Climate Change Adaptation Planning: Risk Assessment for Airports (2015) / Chapter Skim
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P A R T I I A Primer on Climate Change and Uncertainty for the Airport Context
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13 4.1 Existing Climate and Weather-Related Events The IPCC, a world authority tasked with evaluating climate science, notes that the effects of changing climate have been felt worldwide in recent decades. In the United States, identified changes include increasing temperature, an increasing number of heavy rain days, and a number of other impacts summarized below.
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14 Climate Change Adaptation Planning: Risk Assessment for Airports Extreme events that impact population centers can be particularly damaging. In October 2012, Superstorm Sandy inflicted serious impacts on East Coast airports and national airline operations through storm surge, winds, flooding rains, and wet snows that lasted 2 to 5 days.
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Understanding Climate Change's Impact on Airports 15 have been refined significantly since their inception in the 1960s, important caveats still exist as to what the models can and cannot simulate. As shown in Table 4-1, all temperature- and humidity-related vectors are robust in the sense that even the lower end of future projections still implies a substantially warmer and more humid climate.
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16 Climate Change Adaptation Planning: Risk Assessment for Airports not diverge markedly from the other scenarios until after the period of interest for this study (present day to 2060)
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Understanding Climate Change's Impact on Airports 17 4.5 Frost Days: Number of Days with Low Temperatures <– 32ºF Consistent with Hot Days, there are likely to be substantial decreases in the number of Frost Days nationwide, as shown in Figure 4-2. The largest changes are projected to occur south of the intermountain west and the northern tier of the country, corresponding to areas where values are initially highest.
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18 Climate Change Adaptation Planning: Risk Assessment for Airports potentially, tornadoes. It is crucial to note that this vector is assigned low confidence because GCMs lack the horizontal resolution to explicitly resolve these severe weather features.
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Understanding Climate Change's Impact on Airports 19 4.8 Maximum 5-Day Rainfall While the Storm Day vector shows a relatively minimal impact nationwide, likely due to the physical constraints of the GCMs, other measures of rainfall show much more robust changes. One particular measure of rainfall is the maximum accumulated rainfall over any consecutive 5-day period during a calendar year -- Heavy Rain 5-Day for short.
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20 Climate Change Adaptation Planning: Risk Assessment for Airports For precipitation vectors, Snow Days displayed decreases nationwide, although there is marked regional variability, with the largest decreases occurring over the intermountain west. Dry Days showed inconclusive changes east of the Mississippi River, but general decreases occurred over the western United States, especially in the arid Southwest.
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Understanding Climate Change's Impact on Airports 21 according to increasing impacts on airport operations and facilities. Exposure to each of these metrics was determined by assessing local changes in coastal flooding metrics against runway elevations from the National Flight Data Center (NFDC)
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22 Climate Change Adaptation Planning: Risk Assessment for Airports interruption of operations and damage to infrastructure as a result of water saturation. Inundation was evaluated by comparing future sea level to airport runway elevations.
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23 5.1 A Brief Note on Uncertainty The concept of uncertainty inherent to evaluation of future climate outcomes can lead to the belief that climate modeling is not mature enough for decision-making purposes. Largely, this is a function of the difference between the technical usage of the word "uncertainty" and how it is used in common language.
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24 Climate Change Adaptation Planning: Risk Assessment for Airports • The output of today's best GCMs match actual historical and current values closely. However, the longer the outlook is for future projections, the wider the range of plausible inputs such as carbon dioxide emissions.
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Managing Uncertainty When Planning Based on Projections 25 5.3.2 Uncertainty from Models The major climate drivers are well understood, and models have been used to successfully replicate past climate and make near-term predictions that have been confirmed by observation. Models capture large-scale processes in the global climate system, but downscaling methods are available to convert model results to the local scale.
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26 Climate Change Adaptation Planning: Risk Assessment for Airports 5.3.3.3 Vulnerability, Risk, and Practical Considerations In addition to climate model uncertainty and the airport system uncertainty discussed above, other sources of uncertainty that influence vulnerability and risk include: • The response of airport assets and operations to climate-related impact stressors; • Imperfect knowledge about vulnerabilities to impacts and stressors; and • Multiple possible outcomes from a single projected change (e.g., warmer temperatures may result in either less or more ice, depending on the effect on precipitation)
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27 This guidebook suggests strategies for organizing asset vulnerability and risk information using the ACROS tool (see Chapter 7 for the User Guide) , but the sections below also outline a methodology for performing an assessment and adaptation planning independent of the tool.
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28 Climate Change Adaptation Planning: Risk Assessment for Airports 6.2 Identify Critical Assets and Operations 6.2.1 Inventory Airport Assets and Operations With multiple potential impacts from each climate vector on each airport asset or operation, the next step in the climate change adaptation planning process is to inventory airport assets. This asset list may be partial or it may cover the entire airport system.
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Develop Adaptation Options Based on Potential Vulnerabilities 29 6.3 Inventory Asset and Operational Vulnerabilities Based on an airport system inventory developed, the committee can create a matrix of potentially affected assets and operations (either independently or with the support of the ACROS tool) , noting known or perceived vulnerabilities.
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30 Climate Change Adaptation Planning: Risk Assessment for Airports The defaults were developed by SMEs to reflect common conditions at U.S. airports.
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Develop Adaptation Options Based on Potential Vulnerabilities 31 within the ACROS tool. The initial ranking includes the traditional dimensions of risk described in Appendix E (likelihood × consequence = vulnerability)
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32 Climate Change Adaptation Planning: Risk Assessment for Airports example, by locking an airport into a costly investment or pathway)
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Develop Adaptation Options Based on Potential Vulnerabilities 33 • Relocation, retrofitting, or removal of structures at risk; • Reduction or limitation of the amount or size of the hazard; • Segregation of the hazard from that which is to be protected; • Modification of the basic characteristics of the hazard; • Purchase of additional insurance coverage; • Establishment of a climate change contingency fund; • Provision of protective systems or equipment for both cyber or physical risks; • Establishment of hazard warning and communication procedures; and • Redundancy or duplication of essential personnel, critical systems, equipment, and information materials. Over 700 impacts, paired with at least one and often several potential adaptations, were included in the tool.
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34 Climate Change Adaptation Planning: Risk Assessment for Airports 6.5.2 Criticality and Vulnerability: Update and Refine Over the course of airport operations, previously unidentified system weaknesses may become apparent. Particularly in the wake of an incident or disaster response, adaptation priorities may need to be realigned to address the weakness to the airport system.
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Develop Adaptation Options Based on Potential Vulnerabilities 35 various risks, the selected adaptation option, the priority with which the option will be implemented, and the "owner" of the risk. It is also strongly recommended that the advisory committees open a line of communication with airports facing similar impacts.
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