USGCRP Home National Assessment Acclimations September-October 1998 Climate Impacts Group Shares Pacific Northwest Research Results | | Search |
Members of the Climate Impacts Group (CIG) at the University of Washington in Seattle have been actively engaged in research on climate variability, climate change, and impacts on the Pacific Northwest region. Studies focus on climate-sensitive sectors like water supply, salmon populations, forest health, and coastal development. This research will provide an important contribution to the region's assessment . At its annual meeting last June, the CIG presented research results before an audience that included both stakeholders and scientists. Results concentrated on past climate variability in the Pacific Northwest, its relationship to two cyclical "climate drivers" (ENSO, the El Nino-Southern Oscillation, and PDO, the Pacific Decadal Oscillation), and its impacts on biological and hydrological systems. The PDO, like ENSO, is a natural variation of sea surface temperature in the Pacific, but unlike ENSO it characterizes variations in sea surface temperature in the North (as opposed to equatorial) Pacific. The PDO also has a much longer time scale, with positive (warmer) phases from 1925 to 1945 and after 1977, and negative (cooler) phases from 1900 to 1925 and from 1945 to 1977. The CIG research results included the following:
As the CIG heads into its fourth year, it is developing formal links with a group at Washington State University, which will study potential effects of climate change on soils and crops; with forest hydrologists at Oregon State University; and possibly with other research groups. Informal links have also been developed with a regional modeling and impact-assessment group in Sweden, where the climate and the economic base are similar to the Pacific Northwest. For more information, contact: Phil Mote, Unversity of Washington, Box 354235; Seattle, WA, 98195; (206)
616-5346; phlip@atmos.washington.edu; or see the CIG web site at http://jisao.washington.edu/ |
|