HR: 11:50h
AN: PP52A-07    [Abstracts]
TI: Paleoclimatic Science in Planning and Decision Making
AU: * Woodhouse, C
EM: connie.woodhouse@noaa.gov
AF: National Climatic Data Center, 325 Broadway E/CC23, Boulder, CO 80305 United States
AB: In the past two decades, national and international efforts have assessed the current understanding and consequences of climate variability and change. Two recent documents, the IPCC and CCSP, have outlined areas of research that are needed to further our understanding of the form, direction, and impacts of climate variability and change. Both documents point to the need for an increase in data networks, and modeling and process studies, including paleoclimate-based research. In addition, cutting across the key scientific issues of climate variability and change is the need to communicate scientific information so it can provide a foundation for informed planning and decision making, particularly at the regional level. The disconnect between scientific information and decision-making has been recognized and has begun to be addressed. The challenge of communicating the relevance and usefulness of climate-related data to decision makers is the focus of this presentation, and in particular, on applications of tree-ring based hydroclimatic reconstructions to water resource planning and management in Colorado. An opportunity to engage the water resource management community in considering the usefulness of paleoclimatic records was presented by recent and continuing drought conditions in the western US. In Colorado, Front Range water managers have commonly based drought planning on the premise that the most severe drought in the instrumental record, typically the 1950s drought, represents a likely worst-case scenario. Until the drought of 2002, there was no compelling need to take a more long-term look at water resource management. However, severe and in some respects, unprecedented drought in 2002 motivated many water managers to consider using tree-ring reconstructions of annual streamflow in assessing the risks of drought over time spans beyond the 20th century. Interactions with water providers have ranged from providing regionally-representative reconstructions of streamflow to municipal planners, to partnerships with major Front Range water agencies to explore the full potential of tree-ring reconstructions in water system models. Although this initial one-on-one collaborative process has been time intensive, it may be considered a pilot for future work at a broader scale, and applicable to the scientific communications goals of the IPCC and CCSP.
DE: 3337 Numerical modeling and data assimilation
DE: 3344 Paleoclimatology
DE: 1620 Climate dynamics (3309)
SC: Paleoceanography and Paleoclimatology [PP]
MN: 2004 AGU Fall Meeting