A workshop entitled Development of Climate Projections for Use in Chesapeake Bay Program Assessments was organized to help the Chesapeake Bay Program (CBP) assess the applicability of available climate data, downscaling techniques, projections and scenarios to establish an approach for climate analysis in CBP models and assessments. The goal of this workshop was to assist the CBP with the selection process and formulate recommendations for future application of climate projections in assessments to be undertaken by the Partnership, including modeling efforts to support the 2017 Midpoint Assessment, as well as other programmatic climate change impact assessments.
The workshop was well attended by climate change scientists as well as CBP decision-makers and technical managers. A key finding of the workshop was that substantial scientific understanding currently exists, supporting the need to plan and act on the ongoing, continuous – but heretofore unrecognized – influence of climate change on Chesapeake restoration efforts, despite uncertainties. The workshop centered entirely on technical aspects related to climate science, research, data and information needs; matters of CBP policy were not addressed. Nevertheless, the workshop was partly motivated by existing policies, such as the 2010 Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL), that call for an assessment of the impacts of a changing climate on Chesapeake Bay water quality and living resources. The 2014 Chesapeake Bay Agreement also includes 29 individual management strategies, covering a wide range of watershed restoration goals that can only be sustained over the long term by addressing climate change impacts