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1 Introduction
Pages 21-35

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From page 21...
... , which was jointly established by the World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations Environment Programme in 1988 to assess the available scientific and socioeconomic information on climate change and its impacts and on options for mitigating those impacts and developing adaptive responses. 2 Climate scientists express uncertainty in a variety of ways.
From page 22...
... transportation infrastructure and operations.6, 7 For exam ple, projected rising sea levels, flooding, and storm surges could swamp marine terminal facilities, airport runways near coastlines, subway and rail road tunnel entrances, and roads and bridges in low-lying coastal areas. 3 CO2 and other GHGs allow sunlight to enter and prevent heat from leaving the earth's atmosphere -- the so-called greenhouse effect, loosely analogous to the operation of a greenhouse window.
From page 23...
... STUDY CHARGE, SCOPE, AND AUDIENCE The Executive Committee of the Transportation Research Board (TRB) requested and provided funding for this study, which was undertaken jointly with the Division on Earth and Life Studies of the National 8 One in-depth assessment of impacts in the Gulf Coast region, entitled Impacts of Climate Change and Variability on Transportation Systems and Infrastructure: Gulf Coast Study, was ongoing during the course of this study.
From page 24...
... The expert committee formed to conduct the study was charged9 to • Provide federal, state, and local transportation officials in the United States with an overview of the scientific consensus regarding climate change, including uncertainty about its nature and extent; • Summarize previous work on strategies for reducing transporta tion's impact on climate change; • Summarize possible impacts on transportation, such as those due to rising sea levels, higher mean temperatures with less extreme low temperatures and more heat extremes, and more frequent intense precipitation events; • Analyze options for adapting to these impacts, including the possi ble need to alter assumptions about infrastructure design and operations, the ability to incorporate uncertainty into long-range decision making, and the capability of institutions to plan and act on mitigation and adaptation strategies at the state and regional levels; • Identify critical areas for research; and • Suggest policies and actions for preparing for the potential impacts of climate change. The committee's charge can be viewed more broadly as a risk manage ment problem with hazards to address (potential impacts of climate change)
From page 25...
... In fact, at the time of this writing, TRB had initiated a new study focused entirely on mitigation.13 Nevertheless, in response to its charge and drawing heavily on existing studies, committee member George Eads, with the consensus of the full committee, summarized current and projected contributions of the transportation sector to GHG emissions and examined numerous technological and nontechnological mitigation strategies (see Appendix B)
From page 26...
... Complementary adapta tion strategies are thus essential if the transportation sector is to address the consequences of GHG emissions and concentration levels that have already occurred. The report begins with an overview of the current state of knowledge about climate change and its potential impacts, with a particular focus on North America, to set the stage for assessing the consequences for the transportation sector and identifying prudent adaptation strategies.
From page 27...
... 16 Climate change refers to a statistically significant variation in either the mean state of the climate or its variability over an extended period, typically decades or longer, that can be attributed to either natural causes or human activity. Weather refers to the familiar hour-by-hour, day-by-day changes in temperature, cloudiness, precipitation, and other atmospheric phenomena.
From page 28...
... Thus, it is important for transportation decision makers to consider potential impacts of climate change now in making these investment choices because those impacts will affect how well the infrastructure adapts to climate change. Fourth, professionals in many fields -- among them finance, building (where protecting against earthquakes, wildfires, or wind risk is a concern)
From page 29...
... Recent severe weather events -- such as the Mississippi River floods of 1993, Category 3 or greater hurricanes (e.g., Ivan, Katrina, Rita) , the California wildfires of 2003 -- provide ample opportunities for transportation professionals to observe the vulnerabilities of the infrastructure to shocks to the system that could become more commonplace in the future.
From page 30...
... • What if multiple severe weather events were to occur? Each year, Florida and the Gulf Coast brace for hurricanes, and California prepares for wild fires or heavy rains.
From page 31...
... 3. Possible Change Effects Transportation Adaptation Strategies • Effects of greatest • By climate change • Identification of relevance for effect critical infrastructure transportation potentially at risk • By transportation • Geographic scale at mode • Monitoring of which effect can be changing climate projected with • By geographic area conditions and confidence where the impacts on infrastructure is infrastructure • Degree of certainty located with which effect is • Changes in known • By type of impact operating and – Direct, indirect maintenance • Time frame over practices – Infrastructure, which effect is likely operations to unfold • Changes in infrastructure design and redesign • Relocation of vulnerable infrastructure FIGURE 1-2 Potential impacts of climate change on transportation infrastructure.
From page 32...
... For example, changes in temperature and precipitation will affect soil moisture and runoff, which in turn will affect peak stream flows, sediment delivery to coasts, and the sustainability of the landforms upon which the infrastructure is built, with considerable regional variability. The tasks listed in Columns 1 and 2 require good communication among cli mate scientists, transportation professionals, and other relevant scientific disciplines.
From page 33...
... Chapter 3 is focused on the potential impacts of climate changes on transportation infrastructure. The chapter begins with an overview of the vulnerability of the infrastructure to these changes; it then examines the likely impacts of the most critical climate changes by transportation mode, reviews the handful of studies that have examined the impacts of climate change on transportation, and draws a 18 Evidence exists for abrupt climate changes that can occur within a decade.
From page 34...
... In Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (S.
From page 35...
... 2003. The Potential Impacts of Climate Change on Transportation, Summary and Discussion Papers.


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