Confronting Climate Change in the U.S. Northeast: Science, Impacts, and Solutions: Executive Summary

This is the executive summary of a 2007 report on climate change in the northeast U.S. by the Northeast Climate Impacts Assessment (NECIA) Synthesis Team. In October 2006, the NECIA released a report titled Climate Change in the U.S. Northeast, the product of a collaborative research effort that drew on recent advances in climate modeling to assess how global warming may further affect the Northeast's climate. Using projections from three state-of-the-art global climate models, the report compared the types and magnitude of climate changes that will result from two different scenarios of future heat-trapping emissions. The first (the higher-emissions scenario) is a future where people - individuals, communities, businesses, states, and nations - allow emissions to continue growing rapidly, and the second (the lower-emissions scenario) is one in which societies choose to rely less on fossil fuels and adopt more resource-efficient technologies. This 2007 report builds upon and extends these findings. NECIA collaborators have used the NECIA climate projections to assess the impacts of these two very different future Northeast climates on vital aspects of the region's life and economy: coastal areas, marine fisheries, forests, agriculture, winter recreation, and human health. They also describe actions that can be taken today in the Northeast to reduce emissions and help avoid the most severe impacts of global warming and to adapt to the unavoidable changes that past emissions have already set in motion.Prepared by the Northeast Climate Impacts Assessment Synthesis Team (NECIA)NECIA is collaborative effort between the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) and a team of independent expertsPurpose: To summarize the findings of the Northeast Climate Impacts Assessment (NECIA) in 200