Thursday, October 13, 2016
2:00 p.m. - 3:30 p.m. EDT

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Overview
Changing relative sea levels and potential increasing storm surges due to anthropogenic climate change present many challenges to land managers. This webinar will describe work done by the University of Colorado in partnership with the National Park Service to combine, compare, and contrast different sea-level change projections from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and storm surge scenarios using National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) storm surge models. This report covers how these models are used to protect coastal units that have recently recovered from storm damage. Both the IPCC and NOAA have established their own climate change scenarios, however this research will be the first to combine these results to show how storm surge could propagate in the future using bathtub models. These scenarios result in significantly different inundation outcomes. In addition to using multiple sea level and storm surge scenarios; multiple time horizons (2030, 2050 and 2100) were studied.

About the Speaker​
Maria Caffrey is a research associate in the Department of Geological Sciences at the University of Colorado. She has been a partner with the National Park Service working in the National Resource Stewardship and Science Directorate Geologic Resources Division in Lakewood, Colorado for the past 6 years and is the lead scientist on a nationwide project tasked with compiling sea level change and storm surge projections for 118 coastal National Park Service units. Her role includes preparing sea level and storm surge statements for foundation documents, generating maps and publications on coastal climate change, and advising individual parks on potential exposure to future sea level rise and storm surge. Previous research has includes work in the Dominican Republic and Central America. Her current project with the National Park Service has been featured on National Public Radio and in GOOD Magazine and National Parks Magazine.

About the Webinar Series
This monthly climate change webinar series is presented by the NPS Climate Change Response Program. The purpose of the series is to connect NPS employees, volunteers, and partners with scientists and experts in the field of climate change research. The webinar series is a Service-wide forum where researchers can share credible, up-to-date information and research materials about the impacts of changing climate in national parks and provide participants the opportunity to engage with them in discussion.

Presentations begin at 2 PM EST, on the second Thursday of the month, and last about 90 minutes. They are viewed by logging into GoToWebinar on-line at the time of the presentation. Audio is available via a call-in number (toll charges apply) or through your computer’s speakers (free, but may be limited by connection speed).

For more information about this webinar series or to be added to the mailing list, contact .