Survey: Climate Change a Concern but not a Priority to Oregon Coast Professionals

Many public officials and community leaders on the Oregon coast believe their local climate is changing and the change will affect their communities. But, overall, addressing the changing climate is not among their most urgent concerns.

These are among the findings of a 2012 survey by Oregon Sea Grant at Oregon State University (OSU).

Sea Grant surveyed coastal professionals, elected officials and other local  leaders and found that approximately 60 percent of the 140 survey respondents believe the local climate is changing. By contrast, 18 percent think it is not, and 22 percent don’t know.

While most believe that their professional efforts toward addressing climate change would benefit the community, both elected officials and other coastal professionals also believe that a combination of governments and other organizations should be the ones to initiate local responses to the likely effects of climate change.

Overall, actions appear to be lagging behind beliefs and concerns, according to Oregon Sea Grant’s communication and the leader of the survey, Joseph Cone. “As of last May, many coastal professionals – about 44 percent of the survey respondents — were not currently involved in planning to adapt to its effects,” said Cone.

Cone will discuss the survey findings  on Wednesday, Feb. 20, in a brief talk to the OSU Climate Club “Conversations Across Disciplines” Lunch, in room 348 of Strand Agricultural Hall on the OSU campus. The lunches are open to the public; bring your own lunch. Coffee and cookies are provided.

The survey results placed climate change effects next to the bottom on a list of seven significant “potential stressors on your community during the next ten years.” Coastal professionals scored climate change effects considerably lower (46% of respondents moderately to extremely concerned) than the top-ranked stressors: a weak economy, and tsunami or earthquakes (approximately 70% moderately to extremely concerned for each).

The hurdles to planning most often noted by survey respondents were lack of agreement over the importance of climate change effects, and a lack of urgency regarding them. Where planning has begun, the survey showed it mainly in an early fact-finding stage.

Anticipating this, the survey asked coastal professionals to identify their specific climate change information needs; and they ranked a variety of environmental and social questions as “highly needed”:

  • Information about flooding or saltwater intrusion
  • Species and habitat vulnerability
  • Predictions of ecosystem impacts
  • Social and economic vulnerabilities
  • The cost of climate adaptation
  • How to communicate climate risks

The survey was administered online to 348 individuals, including some who had responded to a similar Oregon Sea Grant climate change study in 2008 which sampled Oregon coastal managers and practitioners. A report on the findings was prepared by OSU doctoral candidate Kirsten Winters

The Oregon survey was based in large part on a California coastal assessment conducted by California Sea Grant and its partners, and is part of a national Sea Grant study on coastal communities and climate change adaptation, led by Cone.

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Oregon Sea Grant publishes booklet on drinking-water systems in coastal Oregon

The following publication is available as a free download from Oregon Sea Grant.

The print version may be purchased from Oregon Sea Grant’s e-commerce store.

Planning for Resilience in Oregon’s Coastal Drinking Water Systems

On Oregon’s rugged coast, large-scale infrastructure for public utilities is virtually nonexistent, meaning that drinking water must be obtained through small systems, domestic wells, or springs. While a portion of Oregon’s coastal population utilizes a domestic or private source, the vast majority of residents rely on small public systems for their drinking water. Unfortunately, risks associated with small drinking-water systems are not widely documented nor well understood.

Planning for Resilience in Oregon’s Coastal Drinking Water Systems is the result of case studies of 13 drinking-water sytems in coastal Oregon. It examines risks to these systems including infrastructure issues, contamination, climate change, earthquakes, and tsunamis, and explores actions to increase resilience, such as planning, backup supply, source water protection, infrastructure improvements, and communication. The publication will be of value to coastal water system managers, city planners, and coastal residents interested in water supply issues.

 

Washington state declares war on ocean acidification

Washington state, the leading US producer of farmed shellfish, this week launched a 42-step plan to reduce ocean acidification. The initiative — detailed in a report by a governor-appointed panel of scientists, policy-makers and shellfish industry representatives — marks the first US state-funded effort to tackle ocean acidification, a growing problem for both the region and the globe.

The state governor Christine Gregoire,  says she will allocate $3.3 million to back the panel’s priority recommendations.

“Washington is clearly in the lead with respect to ocean acidification,” says Jane Lubchenco, administrator of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

As growing carbon dioxide gas emissions have dissolved into the world’s oceans, the average acidity of the waters has increased by 30% since 1750. Washington, which produces farmed oysters, clams and mussels, is particularly vulnerable to acidification, for two reasons: seasonal, wind-driven upwelling events bring low-pH waters from the deep ocean towards the shore, and land-based nutrient runoff from farming fuels algal growth, which also lowers pH.

