Tampa Bay Water provides safe, potable drinking water to 2.3 million people in the Tampa Bay region. But future availability of surface water can be hard to predict, and drought is a recurring challenge there. The water utility managers are increasingly using seasonal climate forecasts to track climate variability, which helps them better plan their water supply and reduce their vulnerability to seasonal climate impacts.
Tampa Bay Water Supply Manager Allison Adams knows water is precious for the millions of residents who rely on the water agency for drinking water and recreation, and for the region’s natural ecosystems, including wetlands and lakes. Adams and colleagues discuss how their evolving water management approach allows them to balance diverse water needs in the face of often unpredictable water sources and cycles.
In this Climate Central-produced video, Dr. Susan Prichard is interviewed in the video and she presents the scientific basis for concluding connections between climate and the changes in the forest ecosystem is clearly, including the roles of pine bark beetle infestation, warming and drying climate in the region and early snowmelts that together may account for increased fire damage while noting the incompleteness of the research at the time the video was made. The economic impact and local strategies to mitigate both economic and environmental damage are also presented.
This video from ClimateCentral looks at the way climate conditions can affect vegetation in the West, and what influence this has on wildfires. Drought and rainfall can have very different wildfire outcomes, depending on vegetation type, extent, and location.
The NOAA Smoke Forecasting System integrates satellite information on the location of wildfires with weather data inputs from the North American Mesoscale model and smoke dispersion simulations. The result is a daily prediction of smoke transport and concentration 48 hours into the future. The model also incorporates U.S. Forest Service estimates for wildfire smoke emissions based on vegetation cover.
