Climate Change: a hot topic at ESRI UC 2008

In keeping with the message of sustainability that was echoed throughout the plenary session, ESRI launched a new thematic track at this year's user conference: Climate Change GIS. Dr. Stephen H. Schneider, professor of biological sciences at Stanford University and presidential adviser on climate change, introduced the track with a thought-provoking keynote speech describing the preponderance of evidence compiled by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) showing trajectories of global warming through the end of the century.

ESRI is promoting GIS as a quantitative and predictive tool for understanding climate change within the ecological and atmospheric sciences. More than 20 presentations, panel discussions, and meetings were organized last week for ESRI's strategic partners to demonstrate how they are using GIS in climate research. A new user group was also formed on Carbon Management and Climate Change GIS where a carbon footprint data model was presented for managing infrastructure and resources in order to cut site emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.

This emphasis on research and carbon management, however, belies the need emphasized by Dr. Schneider to develop adaptation strategies that will build community resilience to changes already in the pipeline. Drawing on guidelines provided by California's Institute for Local Government, Tuesday's session on Climate Change GIS and Local Government identified initiatives where GIS can be used within climate action plans but it stopped short of demonstrating the power of GIS to assess local vulnerabilities and implement adaptation options.

GIS has evolved in recent years to enable public participation, discussion, and negotiation in spatial decision-making. Such deliberative approaches are particularly suitable for open and flexible processes like adapting to climate change. For ESRI's vision of Climate Change GIS to be truly relevant in the context of sustainability, it must be promoted as a tool for both mitigation and adaptation.