Climate change impacts on transportation 2008 U.S. Senate hearing
Excerpts from this 135 page document follow.
DANIEL K. INOUYE, U.S. SENATOR FROM HAWAII
The transportation sector is a major indicator of the overall economic health of our Nation. Given that fact, it is important to recognize that climate affects the design, construction, safety and operations, and maintenance of transportation infrastructure and systems. For example, as we will hear today, predicted increases in precipitation and frequency of storms will impact our transportation systems; recent flooding in the Midwest resulted in submerged highways and railroad bridges, and significant diversion of freight traffic. In addition, severe storms have caused major airport delays around the country. While there is a need for the transportation sector to adapt to the environmental changes brought on by global climate change, it is also widely recognized that the transportation sector has contributed to the causes of climate change. (1) Transportation sources account for approximately one-third of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions.
Dr Thomas C. Peterson, Climate Services Division, National Climatic Data Center, National Environmental Satellite, Data & Information Service, National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce
I am an author of a National Research Council (NRC) commissioned paper released this past March on Climate Variability and Change with Implications for Transportation, along with other colleagues from NOAA and the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. My testimony will draw from the NRC paper as well as from 3 other timely reports of which I am an author of the report on climate extremes: The Potential Impacts of Climate Change on U.S. Transportation by the NRC Transportation Research Board (TRB) which was released March 11, 2008.
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