Read the full story in Nature.

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Help document this week’s “king tide” at the coast

If you’re planning to be on the Oregon Coast this week, grab your camera and help document the latest “king” tide.

King tides are natural events, caused by predictable astronomical factors that generate tides higher than most high tides. By understanding which areas are most affected by king tides, scientists, emergency planners and local officials can get a better idea which places might also be susceptible to high water generated by increasing wave heights, winter storms and a rising sea level.

Since 2011, the Oregon Department of Land Conservation and Development has invited photographers to help visually document how high the water reaches during king tides  -such as the ones forecast daily for the Oregon coast through this Thursday, Nov. 15. Oregon joins Australia, British Columbia, Washington and the San Francisco Bay area in the documentary effort.

To learn more about the King Tide Photo Project – including where, when and how to photograph the tides,  what your photos should show and how to submit them to the project’s photo gallery – visit the Oregon King Tide Photo Project website.

Good king tide photos will show water levels adjacent to a fixed feature like a piling, seawall or bridge abutment. Including such features allow observers to track how the actual water levels vary over time. f Good photos also must include information about the location, the date and time the photo was taken and which direction the photographer was facing. Two photos taken from the same spot, one during the king tide and the other at a typical high tide, are also very helpful in highlighting these water events.

If you’d like to take part, but miss this month’s event, additional king tides are predicted for December 12-14th, 2012 and January 10-12th, 2013.

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Rising stream temperatures could spell trouble for salmon

A newly published study by researchers at Oregon State University and two federal agencies concludes that high temperatures coupled with lower flows in many Northwest streams is creating increasingly extreme conditions that could spell trouble for salmon and other organisms.

The study, published in the professional journal Hydrobiologia, was funded and coordinated by the U.S. Geological Survey and the research branch of the U.S. Forest Service. It points to climate change as the primary cause.

“The highest temperatures for streams generally occur in August, while lowest flows take place in the early fall,” said Ivan Arismendi, a research professor in OSU’s Department of Fisheries and Wildlife. “Each period is important because it is a time of potentially high stress on the organisms that live in the stream. If they occur closer in time – or together – they could create double trouble that may be greater than their combined singular effects.”

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Sea-level information workshops planned for south, north coast

A pair of workshops on sea-level hazards are coming up Oct. 24 and 29 on Oregon’s south and north coast to help local emergency managers, planners and the interested public learn more about sea-level risks and what can be done about them.

Sea-level rise, storm surges and tsunamis will all be covered in the two workshops, organized by Oregon Sea Grant and the Oregon Coastal Management program. The purposes is to explore how learning more about the natural hazards posed by sea levels might affect local communities and their decisions: What science tells us, how that information can be used, how communities might respond and what  tools and resources they need.

The first workshop takes place from 1-4 pm Oct. 24 at the Red Lion Hotel, 1313 N. Bayshore Drive, Coos Bay. The second will be held at the same time Oct. 29, at Tillamook Bay Community College rooms 2140215, 4301 Third St., Tillamook.

Both meetings will include presentations on:

  • The science behind global and level sea level rise (Phil Mote, Oregon Climate Change Research Institute)
  • Ocean, atmospheric and tectonic influences on sea levels (Jonathan Allan, Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral Industries
  • The effects of changing sea levels on estuaries and wetlands (speaker TBD).

After a question-and-answer session on the science of sea level hazards, a panel of local elected officials, planners, public works and emergency managers will informally discuss how this information can be used in their day-to-day work, what community resources are at risks and what decisions they are making that could be affected by the information.

Both meetings are free and open to the public. For more information, contact either of the workshop coordinators: Oregon Sea Grant’s coastal hazards specialist, Patrick Corcoran, or Jeff Weber, Oregon Coastal Zone Management Program.

Public forum aims to demystify ocean acidification, hypoxia

How is Oregon's ocean affected by hypoxia and acidification?TILLAMOOK – Hypoxia and ocean acidification get a lot of press, but how many people know what these phenomena are, what causes them and what they mean for marine species and coastal communities? Now’s the chance to find out, in an Oct. 23 public forum that aims to take some of the mystery out of the science behind measuring, understanding and minimizing the effects of of these ocean conditions.

The forum, starting at 6:30 pm in rooms 214-215 at Tillamook Bay Community College, 4301 3rd St., is free and open to the public. Pre-registration is encouraged, but not required. For more information, visit the PISCO Website.

