NEWS

Climate Toolbox Workshop for The Wildlife Society

The Northwest Climate Adaptation Science Center organized a 3.5 hour workshop entitled 'Strategies and Tools for Wildlife Conservation and Management in a Changing Climate Workshop' on Feb 7, 2025 8:30 am - 12:00 pm at the 2025 Joint Meeting of the Oregon Chapter of The Wildlife Society and Oregon Society of American Foresters in Salem, Oregon. The workshop was led by Katherine Hegewisch (UC Merced) and Elise Elliott-Smith, Lindsey Thurman, and Betsy Glenn from the Northwest Climate Adaptation Science Center (NW CASC).

This workshop provided an introduction for wildlife researchers and managers about how climate systems work, how to access and interpret different future climate projections, and hands-on training with The Climate Toolbox – an online resource of web tools for visualizing past and projected climate and hydrology of the U.S.

We covered the following topics during the workshop:

• Introduction to climate change in the Pacific Northwest
• Climate adaptation analysis tools and management strategies
• Introduction to species vulnerability assessments and adaptive capacity
• Introduction to climate modeling and The Climate Toolbox
• A hands-on exercise using The Climate Toolbox

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Training for San Antonio River Authority Managers

The South Central Climate Adaptation Science Center organized an interactive Climate workshop for the San Antonio River Authority from July 17-18, 2024 in San Antonio, TX.

The Climate Toolbox was featured in a 30-minute presentation by Katherine Hegewisch and in a hands-on exercise created by Emma Kuster (University of Oklahoma) similar to those exercises done at the Grassland and Sagebrush workshops.

Training for Sagebrush Conservation Practitioners

This workshop featured the Climate Toolbox amongst other tools.

The FWS Science Applications Program is working in partnership with multiple USGS Climate Adaptation Science Centers (CASCs), including the South Central CASC, Northwest CASC, North Central CASC, and Southwest CASC, and Boise State University, to develop a training series for sagebrush conservation practitioners.

These trainings began February 2024 with a self-paced introductory course, a series of virtual classrooms, and an in-person workshop in Boise, ID May 21-22 2024. This training series was open to the U.S. FWS Sagebrush Ecosystem Team, as well as others who work in sagebrush ecosystems.  

The Climate Toolbox was featured in the 90-minute online webinar, Introduction to Climate Tools, on April 30, 2024 and in the interactive hands-on exercises featuring tools in the Toolbox at the in-person workshop in Boise, ID on May 21-22, 2024. 

REGISTRATION AND INFORMATION

Coeur d'Alene Adaptation Project Releases Final Report & Will Present Findings at Local Conference

In 2020, community members in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho formed a group interested in climate impacts on the CdA lake and surrounding areas and what could be done. They called themselves the Couer d'Alene Adaptation Project (CCAP) and met regularly. They initially found inspiration from their neighbors in Spokane, Washington with the work of the Spokane Climate Adaptation Project . Both groups used the Climate Toolbox to draft an adaptation document as a start to thinking about future climate projections and projected impacts.   

The Coeur d'Alene Adaptation Project has now finalized and is publishing their adaptation report. Team members (Dave Muise, Craig Cooper and Bill Irving) will be giving a presentation at the 1st Annual North Idaho Green Summit held May 18, 2024 in Coeur d'Alene, ID. This event is sponsored by the Kootenai Environmental Alliance (KEA).

The KEA will continue the work for climate action in the region with the KEA Climate Action committee. 

See Report (PDF)

North Central Climate Adaptation Science Center Webinar

In April 2024, Katherine Hegewisch, Imtiaz Rangwala and John Guinotte presented a webinar entitled 'ClimateToolbox.Org: A Discussion of Climate Applications to Support Quantitative Climate Change Impact Assessment and Scenario Planning'. 

 Recent years have seen great advances in the availability of downscaled climate data and tools to inform climate change impact or vulnerability assessments and climate adaptation planning. This presentation will discuss various tools available through https://ClimateToolbox.ORG to access downscaled future climate projections relevant for ecological applications, examine future climate uncertainty and develop quantitative information to inform scenario planning activities. We will specifically discuss the Future Climate Scenarios tool and an updated version of the Future Climate Scatter tool, which are the latest additions/improvements to the toolbox motivated by the ongoing collaboration between North Central CASC and US Fish & Wildlife Service to inform Species Status Assessments. These tools and the underlying climate and hydrological projections data can collectively support a wide array of applications for developing quantitative information to support climate adaptation and scenario planning.

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Climate Workshop at 2024 Kansas Natural Resources Conference

At the 2024 Kansas Natural Resources Conference in Manhattan, KS on Feb 8, 2024, there was a 4-hr workshop entitled 'Using Climate Data to Achieve your Natural Resources Objective'.

As part of this workshop, Christy Miller Hested (North Central Climate Adaptation Science Center) led a 1-hr hands-on climate lesson, 'Applications of the Climate Toolbox for Resource Management', which provided an overview of the Climate Toolbox and its climate data and had participants use the Climate Analogs tool to tell future data stories around the Tall Grass National Prairie in Kansas.

Christy worked with Climate Toolbox developer Katherine Hegewisch to develop the workshop. For the workshop,  Christy adapted the Future Temperatures 2-pager in the Climate Toolbox Workshop Series to look at the future of the Tall Grass Prairie through climate analogs.