinated and high quality standardized data and information 

on climate variability and change (i.e., where appropriate climate information is located, how 

to access it, or which source to utilize). These constituencies are priority customers of 

NOAA’s climate program. NOAA should work with these internal and external customers 

and partners to define and address their needs with the best available information through 

easily accessible vehicles such as a climate change web portal (clearinghouse for 

information). 
9

• Improve and integrate observations. Improving the quality and comprehensiveness of the 

environmental, social and economic datasets that underpin NOAA decision support tools for 

climate risk assessment and mitigation is a top priority, given that the tools (and the decisions 

they generate) are only as good as the data they reference. In coastal areas, one of the most 

critical needs is a consistent high resolution geospatial framework as the foundation for 

measuring and predicting changes in sea level and other climate impacts. Collection of 

climate observations should be better integrated with collection of coastal and ecosystem 

observations to document responses to climate changes. Support of existing in situ and 

remotely sensed observations must continue with geographic, temporal, and technical 

expansion of simultaneous measurements. Supporting long-term monitoring at sentinel sites 

and habitats will facilitate the characterization of climate change impacts, the development of 

predictive models and their application to management scenarios, and risk/vulnerability 

assessments.

4. Enhance Understanding and Predictions 

• Increase understanding, predictions and assessments of climate change impacts on 

living marine resources and coastal ecosystems and communities. 

NOAA and partners need information on how climate changes impact ocean and coastal 

ecosystems and the communities that depend on them. Additional research, observations and 

modeling are critical to predict possible future conditions and provide baselines for tracking 

changes. These studies are needed to better understand and plan for impacts of climate 

change on living marine resources and their habitats to fulfill NOAA’s oceans and marine 

life management responsibilities. 

• Enhance environmental forecasts at regional and subregional levels. Regional and 

subregional information is critical for successful management of coastal regions and living 

marine resources. Evaluation, expansion, enhanced resolution and downscaling of models are 

needed for long term projections and short term predictions of how climate change will 

impact specific places and resources. Key needs include decision support tools that can 

provide potential climate impact and management scenarios at appropriate scales (with 

probabilities and uncertainties) that help managers assess and determine the best course of 

action. 

5. Facilitate Risk Assessments and Adaptation 

• Improve delivery and utilization of new and existing decision-support tools to reduce 

climate impacts. Coastal and living marine resource managers need decision support tools 

and training to help them apply climate information in assessing risks and 

developing/implementing mitigation and/or adaptation strategies that address impacts of 

climate change. NOAA is uniquely positioned to develop and provide the necessary tools and 

training, including the development of guidelines to assist managers with incorporating 

climate impacts into NOAA’s management plans for fisheries, protected species and the 

habitats they depend on. NOAA should also develop guidelines to assist partners at regional, 
10

state and local levels in climate-related risk assessment and adaptation planning for coastal 

management. 

• Develop consistent procedures for evaluating climate impacts for inclusion in protected 

species and fisheries management. The GAO report emphasizes the lack of standardized 

approaches for the inclusion of climate impacts assessment in NOAA’s statutory mandates to 

protect living resources and habitats. Given the legal frameworks that apply to these 

stewardship requirements, it is imperative to develop and use standardized procedures and 

guidelines for evaluating the impacts of climate change and their implications for protected 

species, fisheries and habitat management. Developing these guidelines and procedures is a 

high priority for NOAA.

• Improve indicators of climate risk and resilience for communities and ecosystems. 

NOAA is uniquely positioned to help develop key indicators of climate vulnerability and 

resilience for coastal communities and ocean/coastal ecosystems. This effort, which could be 

conducted on a regional level, should build upon existing resilience work to develop 

indicators for quantitatively measuring risk and enabling communities and managers to work 

towards becoming climate-ready. 
11

Next Steps 

The following are some specific near term actions to continue to move this effort forward: 

1. Improve access to and use of existing data and information through development of a 

web portal to provide a central place for climate data, models, information and 

inventories of relevant climate products for LMR and coastal management. 

2. Establish NOAA working group(s) to oversee further development and implementation 

of these recommendations. Create cross-disciplinary working groups to foster dialogue 

across NOAA about climate impacts on coastal communities and on coastal and marine 

ecosystems, as well as to develop strategies to fill gaps identified at the workshops. 

3. Develop guidance to help NOAA and partners use consistent, best practices in assessing 

risks and developing adaptation plans for climate impacts on protected species, fisheries, 

and coastal areas. 

4. Continue a NOAA Climate and Ocean/Coastal Management seminar series and develop 

other mechanisms for training, education, capacity building, information exchange and 

dialog among NOAA and non-NOAA entities on these important issues. 

5. Organize annual NOAA climate science and services summits to continue to identify key 

needs, gaps, and opportunities for better integration and effectiveness of NOAA climate, 

ocean and coastal efforts. 

6. Identify process and venues (possible regional, sectoral and/or national workshops) for 

engaging NOAA stakeholders in discussions of key needs, gaps and NOAA products and 

services related to climate, oceans and coasts. 

7. Engage other key federal agencies in discussion of NOAA climate services related to 

oceans and coasts to identify needs, gaps, roles and opportunities for integration and 

increased effectiveness. 

8. Incorporate the findings and recommendations from this report into NOAA’s planning 

and implementation of a National Climate Service within NOAA, an interagency national 

climate service partnership, NOAA’s Coastal Enterprise and other efforts to deliver an 

“end-to-end” suite of climate-related products and services supporting NOAA’s LMR 

and coastal mission requirements. 
12

Summary 

Workshop participants expressed strong interest in continuing the cross NOAA networking and 

strategic planning that was conducted at the two workshops. Implementing the recommendations 

from these workshops is critical to fulfilling NOAA’s living marine resource and coastal 

mandates in a changing climate. These recommendations provide a solid framework for joint 

planning and action to address climate change impacts on NOAA’s living marine resource and 

coastal stewardship missions. 
13

Appendix A 

Climate and LMR Workshop Report 

NOAA Climate and Living Marine Resources Workshop 

May 14-15, 2008 

Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory, Seattle, WA 

Introduction, Context, and Background 

NOAA conducted a Climate and Living Marine Resources workshop May 14-15, 2008, at the 

NOAA Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory in Seattle, WA. The 54 participants included 

living marine resource biologists and ecologists, oceanographers, climate scientists, resource 

managers and regulators, and senior NOAA climate and ecosystem leadership. 

The overall purpose of the workshop was to explore and enhance internal NOAA cooperation 

and integration in the development, communication, and application of information related to the 

impact of climate on NOAA’s living marine resource (LMR) management responsibilities. 

Specifically, the intent was to advance the development of a strategy for addressing the impact of 

climate on NOAA-managed LMRs, through focused cooperation in research, assessments, and 

management applications within the agency and among our key partners. 

This workshop was one of two related workshops conducted in 2008, with the second focused on 

climate and coastal impacts. The context for these workshops is laid out in the following 

sections. 

I. The Challenge

NOAA currently faces two overarching challenges, the responses to which will shape the future 

of the agency for decades: 

a) The design, development, delivery, and execution of effective climate services that 

provide applicable information relative to impacts and adaptation strategies; and 

b) The effective management of natural resources in the marine and coastal environment, and 

the development of technical stewardship programs and decision support tools that foster 

hazard resilient coastal communities in the face of socio-economic, environmental, and 

climatic changes. 

These efforts are not unrelated, and, in fact, could be enhanced through a purposeful strategy of 

integration and cooperation. The development of increased connectivity between the climate and 

coastal elements of NOAA offers significant benefits for multiple missions and programs within 

the agency, and, more importantly, for our external communities and constituents. 
14

In addition, NOAA is increasingly called upon through existing and evolving legislation, 

interactions with stakeholders and government reports to integrate climate information in its 

natural resource management activities. Legislative drivers include the Magnuson Stevens 

Fishery Conservation and Management Reauthorization Act, the Endangered Species Act, the 

Marine Mammal Act, the Marine Sanctuaries Act, the Coastal Zone Management Act, and the 

Coral Reef Conservation Act. Stakeholders are organizing and articulating their desires to 

NOAA through means such as the Coastal States Organization’s September 2007 Report on 

“The Role of Coastal Management Programs in Adaptation to Climate Change.” 

Finally, a 2007 Government Accountability Office (GAO) Report calls for Federal agencies to 

develop guidance for addressing the effects of climate change on Federal land and water 

resources. In response to this report, NOAA will consult with coastal and marine resource 

managers, both internally and within other federal agencies, to identify their needs for climate 

information and highlight the regional texture of climate and its related effects. By the end of 

2008, NOAA expects to generate written materials to help foster the consideration of climate 

change in natural resource management. 

II. Developing a NOAA Response to the Challenge

NOAA’s two internal workshops were intended to advance the development of a strategy for 

ensuring the provision and application of climate information in natural resource management 

and the enhancement of coastal community resilience. These workshops were intended to 

complement and provide a larger framework for ongoing and evolving efforts within NOAA’s 

climate and natural resource programs to address climate impacts and adaptation. 

These workshops are contributing to the development of an overall agency strategy for 

generating and applying climate information related to natural resource and risk management in 

marine and coastal regions. They provide input and recommendations related to the development 

of guidelines for incorporating climate information in natural resource management, and for 

meeting these needs through climate services. Specifically, they address the needs and potential 

strategy for meeting these needs over the short and long term. 
15

Case Studies

Four case studies were presented during the workshop to highlight current activities where 

climate and ecosystem information is being used to address management needs. These 

presentations defined the management goals and mandates for the studies, what climate and 

ecosystem information is required and how it is utilized, how living marine resource 

management is or may be improved, and who the user community is and what information they 

need. 

In addition to the specific climate impacts on the living marine resources and the scientific 

knowledge gained on each topic and how it is being used, the case studies highlighted how 

climate and ecosystem scientists work together to address management priorities. The north 

Pacific fisheries case studies demonstrated the advantages of having climate and ecosystem 

scientists located geographically close to one another within institutions that frequently 

collaborate on projects of regional interest. These advantages include the facilitation of longterm working relationships, close coordination between climate and ecosystem scientists, the 

design of fully integrated climate and ecosystem studies, and frequent dialogue with regional 

living marine resource managers. The coral reef case study demonstrated the broad spectrum of 

developers and users of products to aid coral reef management in the face of climate change and 

the value of having many entities involved. Ocean acidification is a more recently recognized 

threat to living marine resources so this case study primarily focused on potential threats and 

topics that require more investigation. Abstracts of the four case study presentations are provided 

below. 

Climate Considerations in the Management of Anadromous Fishes in the Pacific Northwest 

Nathan Mantua – University of Washington 

Pacific salmon have a complex life cycle, with portions spent in freshwater and ocean 

environments. Until relatively recently, management focused on factors affecting survival in the 

freshwater, even though the ocean phase composes most of a salmon’s life and accounts for half 

the mortality and nearly all the growth of salmon. Salmon fisheries are managed at the level of 

individual stocks, and salmon hatcheries have contributed to increases in the number of salmon 

in the ocean. However, abundances of wild salmon along the west coast of the U.S. are now just 

a few percent of historic levels. For 2008 the Pacific Fishery Management Council adopted the 

most restrictive salmon fisheries catch limits ever for the West Coast, in response to the 

unprecedented collapse of Sacramento River fall Chinook and the exceptionally poor status of 

coho salmon from Oregon and California. 

 Short-term (3-6 month) salmon return forecasts produced for each river are based on 

assumptions about productivity trends and information about the number of spawning adults, 

jack returns, and juveniles produced in hatcheries. However forecast errors are frequently 50-

100%. No climate information has been formally used, but many studies have looked to climate 

indicators for help in reducing forecast errors, as climate variations within the California Current 

system appear to influence the entire food web and are reflected by salmon survival. With 

relatively cool, less stratified waters, there is typically high salmon survival. Conversely, during 

warm periods with more stratified waters, there is typically low salmon survival in the ocean. 

Lessons learned for short-term forecasts include that the time and space scale of climate 

information provided must match the scale of management decisions in order to be useful. Basin-
16

scale research results are inappropriate for local scale management decisions like annual harvest 

planning. In addition, key aspects of ocean conditions for coho salmon are not likely predictable 

at seasonal-to-interannual timescales, highlighting the importance of monitoring. 

 On multi-year and longer time scales it is known that climate matters for Pacific salmon, but 

the lack of skillful forecasts limits the utility of this information. Skillful forecasts for the Pacific 

Decadal Oscillation, or other modes of Pacific decadal variability, are of great interest to salmon 

fisheries. Long-term salmon recovery and restoration planning also need to account for climate 

in decisions concerning where and how to invest efforts and in guiding freshwater management 

decisions. Finally, hatchery operations could benefit from climate information informing 

decisions on smolt release number and timing and optimal facility siting. 

Climate Considerations in North Pacific Fisheries Management 

Mike Sigler – NOAA/NMFS/Alaska Fisheries Science Center 

Phyllis Stabeno – NOAA/OAR/Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory 

Alaskan marine ecosystems account for approximately half of the nation’s seafood catch by 

weight. These fisheries have a value of $1.7B after initial processing and are used in a multitude 

of seafood products. NOAA is also charged with the protection of marine mammals, of which 

there are many that spend all or a portion of their lives in Alaskan waters. Tourism, much of 

which is based upon the natural resources that NOAA is responsible for, is very important to the 

economy, and many Alaskans depend upon the ocean for subsistence harvests. These ecosystems 

are experiencing rapid climate change as evidenced by decreases in sea ice and increases in 

ocean temperatures. An ecosystem approach to management, which takes into account climate 

variability and change, is a primary means of addressing the management needs for Alaskan 

living marine resources. 

 A number of studies contribute to the understanding of Alaskan marine ecosystems. These 

studies include resource and oceanographic surveys that provide living marine resource 

abundance and biological and oceanographic condition information, biophysical moorings that 

elucidate conditions throughout the year, short-term projects focused on specific processes, and 

modeling studies that help tie together the various components and explain and predict 

ecosystem responses. All these components contribute to an understanding of how ecosystems 

function, enabling predictions of how some components will respond if there is, e.g., more or 

less sea ice, relatively warm or cold water, weak or strong winds. Examples include impact on 

winter-spawning flatfish recruitment through effects of advection in the eastern Bering Sea on 

transport to nursery areas and impact of ocean conditions on spatial distributions of living marine 

resources and niche partitioning between species. In 2008, the North Pacific Fishery 

Management Council reduced the Bering Sea pollock quota by about 30% from 2007 levels. 

Climate information supplied by NOAA indicating relatively warm ocean conditions contributed 

to this decision, in combination with recruitment and ecosystem data. 

Coral Reef Management in an Era of Warming Oceans 

David Kennedy – NOAA/NOS/Ocean and Coastal Resource Management 

Coral reefs are among the most diverse ecosystems on the Earth and have a large impact on 

the world’s economy through their contributions to seafood, tourism and coastal protection. 

However U.S. coral reefs are imperiled due to increasing thermal stress and changes in ocean 

chemistry. Increases in temperature are causing more frequent and widespread bleaching events 

in which corals release their symbiotic algae. While corals can recover from brief or mild stress, 
17

events of longer duration cause starvation and death. Reefs are deteriorating worldwide, with 2/3 

of reefs already severely degraded. Much of this is due to thermal stress, bleaching and increased 

susceptibility to disease. 

 NOAA has produced a number of products to assist in warning coral reef managers of 

potential bleaching events via automated email alerts. These products include sea surface 

temperature (SST) data, SST anomalies, hotspots where SST is above the bleaching threshold, 

and a “degree heating week” product that accounts for accumulated thermal stress. NOAA, in 

association with outside partners, has also produced a Reef Manager’s Guide to Coral Bleaching 

which lists long term actions managers can take before bleaching occurs and short term actions 

to be taken during bleaching events. These products have helped pave the way for communitybased early warning systems, which derive from partnerships between NOAA, local scientists 

and managers, and the public. 

 Coral reefs are also susceptible to the changes in ocean chemistry caused by ocean 

acidification. The oceans absorb large portions of the anthropogenically produced CO2 from the 

atmosphere. This is causing a decline in the pH of the ocean waters and a reduced availability of 

carbonate ions, which are needed by corals to build their skeletons. A number of experiments 

have shown a decline in the rate of coral calcification with increasing levels of ocean acidity. 

Other activities supported by NOAA that could improve our understanding of how a changing 

climate affects reefs include carbonate chemistry monitoring and surveys, as well as preliminary 

satellite based models designed to track changes in surface ocean chemistry. 

Ocean Acidification and its Potential Impacts on NOAA-Managed Living Marine 

Resources 

Richard Feely – NOAA/OAR/Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory 

Over the past 200 years, the pH and CO2 chemistry of the oceans have been changing 

because of the uptake of anthropogenic CO2 by the oceans. When CO2 reacts with seawater, the 

pH of the water decreases (hence the term ocean acidification) and the availability of carbonate 

ions is depleted. The pH of ocean surface waters has already fallen by about 0.11 units, from an 

average of about 8.21 to 8.10, since the beginning of the industrial revolution. Estimates of 

future atmospheric and oceanic CO2 concentrations indicate that by the end of this century the 

surface ocean pH will likely decrease another 0.4 units, making it lower than it has been for more 

than 20 million years. The carbonate saturation depths have also shoaled towards the surface of 

the oceans due to the penetration of anthropogenic CO2 into the oceans. High latitude regions 

may be some of the first to become undersaturated with respect to carbonate, while calcification 

rates in the tropics may decrease by 30% over the next century. A 2007 survey cruise found 

water undersaturated with respect to aragonite (a form of carbonate) in upwelled water along the 

continental shelf of western North America. 

 Changes in pH and carbonate chemistry may have serious impacts on marine ecosystems. 

