Purpose: The Climate Mapping for a Resilient Washington webtool provides state agencies, local governments and communities in Washington State with data and information on the expected changes in the climate and related natural hazards. Information is intended to inform assessment and planning for climate resilience. You can use this webtool to customize information for hazard- and sector-specific climate impacts and multiple future scenarios and time periods as appropriate for planning applications in your area.

Acknowledgements: Climate Mapping for a Resilient Washington was funded by the State of Washington and developed by the University of Washington, Climate Impacts Group in partnership with the University of Idaho, Research Data & Computing Services for web development. The content and design of the webtool were refined with feedback from Washington State agency staff, local government staff, and private consultants engaged in climate resilience planning in the state.

Disclaimer: The information provided in this webtool is intended for general planning, education, and assessment purposes only and is not recommended for other purposes, including, but not limited to permitting, project design, or regulation. The information contained in the webtool does not necessarily represent the views of the State of Washington, the University of Washington, or employees of the State of Washington. Data displayed in the webtool are from multiple sources and the original sources should be cited when possible.

Purpose: The Climate Mapping for a Resilient Washington webtool provides state agencies, local governments and communities in Washington State with data and information on changes in the climate and related natural hazards to inform planning for climate resilience.

The information is intended for general planning and assessment, such as climate vulnerability assessments, climate resilience plans, climate action plans, or climate resilience elements in comprehensive plans. The information can also be used for internal and external education and communications by providing a common understanding of the expected changes in the climate in your area.

Data Visualization and Exploration: Maps depict changes in the climate and climate-related natural hazards at the scale of the data from climate and hydrologic models. Graphs and tables summarize changes for counties in Washington. Communities and jurisdictions within counties are encouraged to use county summaries because the precision of most climate models is not sufficient to simulate changes at the scale of a city or town, nor to show variation within a county, except where there are significant geographic differences such as steep gradients in elevation.

You can explore the data by selecting a county and filtering by a sector or climate hazard. For each sector and hazard, a customized list of climate indicators, i.e., changes in the climate and natural hazards, is provided. Projected changes can be explored for multiple future scenarios and 30-year time periods through 2100 (See ABOUT CLIMATE DATA and DEFINITIONS for more information).

Selecting a Future Time Period: For the purpose of climate resilience assessment and planning, it is recommended to use a time period that is consistent with your planning horizon. However, later time periods may also be appropriate to consider because some actions to build climate resilience will require decades of planning before implementation and the design life of some assets and infrastructure can be decades to centuries, so exposure to changes in the climate will continue beyond the planning horizon. Data is not available for all climate indicators for all time periods.

Selecting a Greenhouse Gas Scenario: The selection of a greenhouse gas scenario depends on the time period and purpose of the application. A thorough assessment and planning process will explore multiple future scenarios and assess whether the impacts of concern differ among the scenarios. The higher greenhouse gas scenario (RCP 8.5) causes more warming by the end of the century compared to the moderate (A1B) and lower (RCP 4.5) scenario, but the scenarios do not differ significantly prior to 2050. For near-future applications, the choice of greenhouse gas scenario is less important than for late century applications. Data are not available for all climate indicators for all greenhouse gas scenarios.

Downloading the Data and Figures: Maps, graphs, tables, and data can be downloaded for use in external reports or presentations either using the blue buttons or clicking on the maps and graphs in the display.

Understanding the Importance: For each combination of sector, hazard, and indicator, additional information explains what factors to consider in your county or community to understand how exposure, sensitivity, and potential impacts will vary locally. Local data and expertise is critical to understand how systems, assets, and people will experience changes in the climate and natural hazards. For many changes in the climate, there is little variation across the state, so local information and expertise on current exposure, conditions, and sensitivity should be combined with the climate projections provided in the webtool.

Exposure: What local factors affect how much change a sector experiences?
Local exposure to changes in the climate depends on the amount and rate of change, as well as the presence of systems, assets, and people in places that are projected to change. Local variation in exposure requires local information about current exposure to hazards, such as flood zones, wildland-urban interface, urban heat islands and locations of vulnerable populations.

