Adapting to Climate Change in Northern New England
November 16, 2010
Some thoughts:
---From the start, the Manomet folks said they were most interested in exploring “no regrets”
strategies, things that would make sense whether or not the climate models’ predictions of warming
occur.
---Bruce Kahn, Deutsche Bank: Spoke on the business case for adapting to climate change, noting that
any such changes add risk to investors. He said that any actions need “TLC”: Transparency,
Longevity, Consistency.
Q&A: Only time for one question, but I thought it a good one: How can natural/social capital be
equated to financial capital? Mr. Kahn answered that it had not been accomplished with much validity,
and cited the International Panel on Ecosystems and Biodiversity (I think I got that right), which is
working on quantifying the natural/social values and setting financial values to them.
--Dr. Jacobson, U.Maine: He showed the models’ “consensus” for Maine 2100, a warming centered
on about 7F above temperatures in 2000. In discussing even larger temperature swings during
glacial/interglacial periods, he noted that changes in orbital cycles set the timing for those changes, and
that CO2 moving in and out of oceans was the driver of the actual changes. He also pointed out that
the current climate variability in Maine is remarkable for such a small area, only 4 degrees of latitude,
being roughly equal to that between central Poland and northern Finland, close to 20 degrees. Most
striking, to this attendee, were the “time lapse” views of tree species change in Maine/Northeast since
the most recent glacial period, illustrating that there has been plenty of species movement in the fairly
recent past both southerly and northerly, since the ice retreated. The two “time lapses” showed
hemlock, and spruce/fir, but Dr. Jacobson made it clear that all species suites were involved in those
changes. Thus, today’s forest is not the “norm”; perhaps there is no norm. Spruce/fir, in particular,
has increased dramatically over the past 1,000 years, especially the past 500.
Q&A: If the current temperature change is greater and much faster than those causing the spruce and
hemlock shifts, can tree species “migrate” rapidly enough to adapt? The answer noted that the
temperature change rate is probably “new ground” for the Northeast, there are recorded instances of
much greater/faster changes – ice cores point to Greenland and Northern Europe having 10-15C
changes in a couple of decades as the Gulf Stream shut down and resumed, and that plant communities
were mainly able to adapt/migrate successfully. (He added that there was no cause for complacency.)
--Hector Galbraith, Manomet: His topic was practical adaptation strategies, and he began by adding
precipitation changes to the temperature modeling presented earlier. Overall precipitation would rise
by perhaps 10% (though the models are somewhat equivocal) with little change for summer and +2030% in winter, and more frequent extreme events. He thinks that “the risk of the naysayers being
wrong is so high” that we cannot afford to wait before acting. (I’m not sure if the “high risk” referred
to the probability of naysayers being wrong, or to the consequences of waiting if they are wrong, or
perhaps to both.) He added that most current environmental regulations are aimed at preventing
ecological communities from being undesirably altered by management, but that climate change may
require changes in communities.
There was then an extended Q&A period involving all three speakers. Some highlights (according to
my thinking, anyway):
Q: How does one find out what [strategies] are working?
A: A fairly long discussion on monitoring, its importance, the need for it to include “decision points”
where observations trigger changes in tactics.
Q: If in mixed forests we are likely to retain a diverse species mix, is that sufficient?
A: Depends on one’s goals, and the importance attached to things being lost. The example given was
Bicknell’s thrush, which in Maine requires dense high elevation spruce-fir as habitat. A small rise in
temperature could eliminate that habitat, and thus Bicknell’s. The same could be true for mountaintop
spruce-fir in the mid-Atlantic region. (A later questioner noted that Bicknell’s has been observed in
New Brunswick utilizing low-elevation softwoods. The response offered the possibility of two genetic
strains of the species, and the need to preserve genetic diversity within a species.)
Q: If commercial forest landowners desire to maximize revenue, likely by using the current familiar
species mix, may they be facing (or forcing) an abrupt change in the future?
A: The “pristine” areas [riparian buffers, inoperable acres, areas chosen for retention] may buffer the
greatest effects. Also, as the managed forest has already undergone alteration and is constantly
changing due to harvests, it may adapt more readily.
Q: Are there good examples of regulations that are working? If connectivity of habitat is essential, is
there a capital-forming mechanism in place to preserve it?
A: The answer had no hard specifics (and dealt mainly with the 2nd question), mentioning land trusts
and private philanthropy, along with the large easements in Northern Maine. Dr. Jacobson noted that a
“good management” bonus could aid in competitiveness, not specifically saying “certification” but the
reference seemed fairly obvious.
Q (More of an observation): A big problem is that we tend to cling to what we see, but trying to stop
all change isn’t likely to work. We need a change in how we think.
A: There is a danger in “being backed into defending the indefensible”, but we don’t yet know what is
truly indefensible. We should start now on things we see as vulnerable but manageable. A response to
a previous question (about water, amount and temperature issues) noted that salmon restoration is very
unlikely to be successful south and west of the Penobscot, and may not work there, with perhaps the
inference that those funds might better be used to maintain/enhance brook trout habitat.
I was at the St.John/Allagash breakout, but I think it wise to await the Manomet distillations of all the
breakouts before trying to summarize anything.
Final comment session: The theme continued to be “no regrets”, and that we were already adapting
because things are already changing – in reality have always been changing. Our challenge is to
manage the transitions as seamlessly as possible. One problem is that we currently have no robust
means of evaluating how well we are doing. A summary of “no regrets” that was offered (by Andy
Whitman) was, “using old tools in new ways.”