Carbonate is critical to shell formation for marine organisms such as corals, shellfish, 

zooplankton, and some phytoplankton. Exposure to lower pH levels can cause decreased 

respiration rates, changes in blood chemistry, and changes in enzymatic activity. Results from 

laboratory, field, and modeling studies, as well as evidence from the geological record, indicate 

that marine ecosystems are susceptible to the increase in oceanic CO2 and the corresponding 

decreases in pH. Studies examining the impacts of ocean acidification on marine organisms have 

been conducted on many scales, from aquaria to large scale mesocosm experiments. However, 

much of our present knowledge comes from abrupt CO2/pH perturbation experiments with single 
18

species/strains, under short-term incubations, often with extreme pH changes. Therefore we 

know little about responses of genetically diverse populations, synergistic effects with other 

stress factors, physiological and micro-evolutionary adaptations, species replacements, and 

community to ecosystem responses. More research is needed to determine the temporal and 

spatial changes of the carbon system in the global oceans and their impacts on species and 

biological communities. This will enable a comprehensive characterization of the threat ocean 

acidification poses to marine ecosystems. 
19

Breakout Sessions

Three breakout sessions, focused on topics and questions chosen to stimulate discussion around 

the important drivers for the workshop, generated much of the participant input during the 

workshop. For each breakout session, there were three breakout groups, all addressing the same 

topics and questions. Below are combined and condensed responses from the concurrent 

breakout groups for each of the breakout sessions and their respective questions. The responses 

in this section are relatively raw lists with specific answers to the questions. This information is 

provided here as it will be useful to those interested in specific issues. The overarching 

conclusions and recommendations resulting from the workshop, which were gleaned in large part 

from the breakout session discussions, are provided in the Summary section. 

Breakout Session 1: The Implications of Climate Change for NOAA’s LMR Portfolio

Question 1: What are the major climate change issues about which NOAA and its LMR 

management partners should be concerned? 

Issues 

 Physical/Chemical changes: 

 ocean properties (temperature, salinity, turbidity, nutrients, oxygen) 

 circulation, stratification, upwelling (changes to intensity and seasonal variability) 

 major climate cycles (e.g., ENSO, PDO, NAO, etc.) 

 storm tracks and intensity 

 frequency and magnitude of extreme events 

 wind patterns 

 cloudiness 

 Loss of sea ice 

 loss of habitat 

 changes to stratification 

 changes in albedo 

 Arctic marine transportation, oil and gas development, fisheries development 

 Sea level rise 

 changes in coastal habitat 

 saltwater intrusion 

 Ocean acidification 

 Altered freshwater systems (freshwater supply and quality) 

 precipitation timing, amount, and type (rain vs. snow) 

 freshwater temperatures 

 timing of freshwater delivery 

 allocation of freshwater 

 water quality (dissolved materials, sediment load) 

 Other 

 climate change versus climate variability 

 unforeseen impacts 

Responses 
20

 ocean productivity, distribution of organisms, migrations, transport, phenology, changes in 

community structure, species interactions and replacement, growth, reproduction, fitness, 

mortality, habitat impacts, unusual events 

 socioeconomic effects (fisheries, land use, water table, coastal erosion, tourism) 

Question 2: Which LMR management processes need to be informed with climate change 

information? What are the temporal and spatial scales for these processes? 

Processes: 

 Stock assessments for managed fish and protected species 

 Recovery plans for threatened and endangered species 

 Rebuilding plans for overexploited species 

 Regional Fishery Management Councils 

 Fishery Management Plans 

 Incidental Take authorizations for non-targeted species 

 Impacts on seafood safety and security 

 Ecosystem based management plans 

Scales: 

 Information is routinely needed at annual or shorter time scales for management decisions 

(e.g., for total allowable catch decisions), whereas attribution between climate variability 

and climate change requires much longer time series. 

 Information is required for annual management decisions and long-term (10+ years) 

planning. 

 Different spatial and temporal scales are relevant depending upon the living marine resource 

being addressed. 

Question 3: To what extent is climate information currently used in NOAA’s LMR 

portfolio? What are the barriers (e.g., institutional, scientific, resource) to incorporating 

climate more fully in NOAA’s LMR portfolio? 

Use: Climate information is rarely applied in LMR management today. A few exceptions occur. 

These include:

Recovery planning for Pacific salmon 

Total allowable catch for pollock 

Ice seal listing determination 

Coral management plans 

Barriers: 

 Limited communication between climate and ecosystem communities 

 Disconnect between climate and living marine resource management communities - lack of 

understanding of the climate products needed or available 

 Inadequate incentives to facilitate collaboration between climate and ecosystem scientists 

 Insufficient understanding of how climate changes impact LMRs 

 Limited opportunities to support multidisciplinary activities as a single project between Line 

Offices 

 Lack of committed funding for long-term joint projects 

 Observing infrastructure – lack of synchronicity between physical, chemical, and biological 

observations 

 Gaps in environmental baselines 
21

 Time- and space-scale differences between management needs and climate predictions 

 Lack of an effective ecosystem framework within which to include climate information for 

LMR management 

 Some LMR managers see insufficient benefit in incorporating climate – the uncertainties are 

deemed too large such that there is not appreciable value added to LMR forecasts 

 Deficient data management and integration procedures and resources to effectively 

incorporate climate information 

Question 4: Can priority be assigned to any of these issues and/or processes in the specific 

context of NOAA’s LMR portfolio? If so, which are of greatest importance in terms of 

timeliness and impact? 

 Expand integrated climate and ecosystem observations 

 Develop regional and local scale climate predictions and validate with observations 

 Prioritize information needs based on impacts (i.e., based on immediacy of impact, degree of 

impact, and value of impacted resource)

Breakout Session 2: Key Decision Support Tool and Science Needs for Integrating Climate 

in LMR Management

Question 1: What are the key decision support resources, products, tools and capabilities 

needed to address climate and LMR management? 

 Observations (physical, chemical, biological data) are needed at the time and space scales 

pertinent to the ecosystem. 

 Ocean condition forecasts are required. For these forecasts to be used, NOAA needs to 

develop and demonstrate their benefit to LMR stock assessments. 

 Longer term (10-30 yrs) ocean condition projections with probabilities need to be developed. 

 Uncertainty, confidence, or probability of occurrence should be provided with any 

predictions. 

 Climate and ecosystem response scenarios based upon hypotheses that can be tested 

(conceptual models to “what if” scenarios) must be developed. 

 Coupled climate-ecosystem models are necessary. 

 Regional environmental forecasts and reanalysis, downscaled from global climate models, 

are required to support long term projections and short term predictions. 

 3-10 yr projections are needed to be useful for fishermen’s business perspective, i.e., the 

timescale for which the fishing industry makes major industry investment decisions. 

 Critical environmental thresholds have to be defined. 

 An environmental early warning system across relevant time scales is requisite. 

 Ecological indicators should be developed in concert with modelers and managers. Include 

these and other required data in an integrated system of observations. 

 Probabilistic predictions of sea ice extent and remote sensing products are needed. 

 Predictive models of economic and health impacts need to be developed. 

 Models are required that integrate regional observations to better understand climate 

ecosystem impacts at management levels. 

 Information ought to be presented in formats (e.g., risk maps, red light/green light, numbers, 

probabilities) tailored to the users. 
22

Question 2: What are the associated climate and living marine resource science issues that 

NOAA should address, and the current status of associated observations, modeling, process 

studies, impacts and adaptation research and assessment (e.g., well covered, in 

development, non-existent)? 

 Forecasting physical/chemical changes – The general trend is predictable (useful in the longterm), but interannual and decadal variability is difficult to predict. 

 Data needs and availability issues include: 

Quality of baseline information is species and area dependent – information quality 

ranges from very good to very poor. 

Paleo data is very non-uniform in its spatial coverage. There are some high quality 

datasets, including down to decadal timescales. 

Biological parameters are underrepresented in large scale observing systems. 

Satellite data – ocean sensors need to be maintained. Due to an aging infrastructure there 

is a high risk of data gaps. 

 Little is known about abrupt climate change and its impacts. This needs development. 

 Key issues to be resolved with respect to ecosystem responses to climate drivers include: 

Food web alterations 

Thresholds 

Resiliency of different ecosystems (e.g., influences of diversity, anthropogenic footprint, 

fishing) 

Definition of healthy populations - how to define when a population is impacted by 

climate, attribution of ecosystem changes to specific climate drivers 

Species specific adaptability 

 Socioeconomic impacts must be addressed and require substantial development. 

Question 3: What ecosystem information is needed by the climate science community to 

assess and predict climate feedbacks from human-induced alterations (e.g., ocean 

acidification, iron fertilization)? 

 Large anomalies (shifts) in long term ecosystem time series may provide guidance to climate 

scientists to identify key events. 

 Determination of biogenic feedbacks (e.g., organic carbon ballasting, increased 

dimethylsulfide (DMS) production from coccolithophores). 

 How are biofeedbacks affected by rapid vs. gradual climate change? 

 How will carbon fluxes be impacted by changes in ecosystems, primary productivity, reef 

building, albedo, and coastal inundation? 

 Determination of what fraction of primary production is deposited in the sediments. 

Breakout Session 3: Future Directions and Next Steps

Question 1: How should NOAA’s climate and LMR communities work together to address 

major needs and priorities identified on the first day? 

 Have a framework of the major management questions to be addressed – prioritization of 

focused problems. 
23

 Create a forum to facilitate exchange between LMR managers and scientists, and climate 

scientists to better define their needs and capabilities. 

 Consider alternative approaches to funding collaborative research including: establishing 

and sustaining regional climate and LMR programs (explore cross-region synergy); and 

supporting proposal driven collaborations (broadly announce opportunities so bring in all 

interested parties and ideas). 

 Conduct integrated activities where appropriate (e.g., enhance physical studies with more 

ecosystem variables and vice versa). 

 Leverage existing capabilities of programs and expertise of people so efficiency is 

maximized.

Question 2: Which institutions/programs need to be involved to implement these actions? 

 Regionally focused and steered programs should be linked through a national ecosystem and 

climate program which has long-term, dedicated support. 

 Social and economic science sectors must be included. 

 Regional stakeholders must be involved from the beginning through regional teams. 

 Offices and programs whose mission is to observe, monitor, or model climate should be 

consulted with and informed of regional LMR priorities. 

 Take advantage of existing capabilities – NOAA laboratories, Cooperative institutes, the 

NOAA Regional Integrated Sciences and Assessments (RISA) program, academia, Sea 

Grant, and other federal agencies 

Question 3: What are some short- and long-term steps that can be taken? 

 Develop regionally specific lists from LMR managers of what they need. 

 Develop lists of climate and ecosystem capabilities. 

 Evaluate adequacy of current observational systems. 

 Submit regular reports to regional Fishery Management Councils (FMCs) and get feedback. 

 Establish rotational assignments between climate and LMR programs. Have shared post 

docs. 

 Support regular, regional workshops. 

 Encourage cooperation with other national and international programs (within and outside of 

NOAA). 

 Develop a long term strategic plan and funding requirements. 

 Support an emphasis on climate applications (e.g., observations, monitoring, projections, 

predictions) in support of ecosystem approaches to management. 

 Standardize assessment and monitoring methodologies to permit intercomparisons. 

 Develop guidelines on how to incorporate climate into LMR management. 

 Consolidate and reconcile climate information from various sources into a central source. 

 Develop cross-training for climate and LMR personnel so they are aware of each others 

capabilities, needs, and limitations. 

 Develop climate scenarios for regional LMR issues. 

 Develop targeted LMR climate information products (including probabilities of predictions). 

 Release products early so they can be evaluated. 

 Develop approaches for climate predictions and projections relevant to regional and local 

scales. 
24

 Develop a NOAA climate/LMR website with names, pictures, presentations, etc. to help 

make connections. 

 Provide seed money, from existing funds, to begin to answer some of the questions 

identified. 

 Identify a few regions that would serve as mini-laboratories that provide a method to assess 

the reliability of ecosystem indicators as proxies for complex mechanisms. 
25

Summary

Conclusions

• NOAA has unique capabilities and responsibilities with regard to climate and living 

marine resources. NOAA is unique in its mandates and abilities to provide observations and 

predictions of climate and to manage LMRs. The case studies presented demonstrated 

capabilities focused on climate prediction and ecosystem impacts, with some work on 

socioeconomic adaptation. 

• It is essential for NOAA’s climate projections and scenarios to span the full range of 

possibilities and associated impacts and provide measures of probability. There is a large 

range of uncertainty in the physical climate drivers. Ecological responses further magnify the 

uncertainty. For LMR managers to make decisions on the best course of action for the 

resources they manage, they need to know the timescales, probabilities and bounds within 

which their decisions are being made. 

• A mix of standard and custom products will be required. There are a wide variety of 

climate-LMR problems and issues. Some can be addressed with standardized products while 

others will require customized research and development of products. 

• Climate quality environmental baselines are needed. There are legal and scientific reasons 

to establish environmental baselines with which to judge the implications of climate impacts 

on LMRs. Without adequate baselines, there are no standards for comparing current and 

future conditions. 

• The workshop initiated an important dialog. NOAA’s climate and LMR scientists and 

managers from around the country were brought together for the workshop. Many of the 

people had never met. There is significant benefit in raising awareness of others’ expertise, 

activities, capabilities, products, and future goals. A basic, yet valuable, result of the 

workshop was the initiation of a dialog between climate and LMR scientists and managers to 

inform one another of their capabilities and needs. 

Recommendations

• NOAA must develop predictions and adaptation plans for climate impacts on LMRs. 

The legal and public policy implications for climate impacts on LMRs regulated by NOAA 

place the agency at the forefront of impacts and adaptation. Due to its unique mandates for 

management of living marine resources, NOAA is responsible for the development of 

predictions and adaptation plans for climate impacts on LMRs. 

• Make “best available climate information” available through a National Climate 

Service. Most NOAA regional climate impact studies to date are the products of individuals 

or groups and do not necessarily use consistently obtained climate information. This 

approach takes advantage of the innovation at the regional level, but increases the risk that 

NOAA does not have a clear, coordinated definition of “best available science”. A National 

Climate Service should provide standardized observations and predictions of coastal and 

marine physical and chemical conditions to support LMR management. 
26

• Improve utilization of what is known and available. There are tremendous capabilities 

distributed across NOAA, its partners, and other collaborators to provide meaningful climate 

services relevant to management requirements for LMRs. An inventory of relevant NOAA 

climate data, products and services useful to LMR scientists and managers should be 

conducted. NOAA must ensure that available data and information are identified and made 

easily available. While NOAA capabilities regarding climate impacts on LMRs are 

underfunded, much can be done with current resources, including targeted increases in the 

understanding of climate impacts on LMRs. 

• Establish regional climate and LMR programs. NOAA should establish and maintain 

regional climate and LMR research and management programs guided by regional 

collaboration teams that include climate, ocean, LMR, social, and economic scientists, LMR 

managers and regulators, and regional stakeholders. Regional efforts must be coordinated at a 

national scale to ensure that approaches between regions are consistent to the extent possible 

and priorities are addressed with minimal redundancy. 

• Establish a program for short-term (up to 5 year) integrated climate and LMR projects. 

Sustained funding for regional efforts should be balanced by proposal based funding to 

enable collaborations, enhance regional efforts, target broader scale questions, and maintain 

flexibility to address emerging issues. 

• Integrate climate and ecosystem observations. Integrated climate and ecosystem 

observations are necessary to document ecosystem responses to climate changes. Presently 

many ecosystem observations are made without adequate climate observations, and many 

climate observations are made without concurrent ecosystem observations. NOAA should 

ensure that climate and LMR measurements are coordinated when possible. 

• Develop and refine regional forecasts. Regional environmental forecasts, downscaled from 

global climate models, should be developed in support of long term projections and short 

term predictions. Appropriate time horizons and spatial scales need to be defined depending 

upon the LMR and the question being addressed. 

• Establish an Endangered Species Act climate working group. NOAA should establish 

guidelines for the incorporation of climate impacts into NOAA’s mandated LMR 

management processes. As a first step, NOAA should convene a working group to develop 

standard operating procedures for incorporating climate information into Endangered Species 

Act actions. 

• Conduct regular climate – LMR workshops. To facilitate communication between climate 

and LMR scientists and managers it would be beneficial to establish annual or alternate year 

climate – LMR workshops. These workshops would serve as a forum for the presentation of 

recent advances within the field of climate impacts on LMRs. They would also enhance the 

exchange of ideas between disciplines and regions, thereby furthering the development of 

management tools and products. 
27

Appendix 1 – Workshop Agenda

NOAA Climate and Living Marine Resources Workshop 

May 14-15, 2008 

Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory, Seattle, Washington 

May 14, 2008

Plenary Session: Climate and Living Marine Resource Management (LMR) in NOAA 

8:30 am Welcome, Introductions, Context and Workshop Overview 

 Moderator: Ned Cyr (Eddie Bernard, Steve Murawski, Chet Koblinsky) 

9:10 am An Overview of NOAA’s Living Marine Resource Management 

 Responsibilities (Steve Murawski) 

9:30 am Climate Change and Resource Management: The Legal Perspective 

 (Ruth Ann Lowery) 

9:50 am NOAA’s Climate Program and Service Directions (Chet Koblinsky)

10:20 am Charge to Working Groups (Ned Cyr) 

10:30 am Break 

Breakout Session 1: The Implications of Climate Change for NOAA’s LMR Portfolio 

10:40 am Working Group Discussions 

Discussion Questions: 

1) What are the major climate change issues about which NOAA and its LMR management 

partners should be concerned? 

2) Which LMR management processes need to be informed with climate change 

information? What are the temporal and spatial scales for these processes? 

3) To what extent is climate information currently used in NOAA’s LMR portfolio? What 

are the barriers (e.g., institutional, scientific, resource) to incorporating climate more fully 

in NOAA’s LMR portfolio? 

4) Can priority be assigned to any of these issues and/or processes in the specific context of 

NOAA’s LMR portfolio? If so, which are of greatest importance in terms of timeliness and 

impact? 
28

12:00 noon Lunch and Guest Presentation: Climate considerations in the management of 

anadromous fishes in the Pacific Northwest (Nathan Mantua, University of 

Washington) 

Plenary Session: The Implications of Climate Change for NOAA’s LMR Portfolio 

1:15 pm Breakout Groups Report Out, Followed by Plenary Discussion 

2:15 pm Bringing climate and ecosystem science together to address management 

 needs (Steve Murawski) 

2:45 pm Break 

Breakout Session 2: Key Decision Support Tool and Science Needs for Integrating Climate in 

LMR Management 

3:00 pm Working Group Discussions 

Plenary Session: Key Decision Support Tool and Science Needs for Integrating Climate in 

LMR Management 

4:40 pm Breakout Groups Report Out, Followed by Plenary Discussion 

6:00 pm Adjourn 

May 15, 2008

Plenary Session: Presentation and discussion of case studies for the successful integration of 

climate and ecosystem science for LMR management 

Discussion Questions: 

1) What are the key decision support resources, products, tools and capabilities 

needed to address climate and LMR management? 

