Session Recording Here
This session will discuss specific data and service needs related to implementing and delivering on NOAA’s Climate Ready Nation vision, which is “a thriving Nation whose prosperity, health, security, and continued growth benefit from and depend upon a shared understanding of, and collective action to reduce, the impacts of climate change.”
The session will highlight the Climate Smart Transportation partnership between NOAA and the US Department of Transportation as an example of implementing the Climate Ready Nation vision. Through the partnership, the two agencies are working together to make sure transportation practitioners have the climate data they need to plan, design, and build transportation infrastructure to be resilient to climate change impacts.
NOAA Senior Climate Advisor Ko Barrett will kick off the session. After that, Tina Hodges of NOAA’s OAR will provide an overview of the NOAA-DOT partnership. Next we will hear from Trevor Meckley of NOAA NCCOS about joint research with DOT on nature-based solutions to adapt roads to climate change. Then Heather Holsinger from the Office of the Secretary of Transportation will discuss what climate data transportation agencies need to wisely invest the $567 billion in Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) transportation funding. Then Matt Lauffer of the North Carolina Department of Transportation will showcase how his state has been using climate data in transportation decision-making. LuAnn Dahlman, NOAA Affiliate, will demonstrate current NOAA climate data visualization tools and discuss ones that are under development, especially Climate Mapping for Resilience and Adaptation (CMRA), which is designed to help applicants for IIJA grants screen their projects for climate change impacts.
Primed from these insightful presentations, participants will break into two discussion groups. One will discuss how NOAA’s climate data visualization tools (especially CMRA) can best serve the needs of transportation agencies. The other will focus on data needs for designing nature-based solutions for compound coastal and riverine flooding.
Both groups will try to answer these questions: 1) What would be helpful to state and local transportation agencies in making decisions on planning, designing, building, and maintaining roads, rail, ports, etc? 2) What are the modeling, prediction, and data needs? 3) What do NOAA and partners have that could fill these needs?
Presentations:
- Introduction - Ko Barrett, NOAA Senior Climate Advisor; Overview of NOAA-DOT Partnership - Tina Hodges, NOAA OAR
- Nature-based Solutions to adapt roads to climate change - Effects of Sea Level Rise Grant Program - Trevor Meckley, NOAA NCCOS
- What climate data do transportation agencies need for Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) investments? - Heather Holsinger, US Department of Transportation
- North Carolina DOT Data for Resilience - Matt Lauffer, North Carolina Department of Transportation
- NOAA Climate Data Visualization Tools (Climate Explorer, READI/CMRA, CRIS) - LuAnn Dahlman, NOAA Affiliate OAR
