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Monday, November 23, 2015

Potential Impacts of Climate Change on U.S. Transportation

By Committee on Climate Change and U.S. Transportation
Transportation Research Board
Division on Earth and Life Studies

The world’s leading climate scientists have reached consensus that human activity in the form of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions is warming the planet in ways that will have profound and unsettling impacts on natural resources, energy use, ecosystems, economic activity, and potentially quality of life. The earth’s climate is always in a state of flux, but what is of concern today is the rapid rate of change and the unabated contribution of human activity to its occurrence. Many studies have already examined the potential impacts of climate change on broad sectors of the economy, such as agriculture and forestry, but few have studied the impacts on transportation.
The primary focus of this report is on the consequences of climate change1 for the infrastructure and operations of U.S. transportation.2 The report provides transportation professionals with an overview of the scientific consensus on those current and future climate changes of particular relevance to U.S. transportation, including the limitations of present scientific understanding as to their precise timing, magnitude, and geographic location; identifies potential impacts on U.S. transportation and adaptation options; and offers recommendations for both research and actions that can be taken to prepare for climate change. The report also summarizes previous work on strategies for reducing transportation-related emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2)—the primary GHG—that contribute to climate change, a relatively wellresearched area (see Appendix B).
Climate change will have significant impacts on transportation, affecting the way U.S. transportation professionals plan, design, construct, operate, and maintain infrastructure. Decisions taken today, particularly those related to the redesign and retrofitting of existing or the location and design of new transportation infrastructure, will affect how well the system adapts to climate change far into the future. Focusing on the problem now should help avoid costly future investments and disruptions to operations. The primary objective of this report is to provide guidance for transportation decision makers on how best to proceed.


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Tuesday, November 10, 2015

The impact of climate change and weather on transport: An overview of empirical findings

By Mark J. Koetse and Piet Rietveld

This paper presents a survey of the empirical literature on the effects of climate change and weather conditions on the transport sector. Despite mixed evidence on many issues, several patterns can be observed. On a global scale especially shifts in tourism and agricultural production due to increased temperatures may lead to shifts in passenger and freight transport. The predicted rise in sea levels and the associated increase in frequency and intensity of storm surges and flooding incidences may furthermore be some of the most worrying consequences of climate change, especially for coastal areas. Climate change related shifts in weather patterns might also cause infrastructure disruptions. Clear patterns are that precipitation affects road safety by increasing accident frequency but decreasing severity. Precipitation also increases congestion, especially during peak hours. Furthermore, an increased frequency of low water levels may considerably increase costs of inland waterway transport. Despite these insights, the net impact of climate change on generalised costs of the various transport modes are uncertain and ambiguous, with a possible exception for inland waterway transport.


More on climate change:

Becoming Greenest: Recommendations for a More Sustainable Washington, D.C.

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