2) What are the associated climate and living marine resource science issues that 

NOAA should address, and the current status of associated observations, 

modeling, process studies, impacts and adaptation research and assessment (well 

covered, in development, non-existent)? 

3) What ecosystem information is needed by the climate science community to 

assess and predict climate feedbacks from human-induced alterations (e.g., 

ocean acidification, iron fertilization)? 
29

8:30 am Introduction to Day Two of the Workshop (Moderator: Mete Uz) 

8:40 am Remarks from the NMFS Perspective (Jim Balsiger) 

8:50 am Climate considerations in North Pacific Fisheries Management (Mike 

 Sigler/Phyllis Stabeno) 

9:20 am Coral reef management in an era of warming oceans (David Kennedy) 

9:50 am Discussion 

10:00 am Break

Breakout Session 3: Future Directions and Next Steps 

10:10 am Working Group Discussions 

Plenary Session: Future Directions and Next Steps 

12:00 noon Breakout groups report out, followed by discussion 

1:00 pm Lunch and Presentation: Ocean acidification and its potential impacts on NOAAmanaged LMRs (Richard Feely) 

2:15 pm Discussion: Where do we go from here? Linking climate and LMR management 

in NOAA (Moderator: Steve Murawski) 

4:00 pm Adjourn 

Discussion Questions: 

1) How should NOAA’s climate and LMR communities work together to address 

major needs and priorities identified on the first day? 

 

2) Which institutions/programs need to be involved to implement these actions? 

3) What are some short- and long-term steps that can be taken? 
30

Appendix 2 – List of Participants 

(* denotes Organizing Committee member) 

(NESDIS = National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service; 

NOS = National Ocean Service; NMFS = National Marine Fisheries Service; 

NWS = National Weather Service; OAR = Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research) 

Name Organization Email Address 

Antoine, Adrienne OAR (Climate Program Office) Adrienne.Antoine@noaa.gov 

Balsiger, Jim NMFS (Headquarters) Jim.Balsiger@noaa.gov 

Baringer, Molly OAR (Atlantic Ocean. & Met. Lab.) Molly.Baringer@noaa.gov 

Bernard, Eddie OAR (Pacifc Mar. Environ. Lab.) Eddie.N.Bernard@noaa.gov 

Brainard, Rusty NMFS (Pac. Is. Fisheries Sci. Center) Rusty.Brainard@noaa.gov 

Burton, Michael NMFS (SE Fisheries Sci. Center) Michael.Burton@noaa.gov 

Collier, Tracy NMFS (NW Fisheries Sci. Center) Tracy.K.Collier@noaa.gov 

Crane, Kathy OAR (Climate Program Office) Kathy.Crane@noaa.gov 

Cyr, Ned * NMFS (Office of Science & Tech.) Ned.Cyr@noaa.gov 

Dunne, John OAR (Geophys. Fluid Dyn. Lab.) John.Dunne@noaa.gov 

Fay, Virginia NMFS (Southeast Regional Office) Virginia.Fay@noaa.gov 

Feely, Dick OAR (Pacifc Mar. Environ. Lab.) Richard.A.Feely@noaa.gov 

Gill, Steve NOS (Oper. Ocean. Prod. & Serv.) Stephen.Gill@noaa.gov 

Gledhill, Dwight NESDIS (Coral Reef Watch) Dwight.Gledhill@noaa.gov 

Goni, Gustavo OAR (Atlantic Ocean. & Met. Lab.) Gustavo.Goni@noaa.gov 

Harrison, Ed OAR (Pacifc Mar. Environ. Lab.) D.E.Harrison@noaa.gov 

Hollowed, Anne NMFS (Alaska Fisheries Sci. Center) Anne.Hollowed@noaa.gov 

Hurley, Jim OAR (Sea Grant) Jim.Hurley@noaa.gov 

Johnson, Greg OAR (Pacifc Mar. Environ. Lab.) Gregory.C.Johnson@noaa.gov 

Jones, Peter NMFS (Alaska Regional Office) Peter.D.Jones@noaa.gov 

Kennedy, David NOS (Ocean & Coastal Res. Man.) David.Kennedy@noaa.gov 

Koblinsky, Chet OAR (Climate Program Office) Chester.J.Koblinsky@noaa.gov 
31

Kratz, Kim NMFS (NW Regional Office) Kim.Kratz@noaa.gov 

Lecky, Jim NMFS (Protected Resources) Jim.Lecky@noaa.gov 

Lohn, Bob NMFS (NW Regional Office) Bob.Lohn@noaa.gov 

Lowery, Ruth Ann NMFS (General Counsel) Ruthann.Lowery@noaa.gov 

Mesick, Sharon NOS (Nat. Ocean. Data Center) Sharon.Mesick@noaa.gov 

Milonas, Lindsey NOS (National Marine Sanctuaries) Lindsey.Milonas@noaa.gov 

Moore, Dennis OAR (Pacifc Mar. Environ. Lab.) Dennis.W.Moore@noaa.gov 

Murawski, Steve NMFS (Headquarters) Steve.Murawski@noaa.gov 

Osgood, Kenric * NMFS (Office of Science & Tech.) Kenric.Osgood@noaa.gov 

Overland, Jim OAR (Pacifc Mar. Environ. Lab.) James.E.Overland@noaa.gov 

Peterson, Hill NMFS (NW Fisheries Sci. Center) Bill.Peterson@noaa.gov 

Polovina, Jeff NMFS (Pac. Is. Fisheries Sci. Center) Jeffrey.Polovina@noaa.gov 

Reiss, Christian NMFS (SW Fisheries Sci. Center) Christian.Reiss@noaa.gov 

Risenhoover, Alan NMFS (Office of Sustainable Fish.) Alan.Risenhoover@noaa.gov 

Rowland, Melanie NMFS (NW Reg. General Counsel) Melanie.Rowland@noaa.gov 

Schwing, Frank NMFS (SW Fisheries Sci. Center) Franklin.Schwing@noaa.gov 

Sigler, Mike NMFS (Alaska Fisheries Sci. Center) Mike.Sigler@noaa.gov 

Smith, Aileen NMFS (Headquarters) Aileen.Smith@noaa.gov 

Stabeno, Phyllis OAR (Pacifc Mar. Environ. Lab.) Phyllis.Stabeno@noaa.gov 

Stein, John NMFS (NW Fisheries Sci. Center) John.E.Stein@noaa.gov 

Strachan, Angela * OAR (Climate Program Office) Angela.Strachan@noaa.gov 

Taylor, Maureen NMFS (NE Fisheries Sci. Center) Maureen.Taylor@noaa.gov 

Thompson, Nancy NMFS (NE Fisheries Sci. Center) Nancy.Thompson@noaa.gov 

Todd, Jim * OAR (Climate Program Office) James.Todd@noaa.gov 
32

Trollan, Marla NMFS (Office of Sustainable Fish.) Marla.Trollan@noaa.gov 

Uz, Mete * OAR (Climate Program Office) Baris.Uz@noaa.gov 

Vaughan, Lisa * OAR (Climate Program Office) Lisa.Vaughan@noaa.gov 

Varanasi, Usha NMFS (NW Fisheries Sci. Center) Usha.Varanasi@noaa.gov 

Walker, Sue NMFS (Alaska Regional Office) Susan.Walker@noaa.gov 

Ward, Bethney NOS (Coastal Services Center) Bethney.Ward@noaa.gov 

Webb, Robin OAR (Earth Sys. Research Lab.) Robert.S.Webb@noaa.gov 

Xue, Yan NWS (Nat. Centers for Env. Pred.) Yan.Xue@noaa.gov 
33

Appendix B 

Climate and Coastal Management Workshop Report 

Final Report

NOAA Workshop on Strengthening Capacity 

to Address the Impacts of Climate Change 

on Coastal Communities and Ecosystems 

June 19-20, 2008 

American Geophysical Union, Washington, DC 

This internal NOAA workshop was initiated by the NOAA Climate Program Office (CPO), 

organized by a cross-NOAA committee,2

 and endorsed by the leads for NOAA’s Climate, 

Ecosystem, Commerce and Transportation, and Weather and Water Goal Teams. Attendees 

included a mix of office level leaders and project staff working on climate and/or coastal 

management and planning activities, from both headquarters and field offices. For the full 

workshop agenda and a list of participants, see Appendices 1 and 2 respectively. The East-West 

Center in Honolulu, Hawaii, and the National Estuarine Research Reserve Association also 

provided financial support. 

Background

The purpose of the workshop was to advance the creation of a NOAA-wide framework to 

address the impacts of climate change through: the application of science-based information; the 

development of decision support resources and tools; and the building of capacity to address 

climate impacts on coastal communities and the ecosystems they depend upon. The workshop 

was structured to address the following: 

 

2 Committee members include: Nancy Beller-Simms (OAR Climate Program Office (CPO)), Hannah 

Campbell (CPO), Ashley Chappell (NOS Office of Coast Survey (OCS)), Nell Codner (Coastal Services 

Center (CSC)), Mary Culver (CSC), Stephanie Fauver (CSC), Rebecca Feldman (CPO), Darlene Finch 

(CSC), Bess Gillelan (NMFS Office of Habitat Conservation (OHC)), Roger Griffis (OHC), Carrie Hall 

(NOS Ocean and Coastal Resource Management (OCRM)), Jim Hurley (OAR Sea Grant), Ruth Kelty 

(NOS National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science), Keelin Kuipers (CSC), Terence Lynch (OCS), Liz 

Moore (NOS Office of National Marine Sanctuaries (NMS)), Frank Niepold (CPO), Ken Pavelle (NWS 

Office of Hydrologic Development), Erica Seiden (OCRM), Eileen Shea (NESDIS National Climatic 

Data Center), Lisa Vaughan (CPO), and Vicki Wedell (NMS).
34

• Key Challenges: In the context of NOAA’s mission, what are key coastal management 

challenges, drivers and customers for which climate information is relevant? Types of 

information that would be most useful for addressing these challenges were identified. 

• Current Resources: What types of expertise, experience, knowledge, materials, 

technology, and information systems within and supported by NOAA can be used to 

generate and apply information relevant to addressing climate impacts in coastal 

regions? Key gaps in information, delivery methods, and tools needed by NOAA and 

our partners were highlighted. 

• Development of a NOAA Strategy for Addressing Climate Impacts in Coastal Regions: 

This workshop will help inform development of a strategy to better integrate climate 

research, awareness and information into NOAA’s stewardship activities for coastal 

communities and ecosystems. This will inform a variety of internal NOAA efforts, 

including planning for a National Climate Service, NOAA’s Coastal Enterprise and 

NOAA’s core programs. 

Workshop Outcomes: The information from this workshop will be used to shape a strategy for 

using NOAA’s authorities and expertise to address the impacts of climate change on coastal 

communities and the ecosystems they depend upon. The workshop fostered increased 

connectivity among NOAA offices with a role in producing and applying climate information in 

coastal regions.

Context: This workshop is the second of two workshops designed to shape NOAA’s approach to 

providing climate information that supports the agency’s management responsibilities for coastal 

communities, coastal ecosystems and living marine resources. The first occurred on May 14-15 

and focused on climate and NOAA’s living marine resource responsibilities. These two 

workshops complement each other and provide the foundation for a larger framework for 

ongoing and evolving efforts within NOAA’s research and management programs to address 

climate impacts and adaptation. They were designed to increase the communication between 

climate researchers, information providers, and coastal, ocean and marine life resource managers 

that need climate information to fulfill their mandates. The information from both workshops 

will support NOAA’s response to an August 2007 Government Accountability Office Report, 

which called on Federal agencies to develop guidance for addressing the effects of climate 

change on Federal land and water resources. The outcomes of this workshop will also be used 

respond to questions posed by Vice Admiral Lautenbacher and the NOAA Ocean Council. 

Finally, the workshop will be used to inform various NOAA-wide and external activities, 

including development of a National Climate Service and the Coastal Enterprise effort (a 

strategic framework which identifies three major coastal pressures as priorities: coastal hazards, 

particularly in the face of climate change; competing coastal uses, including both land and water 

uses; and coastal pollution, especially effects on human health and habitats). 

Keynote Speaker: Dr. Denise Reed, professor in the Department of Geology and Geophysics at 

the University of New Orleans, gave the keynote address titled “Climate, Coast and Community 

in the 21st Century.” Her remarks highlighted the interaction of humans and the environment in 
35

the coastal zone and the complications to these interactions from the current and anticipated 

impacts of climate change. Among her main messages were: 

• We should not wait for more detailed climate forecasts or more mature science; decision 

makers are already planning for the future and need the latest science. 

• The science is too poorly linked to societal issues. We should focus on solving the problems 

that are defined by the people that live and work in the coastal zone. What people do is as 

important as what the natural system does. 

• NOAA should develop an integrated approach to climate impacts that combines 

engineering and the natural, social and economic science components. 

• Climate change impacts (e.g., to sea level, pH, and temperature) do not operate 

independently, and ecosystems respond collectively to these changes. 

• NOAA personnel should collaborate across the agency and with other federal and nongovernmental agencies, non-profits, academia, international organizations, and with local, 

state and regional governments. 

• A NOAA framework could help others see how they could contribute. For example, in 

order for coastal managers to adequately plan for climate change, not only do they need to 

know what to do, they need to know what not to do. 

• We should be proactive in our approach to climate change. (Planning is superior to 

reacting.) 

Panel of Practitioners: A panel of practitioners provided context to workshop participants on the 

climate-related needs and practices of decision makers working on coastal management 

challenges. Each panelist was given time to address the following questions: 

1. What is the focus of your current work related to climate change and coasts? 

2. What tools and approaches are you using? 

3. What are the gaps/needs/challenges that you face that NOAA can assist with? 

A summary of their responses follows: 

Robert Kafalenos (U.S. Department of Transportation) indicated a need for higher resolution 

near-shore models to provide better information on the synergies of storm surge, tides and other 

coastal processes and the anticipated impacts on the coastal zone. He suggested a probabilistic 

approach to forecasting climate impacts is needed, as well as a Saffir-Simpson-like scale for 

categorizing these impacts. His group is working on development of GIS-based sea level rise 

scenarios for the East Coast transportation infrastructure to assess impacts. 

Jesse Schomberg (Minnesota Sea Grant) discussed the additional stress that human activities will 

place on coastal areas as a result of loss of streamside vegetation, paving of nearshore areas, 

sedimentation, water quality, and other impacts that result from development. Climate change 

will compound these challenges. He said that we are already seeing climate impacts, such as an 

increase in Great Lake water temperatures and ‘100-year’ flood events becoming more frequent. 

As a result, there is a need to focus on implementing Smart Growth principles, such as 

developing in ways that preserve green spaces and reducing vehicle miles traveled. The Great 

Lakes Sea Grant and Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory (GLERL) are working on 

a project to help community planners, port managers, and other decision makers realize the 

importance of sustainable communities and the impact of long-term planning ordinances through 
36

developing scenarios, tools and case studies. According to Mr. Schomberg, NOAA needs to 

address existing needs of decision makers instead of waiting for more data. He specifically 

mentioned the need for storm frequency forecasting tools, improved information on the effects of 

climate on whole ecosystems, and projections of water level changes in the Great Lakes. 

David Carter (Delaware Coastal Program) reported that, for states to adequately address 

inundation, they need LIDAR elevation data, as well as state and federal coordination on 

standards for this data. He mentioned the importance of FEMA-approved storm surge model runs 

for early warning forecasting. Models need to be sufficiently robust to hold up if challenged in 

court. There is a substantial amount of data within NOAA; however, NOAA needs to put the 

data and tools together in ways that make them easy to use and accessible. He cited a recent 

Coastal States Organization survey to which most states responded that they are already working 

on or will begin intensively working on climate adaptation strategies, with plans expected within 

the next three years. They will be looking for guidance, including ways to streamline and share 

information between state programs and even internationally. 

Skip Stiles (Wetlands Watch) spends much of his time speaking with local organizations to help 

them understand sea level rise impacts and discussing the importance of balancing the public 

good with the rights of property owners. He seeks data, good graphics and support to explain to 

local counties why they need to take climate change impacts into consideration, as the local level 

is where the land use decisions get made. Living shorelines may be a viable adaptation strategy, 

but a lack of local support and expertise makes them difficult to implement, in his experience. 

Presentation by Chet Koblinsky: On the second day of the workshop, Chet Koblinksy, Director 

of the Climate Program Office and Climate Goal Lead, gave a presentation on the “Status of 

National Climate Service Development.” Pending legislation in the Senate, S. 2307: Global 

Change Research Improvement Act of 2007, calls for the establishment a National Climate 

Service within NOAA. In September 2007, the NOAA Executive Council directed the agency 

“to take action to establish a National Climate Service.” NOAA’s proposed climate services 

strategy has two parts: to evaluate possible options for a National Climate Service within NOAA 

and to promote a national climate services partnership across external agencies, universities, nongovernmental organizations and private-sector stakeholders. The partnership and the National 

Climate Service will work together to support a comprehensive system that monitors information 

on key climate indicators and develops credible, usable, accessible and timely assessments, 

projections, and predictions of climate and its impacts. These two entities would help user 

communities develop and transfer information for planning and decision-making, including 

decisions related to adaptation and mitigation. During the last week of June, the Climate 

Working Group, a standing committee of NOAA’s Science Advisory Board (SAB), would be 

meeting, along with selected stakeholders, to discuss the draft strategic plan and to develop 

recommendations on the strategy. NOAA will take these recommendations under consideration 

and revisit its proposed strategy in light of them. 

