Item talk:Q227087

{

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 "url": "https://www.usgs.gov/programs/climate-adaptation-science-centers/science/deep-dive-climate-change-scenario-planning",
 "headline": "Deep Dive: Climate Change Scenario Planning",
 "datePublished": "May 15, 2023",
 "author": [
   {
     "@type": "Person",
     "name": "Brian W Miller, Ph.D.",
     "url": "https://www.usgs.gov/staff-profiles/brian-w-miller",
     "identifier": {
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       "propertyID": "orcid",
       "value": "0000-0003-1716-1161"
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 ],
 "description": [
   {
     "@type": "TextObject",
     "text": "National Park Service Climate Change Scenario Showcase (NPS)"
   },
   {
     "@type": "TextObject",
     "text": "Scenario planning is a powerful tool to help decision makers plan for an uncertain future. Through this process, people consider different ways the climate could change and explore how these changes would affect resources important to them. USGS scientists work with natural and cultural resource managers to use climate change scenario planning to prepare for a wide range of possible futures."
   },
   {
     "@type": "TextObject",
     "text": "Divergent, so the models give different results from one another. For example, they may select one model that predicts reduced spring rainfall and moderate increase in extreme storm frequency, and another with wetter springs and stronger increase in storm frequency and strength."
   },
   {
     "@type": "TextObject",
     "text": "The experts use this information to select several climate model outputs for the team to explore further."
   },
   {
     "@type": "TextObject",
     "text": "Plausible, given what we know about climate and atmospheric science"
   },
   {
     "@type": "TextObject",
     "text": "Using Scenarios to Explore Climate Change: A Handbook for Practitioners (NPS)"
   },
   {
     "@type": "TextObject",
     "text": "Considering Multiple Futures: Scenario Planning to Address Uncertainty in Natural Resource Conservation (USFWS)"
   },
   {
     "@type": "TextObject",
     "text": "US Climate Resilience Toolkit (NOAA)"
   },
   {
     "@type": "TextObject",
     "text": "Challenging to entrenched assumptions about the future and best management strategies. Experts may choose a model that would lead to a dramatic shift in the status quo \u2013 like if it were to get so dry that a grassland might turn into a desert."
   },
   {
     "@type": "TextObject",
     "text": "Climate change affects each place, ecosystem, and species differently. This creates challenges for people tasked with caring for places (like parks or farms) that they know are changing, where the future won\u2019t look like the past. They may be asking themselves questions like, \u201cIs this drought here to stay, should I plant different crops?\u201d or \u201cIs this park visitor center going to be safe from sea level rise?\u201d"
   },
   {
     "@type": "TextObject",
     "text": "The team then uses available science and expert knowledge to discuss how each of these climate futures could affect the focal lands and resources.  For each climate futures, they ask questions like: Would key plants and animals survive under these conditions? Would fires or floods be more or less frequent? How would infrastructure be threatened by sea-level rise, coastal erosion, or thawing permafrost? These discussions build climate-resource scenarios \u2013 descriptions of how each climate future could impact natural and cultural resources. The most useful climate-resource scenarios are plausible, relevant, divergent, challenging, and oftentimes memorable."
   },
   {
     "@type": "TextObject",
     "text": "Researchers with the USGS Climate Adaptation Science Centers (CASCs) use climate model outputs to help resource managers understand the possible range of climate futures in their area. They lead managers through scenario planning exercises, often in multi-day workshops, considering different future climate conditions. They ask questions like \u201cIf your national park became hotter and drier, versus warmer and wetter, what would you need to do to successfully manage your resources under these different futures?\u201d They engage subject-matter experts to provide the best science for answering these questions. Through these discussions, they help managers prepare an assortment of options for responding to a rapidly changing climate."
   },
   {
     "@type": "TextObject",
     "text": "Interested in applying climate scenario planning to your natural resources decision-making? Check out these resources to get you started!"
   },
   {
     "@type": "TextObject",
     "text": "Answer: Plan for multiple scenarios."
   },
   {
     "@type": "TextObject",
     "text": "At the end of this process, users will have a suite of strategies to support their priorities under a wide range of possible conditions."
   },
   {
     "@type": "TextObject",
     "text": "Climate change scenario planning is a powerful tool to help decision makers plan for an uncertain future. In this process, people consider the different ways climate change could manifest and explore the effects of multiple potential future conditions on important resources."
   },
   {
     "@type": "TextObject",
     "text": "These climate model outputs are called climate futures."
   },
   {
     "@type": "TextObject",
     "text": "These factors make it challenging to predict the precise timing and nature of climate change. Although there's broad agreement among climate models that global temperatures will continue to rise, we don't know exactly how much temperatures will change in each individual place. And in some cases, models don't agree on whether a place might get more rainfall or less.  So how can we make decisions in the face of such uncertainty?"
   },
   {
     "@type": "TextObject",
     "text": "Relevant to resources the users care about. The experts focus on the aspects of climate that targeted resources are most sensitive to. For example, historical buildings may be damaged by extreme storms, while prairies may need spring rains to thrive. So, experts would examine climate model outputs for these climate conditions instead of more generic climate metrics like only looking at annual rainfall and average temperature."
   },
   {
     "@type": "TextObject",
     "text": "This process begins by assembling a team of resource managers, decision makers, and supporting experts. Resource managers and decision makers describe the uncertainties about the resources they need to plan for, the tools they have for managing those resources, and their goals regarding those resources."
   },
   {
     "@type": "TextObject",
     "text": "As a final step, managers and decision makers think about what they would need to do if a given climate scenario occurred. What plans or investments would they need to make to manage their resources under these circumstances? How do they need to modify their planned actions or even revisit their goals? They then analyze and prioritize their available management options. This can help identify actions that might work across a range of futures (\u201cno brainers\u201d) versus those that might have little success across any (\u201cno gainers\u201d)."
   },
   {
     "@type": "TextObject",
     "text": "They select models whose estimated future climate conditions are likely to result in scenarios that are:"
   },
   {
     "@type": "TextObject",
     "text": "Yet predicting the future is hard! And people are bad at it! (Aren\u2019t we supposed to have flying cars by now?) Climate models provide lots of information about potential shifts in temperature and rainfall. But those shifts depend on unpredictable choices society will make about greenhouse gas emissions. And large-scale climate trends driven by emissions can be obscured by normal year-to-year and place-to-place variation in weather. Different climate models also produce different results because each has a unique way of representing the processes that drive local, regional, and global climates."
   }
 ],
 "funder": {
   "@type": "Organization",
   "name": "Climate Adaptation Science Centers",
   "url": "https://www.usgs.gov/programs/climate-adaptation-science-centers"
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     "name": "Climate Change Adaptation"
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     "name": "Science Technology"
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