Coastal Climate Extension

John Tribbia and Susan Moser address this issue in their 2008 Environmental Science and Policy paper on California coastal managers’ needs for climate information. Although this paper focuses on research done in California, I suspect that many of their conclusions apply broadly. For example, only about 30% of the coastal managers surveyed reported using scientific journal articles occasionally or frequently – the remaining 70% use them rarely or not at all. If you clicked on that link to the article, I imagine you found out pretty quickly that if you don’t have a subscription (or access to a university library that has a subscription), it’s going to cost you $31.50 to read it. And that’s just to get access to the ONE ARTICLE. Why not just have scientists interact with stakeholders directly? T&M point out that those relationships depend on how willing and able both parties are to sustained interaction and communication – and alas, that’s not always possible. They suggest that we need "boundary organizations" that set up a structure for formalized interaction – i.e., organizations who focus solely on translating scientific information to stakeholders and decision making needs to scientists. The National Sea Grant College Program gets a specific shout-out as a possible boundary organization with such capabilities.

I don’t know whether this was a coincidence, but about the time T&M submitted their paper Sea Grant put out a request for proposals to establish a climate extension program. Enter the Carolinas Coastal Climate Outreach Initiative partnership between the South Carolina Sea Grant Extension Program, the North Carolina Sea Grant Extension, and the Carolinas Integrated Sciences and Assessment CISA) center at the University of South Carolina. One of the things this proposal did was establish a position for a Regional Climate Extension Specialist (that would be me). I see my primary duties as developing climate outreach programs for stakeholders and helping researchers design new research programs that meet climate information needs along the North and South Carolina coasts.

The fun part is now figuring out how one implements a climate extension program. There are lots of challenges to address – not the least of which is overcoming public perceptions about climate variability and change in order to generate productive discussions that translate into effective decision-making. Of course there are lots of other steps along the way – identifying the information needs of stakeholders in the Carolinas, networking with other extension agents, developing ways to measure the impacts the climate extension program is having… the list goes on. The examples of climate extension specialists are few and far between – the University of Florida has a Climate Extension and Applied Research program, and there’s also a climate extension specialist for the University of Minnesota Extension. However, the NC/SC program seems to be the first program wholly housed in a boundary organization that focuses on coastal issues. So I have my work cut out for me. I intend to post at least once a week to this blog, so in a year or so it should be an interesting tool for tracking how coastal climate extension is evolving. There’s a comment feature, and I welcome your questions and suggestions. I do moderate the comments, and I reserve the right to refuse to post anything inappropriate. This blog isn’t the place for politics or advocacy. However, I do hope that it serves as a record of a place where informed climate-related decision-making is alive and well along the coast. In other words, this blog is the place for making climate science useful.

-Jess