Workshop Process: Most of the rest of the workshop focused on breakout session discussions 

and report-outs. Participants were divided into groups by climate change stressor (i.e., sea level 

change, severe weather including hurricanes and non-tropical storms, freshwater quantity and 

quality, and ocean change including temperature and chemistry) and discussions were framed 
37

around answering questions to address user needs, barriers, capabilities, and short-term (i.e., 

seasonal to five years) and long-term (i.e., over five years) opportunities. For a listing of 

breakout questions, see Appendix 3. 

Workshop Outcomes: Eileen Shea of the National Climatic Data Center and the NOAA IDEA 

(Integrated Data and Environmental Applications) Center provided a summary of key points 

raised. She highlighted the significance of the challenges and the urgent need to assist coastal 

decision makers. Some overarching themes or principles that emerged throughout the workshop 

are identified below. For more detailed breakout group notes, see Appendix 4. 

Overarching Workshop Themes: 

• Make better use of what we already know and have. We need to make it easier for 

stakeholders to identify and access what NOAA has to offer, develop new ways of presenting 

this information and recognize the importance of integrating physical, natural and 

socioeconomic information. We should provide the data and information that we have now to 

those making decisions now. 

• Provide better ‘service’ focused on user needs. Both climate and coasts are “integrators” 

across NOAA. We need people who can pull the natural and human components together, 

making the connections between the communities of scientific knowledge and the service 

providers, decision makers and society. NOAA needs to make investments by talking to 

customers to determine what they need, build their capacity, and help them use the tools and 

information that NOAA provides. Until NOAA makes these investments, we are not going to 

make the maximum use of the knowledge, information and expertise we have. Evaluation 

mechanisms should be used to ensure the effectiveness of climate services. 

• View climate in the context of other stressors. We must recognize the interconnections 

across and among related issues. Climate variability and change information should be 

integrated into existing planning and decision-making frameworks. It is important to adopt a 

system-level perspective that considers climate patterns, trends and episodic events, as well 

as various consequences of multiple climate impacts on coastal communities and ecosystems. 

• Support a proactive approach. We should address today’s problems and high priority 

issues while planning for the future. Place-based information is essential to explore possible 

future scenarios, as well as options for adaptation. NOAA is in a position to take the leading 

role in a collaborative, participatory, and iterative planning and implementation process with 

our customers and partners. We must build capacity in communities and within NOAA to 

take on this challenge in a proactive, not reactive manner 

• Recognize that climate, ecosystems and human systems are dynamic. Current and 

anticipated climate impacts bring both challenges and opportunities to natural and human 

systems. Changes on all timescales are relevant and must be addressed. Human and natural 

systems will adapt, but enhancing resilience is critical. Place, context, culture and history 

matter in determining how systems will respond. 

• Become an international leader in climate data, modeling, monitoring, research and 

service. 

 

Suggested Actions: Participants were asked to identify short term (1-2 years) and long term (3-5 

years) steps for NOAA to undertake. The following list of proposed actions, spanning all 

discussion groups, for NOAA emerged: 
38

• Establish a NOAA-wide working group on climate and coastal communities. This 

working group would continue to foster dialogue across NOAA and create implementation 

plans for the near term to address the gaps and recommendations highlighted in this 

workshop. This working group would facilitate accomplishing many of the actions listed 

below, including coordinating planning for products and services, as well as promoting crossNOAA planning and execution to fill gaps in the coastal climate portfolio. Finally, this 

working group would enable continued internal communication on climate issues affecting 

coasts. 

• Inventory of NOAA Climate information related to coasts. We need a NOAA-wide 

inventory of relevant climate data, products and services useful to coastal stakeholders to 

share within the NOAA community, with partners, and with users in the coastal community. 

This inventory should build on similar inventories initiated by the climate and living marine 

resources group and a 2007 Climate Services inventory. 

• Support development of a Climate Portal. Customers need a portal for easy online access 

to new and existing resources (e.g., data, products, case studies, model outputs and 

projections) related to climate impacts with a user-friendly interface (including a call center). 

• Use existing mechanisms to integrate across NOAA. NOAA should capitalize on existing 

mechanisms (e.g., goal teams, PATTs, regional teams and programs) and take advantage of 

these mechanisms in developing climate services. 

Overarching Priority Needs for a National Climate Service (in no particular order): 

• Sustained and enhanced observations and time-series data. Support of existing in situ and 

remotely sensed observations must continue with geographic, temporal, and technical 

expansion of simultaneous measurements and inclusion of new parameters (e.g., 

measurements of ecosystem and socioeconomic parameters) using consistent calibration, 

standards, datums and metadata. This should include a geospatial framework for access to the 

full suite of integrated observations. NOAA should use its network of sentinel sites and 

habitats to monitor and predict changes in coastal habitats along with the attendant impacts 

on adjacent communities. Stakeholders also need a continuous, iterative process of 

monitoring and assessing conditions to inform decisions. 

• Full coverage for bathymetry and LIDAR. Improved collection frequency, resolution of 

and access to full coverage bathymetry and LIDAR, with a long term plan for 

standardization, in crucial for many applications. 

• Modeling and research enhancements. Evaluation, expansion, enhanced resolution and 

downscaling of models are critical to the success of coastal climate efforts, as is the computer 

capacity to run these models. Models should be coupled with existing regional models. An 

expansion of the existing model suite (e.g., to include additional ecological modeling, icewater-land-ecosystem interaction, and ocean acidification) is necessary. Models should 

address impacts on ecosystems and society, not just physical conditions. Improved 

expressions of uncertainty and frequency forecasts for severe weather are needed. An 

improved understanding of the large-scale climate regimes (e.g., El Niño Southern 

Oscillation (ENSO), the North Atlantic oscillation (NAO), and Pacific Decadal Oscillation 

(PDO)) is also critical to this process. Translation of forecasts, outlooks and projections is 

important for improved user understanding of the limitations and vulnerabilities associated 
39

with these models. The predictive tools developed need to be synthesized, disseminated, and 

incorporated into threat assessment, management, and hazard resiliency planning. 

• Coastal management guidebook covering approaches to integrating climate change into 

state and federal planning. States and federal resource management agencies have a critical 

need for guidance materials about how to reduce human influences contributing to climate 

change and how to incorporate climate change impacts into their long-term plans. A 

guidebook would set out national guidelines for how to conduct and what to include in an 

adaptation strategy to provide consistency, but allow for differences, across states. A 

guidebook would include a compilation of lessons learned and best practices. Examples of 

effective state and federal plans and pilot projects to demonstrate and test a variety of 

practices should be widely available. Place-based pilots at the watershed scale are also 

critical. This guidebook should include tools to assist with identification and assessment of 

societal climate vulnerabilities and resilience. 

• Consistent NOAA message and single voice. It is critical for NOAA to have a clear and 

unified voice on climate issues. NOAA should be groomed to become the authoritative 

source, in collaboration with partners. Resources should be developed as cross-NOAA efforts 

to fully incorporate all NOAA resources that address a climate change problem and should 

feed the Climate Portal. 

• Cross-agency coastal climate team for education, outreach and training. This team 

would build on existing capabilities, teams, and programs to lead, coordinate, and train 

NOAA’s place-based extension and outreach providers and field-office personnel to identify 

and address priority climate issues. This team would contribute to the revamp of the new 

NOAA climate ‘roadshow,’ as well development of educational materials for a variety of 

media to improve internal and external knowledge. Climate change and general risk 

communication approaches to messaging should be established and should address 

uncertainty. Social science should be incorporated to help determine how messages could 

most effectively reach various audiences. 

• Interdisciplinary, integrated analytical tools and resources. NOAA should support a 

systems approach to assessing climate science impacts and adaptation. Pilot projects to 

demonstrate the integration of data and predictive models into tools for decision-making 

should be implemented. Socioeconomic, physical and biological systems are related and need 

to be integrated for a more complete picture of community and ecosystem mitigation of and 

adaptation to climate change. Evaluation of management scenarios and options should be a 

component of these tools, to fulfill NOAA’s responsibility to provide support to coastal 

managers and its own stewardship responsibilities related to the coasts and oceans. Temporal 

integration is also necessary to blend short-term warnings associated with extreme events 

with long-term planning and efforts to affect policy decisions. 

• Regional approaches to working with our partners. Given the regional nature of climate 

impacts and issues and existing regional activities (e.g., NOAA regional teams and Regional 

Integrated Sciences and Assessments (RISA) programs), a regional approach should be used 

to develop strategies to work with other agencies, academia, local and state governments, 

non-profits, and businesses to maximize effectiveness of collaboration. Roundtable 

discussions should be used to understand needs and communicate current products. NOAA 

should promote cross-regional communication and coordination. Place-based regional pilot 

projects with community engagement components should be used as demonstration projects 

to foster and promote working together on climate issues. 
40

• Modified NOAA policies and processes to allow for more effective climate services. A 

new process with leadership commitment to execution and resource allocation is necessary 

within NOAA to affect change, develop priorities and improve effectiveness of our products 

and services. NOAA should identify any arenas in which we might need to reduce our 

emphasis to accommodate the focus on climate services. NOAA should formalize policies 

and memoranda of understanding (MOUs) with other agencies contributing to and using 

climate service data and products. We should also assess NOAA legislative mandates related 

to our roles and needs associated with climate change. Further, we need a process to develop 

priorities for getting data out to communities. 

• Indicators of climate risk and resilience for communities and ecosystems. This effort, 

which could be conducted on a regional level, could build upon existing resilience work to 

develop indicators for quantitatively measuring risk and enabling communities and managers 

to work towards becoming climate-ready. Supporting long-term monitoring at sentinel sites 

and habitats will facilitate the characterization of climate change impacts, the development of 

predictive models and their application to management scenarios, and risk/vulnerability 

assessments. 

Final Note: At a wrap-up session with the conference organizers held right after the last session, 

there was a general consensus that there was a collective enthusiasm for working together on 

these issues and a hope that this workshop would be the first in a series of steps to hold a 

dialogue among different offices engaged in work that relates to climate impacts on coasts. 
41

Appendix 1: Workshop Agenda 

NOAA Workshop on Strengthening Capacity to Address 

the Impacts of Climate Change on 

Coastal Communities and Ecosystems

June 19-20, 2008 

at the 

American Geophysical Union 

2000 Florida Avenue N.W.

Washington, DC 20009 

Agenda 

The purpose of the workshop is to advance the creation of a NOAA-wide framework to address 

the impacts of climate change through the application of science-based information, the 

development of decision support resources and tools, and the building of capacity to address 

climate impacts on coastal communities and the ecosystems they depend upon. Toward this end, 

the workshop will address the following: 

• Review Key Challenges: In the context of NOAA’s mission, consider key coastal 

management challenges, drivers and customers for which climate information is 

relevant. Identify the types of information that would be most useful for addressing these 

challenges. 

• Consider and Assess Current Resources: Identify expertise, experience, knowledge, 

technology, and information systems within and supported by NOAA that can be used to 

generate and apply information relevant to addressing climate impacts in coastal regions. 

Identify key gaps in information, delivery methods, and tools needed by NOAA and our 

partners. 

• Advance the Development of a NOAA Strategy for Addressing Climate Impacts in 

Coastal Regions: Outline a strategy to better integrate climate research, awareness and 

information into NOAA’s stewardship activities for coastal communities and 

ecosystems. This will inform a National Climate Service, NOAA’s coastal enterprise and 

NOAA’s core programs. 

Workshop Outcomes: This workshop will produce information that can be used to develop a 

strategy for using NOAA’s authorities and expertise to address the impacts of climate change on 

coastal communities and the ecosystems they depend upon. The workshop will foster increased 

connectivity among NOAA activities with a current and potential role in producing and applying 

climate information in coastal regions. 

Context: This workshop is the second in a series designed to advance the development of 

NOAA’s approach to providing climate information that supports the agency’s management 

responsibilities for coastal communities, coastal ecosystems and living marine resources. The 

first occurred on May 14-15 and focused on climate and living marine resources. These two 
42

workshops complement each other and provide the foundation for a larger framework for 

ongoing and evolving efforts within NOAA’s research and management programs to address 

climate impacts and adaptation. They were designed to increase the communication between 

climate researchers, information providers, and coastal and ocean resource managers that need 

climate information to fulfill their mandates. Both workshops support NOAA’s response to an 

August 2007 Government Accountability Office Report, which called on all Federal agencies to 

develop guidance for addressing the effects of climate change on Federal land and water 

resources. The material generated at these workshops will help address these needs over the 

short- and long-term. 

Workshop Attendees: A mix of office level leadership and project staff working on climate 

and/or coastal management and planning activities, from both headquarters and field offices. 

Workshop Organizers: NOAA’s Climate Program Office had overall responsibility for planning 

and organizing this workshop, with support from staff in the following offices: 

Office of Atmospheric Research 

 National Sea Grant College Program 

National Ocean Service 

 Coastal Services Center 

 National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science 

 Office of Coast Survey 

 Office of National Marine Sanctuaries 

 Office of Ocean and Coastal Resource Management 

National Environmental Satellite and Data Information Services 

 National Climatic Data Center 

 Integrated Data and Environmental Applications Center 

National Marine Fisheries Service 

 Office of Habitat Conservation 

National Weather Service 

 Office of Hydrologic Development 

Sponsors: NOAA gratefully acknowledges the support provided by the East-West Center in 

Honolulu, HI, the National Estuarine Research Reserve Association. 
43

Thursday, 19 June 

Time Session

8:30 - 9:00 am Registration

9:00 - 9:30 am Welcome and Goals of Workshop – 

 Dr. Chet Koblinsky , Climate Goal Team Lead 

 Dr. Steve Murawski, Ecosystem Goal Team Lead 

 CAPT Steve Barnum, Commerce and Transportation Goal Team Lead 

 Dr. George Smith, Weather and Water Goal Team Lead

9:30 - 9:45 am Overview of the Agenda and Meeting Logistics – Nancy Beller-Simms, 

Climate Program Office 

9:45 - 10:30 am Presentation on major climate change impacts with a focus on coastal 

communities and ecosystems – Dr. Denise Reed, Ph.D., Professor, 

University of New Orleans

10:30 - 10:45 am Discussion – Nancy Beller-Simms

10:45 -11:00 am Break

11:00 - 12:00 pm Panel of Practitioners: Key challenges and examples of solutions for 

coastal communities and ecosystems (Moderator: David Kennedy, 

Director, NOS Office of Ocean and Coastal Resource Management) 

 Dave Carter, Delaware Coastal Program 

 Jesse Schomberg, Minnesota Sea Grant 

 Skip Stiles, Wetlands Watch 

 Robert Kafalenos, Department of Transportation 

12:00 - 12:15 pm Discussion with Panel – David Kennedy

12:15 - 1:15 pm Lunch (on your own, restaurant listing provided separately)

1:15 -1:45 pm Introduction of major pressures of climate change on coastal 

communities and ecosystems – Darlene Finch, NOAA Coastal Services 

Center

1:45 - 3:15 pm Understanding Impacts and the Needs for Climate Information: 

Break into small groups according to major climate change pressures of : 

 Sea Level Change 

 Severe Weather, including Hurricanes and Non-Tropical Storms 

 Freshwater Quantity and Quality 

 Ocean Changes, including Temperature and Chemistry 

Each small group will address the following questions: 

 What are the most critical impacts that NOAA needs to address? 

 What kind of climate information and tools do managers need from 

NOAA to address these impacts? Please prioritize. 

Outcome: Prioritized list of impacts that NOAA “should” address and 

associated tools and information that NOAA is capable of providing.

3:15 - 3:30 pm Break

3:30 - 4:45 pm Report back from the Small Groups on major impacts, needs and gaps – 

Eileen Shea, Director, NOAA Integrated Data and Environmental 

Applications Center 
44

 Sea Level Change 

 Severe Weather, including Hurricanes and Non-Tropical Storms 

 Freshwater Quantity and Quality 

 Ocean Changes, including Temperature and Chemistry

4:45 - 5:00 pm Recap of the first day and review of what participants should be prepared 

to discuss on the second day – Nancy Beller-Simms

5:15 - 7:30 pm Reception at AGU 

Friday, 20 July 

Time Session

9:00 - 9:15 am Recap of first day. Charge for the second day – Nancy Beller-Simms and 

Eileen Shea

9:15 - 10:30 am Understanding our Capabilities and Gaps/Small Group discussions. 

Each small group will address the following questions: 

 What capabilities and gaps exist in NOAA’s current efforts to address 

the impacts of climate change to our coastal community and 

associated ecosystem management responsibilities?

 What additional research, data, information, and delivery methods do 

we need?

Outcome: Using the tools and information lists developed yesterday, 

identify how NOAA is currently working towards those outputs and the 

barriers to developing/improving those products. Identify key capabilities 

and what capabilities need to be strengthened.

10:30 - 10:45 am Break

10:45 – 12:00 pm Report out from Small Groups - Eileen Shea 

 Sea Level Change 

 Severe Weather, including Hurricanes and Non-Tropical Storms 

 Freshwater Quantity and Quality 

 Ocean Changes, including Temperature and Chemistry

12:00 – 1:00 pm Lunch (on your own, restaurant listing provided separately)

1:00 - 1:30 pm National Climate Service - Chet Koblinsky

1:30 - 1:45 pm Charge to the Small Groups - Nancy Beller-Simms

1:45 - 3:00 pm Identifying Solutions/Small Group discussions. Each small group will 

address the following core questions: 

 What should NOAA be doing in the next 1-2 years to address the 

impacts of climate change to our coastal community and associated 

ecosystems responsibilities? Next 5 to 10 years? 

 How do we work more effectively across NOAA to address major 

needs and priorities? 

Outcome: A list of short- and long-term steps to developing products that 

address critical impacts.

