Integrating Knowledge of Climate Variability and Change into the Resource Management Process

Despite ongoing advances in the modeling of global to regional climates, uncertainty remains high regarding future climate change and related impacts.  We know that climate will continue to change in fundamental and ecologically important ways, but how this will play out at the spatial and temporal scales relevant to natural resource management remains an open question.  This uncertainty has left many managers and policy makers in a state of paralysis from which little or no meaningful action can occur.  Likewise, a large portion of the natural resource community is banking on the development of downscaling approaches and other technologies to bring climate change uncertainties down to a palatable level. 

In reality, we can do little to reduce the uncertainties associated with many aspects of climate change.  While we will continue to make tremendous progress in simulating the behavior of the atmosphere and oceans, within this decade—and likely the next—we will not achieve the levels of predictive capability that most people desire.  Add to this the fact that interactions between natural climate variability and human-induced trends further broaden the range of potential climate futures, and the gap between what we think we know about climate change and the demands of traditional management and planning becomes immense.  Simply put, there will never be a crystal ball that gives us precise, accurate answers for what climate change holds in store.  But if the management and planning approaches of the past are now largely defunct, what comes next? 

This talk presents examples of how scenario planning and other techniques can be used to jumpstart adaptation/mitigation efforts and to shape policy.  However it happens—through scenario planning or by some other means—it is essential that we integrate climate projections into management and planning, while also recognizing the limits of our knowledge.  Climate models will serve us best when viewed as one tool among many to help us understand the range of potential impacts we face, and as a tool to show us where we are most vulnerable to change. In this context models become vehicles for more fully exploring what climate change might bring us rather than a means to fashion rigid expectations for the future.   Climate models are by no means perfect.  Yet, when used judiciously and in concert with the many other sources of information at our disposal, climate projections give us more than enough guidance to start acting today.