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PIRCA Reports

Click to download PDF (9.4 MB)
PIRCA 2012 Full Report
9.4 MB
Executive Summary - click to download PDF (14.0 MB)
PIRCA 2012 Executive Summary
14.0 MB
Case Studies - click to download PDF (9.9 MB)
PIRCA 2012 Case Studies
9.9 MB

Climate Change and Pacific Islands: Indicators and Impacts is a report developed by the Pacific Islands Regional Climate Assessment (PIRCA) aimed at assessing the state of climate knowledge, impacts, and adaptive capacity of Hawai‘i and the US-Affiliated Pacific Islands (USAPI). The PIRCA is a collaborative effort engaging federal, state, and local government agencies, non-government organizations, businesses, and community groups to inform and prioritize their activities in the face of a changing climate.

The immediate focus has been on bringing together almost 100 scientific experts and practitioners to generate an integrated report to provide a regional contribution to the National Climate Assessment (NCA), which is conducted under the auspices of the United States Global Change Research Act of 1990. The PIRCA report examines the impacts and adaptive capacity of Pacific Island communities regarding climate change effects on freshwater availability and quality; regional and community economies; urbanization, transportation, and infrastructure vulnerabilities; ecosystem services; ocean resource sustainability and coastal zone management; cultural resources; and adaptation policy.

The initial PIRCA activities were conducted August 2011 through February 2012 and included multiple dialogs and three workshops to facilitate sharing, analyzing, and reporting on scientific consensus, knowledge gaps, sectoral needs, and adaptive capacity for addressing the changing climate. The material presented in the report is based largely on published research. The report was reviewed and approved by the PIRCA Steering Committee and workshop participants were invited to comment on the draft report.

To request hard copies of the PIRCA reports, please contact Pacific RISA Program Manager Laura Brewington.

ERRATA AND CORRECTIONS

Climate Change and Pacific Islands: Indicators and Impacts

*Note: all of the following issues are only present in the hard copy reports, and have been corrected in the digital versions as of Dec. 18, 2012.

Main Report:

1. Pgs. 47-48: The correct citation for the data in figures 2-10 and 2-11 is:
C.P. Guard and M.A. Lander, 2012: The climate of the Northwest Pacific and Micronesia during 2011, Oceania chapter in the Special Supplement: State of the Climate in 2011, Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 93, S215-S218.
2. Pg. 59: The sentence should read, “Between January and April 1998, Majuro Atoll in the Marshall Islands received only 8% of the normal rainfall for the period (Presley, 2005),” not “85%”.

Case Studies Document:

1. Pg. 1: The sentence should read, “Between January and April 1998, Majuro Atoll in the Marshall Islands received only 8% of the normal rainfall for the period (Presley, 2005),” not “85%”.

Minor Typos and Corrections in Main Report:

  1. Pgs. xiii, xvi, xv: The NOAA acronym should be expanded as the “National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration”, not “Oceanographic”.
  2. Pg 35: Chapter 2 contributor Yi-leng Chen’s correct affiliation is “Department of Meteorology, University of Hawai‘i at Manoa”.
  3. Pg. 89: Chapter 4 contributor Christin Giardina should be spelled Christian Giardina (USFS)
  4. Pgs. 89, 147:  Chapter 4 contributor Rich McKenzie should be spelled Rich MacKenzie (USFS)

Other Resources

Download the 2012 PIRCA Fact Sheet

PIRCA Fact Sheet
Click to download the PIRCA Fact Sheet

For more information about the 2012 PIRCA, see our PIRCA project page.

2 Comments on “PIRCA Reports

  1. Pingback: Pacific Regional Case Studies : Pacific RISA – Managing Climate Risk in the Pacific

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