3:00 - 3:15 pm Break
45

3:15 - 4:15 pm Report out from Small Groups – Eileen Shea

 Sea Level Change 

 Severe Weather, including Hurricanes and Non-Tropical Storms 

 Freshwater Quantity and Quality 

 Ocean Changes, including Temperature and Chemistry

4:15 - 4:45 pm Observations and Synthesis of the Material Developed During the 

Workshop – Eileen Shea

4:45 - 5:00 pm Next Steps and Adjournment – Nancy Beller-Simms
46

Appendix 2: List of Participants 

NOAA Workshop on Strengthening Capacity to Address 

the Impacts of Climate Change on 

Coastal Communities and Ecosystems 

June 19-20, 2008 

Charles S. Baker 

Deputy Assistant Administrator 

National Environmental Satellite, Data, and 

Information Service 

Charles.S.Baker@noaa.gov 

Seema Balwani 

Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center 

Seema.Balwani@noaa.gov 

CAPT Steve Barnum 

NOS Office of Coast Survey 

Steven.Barnum@noaa.gov 

*Nancy Beller-Simms 

NOAA Climate Program Office 

Sectoral Applications Research Program 

Nancy.Beller-Simms@noaa.gov 

Eddie Bernard 

OAR Pacific Marine Environmental 

Laboratory 

Eddie.N.Bernard@noaa.gov 

Jessica Berrio 

NOS Ocean and Coastal Resource 

Management 

National Policy and Evaluation Division 

Jessica.Berrio@noaa.gov 

Christopher Boelke 

NMFS Northeast Regional Office 

Christopher.Boelke@noaa.gov 

Bill Bolhofer 

NWS Headquarters 

Office of International Activities 

William.Bolhofer@noaa.gov 

Steve Brown 

NMFS Office of Science and Technoloty 

Assessment and Monitoring Division 

Stephen.K.Brown@noaa.gov 

Dave Carter 

Delaware Coastal Program 

David.Carter@state.de.us 

Hannah Campbell 

NOAA Climate Program Office 

Hannah.Campbell@noaa.gov 

Ken Casey 

NESDIS National Oceanographic Data 

Center 

Ecosystem Observations Program 

Kenneth.Casey@noaa.gov 

*Ashley Chappell 

NOS Office of Coast Survey 

Ashley.Chappell@noaa.gov 

Candyce Clark 

NOAA Climate Program Office 

Climate Observation Division 

Candyce.Clark@noaa.gov 

*Nell Codner 

NOAA Coastal Services Center 

Nell.Codner@noaa.gov 

*Mary Culver 

NOAA Coastal Services Center 

Mary.Culver@noaa.gov 
47

David Dale 

NMFS Southeast Region 

Habitat Conservation 

David.Dale@noaa.gov 

Margaret Davidson 

NOAA Coastal Services Center 

Margaret.Davidson@noaa.gov 

Nancy Dean 

NWS Western Region 

WFO Eureka, CA 

Nancy.Dean@noaa.gov 

Paul Digiacomo 

NESDIS Center for Satellite Applications 

and Research 

Paul.Digiacomo@noaa.gov 

John Dunne 

OAR Geophysical Fluid Dynamics 

Laboratory 

Biospheric Processes Group 

John.Dunne@noaa.gov 

Jack Dunnigan 

Assistant Administrator 

National Ocean Service 

Jack.Dunnigan@noaa.gov 

Mark Eakin 

NESDIS Center for Satellite Applications 

and Research 

Coral Reef Watch 

Mark.Eakin@noaa.gov 

Mary Erickson 

NOS Office of Coast Survey 

Coast Survey Development Lab 

Mary.Erickson@noaa.gov 

Dan Farrow 

NMFS Office of Habitat Conservation 

Dan.Farrow@noaa.gov 

*Stephanie Fauver 

NOAA Coastal Services Center 

Stephanie.Fauver@noaa.gov 

*Rebecca Feldman 

NOAA Climate Program Office 

Rebecca.Feldman@noaa.gov 

John Ferguson 

NMFS Northwest Fisheries Science Center 

John.W.Ferguson@noaa.gov 

*Darlene Finch 

NOAA Coastal Services Center 

NOAA Chesapeake Bay Office 

Darlene.Finch@noaa.gov 

Ann Garrett 

NMFS Office of Protected Resources 

Ann.Garrett@noaa.gov 

Perry Gayaldo 

NMFS Restoration Center 

Perry.Gayaldo@noaa.gov 

Steve Gill 

NOS Center for Operational Oceanographic 

Products and Services 

Stephen.Gill@noaa.gov 

*Bess Gillelan 

NMFS Office of Habitat Conservation 

Bess.Gillelan@noaa.gov 

Steve Gittings 

NOS Office of National Marine Sanctuaries 

Steve.Gittings@noaa.gov 

*Roger Griffis 

NMFS Office of Habitat Conservation 

Roger.B.Griffis@noaa.gov 

Sami Grimes 

OAR Sea Grant 

Sami.Grimes@noaa.gov 
48

Bart Hagemeyer 

NWS Southern Region 

WFO Melbourne, Florida 

Bart.Hagemeyer@noaa.gov 

*Carrie Hall 

NOS Ocean and Coastal Resource 

Management 

Carrie.Hall@noaa.gov 

Jawed Hameedi 

NOS National Centers for Coastal Ocean 

Science 

Jawed.Hameedi@noaa.gov 

David Herring 

NOAA Climate Program Office 

David.Herring@noaa.gov 

Bob Hoffman 

NMFS Office of Habitat Conservation 

Bob.Hoffman@noaa.gov 

Fiona Horsfall 

NWS National Centers for Environmental 

Prediction 

Climate Prediction Center 

Fiona.Horsfall@noaa.gov 

*Jim Hurley 

OAR Sea Grant 

Jim.Hurley@noaa.gov 

Gretchen Imahori 

NOS Office of Coast Survey 

Gretchen.Imahori@noaa.gov 

Paula Jasinski 

NOAA Chesapeake Bay Office 

Paula.Jasinski@noaa.gov 

Libby Jewett 

NOS National Centers for Coastal Ocean 

Science 

Libby.Jewett@noaa.gov 

Ming Ji 

NWS National Centers for Environmental 

Prediction 

Ocean Prediction Center 

Ming.Ji@noaa.gov 

Mike Johnson 

NOAA Climate Program Office 

Climate Observation Division 

Mike.Johnson@noaa.gov 

Sarah Jones 

NWS Pacific Region 

Pacific ENSO Applications Climate Center 

Sarah.Jones@noaa.gov 

Rob Kafalenos 

Dept. of Transportation 

Federal Hwy Administration 

Robert.Kafalenos@fhwa.dot.gov 

*Ruth Kelty 

NOS National Centers for Coastal Ocean 

Science 

Ruth.Kelty@noaa.gov 

David Kennedy 

NOS Ocean and Coastal Resource 

Management 

David.Kennedy@noaa.gov 

Doug Kluck 

NWS Central Region 

Science Services Division 

Doug.Kluck@noaa.gov 

Chet Koblinsky 

NOAA Climate Program Office 

Chester.J.Koblinsky@noaa.gov 

Michael Kruk 

NESDIS National Climatic Data Center 

Michael.Kruk@noaa.gov 
49

*Keelin Kuipers 

NOAA Coastal Services Center 

Keelin.Kuipers@noaa.gov 

Mike Liffmann 

OAR Sea Grant 

Michael.Liffmann@noaa.gov 

Naomi Lundberg 

NMFS Office of Protected Resources 

Endangered Species Division 

Naomi.Lundbereg@noaa.gov 

*Terence Lynch 

NOS Office of Coast Survey 

Terence.Lynch@noaa.gov 

Michiko Martin 

NOS Office of National Marine Sanctuaries 

Michiko.Martin@noaa.gov 

Gary Matlock 

NOS National Centers for Coastal Ocean 

Science 

Gary.C.Matlock@noaa.gov 

Craig McLean 

Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric 

Research 

Deputy Assistant Administrator 

Craig.Mclean@noaa.gov 

Chris Meaney 

NMFS Office of Habitat Conservation 

Habitat Protection Division 

Christopher.Meaney@noaa.gov 

Amy Merten 

NOS Office of Response and Restoration 

Coastal Response Research Center 

Amy.Merten@noaa.gov 

*Liz Moore 

NOS Office of National Marine Sanctuaries 

Conservation Policy and Planning 

Elizabeth.Moore@noaa.gov 

Scott Mowery 

NESDIS National Coastal Data 

Development Center 

Scott.Mowery@noaa.gov 

Steve Murawski 

National Marine Fisheries Service 

Steve.Murawski@noaa.gov 

Jim Murray 

OAR Sea Grant 

Jim.D.Murray@noaa.gov 

*Frank Niepold 

NOAA Climate Program Office 

Frank.Niepold@noaa.gov 

Thomas Noji 

Northeast Fisheries Science Center 

Ecosystems Processes Division 

Thomas.Noji@noaa.gov 

Julie Nygard 

NMFS Office of Habitat Conservation 

Restoration Center 

Julie.Nygard@noaa.gov 

Kenric Osgood 

NMFS Office of Science & Technology 

Marine Ecosystems Division 

Kenric.Osgood@noaa.gov 

Toni Parham 

NESDIS Headquarters 

Office of the DAA 

Toni.D.Parham@noaa.gov 

*Ken Pavelle 

NWS Office of Hydrologic Development 

Ken.Pavelle@noaa.gov 
50

Bill Proenza 

NWS Southern Region 

Bill.Proenza@noaa.gov 

John R. Proni 

OAR Atlantic Oceanographic and 

Meteorological Laboratory 

Ocean Chemistry Division 

John.Proni@noaa.gov 

Roger S. Pulwarty 

NOAA Climate Program Office 

National Integrated Drought Information 

System 

Roger.Pulwarty@noaa.gov 

Mike Quigley 

OAR Great Lakes Environmental Research 

Laboratory 

Michael.A.Quigley@noaa.gov 

Seann Reed 

NWS Office of Hydrologic Development 

Seann.Reed@noaa.gov 

Denise Reed 

University of New Orleans 

Dept. of Geology and Geophysics 

djreed@uno.edu 

Krissy Rusello 

NOS Office of Response and Restoration 

Damage Assessment, Remediation, and 

Restoration Program 

Kristin.Rusello@noaa.gov 

Paul Sandifer 

National Ocean Service 

c/o Hollings Marine Laboratory 

Paul.Sandifer@noaa.gov 

Whit Saumweber 

NOS Ocean and Coastal Resource 

Management 

Estuarine Reserves Division 

Whitley.Saumweber@noaa.gov 

David Scheurer 

NOS National Centers for Coastal Ocean 

Science 

Center for Sponsored Coastal Ocean 

Research 

David.Scheurer@noaa.gov 

Jesse Schomberg 

Minnesota Sea Grant 

jschombe@umn.edu 

Galen Scott 

NOS National Geodetic Survey 

Geodesy 

Galen.Scott@noaa.gov 

Carven A Scott 

NWS Alaska Region Headquarters 

Environmental and Scientific Services 

Division 

Carven.Scott@noaa.gov 

*Erica Seiden 

NOS Ocean and Coastal Resource 

Management 

Estuarine Reserves Division 

Erica.Seiden@noaa.gov 

*Eileen Shea 

NESDIS National Climatic Data Center 

Climate Services and Monitoring Division 

Eileen.Shea@noaa.gov 

George Smith 

Weather and Water Goal 

George.Smith@noaa.gov 
51

Rick Spinrad 

Assistant Administrator 

Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric 

Research 

Richard.Spinrad@noaa.gov 

Skip Stiles 

Wetlands Watch 

Skip.Stiles@wetlandswatch.org 

Mike Szabados 

NOS Center for Operational Oceanographic 

Products & Services (CO-OPS) 

Mike.Szabados@noaa.gov 

Paul C. Ticco 

NOS Office of National Marine Sanctuaries 

Paul.Ticco@noaa.gov 

Terry Tielking 

NESDIS National Oceanographic Data 

Center (NODC) 

Terry.Tielking@noaa.gov 

Eric Toman 

NOAA Climate Program Office 

Eric.Toman@noaa.gov 

Kristen Tronvig 

NOS Center for Operational Oceanographic 

Products and Services 

Kristen.Tronvig@noaa.gov 

Mete Uz 

NOAA Climate Program Office 

Baris.Uz@noaa.gov 

Nathalie Valette-Silver 

NOS National Centers for Coastal Ocean 

Science 

Nathalie.Valette-Silver@noaa.gov 

Sarah van der Schalie 

NOS Ocean and Coastal Resource 

Management 

Coastal Programs Division 

Sarah.VanderSchalie@noaa.gov 

*Lisa Vaughan 

NOAA Climate Program Office 

Sectoral Applications Research Program 

Lisa.Vaughan@noaa.gov 

Jia Wang 

OAR Great Lakes Environmental Research 

Lab 

Jia.Wang@noaa.gov 

*Vicki Wedell 

NOS Office of National Marine Sanctuaries 

Conservation Policy and Planning 

Vicki.Wedell@noaa.gov 

Stephen White 

NOS National Geodetic Survey 

Stephen.A.White@noaa.gov 

Zdenka Willis 

NOAA IOOS Program Office 

Zdenka.Willis@noaa.gov 

Steve Zubrick 

NWS Eastern Region 

WFO Sterling, VA 

Steven.Zubrick@noaa.gov 

* denotes Organizing Committee member 
52

Appendix 3: Breakout Questions

Understanding Impacts and the Needs for Climate Information: 

 What are the most critical impacts of this pressure that need to be addressed? Which of 

these are within NOAA’s mission? 

 What kind of climate information do managers need to address these impacts? What are 

the temporal and spatial scales for this information? 

 What are the key decision support resources, information resources, products, tools and 

capabilities needed to address climate and coastal resource (communities and 

ecosystems) management? 

 Can priority be assigned to any of these issues and/or processes? If so, which are of 

greatest importance in terms of timeliness and impact? 

 

Understanding our Capabilities and Gaps

 To what extent is climate information currently used to address these coastal 

responsibilities? What are the current barriers to incorporating climate information into 

efforts to manage coastal communities and the ecosystems they depend on? How will 

these challenges and barriers affect our ability to implement management efforts for 

coastal communities and ecosystems? 

 What is the current status of research related to climate-related coastal issues and 

associated observations, modeling, process studies, and impacts and adaptation research 

and assessment (well covered, in development, non-existent)? 

 How effectively is this information being delivered to the managers who need it, and 

how can delivery be improved? 

 What additional coastal communities and ecosystems information is needed by the 

climate science community to assess and predict climate feedbacks from human-induced 

alterations (e.g., ocean acidification)? 

 

Identifying Solutions

 How should NOAA work across the agency to address major needs and priorities that 

have been identified? 

 Which institutions/programs need to be involved to implement these actions? What 

partners will be critical? 

 What are some short- and long-term steps that can be taken? What are the priorities? 
53

Appendix 4: Breakout Group Notes 

Breakout Session I

Freshwater Quantity and Quality 

What kind of climate information and tools do managers need from NOAA to address these 

impacts? 

For a coastal freshwater budget, needs include: 

• accurate data 

• modeling capacity and scenario forecasting 

• spatial and temporal scale identification 

• ability to connect to coastal managers and 

• appropriate decision-making, i.e., tech transfer 

Oceanic Changes – A 

What are the most critical impacts that NOAA needs to address?

• Melting land ice and sea ice 

• Ocean acidification 

• Temperature change 

• Ocean circulation 

• Water quality and quantity 

What kind of climate information and tools do managers need from NOAA to address these 

impacts? 

Melting ice

• Forecasting – projections and predictions of ice extent 

• Transportation: Remote sensing information for shipping lanes, safety for ships (search 

and rescue), science for spill response, bathymetry 

• Synthesis/analysis of existing observations and data “archaeology” 

• Measurements/observations – salinity, productivity 

• Ecological forecasting of shifts due to melting ice 

Ocean acidification

• Observations – CO2, pH, salinity, etc. 

• Carbon chemistry (inorganic [CO2, bicarbonate] and organic) 

• Predictive tools for depth and latitude 

• Biological monitoring, indicator species, coastal observations 

• Significant research needs 

Temperature changes

• More information at spatial and temporal scales relative to ecosystem monitoring 

• Full water column temperature (and other components) profiles 

• Link of above to fisheries production, corals, etc. 
54

Water quantity and quality

• Products to address changes and effects on estuaries, especially salinity 

• Flow data 

• Circulation info nearshore/estuaries 

Ocean Circulation

• Upwelling information 

• Information on ENSO/PDO affecting fish production 

• Monitoring currents 

Sea Level Change – A 

What are the most critical impacts that NOAA needs to address? 

• Ecosystems, habitats, species impacts 

• Communities, land use impacts 

• Economic impacts 

• Marine Transportation System impacts 

• Legal, policy impacts 

What kind of climate information and tools do managers need from NOAA to address these 

impacts? 

Cross – Impact Tools

• Bathymetry/topography (LiDAR), VDatum to forecast and understand shoreline change 

• Baseline data and change analysis to understand impacts of future changes 

• Integrated Ecosystem Assessments, including assessments of actions, costs and benefits 

for management options, etc. 

• Prediction system for sea level rise to understand changes at all scales 

Additional thoughts

• Standardization as NOAA’s role 

• Roles and coordination with federal partners 

• Products need to be responsive to managers needs 

• Peer review process 

Sea Level Change – B 

What are the most critical impacts that NOAA needs to address? 

Impacts

• Changes to coastal habitats – salt marshes, habitat, species, degradation of human 

response (12) 

• Loss/change in property values, use 

• Flooding of infrastructure -- roads, rail, transit, transportation (10) 

• Residential impacts 

• Impacts on water quality – saltwater intrusion, e.g. (6) 
55

• Freshwater resources, e.g., saltwater intrusion 

• water treatment facilities flooding 

• dumps currently sealed/capped 

• septic fields 

• toxic contaminant sites 

• diseases, waterborne pathogen threats to human health 

• Reduced resilience as a result of confounding processes 

• Synergy w/other changes (coastal processes impacted by SLR, water temp, salinity, etc.) 

(11) 

What kind of climate information and tools do managers need from NOAA to address these 

impacts? 

For changes to coastal habitats as result of sea level change or human response – salt marshes, 

habitat, species, degradation because of human response 

Need consistent, basic info on: 

• extent/rate of Sea Level Change 

• Nested scales 

• Habitat-specific – how they will respond 

• Regional to local 

• Need for refined information on ecosystem/human impacts for possible responses 

• Baseline data – seamless geospatial framework 

• Monitoring 

• Assessments 

• Forecasts, projections/future scenarios – worst case, potential 

• Management options 

What kind of climate information and tools do managers need from NOAA to address these 

impacts? 