Organized by the Partnership for Interdisciplinary Studies of the Ocean (PISCO) and Oregon Sea Grant, the forum will focus on cutting edge research by scientists from many disciplines, and how resource managers and industries are responding.  A series of speakers will address:

  • The definitions of ocean acidification and coastal hypoxia, and how they are related – Francis Chan, OSU Zoology/PISCO
  • Why this is happening off our coast and what makes Oregon vulnerable – Burke Hales, OSU College of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences (CEOAS).
  • How scientists are monitoring the ocean for these changes – Jack Barth (CEOAS/PISCO)
  • The impacts of acidification on shellfish hatcheries – Alan Barton (Whiskey Creek Shellfish Hatchery)

Speakers will be followed by a question-and-answer panel featuring scientists and representatives of the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The event is hosted by PISCO through funding from Oregon Sea Grant.

OSG’s Cone to speak at Marylhurst climate forum

Joe ConePORTLAND – Joe Cone, Oregon Sea Grant’s assistant director and a veteran science writer and videographer, will speak on the science of communicating with the public about climate change at this Saturday’s Climate Change Forum at Marylhurst University.

Cone, who leads the OSG communications team, has been a principal investigator on multiple NOAA-funded research projects with partners in Oregon and across the country, studying how sound information, when grounded in research understanding of the views and concerns of local residents, can help coastal communities  prepare for the changes that will come with climate variability. In addition, he has produced a number of publications aimed at applying social science insights and principles to science communication.

Those projects have resulted in two videos, based on surveys of public knowledge and opinion, addressing questions residents of Oregon and Maine have about the changing climate. Cone has also produced a podcast, Communicating Climate Change, featuring audio and video interviews with leading social scientists on the subject.

His talk, scheduled for 2 pm Saturday, will address “Communication About Climate Change: Research and Practical Experience.” Cone is one of several speakers from OSU.

Learn more:

 

New blog chronicles science on – and under – ice

Deep Sea and Polar Biology, a new blog by a pair of Oregon State University scientists, chronicles their work trying to understand the role those extreme environments play in storing and releasing carbon into the Earth’s atmosphere.

The writers – post-doctoral scholar Andrew Thurber and graduate student Rory Welch – are writing and posting terrific photographs of the polar landscape and their under-ice dives in Antarctica, near the McMurdo Research Station, located on the southern tip of Ross Island. They’re also running an occasional “ask a scientist” feature for students around the country who want to learn more about their work.

Thurber,  a National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Scholar based in the College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences at Oregon State University, is studying the trophic linkages between microbes and metazoans in marine habitats and how that impacts ecosystem function, or how animals that eat bacteria can impact how the world works.

Welch, a graduate student in the Microbiology department at Oregon State University, is studying an unusual group of predatory bacteria, Bacteriovorax, that prey exclusively on other gram negative bacteria.

In the introduction to their blog, they write:

“Most of the world experiences drastic seasonal variation in the amount of food that is available throughout the year. In deep-sea habitats as well as the poles a single or sometimes few pulses of food provide nourishment for the entire year. Now you may wonder what that means to you? Why does it matter what happens in the deep, dark ocean or far away in a frozen waste land? The answer is that these communities decide how much of the carbon that we are putting into the atmosphere stays in the ocean, only to be released again and how much is buried for geologic time periods (meaning largely beyond the age of humans). However, we know very little about how the biology of how these habitats actually function, what makes them decide whether they break down and release the carbon and nitrogen or bury for, as far as humans are concerned, ever? Quite simply, that is the goal of this research.”

Rising ocean acidity threatens West Coast ecosystems

Humanity’s use of fossil fuels sends 35 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere every year. That has already begun to change the fundamental chemistry of the world’s oceans, steadily making them more acidic.

Now, a new high resolution computer model reveals that over the next 4 decades, rising ocean acidity will likely have profound impacts on waters off the West Coast of the United States, home to one of the world’s most diverse marine ecosystems and most important commercial fisheries.

These impacts have the potential to upend the entire marine ecosystem and affect millions of people dependent upon it for food and jobs.

George Waldbusser, an Oregon State University ocean ecologist and biogeochemist currently working under Oregon Sea Grant funding to study the effects of acidification on oysters and other commercially important bivalves, says it’s not clear precisely how rising acidity will affect different organisms. However, he adds, the changes will likely be broad-based. “It shows us that the windows of opportunity for organisms to succeed get smaller and smaller. It will probably have important effects on fisheries, food supply, and general ocean ecology.”