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Key Findings Current Coastal Management Challenges Current coastal management challenges are worsening. Top management challenges will be exacerbated by climate change. Current management challenges make adaptation planning and decision-making difficult. Climate Change Concerns, Knowledge, and Actions Attitudes and knowledge about climate change are strongly supportive of adaptation action. Attention to adaptation has increased markedly over the past five years. Adaptation planning and implementation is still in the very early stages. There is limited familiarity with innovative adaptation approaches. Information, Technical Assistance, and Training Needs Organizational missions, job responsibilities, and legal requirements shape common information use. Ease of access to information is the overriding determinant of information use. Specific information needs differ by professional group. Critical opportunities exist to meet coastal professionals' information, technical assistance, and training needs Survey Background Decision-makers in California's (CA) coastal counties recognize that climate change will impact their communities and coastline. Yet, coastal CA communities are at different stages in developing and/or implementing climate change adaptation plans. During the Summer of 2012, USC Sea Grant, in partnership with 14 other CA-based organizations (listed below), launched a survey to understand the needs and barriers coastal communities have in planning for climate change in order to develop appropriate trainings and technical assistance for communities and determine the best way to link communities to resources and tools already available. Survey Partners USC Sea Grant California Sea Grant Center for Ocean Solutions, Stanford University California Nevada Applications Program (CNAP) at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego through the NOAA Regional Integrat

"Science 25 November 2011: Vol. 334 no. 6059 pp. 1052-1053 DOI: 10.1126/science.334.6059.1052 * News Focus Adaptation to Climate Change Adaptation to Climate Change Time to Adapt to a Warming World, But Where's the Science? 1. Richard A. Kerr With dangerous global warming seemingly inevitable, users of climate information-from water utilities to international aid workers-are turning to climate scientists for guidance. But usable knowledge is in short supply. Figure View larger version: * In this page * In a new window Adapt to that. Climate will change, but decision-makers want to know how, where, and when. "CREDIT: KOOS VAN DER LENDE/NEWSCOM" DENVER, COLORADO-The people who brought us the bad news about climate change are making an effort to help us figure out what to do about it. As climate scientists have shown, continuing to spew greenhouse gases into the atmosphere will surely bring sweeping changes to the world-changes that humans will find it difficult or impossible to adapt to. But beyond general warnings, there is another sort of vital climate research to be done, speakers told 1800 attendees at a meeting here last month. And so far, they warned, researchers have delivered precious little of the essential new science. At the meeting, subtitled "Climate Research in Service to Society,"* the new buzzword was "actionable": actionable science, actionable information, actionable knowledge. "There's an urgent need for actionable climate information based on sound science," said Ghassem Asrar, director of the World Climate Research Programme, the meeting's organizer based in Geneva, Switzerland. What's needed is not simply data but processed information that an engineer sizing a storm-water pipe to serve for the next 50 years or a farmer in Uganda considering irrigating his fields can use to make better decisions in a warming world. Researchers preparing for the next international climate assessment, due in 2013, delive

December 18, 2012 The Ten Best Ocean Stories of 2012 | | | Share on redditReddit | Share on diggDigg | Share on stumbleuponStumble | Share on emailEmail | More Sharing ServicesMore Two market squids mating 2012 was a big year for squid science. Photo Credit: © Brian Skerry, www.brianskerry.com Despite covering 70 percent of the earth's surface, the ocean doesn't often make it into the news. But when it does, it makes quite a splash (so to speak). Here are the top ten ocean stories we couldn't stop talking about this year, in no particular order. Add your own in the comments! 2012: The Year of the Squid From the giant squid's giant eyes (the better to see predatory sperm whales, my dear), to the vampire squid's eerie diet of remains and feces, the strange adaptations and behavior of these cephalopods amazed us all year. Scientists found a deep-sea squid that dismembers its own glowing arm to distract predators and make a daring escape. But fascinating findings weren't relegated to the deep: at the surface, some squids will rocket themselves above the waves to fly long distances at top speeds. James Cameron Explores the Deep Sea Filmmaker James Cameron has never shied away from marine movie plots (See: Titanic, The Abyss), but this year he showed he was truly fearless, becoming the first person to hit the deepest point on the seafloor (35,804 feet) in a solo submarine. While he only managed to bring up a single mud sample from the deepest region, he found thriving biodiversity in the other deep-sea areas his expedition explored, including giant versions of organisms found in shallow water. Schooling sardines form a "bait ball." Small fish, such as these schooling sardines, received well-deserved attention for being an important part of the food chain in 2012. Photo Credit: © Erwin Poliakoff, Flickr Small Fish Make a Big Impact Forage fish-small, schooling fish that are gulped down by predators-should be left in the ocean for larger fish, marin

Nature has evolved efficient strategies to synthesize complex mineralized structures that exhibit exceptional damage tolerance. One such example is found in the hypermineralized hammer-like dactyl clubs of the stomatopods, a group of highly aggressive marine crustaceans. The dactyl clubs from one species, Odontodactylus scyllarus, exhibit an impressive set of characteristics adapted for surviving high-velocity impacts on the heavily mineralized prey on which they feed. Consisting of a multiphase composite of oriented crystalline hydroxyapatite and amorphous calcium phosphate and carbonate, in conjunction with a highly expanded helicoidal organization of the fibrillar chitinous organic matrix, these structures display several effective lines of defense against catastrophic failure during repetitive high-energy loading events.

"What are the impacts of ocean acidification on key benthic (seabed) ecosystems, communities, habitats, species and their life cycles? The average acidity (pH) of the world's oceans has been stable for the last 25 million years. However, the oceans are now absorbing so much man made CO2 from the atmosphere that measurable changes in seawater pH and carbonate chemistry can be seen. It is predicted that this could affect the basic biological functions of many marine organisms. This in turn could have implications for the survival of populations and communities, as well as the maintenance of biodiversity and ecosystem function. In the seas around the UK, the habitats that make up the seafloor, along with the animals associated with them, play a crucial role in maintaining a healthy and productive marine ecosystem. This is important considering 40% of the world's population lives within 100km of the coast and many of these people depend on coastal systems for food, economic prosperity and well-being. Given that coastal habitats also harbour incredibly high levels of biodiversity, any environmental change that affects these important ecosystems could have substantial environmental and economical impacts. During several recent international meetings scientific experts have concluded that new research is urgently needed. In particular we need long-term studies that determine: which organisms are likely to be tolerant to high CO2 and which are vulnerable; whether organisms will have time to adapt or acclimatise to this rapid environmental change; and how the interactions between individuals that determine ecosystem structure will be affected. This current lack of understanding is a major problem as ocean acidification is a rapidly evolving management issue and, with an insufficient knowledge base, policy makers and managers are struggling to formulate effective strategies to sustain and protect the marine environment in the face of ocean acidification."

Evolution Two Critics Without a Clue What Darwin Got Wrong by Jerry Fodor and Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, 2010. 286 pp. $26. ISBN 9780374288792. Profile, London. 280 pp. £20. ISBN 9781846682193. 1. Douglas J. Futuyma + Author Affiliations 1. The reviewer is at the Department of Ecology and Evolution, Stony Brook University, 650 Life Sciences Building, Stony Brook, NY 11794-5245, USA. 1. E-mail: futuyma@life.bio.sunysb.edu Summary Objecting on both philosophical and empirical grounds, Fodor and Piattelli-Palmarini reject natural selection as the mechanism of adaptive evolution.

UN Climate Change Ocean Climate Forum