• Capacity for pro-active actions 

• Identify priority habitats/areas 

• Maps for Sea Level change 

• LIDAR data, geospatial framework to build decisions on 

• Development plans – “Green prints” – growth and planning tool that designates important 

resource identification of priority habitats, cultural, economic areas, etc. 

• Resources – investing capacity to protect and restore habitat, infrastructure 

Oceanic Changes – B 

What are the most critical impacts that NOAA needs to address? 

Pressures

• Acidification 

• Precipitation (can effect stratification) 

• Temperature 
56

Impacts

• Ecosystem 

o Change/loss of habitat, 

o Change/loss of productivity and species 

o Nuisance Species 

• Socio-Economic – Impact on communities 

o Jobs 

o subsistence 

• Health 

o Increased disease in humans 

o Increased disease within ecosystems 

What kind of climate information and tools do managers need from NOAA to address these 

impacts? 

Information, Tools and Outreach Needed 

• Common data standards 

• Address satellite observation gaps 

• Education – understanding of data – limitations/probabilities 

• What can I say right now about climate? i.e., current best available information. 

• Downscaled regional information on acidification, temperature, and productivity – 

“Downscaled Tool Kit” 

• One stop shopping for information 

• Better information exchange within NOAA 

Breakout Session 2

Freshwater Quantity and Quality

What capabilities and gaps exist in NOAA’s current efforts to address the impacts of climate 

change to our coastal community and associated ecosystem management responsibilities? 

What additional research, data, information, and delivery methods do we need? NOAA does 

replicable pilots that integrate water budget and hydrology information at watershed scales. 

Coastal Freshwater Budget for use in scenario and ecological forecasting 

• Weather–integrated information to use at local scale 

• Groundwater–corporate commitment to integrate and execute 

• Water quality–transferability of pilots 

• Bathymetry–user needs assessments (internal/external) need 

• Sedimentation–involvement from beginning 

• Land Cover 

• Data mining and historical data 

• Stream flow 
57

What capabilities and gaps exist in NOAA’s current efforts to address the impacts of climate 

change to our coastal community and associated ecosystem management responsibilities? 

What additional research, data, information, and delivery methods do we need? 

GAPS

• Quantify benefits to users 

• Expanded coverage for watersheds for nutrients and contaminants 

• Snow melt and permafrost data 

• Disease agents 

• Diversion and withdrawal information 

• Operational capacity 

• Process, leadership, and resources to integrate assets in/out of NOAA 

• Community modeling infrastructure 

• Summit to sea modeling – coupled hydrology and ocean models 

• Use assets to deliver to users 

Severe Weather 

What capabilities and gaps exist in NOAA’s current efforts to address the impacts of climate 

change to our coastal community and associated ecosystem management responsibilities? 

What additional research, data, information, and delivery methods do we need? 

Things we really care about (but these aren’t prioritized!!):

• Overarching 

• Integrate/blending short term warnings and long term planning 

• Mission of NOAA vs. other feds 

• Web site to provide integrated access to NOAA climate information for a variety of 

audiences 

• Improved frequency, resolution and access for bathymetry and LIDAR 

• Need improved frequency forecasts (e.g., seasonal outlooks, hazardous weather) 

• Climate regimes (ENSO, NAO, PDO, Pacific/North American Oscillation (PNA)) 

forecasts/improved prediction for climate variability and long term change 

• Education 

• Develop materials (video, tutorials) 

• Working with TV, teachers, realtors 

• Links to social science 

• Frequency forecasts and uncertainty information 

• Evaluating and validating climate prediction models, including quantitative uncertainty 

• NOAA taking the lead on long term time series 

What capabilities and gaps exist in NOAA’s current efforts to address the impacts of climate 

change to our coastal community and associated ecosystem management responsibilities? 

What additional research, data, information, and delivery methods do we need? 
58

Funding needed for everything: 

• Observations 

• Calibrate and validate time series 

• Continuity of monitoring 

• Ocean acidification – Need more information 

• Ecosystem thresholds relative to acidification including why regional differences 

• Upscaling of coastal observation with global process 

• Harvest/mine other data sets into NOAA data 

• Calibrate/integrate data sets 

• Fund IOOS 

• Tracking of contaminants in atmosphere and deposition – changes due to climate change 

Oceanic Changes – B 

What capabilities and gaps exist in NOAA’s current efforts to address the impacts of climate 

change to our coastal community and associated ecosystem management responsibilities? 

What additional research, data, information, and delivery methods do we need? 

Research and Assessments 

 Models need to be coupled across land/sea/air 

 Need to develop and improve ecological models and forecasting 

 Baseline mapping of ocean habitats – continue coordination across federal government 

 Couple regional models with local scale monitoring 

 Improve ecological forecast capability 

 Downscaled modeling of snowpack and streamflow (viable just need to add topography 

to models) 

What capabilities and gaps exist in NOAA’s current efforts to address the impacts of climate 

change to our coastal community and associated ecosystem management responsibilities? 

What additional research, data, information, and delivery methods do we need? 

Decision Support Tools 

 Ecosystem impacts of climate change needs to be an ESSENTIAL component in NOAA 

Climate Services 

 Regional ocean acidification, temperature, phenology, ocean productivity, ocean currents, 

and upwelling monitoring and forecasts 

 Tools to evaluate management options, temp forecasting in short term 

 One place to find information 

 Need to prioritize climate efforts 

 Build on existing efforts 

 Integrate local data with regional models 
Sea Level – B

Major Impacts 

of Sea Level 

Change 

Loss/Change in Coastal Habitats Flooding & Inundation

of Built Infrastructure

Degraded 

Water 

Supplies/ 

Quality

Inc

Thr

H

H

Tools Categories

Observations & Monitoring 

Observation Gaps 1) Geospatial Framework 

 Map topography and bathymetry 

of coasts 

 Long-term geodetic (CORS) 

 Shore to shore bathymetry  Water level network completed  U.S. & Global contribution (ITRF) 

2) Coastal Change mapping & baseline maps 

 High resolution standards 

3) Climate Info 

 Historical baseline  Sea-level measures 

 Temperature etc. monitoring  Repeated measures 

4) Habitat Observation 

 Surface elevation tables  Coastal education changes (high 

resolution coastal change info.) 

5) Need high-resolution Satellite capacity 

 Habitat characterization inventory  Monitor habitat change over time  Standards  Coordination w/partners 

 Reference & restored sites 

1) Geospatial Framework 2) Infrastructure 

 Data layers 

3) Demographic data layers 4) Hazard data buyers 

Coordinated & cohesive assessment/ observations Contaminant levels & sites? 

HaAlgBlo(HADisobstion
Research Assessments & Projections

Modeling 

1. Integrated assessments of 

geospatial & ecosystem information 

2. Coastal elevation early warning 

system 

3. Model ecological impacts of SLR 4. Assess impacts, cost & benefits of 

predicated ecological change on people/built 

5. Research to better understand 

SLC change at regional/local 

6. Research tipping points for 

ecosystem responses 

7. Downscaling of information 

1. Vulnerability 

assessment tools 

 Infrastructure/ 

hazards 

 People  Visualization tools  Risk assessment/ 

scenario planning 

 Coastal flood 

modeling 

2. Management options 

& scenarios 

 Data, models 

1. Vulnerability assessment & support 

 Data  Visualization tools  Models  Training 

Management 

Capacity

Plans & Implementation/ Education/ Outreach 

1. Clearinghouse for adaptation 

planning tools & information 

2. Capacity building for adaptation 

planning (training & tools) 

3. Provide framework of tools & 

approaches (training & guidelines) 

4. Tools & resources for coordinated 

conservation (plans & implementation)-RISA 

5. Education outreach  change scenarios  basic concepts  options 

 cost & benefits 

1. Guidelines/ 

framework for policy/reg. changes ~coastal zoning/use 

2. Tools/capacity for 

adaptation plans including “green infrastructure” 

3. Clearinghouse in 

adaptation plans 

4. Proactive planning w/ 

private sector 

5. More robust warning 

systems 

6. Education outreach 

 Basic understanding  Cost benefits  Uncertainty 7. Influence policy on 

other agencies 

 Flood insurance 
61

Breakout Session 3

Oceanic Changes – A

What should NOAA be doing in the next 1-2 years to address the impacts of climate change to 

our coastal community and associated ecosystems responsibilities? 2-5 years? 

Goal: Make better ecological forecasts and vulnerability assessments for managers 

 NEEDS ASSESSMENTS 

 INVENTORIES 

 INTEGRATION AND MATCHING 

 DELIVERY OF PRODUCTS 

Goal: Make better ecological forecasts and vulnerability assessments for managers 

1. NEEDS ASSESSMENTS (Start within 0-2 years; continuous) 

1A. Internal Needs Assessment. 

Where are gaps and problems and where should we address climate? To what extent do we 

need to use climate in our day-to-day work? 

 Observations and monitoring 

 Research and modeling 

 Management 

 Education/Outreach 

1B. External Needs Assessment (Start within 0-2 years) 

Use existing NOAA structure, advisory councils and extension groups to determine needs of 

coastal stakeholders. 

- Builds stakeholder support from the “bottom up” 

2. INVENTORY of Capabilities within NOAA (Start within 0-2 years) 

Capabilities and products 

Gap analysis 

Provides better communication and integration across NOAA 

3. INTEGRATION and MATCHING of capabilities at NOAA 

Integration of existing information across NOAA 

Develop/research 

4. DELIVERY 

Delivery of Forecasts – Biological, chemical, physical 

Sustained approach. Feedback necessary. 

Providing information 

Developing and implementing a climate portal 

FEEDBACK LOOPS – Continual communications both internal and external
62

Sea Level Change – A 

What should NOAA be doing in the next 1-2 years to address the impacts of climate change to 

our coastal community and associated ecosystems responsibilities? 

Short-term steps (and what they will accomplish)

 Inreach on existing climate products and services to better understand what is currently 

being produced 

 Establish a workgroup to identify and develop materials, programs, etc. 

 One-pager on SLR products and services 

 CO-OPS with CPO and regional 

 Work with regional teams to identify capabilities and gaps – region-specific 

 Scope/develop an outreach program for the public (with Public Affairs) include 

communication of uncertainty 

 Identify/inventory observations, modeling, requirements, etc. to develop an SLR 

predictive capability 

 Focused effort to identify a short-term SLR product we can provide now (GIS-friendly 

format) designed to address communication of uncertainty 

 Scope a 1–2 year regionally-based pilot project to demonstrate integration of data, 

prediction models, etc. for decision-making (implementation may be long-term) 

 Detail NOAA personnel to CEQ to understand/influence policy issues and to elevate 

visibility of NOAA role 

 Identify/develop standards/guidelines for planning 

 Needs assessments – planned regional assessments should include acceptable uncertainty 

and observing systems gaps 

 

What should NOAA be doing in the next 5-10 years to address the impacts of climate change 

to our coastal community and associated ecosystems responsibilities? 

Long-term steps 

 Explore opportunities to include SLR data and issues into Integrated Ecosystem 

Assessments 

 Develop/implement a SLR prediction system 

 Address modeling and observation gaps 

 Coordinate across NOAA to speak with one voice 

 Create derived products to address specific management needs 

 Develop performance measures 

 Communicate error and uncertainty 

 Develop a strategy to integrate data into our core mission capabilities 

 Develop tools to identify societal vulnerability/resilience (MTS, fisheries, contaminants, 

etc.) – “Don’t analyze, think!” 

 Accelerate research on climate 

 Accelerate multi-disciplinary integration to address climate 
63

Sea Level Change – B 

What should NOAA be doing in the next 1-2 years to address the impacts of climate change to 

our coastal community and associated ecosystems responsibilities? 

Short-term steps (and what they will accomplish)

 SLC: Create NOAA Team to promote coordination & delivery of key messages 

 Climate-Coast “Tiger Teams” that share consistent messages 

 NOAA web-portal on climate-coasts: 

o Messages 

o Info/data 

o Products 

o Case studies 

o Call center 

o Customer friendly 

o Cross NOAA 

o Serves multiple customers 

o Access to range of products/resources

 Regional round tables to understand needs & communicate current products 

o Maximize existing fora 

o Promote cross regional communication, coordination 

o Federal, State, Local governments 

o Non government interests 

 Shape key policies, actions for other Federal agencies 

o USGS, ACOE, NASA, FERC, EPA, FEMA 

o MOUs 

o Guidelines 

o Products/Services 

o Increased collaboration 

o Leverage resources 

o Key Topics: Energy Development 

 Guidelines for/with coastal states for adaptation plans 

 Prioritize and focus FY09-10 budgets to fill key gaps (e,g., geospatial infrastructure) 

 Prioritize “end to end” initiatives for FY11-15 

 Implement pilot projects to demonstrate/test adaptation strategies 

o Partnerships 

o Green infrastructure 

o Contaminants

 Lead design/development of coastal habitat assessments 

o Cross NOAA 

o Cross government 

 Improve/expand coastal vulnerability indices 

 Broaden NOAA efforts on modeling ecological impacts of SLR/Climate Change 

 Assess NOAA legislative mandates for role/needs in climate change context (strong/clear 

NOAA roles and support changes where needed) 
64

What should NOAA be doing in the next 5-10 years to address the impacts of climate change 

to our coastal community and associated ecosystems responsibilities? 

Long-term steps (and what they will accomplish)

 SLC “Tiger Team” 

o Cross NOAA 

o Coordinate planning for products/services 

• Promote Cross-NOAA planning & execution to fill gaps in climate/coastal portfolio 

• Fill key gaps 

o Geospatial framework 

o Priority research 

• Build partner capacity to assess and act 

Severe Weather 

What capabilities and gaps exist in NOAA’s current efforts to address the impacts of climate 

change to our coastal community and associated ecosystem management responsibilities? 

What additional research, data, information, and delivery methods do we need? 

Overall barriers: 

• prioritization at all levels (supervisors to leads of agencies) 

• we may not have data yet 

• resources, including dollars and people 

• behavior/political will 

Overarching 

• Integrating/blending short term warnings and long term planning 

o Short term because states needs this information now and are having to make 

decision 

o Long term for really affecting building code changes and other land use decisions 

• Mission of NOAA vs. other feds 

o Long term and problem specific 

o Web site to provide integrated access to NOAA climate information for a variety 

of audiences 

• Short term because climate services portal is under development 

• Long term – maximize the opportunity this affords 

o Improved frequency, resolution and access for bathymetry and LIDAR 

• Short term because an underlying need for inundation/storm surge work 

• Short term need to figure out the specific needs 

• Long term is working across the federal family to get the resources and standardized 

coverage 

o Integrated Funding announcements 

o Need improved frequency forecasts (e.g., seasonal outlooks, hazardous weather) 

• Short term because we have the climatology and have started to characterize uncertainty 

for hurricanes 

• Long term is characterizing the uncertainty for other severe weather 
65

o Climate regimes (ENSO, NAO, PNA, PDO) forecasts/improved prediction for 

climate variability and long term change 

• Short term for ENSO 

• Long term for NAO, PNA, PDO, etc. 

o Education 

• Develop materials (video, tutorials) working with TV, teachers, realtors 

• Link to social science 

o Short term is incorporating social science so we improve the delivery 

o Long term to get into education systems 

• Evaluation and validation of climate prediction models including quantitative uncertainty 

o Short term 

• NOAA takes lead on long term time series 

o Short term is conducting a needs analysis 

o Long term to put into place 

• Translation 

o Work with users to define tool/resource needs 

o Short and long term, start now but continue as iterative process 

 

Oceanic Changes – B

What should NOAA be doing in the next 1-2 years to address the impacts of climate change to 

our coastal community and associated ecosystems responsibilities? 

• Get out information we know now to users 

• Designing and implementing a process to bring together users and researchers, ex. PaCIS, 

CIG (NW RISA) at regional level 

• Education/Outreach/Training for decision-makers – build user base 

• Support for regional climate center in Alaska 

• Reach out to news media – Alaska worked w/PBS to develop information segments – 

reaching out to public and using programs in school 

• Promoting NOAA work within NOAA – replicate good examples 

• Education – Public 

• Education – K-12 – develop climate curricula 

• Branding NOAA as the lead on climate (investigate non-competitive issues) “fair and 

balanced information provider” 

• It should be decided what outlets NOAA will use to gets out information 

• Downscaled modeling in coastal and great lakes areas. Great Lakes Environmental Lab, 

Alaska (UAF), etc. 

• Define toolkit for downscaling so groups don’t have to reinvent 

• Assessment of what data capabilities are, a gap analysis, and prioritization of data 

collection. Includes reaching out to international groups and other external partners 

• Interdisciplinary workgroups to synthesize information targeted at specific users. 

Bringing together socio-economic, physical, and biological. 

• Develop interdisciplinary budget proposals for research 

• NOAA budget process needs to be modified to allow for cross-goal projects to have 

success 
66

• External review of Climate Services Development, for example, NSF 

• Develop plan for developing models (non climate change models) – leverage global 

capabilities and link to regional etc. so there can be tie in. 

• Plan for better observation NOW. 

• Improved research lab cooperation 

• Shared computer resources between labs 

• Put coastal into the RISAs 

 

Three to Five Years

• Interdisciplinary research conducted. 

• GFDL Higher Resolution Models - Reconfigure existing models (going to 25km is a 

funding issue, beyond that is a research issue) 

• Enhance computer capabilities (NASA and Navy have the systems) 

• Development of indicators and warning system for Climate Risk for communities – pick 

limited number of impacts, regionalize (possibly build on community resilience 

indicators) 

• Climate Ready Communities program (ex., tsunami ready communities) 

• Development of ecological impact models, includes economics 

• Begin executing improved in-situ observation. Leverage existing NWS buoys. NDBC 

needs to work with other parts of NOAA to execute. 

• Climate quality time series 

• Develop capacity to work with satellite salinity measurements (will directly support 

ocean acidification) 

• Apply NOAA resources to work with NASA Orbital Carbon Observatory. Will give total 

atmospheric column CO2. We need boundary layer CO2 content for measuring ocean 

uptake. 

