Kelly Klima

Hurricane Modification and Adaptation in Miami-Dade County, Florida

We investigate tropical cyclone wind and storm surge damage reduction for five areas along the Miami-Dade County coastline either by hardening buildings or by the hypothetical application of wind-wave pumps to modify storms. We calculate surge height and wind speed as functions of return period and sea surface temperature reduction by wind-wave pumps. We then estimate costs and economic losses with the FEMA HAZUS-MH MR3 damage model and census data on property at risk. All areas experience more surge damages for short return periods, and more wind damages for long periods. The return period at which the dominating hazard component switches depends on location. We also calculate the seasonal expected fraction of control damage for different scenarios to reduce damages. Surge damages are best reduced through a surge barrier. Wind damages are best reduced by a portfolio of techniques that, assuming they work and are correctly deployed, include wind-wave pumps.

Geographic smoothing of solar PV: Results from Gujarat

We examine the potential for geographic smoothing of solar photovoltaic (PV) electricity generation using 13 months of observed power production from utility-scale plants in Gujarat, India. To our knowledge, this is the first published analysis of geographic smoothing of solar PV using actual generation data at high time resolution from utility-scale solar PV plants. We use geographic correlation and Fourier transform estimates of the power spectral density (PSD) to characterize the observed variability of operating solar PV plants as a function of time scale. Most plants show a spectrum that is linear in the log–log domain at high frequencies f, ranging from to (slopes of −1.23 and −1.56), thus exhibiting more relative variability at high frequencies than exhibited by wind plants. PSDs for large PV plants have a steeper slope than those for small plants, hence more smoothing at short time scales. Interconnecting 20 Gujarat plants yields a spectrum, reducing fluctuations at frequencies corresponding to 6 h and 1 h by 23% and 45%, respectively. Half of this smoothing can be obtained through connecting 4–5 plants; reaching marginal improvement of 1% per added plant occurs at 12–14 plants. The largest plant (322 MW) showed an spectrum. This suggests that in Gujarat the potential for smoothing is limited to that obtained by one large plant.

Ten strategies to systematically exploit all options to cope with anthropogenic climate change

The frequency and severity of many types of extreme weather events may be changing because of climate change. To date, most vulnerability studies and resulting toolkits for decision makers, while state of the art, only address a specific subset of possible extreme weather events and mitigation and adaptation efforts. This paper extends Haddon’s strategies to facilitate a holistic, systematic analysis of the options that communities have to cope with uncertain impacts from multiple hazards in multiple sector of society. This framework distinguishes between efforts to reduce the hazard, the exposure, and the vulnerability, thus helping end the semantic confusion of the meaning of adaptation and mitigation. Two case studies demonstrate the merits of the proposed framework. First, we show how the framework can facilitate the systematic identification of mitigation and adaptation strategies for a sector such as human health. Second, we apply the framework to a particular hazard, anthropogenic climate change, in three cities in US Northeast. We find that the three cities pursue a range of strategies, with varying degrees of effort. Comparing cities reveals that some still have unused capacities, especially in terms of reducing the exposure and vulnerability to climate-enhanced hazards. Spreading efforts across multiple feasible strategies increases the robustness of the cities’ policy approach and diversifies the cities’ investment in the face of an uncertain future. Subsequent work, such as a cost-benefit analysis, would help a decision maker to evaluate policy options and steer research efforts appropriately.

Ice storm frequencies in a warmer climate

Ice storms can produce extensive damage to physical infrastructure, cause deaths and injuries, and result in large losses through business interruption. Total costs can be billions of dollars. If society is to increase its resilience to such events, we need a better understanding of the likely frequency, intensity and geographical distribution of ice storms. Unfortunately, due to competing temperature and precipitation effects as well as surface effects, it is unclear how climate change will affect the frequency, intensity and geographical distribution of ice storms. Here we perform a simple “thought experiment” using vertical temperature profile data to explore how these might change given plausible future temperature regimes. As temperatures increase, we find a poleward shift and a shift toward winter. Furthermore, southern locations experience fewer ice storms at all times of the year, while northern areas experience fewer in the spring and fall and more in the winter. Using an approximation for surface effects, we estimate that a temperature increase will result in an increased frequency of ice storm events throughout much of the winter across eastern Canada and in the U.S. west of the Appalachian Mountains as far south as Tennessee. Future changes in variability may enhance or moderate these changes.

Bridging the Gap: Hazard Mitigation in the Global Context

Abstract Natural hazard mitigation is a recent field in name only. For decades various professionals have been practicing hazard mitigation: for example, emergency managers have been working with architects and city planners to update building codes for disaster-resistant construction, civil engineers have been working with local officials to design flood-resistant urban drainage systems, and foresters have been working with state officials to enact more effective prescribed burning practices. Yet most often, natural hazard mitigation has taken place as isolated activities scattered within the daily duties of diverse professions – an accidentally cross-disciplinary effort recognized as vitally important to protect individuals and communities, yet not recognized as its own multidisciplinary field. The crucial importance of natural hazard mitigation requires a more coherent approach, with consistent and accessible technical information and training, formal and informal discourse among hazard mitigation professionals, interaction with a greater public awareness of the social components, and recognition of hazard mitigation as a profession in its own right. Simultaneously, hazard mitigation professionals need to strengthen their multidisciplinary tendencies and continue to collaborate with other key fields, such as public health and the various sciences. Today many professionals are starting to bridge the gaps between disaster risk reduction, hazard mitigation, and climate adaptation. This article discusses the benefits of emergency management professionals working with others in community partnerships to achieve resilience