Sensitivity: What local factors affect susceptibility of a sector to change?
Not all people, assets, or systems will be affected in the same way by changes. Sensitivity is the degree to which a system or population is likely to be affected by the change. Locally, sensitivity will depend on characteristics and current conditions of systems, assets, and populations that predispose them to climate impacts. Local information and expertise should be combined with the climate projections provided in this webtool to assess sensitivity.

Potential Impacts: Without adaptation, changes in the climate are expected to affect systems, assets, and populations in many ways that will vary by sector and hazard. The impacts in your area will also depend on local exposure, sensitivity, and the capacity to adapt to the changes.

Most of the climate data displayed in this tool are projections from models of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5; Taylor et al., 2012). The CMIP5 data is publicly available on the WCRP website. Stream temperature data displayed in this webtool is sourced from CMIP3 (Meehl et al., 2007) projection data.

Global climate models have a coarse spatial resolution of about 100km by 100km. For more representative projections, this data is “downscaled” to finer resolutions by various methods to arrive at more localized and relevant information. The downscaling methods for the data displayed in this tool include the Multivariate Adaptive Constructed Analog (MACA) statistical downscaling (Abatzoglou and Brown, 2012), dynamical downscaling using the Weather Research and Forecasting model (Salathé et al., 2010 and Dulière, Salathé et al., 2013), hydrologic downscaling using the Variable Infiltration Capacity (VIC) and Precipitation Runoff Modeling System (Liang et a.l, 1994 and Regan et al., 2018), wildfire modeling using the MC2 dynamic vegetation model (Dominique Bachelet, 2015), and stream temperature modeling using the NorWeST stream temperature model (Isaak et al., 2017)

Future Climate Projections Data in this webtool are projections, possible future conditions given a set of plausible assumptions about the future. These data are not predictions, which describe probable conditions and do not include assumptions. Because it is impossible to know future emissions of greenhouse gas, global climate models simulate a series of future projections with assumptions about future greenhouse gas emissions; all of which describe possible future climate conditions.

Greenhouse Gas Scenarios For projections using the CMIP5 global climate models, the tool includes two greenhouse gas scenarios (where data is available): a low emission scenario (RCP 4.5) and a high emission scenario (RCP 8.5). Where data is sourced from the CMIP3 models (e.g., stream temperature projections), the greenhouse gas scenario is moderate (A1B).

Future Time Periods Most climate data in the webtool are projections for 2006 to 2100, and simulated historical climate from 1950 to 2005. When evaluating future climate change, the model projections are compared to the simulated historical period, not the observed conditions over the historical period. Most changes are calculated relative to the 1980-2009 simulated historical mean, except stream temperature change and sea level rise, which are calculated relative to the 1993-2001 and 1991-2009 averages, respectively.

Model Median and Ranges Scientific consensus is that climate change is occurring and is caused by human activity. Less certain is the magnitude of the future changes that will occur. To capture this uncertainty, the webtool displays a range of values from multiple climate models in the graph and tables. Singular values displayed on the maps and the tables are the median of the climate models. The exceptions to this are stream temperature and sea level rise, which display the mean of the climate models. The ranges reported in the graphs and tables are the 10th and 90th percentiles of the range of climate model projections.

Natural Hazards: Environmental phenomena that have the potential to impact societies and the human environment. A natural hazard is the threat of an event that will likely have a negative impact. Relatedly, a natural disaster is the negative impact following an actual occurrence of natural hazard in the event that it significantly harms a community. (Natural Risk Index, FEMA)

Climate: Climate is the description of the long-term pattern of weather in a particular area. Climate can be thought of as the average weather for a particular region and time period, usually taken over 30-years. Climate can include the averages of precipitation, temperature, humidity, wind velocity, phenomena such as fog, frost, and hail storms, and other measures of the weather that occur over a long period in a particular place. (NASA)

Climate Change: A change in the state of the climate that can be identified (e.g., by using statistical tests) by changes in the mean or the variability of its properties and that persists for an extended period, typically decades or longer. Climate change may be due to natural internal processes or external forcings, or to persistent anthropogenic changes in the composition of the atmosphere or in land use (IPCC Glossary of Terms, 2018)

Sector: Distinct categories related to human wellbeing, critical industries, or infrastructure and planning. Sectors included in the tool are based on the Washington State Integrated Climate Response Strategy and forthcoming climate resilience guidance from the Washington Department of Commerce.