• Development and implement Ice-Ocean-Ecosystem model and monitoring 

• NEST Policy Directive within 1-2 years to look at water availability model situation 

under different scenarios including water quality, water quantity, etc., ACOE, USGS, 

NOAA, DOI. 

• Issues with water quality – brings in 16 agencies, each measure water quality a different 

way 

Freshwater 

Short Term Actions

• Initiate an internal competition to support integration between offices 

• Lead, coordinate, and train NOAA’s place-based extension, outreach, field-office 

personnel to identify and address priority climate service issues 

• Capitalize on existing pilot projects and adapt them to address climate issues 

• Identify what we will stop doing to accommodate the focus on climate services. 

• Improve internal communication - Who is doing and planning what? What data sets 

exist? 

• Quantify benefits of products and data derivatives 
67

• Apply research on risk communication to climate. How do we convey uncertainty 

associated with data and forecasts? 

• Better measure uncertainty and variability in hydrology models 

• Formalize policies/MOUs with agencies contributing to and using climate service data 

and products

• Standardization and coupling of datums, etc. Convergence on shared standards. 

• Improve remote sensing for water quality 

• Identify and address internal inconsistencies and redundancies at the intersections of 

Climate, Coasts and Water 

• Expand the utility and use of NOAA’s existing freshwater forecast services 

Longer Term Actions

• Become an international leader in climate research and service. 
68

Appendix C 

Climate/Ecosystems Observation Needs Assessment 

[The following document was prepared in April 2008 by a cross-NOAA team (led by Steve 

Murawski) under the auspices of the NOAA Ocean Council to respond to request from 

NOAA’s VADM Lautenbacher for a summary of requirements to fulfill NOAA ocean and 

coastal stewardship mandates in a changing climate] 

Climate and Ecosystems 

Observation, Research and Management Requirements 

NOAA has direct responsibility for understanding and incorporating climate impacts in meeting 

its living marine resource and coastal management obligations. The NOAA Ecosystem and 

Climate Goal Teams and the NOAA Ocean Council have identified six high priority climate 

change issues involving ecological and coastal resources. A cross-NOAA group was assembled 

under the auspices of the NOAA Ocean Council to populate a list of observational requirements 

(scientific parameters to be measured on a continuing basis) needed to address these six specific 

issues. For all of these theme areas there is a need for climate forecasts and scenarios 

(projections) at appropriate scales involving these and other issues. The NOAA 

Climate/Ecosystems Working Group is currently developing a more thorough plan for 

incorporation of climate issues into ecosystem management efforts, which include workshops in 

May and June, followed by a final more complete report in summer 2008. The summary below 

and in the attached table highlight the specific observational requirements for NOAA in the 

climate/ecosystems realm. There are additional research requirements and management 

outcomes required to meet these increasingly important obligations. 

NOAA’s Observational Requirements Necessary to Meet Emerging Climate/Ecosystems 

Obligations: 

Ocean Acidification

NOAA is responsible for managing living marine resources supporting the Nation's commercial 

and recreational fishing industry and its protected marine species and marine managed areas. 

Native peoples also depend upon these resources for subsistence, and vast numbers of people use 

these resources for tourism and recreation. Accounting for ocean acidification effects on these 

living marine resources requires the capability to monitor the pace of changes in ocean carbon 

and pH, as well as to forecast their impacts on species abundance, distribution and various lethal 

and sub-lethal impacts. Ocean acidification may have significant detrimental effects on the 

living marine resources and the social and economic activities dependent upon them, but there 

are significant unknowns regarding physical and chemical oceanography and physiological 

impacts on biota. The following measurements represent priority monitoring parameters: 

• Coastal and ocean carbon, pCO2, pH, temperature, salinity 

• Ocean surface winds, circulation at depth, and CTD measurements for hydrodynamic 

models 
69

• Monitoring of pH-sensitive species (including phytoplankton, zooplankton, deep and 

shallow water corals, bivalves, crustaceans) and associated impacts on food webdependent species, habitats and community structure 

• Physiology experiments to understand the capacity for adaptation to lower pH and 

carbonate ion conditions 

• Monitoring of the economic and societal value of pH-sensitive biota, and the ancillary 

ecosystem services, in appropriate valuation terms 

Sea Level Rise

Sea level rise will have significant impacts on the condition and distribution of coastal habitats 

and human interactions with these habitats (i.e. coastal development), effecting living marine 

resources, coastal communities and economies that depend on them. To meet its management 

responsibilities for these coastal regions and habitats, the dependent living marine resources and 

the effected coastal zone, NOAA will need additional observations and models on the actual and 

potential impacts of sea level rise. Many fisheries for which NOAA has management 

responsibilities utilize coastal habitats (e.g., wetlands, estuaries, riverine) as nursery areas. 

Pinnipeds and marine turtles use low-lying coastal regions as resting, pupping, or nesting areas. 

Shallow water coral reefs are also susceptible to sea level rise due to their light requirement. 

Changes in sea level may alter the services habitats provide to buffer coastal communities from 

storms, floods and other hazards. Coastal communities and built infrastructure will become 

more vulnerable to inundation, storm surge and erosion stimulated by sea level rise and in some 

areas sea floor sinking. Following are the priority measurements required to monitor sea level 

rise and its impacts on ecosystems and coastal built infrastructure and communities: 

• High resolution bathymetry and geodesy for sensitive coastal regions 

• High resolution satellite altimetry and ground-truth from tide gauge monitoring 

• Down-scaled climate model results allowing regionally-appropriate estimates of the rate 

and impacts of sea level rise 

• Monitoring of the abundance and productivity of species in relation to habitats sensitive 

to sea level rise 

• Periodic mapping and characterization of coastal habitats that are threatened by sea water 

inundation (e.g., coastal wetlands, shorelines estuaries, riverine floodplains) 

• Observations of shoreline and habitat change over time, including inventories of built 

infrastructure in sensitive areas. 

• Observations and forecasts on the economic and societal value of sensitive biota and 

habitats (and the ancillary ecosystem services and community profiles in appropriate 

valuation terms) 

Loss of Sea Ice

NOAA is responsible for providing management advice for Arctic and Antarctic fisheries, 

marine mammals and related ecosystem components. Additionally, communities and villages 

are sensitive to sea ice loss because of impacts on storm resiliency, inundation and effects of sea 

level rise. NOAA provides ongoing advice to domestic fishery management councils, ESA and 

MMPA managers and is also responsible for upholding the U.S. obligation to the Arctic 

Fisheries Convention and the Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living 
70

Resources. In both these regions sea ice is diminishing and has a major influence on the 

structure and function of the ecosystems and the status of regulated species, as well as 

communities. Below are the priority monitoring requirements to understand the impacts of sea 

ice loss on managed species, ecosystems and associated communities: 

• Annual and seasonal monitoring of sea ice extent, thickness and related ocean physics 

(satellite monitoring and in situ measurements) 

• Surveys of the distribution and productivity of key trophic levels and species in relation 

to sea ice loss 

• Monitoring of fisheries and other economic activities and culturally significant activities 

(e.g., aboriginal hunting of sea mammals) in relation to sea ice extent 

• Monitoring of sea ice loss in relation to coastal community resilience 

Freshwater Supply and Quality

Many marine and anadromous species for which NOAA has primary management 

responsibilities utilize coastal areas that are influenced by freshwater inputs or coastal currents 

driven by freshwater inputs. Salmon, some of which are listed under the ESA, utilize freshwater 

ecosystems as spawning and nursery areas. By combining predictions of freshwater conditions 

and flows with ecological information relevant to species and populations of interest, NOAA will 

have an improved ability to assure the sustainability of affected populations, or at least to frame 

the difficult choices that will arise between competition for increasingly scarce fresh water flows 

for domestic, agricultural and industrial uses, and fish and wildlife habitat protection. The 

critical observational priorities are: 

• Regional precipitation, freshwater flows in surface and subsurface waters, water quality, 

temperature characteristics 

• Atmospheric water vapor content 

• Monitoring of anadromous and estuarine-dependent species (and the species they depend 

upon) by appropriate life stage 

• Monitoring of freshwater and estuarine flows, water quality, salinity and other sensitive 

habitat parameters 

• Monitoring of economic and social values of fresh-water and estuarine dependent 

fisheries and protected species and habitats 

Attribution of Ocean and Coastal Ecological Phenomena to Long-term Global Change vs. 

Natural Variation

Living marine resources (LMR) vary in abundance and distribution over a variety of scales due 

to naturally-occurring cycles such as the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), the North Atlantic 

Oscillation (NAO), El Niño events, and other sources of low-frequency interannual variation. 

Managers increasingly need to know if changes observed in LMR populations are driven in part 

by these variable, but stationary processes or, increasingly, are being influenced by long-term 

directional change being forced by global change. Management targets and measures are likely 

very different, especially in the long term, depending on the sources of observed variation. In 

order to inform resource managers about the source and frequency of these climate-driven 

changes in productivity, the following are observational priorities: 
71

• Observations of weather and ocean physical parameters on space and time scales 

pertinent to biological resources of management or ecological importance 

• Observations of living marine resource productivity in relation to appropriate scales of 

natural variability (e.g., annual to decadal) and longer-term climate trends 

• Observations of socioeconomic outcomes in relation to variation and trends in climaterelated changes in natural resources 

Ocean Physical Changes, (e.g., warming impacts) on distribution, productivity, and 

phenology (i.e., the seasonal timing and distribution of biological phenomena)

Long-term warming of the oceans has had and is projected to have significant impacts on the 

abundance, productivity and geographic distributions of LMRs. For example, for many species 

of interest, poleward migrations of the maximum range and the centers of distribution are a likely 

outcome, based on historical information. As these phenomena occur, changes in fisheries and 

protected species outcomes will ensue. Also, NOAA manages fixed sites of ecological and 

cultural significance which will be influenced by these warming trends. Understanding what 

threats to these managed locations will arise required treating them as sentinel sites for global 

warming and prediction. In order to meet NOAA’s LMR requirements, the following 

observations are considered high priority: 

• Monitoring of key oceanographic parameters (temperature, salinity, density, upwelling) 

and meteorological conditions (air temperatures, surface winds, etc.) at appropriate 

spatial and temporal scales to determine the impacts of global and regional warming and 

variability on biological processes and phenology 

• Monitoring of key biological parameters (abundance, distribution, vital rates) for species 

sensitive to climate-induced shifts in distribution and productivity, at regional scales and 

in NOAA’s marine managed areas 

• Monitor changes in biodiversity in relation to key ocean and coastal environmental 

variables 

• Survey for invasive species abundance and distribution in relation to climate change 

variables 

• Monitor coral bleaching and related environmental variables 

Research and Management Needs:

Apart from these observational requirements, NOAA has a number of high priority research and 

management needs in order to implement an integrated approach to effectively incorporate 

impacts of the above six climate/ecosystem themes into its management responsibilities. Below 

is a comprehensive summary of these requirements:
Summary of key requirements to incorporate climate change information into NOAA living marine resourmanagement responsibilities and decision making 

REQUIREMENTS TO ADDRESS CLIMATE-RELATED 

CLIMATE- STEWARDSHIP NEEDS 

ECOSYSTEM 

THEMATIC 

AREA 

NOAA STEWARDSHIP 

REQUIREMENT 

(SUMMARY OF POTENTIAL 

RELEVANCE/IMPACT TO 

NOAA STEWARDSHIP 

RESPONSIBILITIES) 

CLIMATEECOSYSTEM 

SUB-THEME 

Observations & 

Monitoring 

Research & 

Assessment 

Management and 

Decision Support 

Resources 

ST

S

Coastal OA Survey, Oceanic OA monitoring Network 

Development of oceanic carbonate sensing technology 

Deployment of carbonate system sensors in likely vulnerable areas. 

Regional predictions of calcite and aragonite saturation state as a function of time; the frequency and magnitude of extremes due to upwelling, etc 

Forecasts of the rate of OA by appropriate water bodies in relation to species specific threats. Managers implement mitigation strategies or reduce coincident stressors 

Chemical 

Oceanography 

 Coastal 

hydrodynamic modeling necessary for meeting geochemical modeling requirements. Calibration of models requires coastal ocean observations. 

 

Ocean 

Acidification 

NOAA is responsible for providing living marine resource assessments required to manage the Nation's commercial and recreational fishing industry and protected marine species. These resources are also depended upon by native peoples for subsistence and help attract vast numbers of people to coastal regions for tourism and recreation. If NOAA does not account for OA effects on these living marine resources, there is an increased potential for inaccurate assessments and mismanagement of the resources. This would have detrimental effects on the living marine resources and the social and economic activities dependent upon them. 

Include OA sensitive plankton samples in 

Community-scale change detection from hyper spectral 

Forecasts of OA impacts on the marine food web 

MSRESA
surveys such as CalCOFI, AMLR, FOCI and Repeat Hydrography Program, Coral Reef Ecosystem OA Monitoring Network 

imaging and NOAA-managed 

resources. Managers develop mitigation and other strategies to reduce other simultaneous stressors 

Determine organism responses to varying carbonate chemistry and ability to adapt to a declining pH environment 

Experimental physiology studies to determine impacts of OA on growth, survivorship, and productivity of phytoplankton, zooplankton, bivalves, crustacean and vertebrate species 

 MSR

ESA

Ecological Impacts 

 Develop consistent 

protocols for impact and exposure studies to project OA effects on biota 

Peer-reviewed outreach materials describing the potential impacts of OA on valued resources. Predictions of OA impacts on NOAAmanaged species. 

MSRESA

Ocean 

Acidification 

(cont.) 

Socioeconomic impacts 

Monitoring and valuation of the ecosystem goods and services provided by pHsensitive ecosystems and species 

Vulnerability assessments of the resources most susceptible to OA, and their socioeconomic value 

Vulnerability assessment (which are the resources most susceptible to OA, and what is their socio-economic value?) 

MSRESA
Incorporate impacts of OA into stock assessments, population viability analyses and jeopardy decisions by NOAA 

Forecasts of the socioeconomic consequences of OA. NOAA’s social scientists will link trophic model outputs to economic models to forecast how loss of resource populations would affect human communities. 

MSRESA

High resolution observations of coastal topography and nearshore bathymetry. Sea level observations. 

Models of regional sea level rise and shoreline evolution. 

 

Continued documentation of SL variation by gauges and remote sensing 

Investigations into gap-filling & optimizing of gauge groundtruthing data 

Satellite Altimeter and Ocean Island Tide gauge Networks 

Integration of the effects of ocean acidification and sea level rise and regional ocean "freshening" 

Integrated information and evaluation of the stress factors on coral reef communities worldwide 

 

Sea Level Rise By impacting coastal habitat, 

sea level rise impacts NOAA's coastal zone management responsibilities as well as its responsibilities for management of living marine resources that utilize shallow waters or low elevation coastal land. Many marine fisheries for which NOAA has management responsibilities utilize shallow water regions as nursery areas. Pinnipeds and marine turtles use lowlying coastal regions as resting, pupping, or nesting areas. Shallow water coral reefs are also susceptible to sea level rise due to their light requirement. 

Rates of Sea Level Rise 

1) Accurate vertical heights on tide gauges to monitor "true" sea level rise" 2) High Accuracy Surveys for elevation monitoring of coastal habitats 

1) Develop GIS tools for helping habitat restoration projects plan for sea level changes. 2) Develop guidelines and specifications for obtaining high accuracy 
 elevations for all 

climate change related activities. 

Improved comprehensive downscaled modeling of sea level to incorporate local and regional impacts on sea level changes, in relation to IPCC forecasts of global change, appropriately disaggregated to local conditions 

Peer-reviewed outreach materials describing the potential impacts of ice sheet melting on SLR, Scenarios of rates of SLR geospatially represented and incorporating locally/regionally relevant contributions to sea level changes, Guidance for best practices for scenario use for planning and decision making 3)Communication of uncertainty associated with sea level rise scenarios to managers 

 

Sea Level Rise 

(cont.) 

Ecological Impacts of SLR 

Monitoring of key ecosystems in sentinel sites. Detailed observations to quantify impacts of habitat changes on populations. 

Research on the effects of SLR on specific ecosystem types and high priority species (e.g., sea turtles). Studies and models to examine impact of habitat changes on populations. Develop production models for key species and parameterize the models for different coastal 

Incorporate impacts of SLR into stock assessments, population viability analyses and jeopardy decisions by NOAA Ecosystem-specific guidance for adaptation. Mitigation strategies. Prioritized regions and habitat types for preservation or restoration. 

MSRESAMP
systems. 

Monitoring of key ecosystems in sentinel sites 

Research on the effects of SLR on specific ecosystem types and high priority species that depend on shoreline environments (e.g., sea turtles, monk seals, etc.) 

Ecosystem-specific guidance for adaptation and use of Sanctuary and Research reserve managers 

 Integration of GIS 

layers for elevation and scenario mapping. 

Inundation maps showing SLR projections 

 Development of 

coastal elevation early warning system 

 Delineation of SLR 

controlled habitats using High Resolution Topographic and Bathymetric data. 

Ecosystem-specific guidance for adaptation Geospatial tools to evaluate and prioritize habitat for conservation/restoration/hazard resilience 

CleWaDevActFloAct(NE

Sea Level Rise 

(cont.) 

Monitor changes in habitat and production rates 

Flooding and sediment transport models to predict SLR and ecological models for each habitat (subtidalbenthic,inter-tidal, SAV oyster refs, sand, wetland, coastal forest and 

Mapping and modeling tools to help land use managers and resource managers enabling future survival of essential habitats 

MSR
 integration into a 

landscape change model) 

 Regional and local 

scale vulnerability assessments, including the interaction of SLR with human stressors (e.g., land use) 

Maps and interactive decision support tools to illustrate SLR impacts on ecosystems and resulting impacts on human communities on a scale appropriate for decision making. 

MSR

 Appropriate ways 

to determine value of living marine and coastal resources in a context of changing climate 

Updating penalty schedules and NRDA support 

NMESAOPA 

Sea Level Rise 

(cont.) 

Socioeconomic Impacts of SLR 

 Review of coastal 

and marine development to protect public and private property (e.g., seawalls for homes, roads, and other structural development. 

