The NJTPA Climate Change Working Group is a forum for concerned stakeholders to identify, support, and coordinate efforts in North Jersey to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to prepare the transportation system for the impacts of climate change on the environment. Participants in the NJTPA Climate Change Working Group share ideas, collaborate and provide input to the transportation planning process in northern New Jersey.
This webpage provides information and resources supporting the work of the Climate Change Working Group. Future meetings of the working group will be announced on this page and on the NJTPA calendar. Prior meetings of the Climate Change Working Group can be accessed under the related links section on this page.
Working Group Meeting - September 28, 2010
A Climate Change Working Group meeting was held on Tuesday, September 28th, 2010 at the NJTPA Offices in Newark.
N.J. State Climatologist Dr. David Robinson, Chairman of Rutgers University’s Dept. of Geography and New Jersey's State Climatologist, was the guest speaker. Dr. Robinson’s presentation entitled: "New Jersey's Changing Climate with a Transportation Spin"
PowerPoint (7 MB); Audio (MP3, 64 min.) covered N.J.’s recent weather extremes, what drives the state’s weather, whether the state’s climate is changing, and what the future might bring in terms of climate change.
Dr. Robinson stressed that weather and the changing climate are very important because they impact some aspect of EVERY part of our lives. At least half of the GPD is directly impacted by weather conditions. For example, transportation, agriculture, ecology, water, health and safety, energy and commerce are all influenced by changing weather conditions. Transportation is a major part of this. As far back as the trails of Native Americans, weather, climate and transportation have been linked. Transportation networks are not just impacted by bad weather, good weather, such as a good beach day, has major transportation implications.
Dr. Robinson went on to give a brief overview of climate science. He emphasized that the climate system is very complex, with all of the pieces operating at different speeds and levels. New Jersey in particular has a very variable climate because as he put it, “we don’t grow our own weather, import it.” New Jersey is squeezed between the north pole and the equator and a large land mass and the ocean, all of which create distinct weather patterns.
He went on to say that changes in climate are part of natural processes. Volcanoes change climates on a relatively short time scale and glaciers change climates on very long time scales. This makes it hard to pull out the distinctly human aspects of modern climate changes. As part of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) studies a model was run that assumed there were no human processes that were adding elements to the atmosphere. That model predicted that the climate would remain steady over the last 100 years. The only way they could get the model to predict the actual conditions seen over the last 100 years, was to assume human activities were causing the climate to warm. While this does not prove anything in itself, Dr. Robinson pointed to a preponderance of evidence that humans are the major cause of the observed and predicted changes in climate.
In terms of New Jersey’s future, at the heart of it, New Jersey is getting warmer. The climate is going to continue to warm, but we will also see greater variability. Averaged over years the climate will become warmer and wetter and it will be accompanied by droughts, floods, storms, heat and rising sea levels. It is predicted that by 2050, even with some mitigation efforts, summer in NJ will feel like a current summer in the Washington DC region and, without any mitigation, summer in NJ will feel like a current summer in Georgia.
Sea levels are predicted to rise at least 1 meter with more significant impacts occurring during storm events.
Dr. Robinson pointed to a very useful report that gives a more detailed account of the impacts of climate change on transportation. It is called the Potential Impacts of Climate Change on U.S. Transportation and can be found here http://onlinepubs.trb.org/onlinepubs/sr/sr290.pdf
Dr. Robinson’s final message was, “We will not be able to mitigate ourselves out of this, Adaptation is key.” He went on to say that mitigation is very important to ensure that the problems we have do not get worse, but our actions have already caused the climate to change and we need to focus on how to adapt to the new conditions before major damage occurs.
The meeting also included a presentation by Christine Schell, Supervising Environmental Specialist with the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection. Schell spoke about research and climate adaptation activities being conducted at the NJDEP and elsewhere in the state. PowerPoint (5 MB)
Ms. Schell stated that the Office on Climate and Energy at the NJDEP
facilitates efforts to address mitigation and adaptation policies related to climate change. The NJDEP receives its mandate from the Global Warming Response Act. That legislation calls for a reduction in carbon emissions to 1990 levels by 2020 and an 80% reduction below 1996 levels by 2050. To reach these goals, they have many mitigation efforts in place. The NJDEP established the Office on Climate and Energy to carry out the Department's mandates under the GWPA. Tasks of the Office include:
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Implementing the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative
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Developing the GHG emissions inventory
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Coordinating Statewide efforts for addressing the unavoidable impacts of climate change
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Working with the BPU and DOT on clean and green energy and transportation fuel initiatives
The law directed NJDEP to evaluate strategies for meeting the statewide limits and to make
recommendations. In December 2009, the State released Meeting New Jersey’s 2020 Greenhouse Gas Limit: New Jersey’s Global Warming Response Act Recommendations Report as required by the Global Warming Response Act.The Recommendations Report focuses on mitigation actions needed to meet the 2020 GHG limit, but incorporates a “framework” for addressing 2050 GHG limit. The Report also recognizes need to address the unavoidable risks of climate change and recommends that the State undertake a comprehensive adaptation plan.
In response to the adaptation planning recommendation, the DEP is pursuing several Statewide Adaptation Initiatives. They include:
- The Office of Coastal Management and Watershed Restoration is conducting a coastal community hazard resiliency study that will result in producing a vulnerability index.
- The NJDEP is sponsoring a study of the economic impact of Inaction, which is designed to estimate the economic consequences (costs and benefits) of climate change for ten sectors of New Jersey’s economy during 21st century, with a primary focus on 2020 and 2050. Sectors to be studied include ecosystem health, species habitat, water, fisheries, agriculture, tourism, energy, transportation, insurance and public health.
- DEP’s Office of Coastal Management and Watershed Restoration is developing the Coastal Community Vulnerability Assessment Protocol (CCVAP)CCVAP relies upon the development a coastal vulnerability index to identify hazard prone lands, and incorporates variables such as geomorphology, slope, flood prone areas, storm surge inundation, soil drainage, and erosion. The coastal vulnerability index also allows for the incorporation of sea level rise scenarios and their impacts on present storm surge models which can assist communities in identifying their vulnerabilities to the potential effects of climate change.CCVAP is currently being piloted with a select number of coastal communities
- The DEP is leading a multi-stakeholder working group, focused on the adaptive needs of NJ’s wildlife species and habitats. THis effort will conduct a vulnerability assessment of a subset of New Jersey’s habitat & focal wildlife species and produce a habitat management guidance document that will be integrated into the State Wildlife Action Plan initiative.
Please click on the following links for updates of past Working Group Meetings:
For More Information
Resources and documents relating to climate change are at right. For more information or to participate in the working group, contact Jeffrey Perlman at 973-639-8445 or jperlman@njtpa.org.