Managed Natural Resources and ClimateChange: The Challenge Ahead.

Marine Educators Symposium: Virginia Institute of Marine Science.

Managed Natural Resources and Climate Change: The Challenge Ahead.

September 13, 2012

Roger Mann Professor of Marine Science Director for Research and Advisory Service Virginia Institute of Marine Science Gloucester Point, VA 23062

For the skeptics who do not believe that climate change is real

Evaluating progress of the U.S. Climate Change Science Program: “How well are we doing?”

National Research Council, National Academies of Science 2007

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Discovery science is progressing well, but application of that knowledge to decision making and risk management is slow.

Progress in understanding change at the global, continental and ocean scale is progressing much better than at regional and local scales.

Impacts on human well being and vulnerability and much less well understood than our understanding of the natural climate system

The observing systems are not up to an adequate standard.

Progress towards communicating with the stakeholders is inadequate.

Application, scale, focus, data integrity, communication.

Restructuring Federal Climate Research to Meet the Challenges of Climate Change.

National Research Council, National Academies of Science 2009

• Reorganize the program..to understand interactions among the climate, human, and environmental systems and on supporting societal responses to climate change.

• Establish a U.S. climate observing system.. including physical, biological, and social observations.

• Develop the science base ….to improve prediction of high impact regional weather and climate, to initialize seasonal to decadal climate forecasting, and to provide predictions of impacts affecting adaptive capacities and vulnerabilities of environmental and human systems.

• Strengthen research on adaptation, mitigation, and vulnerability.

• Initiate a national assessment process with broad stakeholder participation to determine the risks and costs of climate change impacts on the United States and to evaluate options for responding.

• Coordinate federal efforts to provide climate services (scientific information, tools, and forecasts) routinely to decision makers.

The Mid Atlantic and New England States: A microcosm of the global problem, gifted with a data rich history, a progressive population, comparative wealth, and one of the least extreme long term forecasts.

Forecasting to drive mitigation and adaptation should be easy?

The Mid Atlantic and New England States: A Complex Challenge

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Geologically ancient through young features, varying topography from mountainous to barrier islands.

Population centers with major infrastructure that covers huge geographical footprints, e.g., water supply, energy generation, transport.

International trade centers and portals.

National and international security infrastructure.

Enormous biological diversity: forests and rivers through wetlands to estuaries and the inner continental shelf.

Natural resources (agriculture, forestry and fisheries) are major economic contributors.

Encompasses vulnerable geographic, meteorological and biological boundaries.

Boundaries: an example.

Weather patterns and the jet stream oscillation influence the seasonal abundance of rainfall.

Cold winters and hot, humid summers - consider the temperature and precipitation ranges and what drives them.

20th Century Rainfall Patterns in Virginia

Average across entire state

Up-shift since 1970s -possible links to NAO, ENSO

From the mountains to the shoreline, connected by water and all subject to climate change impacts - biological and economic stability.

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Forests, agriculture, wetlands, brackish marshes, estuaries and onto the continental shelf.

It’s about BOTH Temperature and rate of change of temperature.

The water budget.

CO2 and other greenhouse gases?

Disturbance, fragmentation and rates of change in biological footprints irreversible consequences.

Synchrony in trophic levels.

Can these biological systems accommodate to rates of change and increased inter annual variability?

Virginia s forests, climate change, biology and economy.

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15,800,000 acres.

78% hardwood, 22% softwood, planted stands make up 12% of total and 54% of softwoods.

Long generation time (70 years for oak, 35 years for pine).

Sequesters 23 MMT C/yr each year - 15% of VA total. Current forest stock is ≈1.2 BMT C.

Insect and pest outbreaks.

Fragmenting and community disruption, decomposition, soil destabilization and runoff with downstream watershed impacts.

Invasive species impacts.

Agriculture in Virginia (357,000 jobs; 8,500,000 acres; $55 billion/yr impact), climate change and economic stability.

• Yields and growing season?

• Temperature effects (consider corn yields), breeding and GMO s.

• Droughts, rainstorms and groundwater.

• Pest and parasite outbreaks.

• Topsoil integrity, runoff, conservation tillage, buffer zones and cover crops.

• Restore marginal lands.

• Livestock are temperature sensitive.

• Biogas production from livestock.

• Agriculture is business $$$-Stability of the crop production is threatened.

1,000,000 acres of Virginia wetlands: 750,000 acres are nontidal, 180,000 acres have no connection to surface water.

• Maintain base surface water and groundwater flow - irrigation and municipal use can be problematic.

• Sediment sinks and buffers for flood control.

• Critical habitat, unique communities, wildlife refuges.

• Species change and loss of diversity.

• They cannot migrate but they can easily fragment.

• Sources or sinks of greenhouses gases, in particular carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), and nitrous oxide (N2O)?

Measured Temperature Changes in Chesapeake Bay Surface Waters 18 17.5 (

warm years

VIMS pier CBL pier Bay average

17

e 16.5 r) u C 16 t 째a r 15.5 e p m 15 e T 14.5

average

14 13.5 13 1930

Average Bay-wide increase ~ 0.3째 C per decade 1940

1950

1960

1970 year

1980

1990

2000

2010

Both the average, and maximum annual temperatures have increased over the last 5-6 decades From Austin (2002) American Fisheries Society Symposium, 32, 155-170 and Secor and Wingate (2008) manuscript in prep. and STAC Report (draft April 2008)

Climate change and Summer Chesapeake Bay Dissolved Oxygen.

Striped bass in the Chesapeake Bay.

• Large apex predatory fish, managed back to a vibrant stock by strong fishery limitations in the 1980 s

• Micobacterium species as a cause for concern.

• Consider the role of the Bay s seasonal low dissolved oxygen pool. These deep waters were a refuge (and a sometime feeding ground) for these large fish, but striped bass are increasingly limited to foraging in higher temperature shallow waters…..

Image courtesy of Department of Environmental & Aquatic Health - VIMS

Seasonal warming begins earlier"

Changing species in the Bay

Sea grasses in the Chesapeake Bay - Critical habitat to early life history stages of many important species. (data and images courtesy of Dr. Robert J. Orth and others, VIMS)

1996

1960

2007

Eelgrass in the Chesapeake Bay is already at the southern limit of its distribution. Many stressors.

Could it be gone in the not-to-distant future?

2006

Changing fisheries: changing models

AGE 23

Managing natural resources: the challenge ahead.

Summary observations:

• Ecosystems are in flux as climate (and more) changes.

• Rates of change of climate and biology may not be compatible.

• What are the eventual end points of biological response?

• We can adapt to some impacts (agriculture), but not others that result in (minimally) changes in species distribution through (maximally) loss of species.

Summary needs:

• Application - the continuum of data from origin to target.

• Scale - scale appropriate to the management challenge.

• Focus - the human through resource interface.

• Data integrity - duration and intensity to both drive and calibrate predictive models.

• Communication - open conversations with end users guiding adaptive and mitigating efforts, education, policy and planning.

Final thoughts on the holistic problem.

Summary needs:

• Application - the continuum of data from origin to target.

• Scale - scale appropriate to the management challenge.

• Focus - the human through resource interface.

• Data integrity - duration and intensity to both drive and calibrate predictive models.

• Communication - open conversations with end users guiding adaptive and mitigating efforts, education, policy and planning.