Developing Climate Change Indicators for Tampa Bay

Dr. Ben Best ben@EcoQuants.com

Dr. Marcus W. Beck mbeck@TBEP.org

2024-06-26

CONTEXT: WE NEED FEEDBACK!

INDICATORS TO DATE: REPORT CARDS

INDICATORS TO DATE: DASHBOARDS

• Water Quality: https://shiny.tbep.org/wq-dash
• Benthic: https://shiny.tbep.org/benthic-dash
• Nekton: https://shiny.tbep.org/nekton-dash
• Seagrass Transects: https://shiny.tbep.org/seagrasstransect-dash
• Land Use Change: https://shiny.tbep.org/landuse-change
• Tidal Creeks: https://shiny.tbep.org/tidalcreek-dash
• Piney Point: https://shiny.tbep.org/piney-point

STATE OF THE BAY REPORT CARD

• Working towards a synthesis bay report card, e.g., https://www.cbf.org/about-the-bay/state-of-the-bay-report/
• Integration of multiple indicators for easy communication
• Missing indicators…

TRACKING CLIMATE CHANGE

• Assess long-term effects of sea level rise on emergent tidal wetlands
• Monitor transition zones from shoreline to uplands at ten locations
• Repeat surveys every 3-5 years for next few decades
• Directly relatec to CCMP Action CC-1

MORE ROUTINE INDICATORS?

• CCMP Monitoring and Indicators Plan, gap for “analysis and synthesis of long-term regional climate characteristics”

Relevant questions:

1. Are water levels inc, dec, or stable?
2. Are water temperatures inc, dec, or stable?
3. Is annual average rainfall inc, dec, or stable?
4. Is the number of ‘extreme’ events inc, dec, or stable?
5. Is evapotranspiration inc, dec, or stable?

APPROACH

• Indicators: relevant to people & ecology, covering land & sea
• Data: publicly available, current + historical, updated daily, authoritative, highest possible spatial resolution, API endpoint
• Methods: open-source, add new functions to tbeptools R package, end-to-end reproducibility
• Visualizations: contrast “now” vs “then” (climatology), accessible to lay person, sufficient for scientist
• Interactivity: zoom in/out of map & time series, and configurable: specify day/years for now vs then, # of smoothing days, …

DATA: PRISM

• Parameter-elevation Relationship on Independent Slopes Model
  prism.oregonstate.edu
  ground gauge station + RADAR; 4km grid, 1981 to present

tmin	Minimum temperature
tmax	Maximum temperature
tmean	Mean temperature (tmean = mean(tmin, tmax))
tdmean	Mean dew point temperature
ppt	Total precipitation (rain and snow)
vpdmin	Daily minimum vapor pressure deficit
vpdmax	Daily maximum vapor pressure deficit

• Tabs in app: Air Temperature, Rain

DATA: NOAA Tides & Currents

• Under NOAA Tides and Currents, there is the NOAA Center for Operational Oceanographic Products and Services (CO-OPS). Use the CO-OPS Data Retrieval API to extract sea level data by station.

• Tabs in app: Sea Level

DATA: NOAA CoralTemp

• NOAA Coral Reef Watch Daily 5km Satellite Coral Bleaching Heat Stress Monitoring Products (Version 3.1) 5km Sea Surface Temperature (SST) product to monitor coral bleaching heat stress (Liu et al., 2014), 1985-present

• Tabs in app: Ocean Temperature

DEMO

shiny.ecoquants.com/tbcc

• Histogram Cards (A) of “Now” (red line) vs “Then” (white) with avg difference value and explanatory caption (not sea level)

• Swiping Maps (B) to interactively compare “Now” vs “Then” for gridded data (not yet point, ie sea level)
• Trend Plot (C) with scatter plot of measurements and fitted trend line for sea level rise
• Daily Plot (D) showing day of year on x-axis and “Now” (red this year, orange last year) vs past (gray) for all but sea level

:::

QUESTIONS (1 of 3)

1. Indicators. Have we captured appropriate climate change indicators?

• Add “heat index”: temperature + humidity?
• Change water temperature?
  Continue using satellite sea-surface temperature (SST); or
  Swap with in situ measurement?
• Add severe weather / extreme events, like:
  • Hurricanes – intensity / frequency?;
  • Drought, flood or hail?

Please share your response: Feedback Form

QUESTIONS (2 of 3)

2. User Interface. Are the indicators displayed intuitively, are status/trends clear?

• Change Sea Level?
  
  • Continue using Station Map and Trend Plot; or
  • Switch to Swiping Map with markers displaying values and Daily Plot of “Then” vs “Now”
• Configurations (gear icon), too few/simple or many/complex?

Please share your response: Feedback Form

QUESTIONS (3 of 3)

3. Management. Does this information assist with planning or management priorities/actions?

Please share your response: Feedback Form

Next Steps

• Create landing page: data quality, limitations, assumptions, etc.
• Update tbeptools with new functions
• Operationalize on server with daily updates

Open-Source, Reproducible Workflow

Lowndes, Best et al. (2017) Our path to better science in less time using open data science tools. Nature Ecology & Evolution

Thank you!

Please don’t hesitate to reach out to either of us:

• Ben Best ben@EcoQuants.com
• Marcus Beck mbeck@TBEP.org

We would love to hear from you through our Feedback Form.