Case studies

Climate Change

Climate information was incorporated through the development of future climate scenarios for Hall Beach. These were based on global circulation models of the atmosphere-ocean system and a range of future greenhouse gas emissions. For the Hall Beach assessment, four climate variables were selected given the available data in circulation models and the relevance for Hall Beach. These variables were temperature, precipitation, wind speed, and sea ice. Table 2 presents a description of these variables and the basic rationale for including them.

This approach, which applies methods generally in accordance with the IPCC Data Distribution Center guidelines on the use of scenario data for impacts and adaptation assessments, provides an opportunity for identifying both potential trends and the full range of uncertainty around them. All data and maps were extracted using tools provided by the Pacific Climate Impacts Consortium (PCIC).

Table 3 provides a summary of the climate change scenario results for key climate variables that are thought to have an important influence on natural ecosystem processes and human activities in the Hall Beach region. The trends and envelope ranges found here are generally consistent with those reported by the IPCC for the northern hemisphere and in the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (Hassol, 2004).