Report on the Fourth Pacific Northwest Climate Science Conference

On September 5th and 6th, climate scientists, science communicators, resource managers and decision makers gathered in Portland for the 4th Annual Pacific Northwest Climate Science Conference. PCIC staff participated by presenting, serving as co-authors on a presentation and a poster, and by assisting on the Program Committee. 

The topics covered included climate modeling, adaptation, science communication and economics. Reports were delivered on the US National Climate Assessment and the Northwest Climate Assessment Report 2013. Senator Jeff Merkley and the EPA's John Mclerren delivered keynotes, in which they discussed the weather-related impacts that Oregon has been experiencing and the implementation of the EPA's climate action plans, respectively.  PCIC's Trevor Murdock delivered a talk about the 200-year flooding event in Bella Coola, discussing the results of climate downscaling approaches and future projections, which call for greater changes in more extreme events and wetter winters. Each session ended with a synthesis and discussion of that session's talks. 

Many of the talks were recorded and will be made available online. The conference agenda and abstracts are available, here.