New England Regional Workshop on Climate Change Impact

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As scientific research has improved understandings of the complex ways that climate and other facets of the global environment are changing, increased attention has focused on the impacts of those changes on people and ecosystems. In response to these changes, the U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) have coordinated planning for a series of workshops that will focus on the impacts of global climate change on regional scales. Seven workshops in this series are planned for the spring and summer of 1997; another dozen regional workshops are expected to be held in the following year along with a national workshop, which is scheduled for November 1997. This award provides support to the University of New Hampshire for the conduct of a workshop that will focus on the regional impacts of global climate change in New England. The workshop will be conducted on the UNH campus on 3-5 September 1997. About two hundred people from Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Vermont, and upstate New York are expected to attend the workshop. The workshop will consist of a set of alternating formats, including plenary sessions, panel presentations, break-out discussions, and open-discussion sessions. Topics on which attention will be focused include the impacts of global climate change on forests, species diversity, coastal wetlands, aquatic ecosystems, coastal resources, water resources, agriculture, human health, energy, and transportation. A written report will be prepared and disseminated by the workshop organizers soon after the conclusion of the workshop. This workshop will provide valuable new insights into the impacts of global change on a diverse set of sectors and activities in the New England states. Because it is being conducted as part of a coordinated set of regional workshops, its outcomes will also be useful in a comparative framework as the U.S. assesses likely impacts of environmental change. In addition to its scientific value, the New England workshop will engage local residents from many different fields into discussions that will facilitate public education and outreach about this important topic.