Beyond Global Warming Potential: A Comparative Application of Climate Impact Metrics for the Life Cycle Assessment of Coal and Natural Gas Based Electricity

Summary In the ongoing debate about the climate benefits of fuel switching from coal to natural gas for power generation, the metrics used to model climate impacts may be important. In this article, we evaluate the life cycle greenhouse gas emissions of coal and natural gas used in new, advanced power plants using a broad set of available climate metrics in order to test for the robustness of results. Climate metrics included in the article are global warming potential, global temperature change potential, technology warming potential, and cumulative radiative forcing. We also used the Model for the Assessment of Greenhouse-gas Induced Climate Change (MAGICC) climate-change model to validate the results. We find that all climate metrics suggest a natural gas combined cycle plant offers life cycle climate benefits over 100 years compared to a pulverized coal plant, even if the life cycle methane leakage rate for natural gas reaches 5%. Over shorter time frames (i.e., 20 years), plants using natural gas with a 4% leakage rate have similar climate impacts as those using coal, but are no worse than coal. If carbon capture and sequestration becomes available for both types of power plants, natural gas still offers climate benefits over coal as long as the life cycle methane leakage rate remains below 2%. These results are consistent across climate metrics and the MAGICC model over a 100-year time frame. Although it is not clear whether any of these metrics are better than the others, the choice of metric can inform decisions based on different societal values. For example, whereas annual temperature change reported may be a more relevant metric to evaluate the human health effects of increased heat, the cumulative temperature change may be more relevant to evaluate climate impacts, such as sea-level rise, that will result from the cumulative warming.

A rose by any other name—communicating between hazard mitigation, climate adaptation, disaster risk reduction, and sustainability professionals

Sustainability calls for massive changes in all sectors which can only be accomplished through collaboration, and yet professionals from related fields still often lack sufficient common ground. Among academics and practitioners, sustainability, hazard mitigation, climate adaptation, and disaster risk reduction are often thought of as quite different professions, all with unique communities of practice. Yet despite some interdisciplinary efforts and calls to bridge the gaps between these professions, a lot of work remains to connect these groups and promote urban sustainability. It is our responsibility as professionals interested in building sustainability and reducing risk to ask “Why?” When we can find common ground, we will be better able to integrate their approaches to create sustainable cities.

A New Approach of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Outreach in Climate Change, Energy, and Environmental Decision Making

Preparing a literate public to critically evaluate issues related to climate change, energy, and the environment is an important pillar toward more sustainable societies. In this article, we focus on how informal education and outreach programs that have a combined focus on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) and on climate change can improve knowledge, produce interest in STEM careers, and prepare educators to communicate and teach issues at the crossroads of STEM and climate change. The first part of this article describes the structure of STEM outreach programs for K-12 students and teachers in various parts of the United States. The second part presents, in detail, the structure and results of the outreach program SUCCEED (the Summer Center for Climate, Energy, and Environmental Decision-Making), a K-12 outreach program created by Carnegie Mellon University’s Department of Engineering and Public Policy (EPP). SUCCEED aims to 1.) improve scientific literacy through a summer program focusing on climate, energy, and environmental decision making for students entering 10th grade and K-12 teachers; 2.) encourage the pursuit of STEM-related careers, and 3.) help teachers prepare curriculum in these disciplines, to be used in their classes. This article also discusses how both the university and the local community can benefit from outreach programs like SUCCEED.

Hidden-Model Processes for Adaptive Management under Uncertain Climate Change

AbstractPredictions of climate change can significantly affect the optimization of measures reducing the long-term risk for assets exposed to extreme events. Although a single climate model can be ...

Surface heat assessment for developed environments: Probabilistic urban temperature modeling

Abstract Extreme heat waves, exacerbated by the urban heat island effect, have major impacts on the lives and health of city residents. Projected future temperature increases for many urban areas of the United States will further exacerbate these impacts. Accurate predictions of the spatial and temporal distribution of risk associated with such heat waves can support the optimal implementation of strategies to mitigate these risks, such as the issuance of heat advisories and the activation of cooling centers. In this paper, we describe how fine resolution simulations of historic extreme heat events are generated and used to train a probabilistic spatio-temporal model of the temperature distribution in an urban area. We further demonstrate how this model can be used to combine temperature data from various sources and downscale regional predictions in order to provide accurate fine resolution temperature forecasts. Applications of this model are presented for two urban areas: New York City, NY and Pittsburgh, PA, USA. Based on simulated temperature data from fine resolution forecasting models, we find that this probabilistic method can improve the prediction accuracies of urban temperatures, locally and especially in the short-term, with respect to other temperature forecasting and interpolation methods, such as the use of average city-wide temperature predictions and estimates at discrete weather stations.