Climate Impact: Effects on natural and human systems that result from climate variability, climate changes or related natural hazards (US Climate Resilience Toolkit). A potential climate impact can be assessed through examining the combination of exposure and sensitivity.

Exposure: Exposure to changes in the climate depends on the magnitude and rate of the change, as well as where people, systems, infrastructure, and ecosystems are located.

Greenhouse Gas Scenario: Scenarios of future greenhouse gas and aerosol emissions representing a standardized set of assumptions of humanity’s trajectory in the coming years. For projections based on CMIP 5 global climate models, the scenarios are known as Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP) and include RCP 8.5, a scenario where CO2 emissions continue to rise throughout the 21st century and RCP 4.5, a scenario where global CO2 emissions peak by 2040 and then decline. For projections from the CMIP3 global climate models (e.g., stream temperature projections), the greenhouse gas scenario is moderate (A1B).

Global Climate Model: A numerical representation of the climate system that is based on the physical, chemical, and biological properties of its components, their interactions, and feedback processes, and that accounts for all or some of its known properties (IPCC Glossary of Terms, 2018). For the climate models used in this tool, data is “downscaled” to finer resolutions from global climate models to arrive at more localized and relevant information.

Sensitivity: The degree to which a system, population, or resource is or might be affected by changes in the climate and related natural hazards. Sensitivity is based on inherent qualities and current conditions that affect capacity to withstand a change or shock (US Climate Resilience Toolkit).

Natural Hazards: Environmental phenomena that have the potential to impact societies and the human environment. A natural hazard is the threat of an event that will likely have a negative impact. Relatedly, a natural disaster is the negative impact following an actual occurrence of natural hazard in the event that it significantly harms a community. (Natural Risk Index, FEMA)

Climate: Climate is the description of the long-term pattern of weather in a particular area. Climate can be thought of as the average weather for a particular region and time period, usually taken over 30-years. Climate can include the averages of precipitation, temperature, humidity, wind velocity, phenomena such as fog, frost, and hail storms, and other measures of the weather that occur over a long period in a particular place. (NASA)

Climate Change: A change in the state of the climate that can be identified (e.g., by using statistical tests) by changes in the mean or the variability of its properties and that persists for an extended period, typically decades or longer. Climate change may be due to natural internal processes or external forcings, or to persistent anthropogenic changes in the composition of the atmosphere or in land use (IPCC Glossary of Terms, 2018)

Sector: Distinct categories related to human wellbeing, critical industries, or infrastructure and planning. Sectors included in the tool are based on the Washington State Integrated Climate Response Strategy and forthcoming climate resilience guidance from the Washington Department of Commerce.

Climate Impact: Effects on natural and human systems that result from climate variability, climate changes or related natural hazards (US Climate Resilience Toolkit). A potential climate impact can be assessed through examining the combination of exposure and sensitivity.

Exposure: Exposure to changes in the climate depends on the magnitude and rate of the change, as well as where people, systems, infrastructure, and ecosystems are located.

Greenhouse Gas Scenario: Scenarios of future greenhouse gas and aerosol emissions representing a standardized set of assumptions of humanity’s trajectory in the coming years. For projections based on CMIP 5 global climate models, the scenarios are known as Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP) and include RCP 8.5, a scenario where CO2 emissions continue to rise throughout the 21st century and RCP 4.5, a scenario where global CO2 emissions peak by 2040 and then decline. For projections from the CMIP3 global climate models (e.g., stream temperature projections), the greenhouse gas scenario is moderate (A1B).

Global Climate Model: A numerical representation of the climate system that is based on the physical, chemical, and biological properties of its components, their interactions, and feedback processes, and that accounts for all or some of its known properties (IPCC Glossary of Terms, 2018). For the climate models used in this tool, data is “downscaled” to finer resolutions from global climate models to arrive at more localized and relevant information.

Sensitivity: The degree to which a system, population, or resource is or might be affected by changes in the climate and related natural hazards. Sensitivity is based on inherent qualities and current conditions that affect capacity to withstand a change or shock (US Climate Resilience Toolkit).

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