NM

Sea ice extent and thickness, Ocean physical parameters 

Development of regional climate/sea ice models 

 

Loss of Sea Ice 

NOAA is responsible for providing management advice for Arctic and Antarctic fisheries, marine mammals and related ecosystem components. NOAA provides ongoing advice to domestic fishery management councils, 

Ice Physics & 

Forecasts Models to forecast 

ice loss scenarios and to assess the potential impacts of sea ice on 

 CZM

HydSerImp
 coastal 

communities (i.e., increased erosion) 

Expand fishery and ecosystem surveys. Initiate routine whale & ice seal monitoring 

Assess impacts on vital rates (growth, maturity, & feeding) of managed species and impacts on food webs. 

Forecast distribution & abundance of managed species (including endangered species and mammals) and the economic and sociological impacts on the commercial and subsistence fisheries. 

MSRESA

Ecological 

Effects 

 Improved models 

to forecast sea ice coverage and the impacts to coastal ecosystems 

Incorporate impacts of Loss of Sea Ice into stock assessments, population viability analyses and jeopardy decisions by NOAA Adaptation guidance and best practices including potential mitigation of impacts to threatened and endangered species 

MM

 Loss of sea ice 

studies provide: assessments & predictions to improve management of Arctic fisheries and management of native harvests of marine mammals and management of protected resources. 

MSRESA 

Loss of Sea Ice 

(cont.) 

ESA and MMPA statutes and is also responsible for upholding the U.S. obligation to the Antarctic Fisheries Convention and the Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources. In both these regions sea ice is diminishing and has a major influence on the structure and function of the ecosystems and the status of regulated species. 

Socioeconomic 

impacts 

 Assessments of the 

socio-economic 

CZMHyd
 impacts of sea ice 

loss- both positive and negative- on coastal communities Best practices guidance for adapting to potential socio-economic impacts 

SerImp

Precipitation, Freshwater temperature, & flow measurements 

 Freshwater 

temperature & flow forecasts 

 

Regional Precipitation Forecasts 

Monitor precipitable water vapor content in the atmosphere. 

 Informational 

guides/guidance on adapting to drought/flooding conditions 

 

Monitor anadromous species migrations and changes in coastal and freshwater ecosystems. 

Assess impacts on growth, spawning, survival. Identify populations most sensitive to climate change. 

Long-term strategies to recover/maintain populations 

MSR

Freshwater 

Supply and 

Quality 

Many marine and anadromous species for which NOAA has management responsibilities utilize coastal areas that are influenced by freshwater inputs or coastal currents driven by freshwater inputs. Salmon, some of which are listed under the ESA, utilize freshwater systems as spawning and nursery areas. By combining predictions of freshwater conditions and flows with ecological information relevant to species of interest, NOAA will have an improved ability to assure the sustainability of affected populations. 

Ecological Impacts 

 Incorporate impacts 

of fresh water changes due to climate change into stock assessments, population viability analyses and jeopardy decisions by NOAA. Decision support tools to identify and account for impacts of water 

MSR
flow changes to ecosystems 

 Run-off and sheet 

flow modeling 

Estuarine impacts - salinity regime changes 

 Products to ensure 

the sustainability of economically and culturally important west coast salmon populations and other living marine resources influenced by freshwater input. 

MSR

 Estimates of flow 

and circulation for large estuarine systems (i.e. those used in Everglade and Louisiana wetland restoration planning) 

Peer-reviewed outreach materials describing the potential of water flow changes on valued resources and habitats 

WaDevActleg

Freshwater 

Supply and 

Quality 

(cont.) 

Socioeconomic impacts 

 Better modeling 

and allocation tools to develop strategies to evaluate the impacts of water projects on agriculture, forestry, and living marine resource outcomes 

Attribution of 

Ocean and 

Coastal 

Phenomena to 

Long-term 

Global Change 

vs. Natural 

Living marine resources vary in abundance and distribution over a variety of scales due to naturally-occurring cycles such as the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), El Nino events, and other 

Variation in Physical Forcing 

Requires improved observations of environmental changes 

Research to understand attribution of observed variability in to anthropogenic and natural causes 

 MSR

MMCRC
Detecting Regime Shifts 

Requires improved observations of environmental changes 

Modeling efforts to understand human versus natural signals in the climate record 

Predicting future conditions 

Requires improved observations of environmental changes 

Modeling efforts to understand future changes in both physical and ecosystem properties 

Incorporate variation in ocean climate conditions affecting marine animal survival into stock assessments, population viability analyses and jeopardy decisions by NOAA. Management of living marine resources and coasts incorporates predictions of the impacts of climate variation and trends on productivity 

Variation sources of inter-annual 

variation. Managers increasingly need to know if changes observed in LMR populations are driven in part to these variable but stationary process or, increasingly, being influenced by long-term directional change being forced by global change. Management targets and measures are likely very different, especially in the long term, depending on the sources of observed variation. 

Socioeconomic impacts 

 

Ocean Physical Changes, (e.g., warming impacts) on distribution, productivity, and phenology (i.e., the seasonal timing and distribution of biological 

NOAA is responsible for providing living marine resource assessments required to manage the Nation's commercial and recreational fishing industry and protected marine species. These resources are also depended upon by native peoples for subsistence and help attract vast numbers of people to coastal regions for tourism 

Determine Variation & Trend in ocean conditions influencing the productivity and distribution of living marine resources 

Observations of weather and ocean physical parameters on scales pertinent to organisms. Maintenance of climate data records. 

Development of regional climate prediction models and coupled atmosphere-ocean models. 

Regional predictions of long term climate trends and changes in climate variability. Predictions of changes in ocean physical properties (temperature, salinity, currents, eddies, fronts, stratification, upwelling). 

MSRESAMP
 

Determine Variation & Trend (cont.) 

Rescue (data archaeology) of historical in situ physical and ecosystem observations; Satellite-based Climate Data Records for SST, Ocean Color, Marine Winds, and Sea Surface Topography (sea level) 

Research to create improved algorithms resulting in more accurate, stable, and consistent Climate Data Records 

Ocean climate summaries for specific ecosystems and marine managed areas 

Living marine resource and ecosystem surveys, biological samples, satellite ocean color observations. 

Quantify impact of environmental forcing on vital rates, movements, and interactions of species. Develop coupled climate/ecosystem modes - incorporate mechanistic understanding of climate impacts into ecosystem and population models. 

For different climate scenarios: predictions of growth, maturity schedule, reproductive success and distribution of living marine resources. For input into stock assessment models, setting fishing areas, and developing management strategies for protected species. 

MSRESAMP

phenomena) and recreation. If NOAA does 

not account for the effects changing ocean conditions on these living marine resources, there is an increased potential for inaccurate assessments and mismanagement of the resources. This would have detrimental effects on the living marine resources and the social and economic activities dependent upon them. 

Ecological Impacts 

 Research to better 

understand ecosystem interactions with physical environment 

Management plans that take climateinduced variability in distribution and productivity into account in setting targets and thresholds 

MSRESACZM
Evidence of changing distributions of key species caused by temperature changes 

Models of effects on food webs resulting from changes in temperature 

Changes in monitoring approaches and priorities; public education and outreach materials 

MSRESACZM

Ecological Impacts (cont.) 

Identify indicator species and assess changes in their distribution pattern and phenology 

Relate changes in physical environment and climate indices to changes in the distribution pattern and phenology of indicator species 

Peer-reviewed outreach materials describing the potential impacts of physical changes on valued resources 

MSRESACZM

Mapping of invasive species locations and habitat ranges 

Research to better understand invasive species’ tolerance to changes in the physical environment 

Interactive maps with capability to provide current and possible future invasive species habitat ranges 

InvActindAquPreConLac

Changing distributions of invasives and affected species 

Models of vulnerability based on temperature change 

Update vulnerability ratings, impact assessment, public outreach materials, and mitigation and prevention measures 

InvActindAquPreConLac

Invasive Species Vulnerability 

 Outreach materials 

describing the potential impact of invasive species spread due to changes in temperature and salinities 

Ocean Physical 

Changes 

(cont.) 

Socioeconomic 

impacts 

Improved management of the living marine resources which 

MSRMM
support: a $60 billion per year seafood industry; recreational fisheries that contribute $12 billion per year to the economy; native peoples dependent upon subsistence harvests; major coastal recreation and tourism activities. 

Climate change impacts on coral bleaching and human uses of coral reef ecosystems. 

Integrated assessment of the amount of coral reefs available under different management strategies and preferences and values for tradeoffs between global strategies to reduce greenhouse gases versus local management strategies that can increase coral reef systems to withstand or recover from climate change coral bleaching 

Socioeconomic impacts of climate change on coral bleaching, including economic impacts CRCA, NMSA on local economies and value of management strategies to protect coral reef ecosystems. How much to invest in global versus local management strategies for coral reef ecosystems. 

CRC

 Peer-reviewed 

outreach materials describing the synergistic effect of land use and changes in environmental stressors on ecosystem function. Decision support tools to identify and 

CZM
 minimize the effects 

of land use decisions on ecosystems 
86

Appendix D 

Climate/Transportation/Communities Needs Assessment 

[The following document was prepared in May 2008 by a cross-NOAA team under the 

auspices of the NOAA Ocean Council to respond to request from NOAA’s VADM 

Lautenbacher for a summary of requirements to fulfill NOAA ocean and coastal stewardship 

mandates in a changing climate] 

Climate Observation, Research and Management Requirements for 

Transportation and other Human Environment Concerns 

Climate change is now and will continue to affect the U.S. transportation system, communities 

and industries both coastal and inland. Coastal areas are home to over 50% of the U.S. 

population, with the requisite supporting infrastructure – roads, rail, airports, ports, utilities – 

extremely vulnerable to climate change impacts such as sea level rise and increased storm 

intensity. Inland areas are threatened by greater flooding potential and drought. Following on a 

similar exercise developed for Climate and Ecosystems requirements, the NOAA Strategic Goals 

for Weather and Water, Ecosystem, and Commerce and Transportation undertook a preliminary 

assessment of the need for climate information to better meet NOAA programmatic 

responsibilities in the arena of the human environment. The summary below and the attached 

table serve to highlight climate requirements specific to transportation, coastal zone management 

and land use decisions, marine pollution incident management and other human-related 

infrastructure needs. A NOAA Climate Service delivering climate information, forecasts and 

models at appropriate scales for a number of key variables would be of great utility to these 

customers. 

NOAA’s Observational Requirements Necessary to Meet Climate/Human Environment 

Obligations: 

Sea Level Rise

Sea level rise will have significant impacts on transportation and other built infrastructure in the 

coastal zone, exacerbating flooding, storm surge, and permanent inundation. 60,000 miles of 

coastal highway are already exposed to periodic storms and flooding; sea level rise will 

compound the problem for road maintenance and evacuation route planning. Major U.S. airports 

sited within coastal zones are also vulnerable to higher water levels. Marine transportation may 

see both threats and benefits from sea level rise: landside facilities will require raising or 

relocating, while at the same time channels could either become deeper and more navigable, or 

silted and closed to traffic. Changes in sea level may alter the services habitats provide to buffer 

coastal communities from storms, floods and other hazards. Coastal communities, agricultural 

areas, and other built infrastructure such as water treatment plants will become more vulnerable 

to inundation, storm surge and erosion stimulated by sea level rise and in some areas sea floor 

sinking. To meet stakeholder needs and NOAA responsibilities in coastal regions, NOAA will 

need additional observations and models on the actual and potential impacts of sea level rise. 
87

Following are the priority measurements required to monitor sea level rise and its impacts on 

coastal built infrastructure and communities: 

• High resolution bathymetry and geodesy for coastal regions 

• High resolution satellite altimetry and ground-truth from tide gauge monitoring 

• Down-scaled climate model results allowing regionally-appropriate estimates of the rate 

and impacts of sea level rise 

• Periodic mapping and characterization of coastal habitats that are threatened by sea water 

inundation (e.g., coastal wetlands, shorelines estuaries, riverine floodplains) 

• Observations of shoreline and habitat change over time, including inventories of built 

infrastructure in sensitive areas. 

• Accurate coastal and inland elevations and continuous vertical velocities for coastal areas 

(includes built physical infrastructure and adjacent coastal environments) 

• Regional and local rate of sea level rise scenarios based on model projects 

• Regional decision support tools (including inundation maps, integration of GIS layers for 

elevation mapping) to analyze impacts of sea level rise scenarios on coastal resources and 

human communities. 

• Adaptation guidebooks that provide examples of best practices for planning that 

incorporate SLR projections 

Precipitation Changes/Extremes

Rainfall (and other precipitation) or the lack thereof can be both a boon and a bane to 

transportation, industry, physical infrastructure and communities. Increased flooding due to 

more intense rainfall will affect ports, roads, rails, runways, pipelines, homeowners, 

regional/local public utilities, etc... in all parts of the country. Low-lying bridge and tunnel 

entrances and culverts are extremely susceptible to flash floods, and flooding also causes 

erosion, subsidence and scouring of road/runway beds, rail and pipelines, and bridge supports. 

Service interruptions across all modes will become more common. Changes in seasonal 

precipitation levels and types can also be problematic; for example more rain rather than snow 

leads to immediate runoff and landslides. Periodic droughts will also have impacts, whether to 

maritime transport on reduced-flow rivers and lakes, or decreased visibility for airports/roads 

located in drought susceptible areas due to increased wildfires. NOAA information needed on 

precipitation includes:

• Observations of surface moisture and rainfall to support models 

• Frequency, intensity, and duration of precipitation to support models 

• Probabilistic estimates of rainfall intensities for a range of durations and recurrence 

intervals of 20, 50, and 100+ years 

• Projected increases in intense precipitation 

• Model trends of drought conditions 

Temperature Changes/Extremes

Warming temperatures and heat extremes will affect all modes of transportation. Rising 

temperatures in Alaska are already causing permafrost to thaw, impacting surface transport with 

slumping and buckling of roadways and pipelines, impeding access to remote communities and 

commerce with shorter ice road seasons, and endangering coastal and native communities. 
88

Northern states in the lower 48 will likely see benefits from reduced expense on salt and 

chemicals for icing, as well as reduced adverse environmental impacts from icing treatments. 

Surface infrastructure, though, will experience more freeze-thaw conditions, with heaves and 

holes occurring on bridges, roads and runway foundations, and warmer temperatures affecting 

pavement and rail integrity. Excessive heat periods will augment drought conditions, increasing 

wildfires, threatening communities and infrastructure directly and causing air, road and rail 

service interruptions. Warming temperatures are also likely to provide longer shipping seasons 

for Alaskan ports and the Great Lakes, but reduced lake levels from heat and evaporation will 

impact cargo carriage. Information requirements include: 

• Observational temperature records 

• Models of temperature trends 

• Climate outlooks of temperature and case studies to support models 

Loss of Sea Ice

Loss of sea ice as a result of warming temperatures poses a unique set of challenges for the U.S. 

transportation industry and the infrastructure supporting communities in ice-prevalent regions. In 

particular Alaska and the Arctic are experiencing unprecedented change, with loss of sea ice, 

rising sea levels and eroding coasts all occurring faster than forecast. Sea ice melt is also causing 

the very real potential for at least a seasonal, if not permanent, oceanic trade route across the 

Arctic that could cut existing oceanic transport by an estimated 5,000 nautical miles (one week). 

These changes have implications for a host of activities such as shipping, oil/resource 

development, fishing, ecotourism, subsistence livelihoods and scientific exploration – all in an 

ecologically fragile region lacking the security and safety infrastructure necessary to handle this 

rapid change effectively. Additionally, communities and villages are sensitive to sea ice loss 

because of impacts on storm resiliency, inundation and effects of sea level rise. Services needed 

by users to plan for sea ice melt impacts include: 

• Annual and seasonal monitoring of sea ice extent, thickness and related ocean physics 

(satellite monitoring and in situ measurements) 

• Monitoring of sea ice loss in relation to coastal community resilience 

Storms

Climate change may also generate more intense storms, which will lead to greater impacts on 

infrastructure and communities from precipitation, winds, and wind-induced storm surge. Global 

warming will likely increase the intensity of hurricanes making landfall, a particular concern in 

the Gulf Coast because of its heavy coastal population and critical oil and gas industries. 

Pipelines, drilling platforms, and refineries are all vulnerable to storm forces, endangering not 

only the environment but also the economy and other regions critically dependent on the Gulf for 

oil and gas. Storm surge and wave action can also damage homes, roadways and bridge decks, 

destroy signals and signs, and leave dangerous debris on highways, runways and in waterways. 

Severe storms also disrupt shipping and aircraft operations. Evacuation route planning, 

particularly in coastal areas, is made more difficult by the likelihood of road inundation as a 

result of flooding and storm surge. 

• How climate may affect hazardous weather (frequency and intensity) 
89

• Model trends of increased intensity of tropical cyclones 

• Storm frequency/intensity predictions 

• Improved projections of the link between extreme events and climate variability and 

change (including, flooding and drought events, El Niño scale changes in precipitation 

and temperature and tropical cyclone impacts at a regional/local scale) 

• Assessments to spatially and temporally examine the impacts of extreme weather events 

on coastal communities suitable for decision making 

Freshwater Supply and Quality

Coastal zone management, land use decisions and decision support tools such as the National 

Integrated Drought Information System (NIDIS) need freshwater supply information to inform 

regional drought early warning systems. NIDIS, for example, is designed as a user-based drought 

information system that assesses potential drought indicators and impacts in order to provide 

tools for anticipating, preparing for and mitigating the effects of drought. Decision makers at the 

regional and local level need the following climate services to inform scenarios on water supply 

and partnerships to share resources between communities in times of water shortage. 

• Increased network of groundwater and stream gauge monitoring stations 

• Regional precipitation, freshwater flows in surface and subsurface waters, water quality, 

temperature characteristics 

• Atmospheric water vapor content 

• Monitoring of freshwater and estuarine flows, water quality, salinity and other parameters 

• Water sustainability projections under variable community growth and water supply 

scenarios 

• Improved hydrological and meteorological modeling under climate change influences to 

anticipate water supply issues.