Climate Assessment Tool for the Coastal Community of the Southeast U.S

The mission of the Southeastern Climate Consortium (SECC) is to provide scientifically based climate, climate impact, and response option knowledge for decision makers in agriculture, water resources and forestry management. Two members of the SECC have joined together to begin development of a coastal climatology product that will be useful for commercial and recreational interests along the parts of the Eastern Seaboard and Gulf of Mexico. The area of interest extends from the state line of North Carolina and Virginia through the Gulf Coast of Alabama. This region also includes the Outer Banks and Florida Keys. The University of Georgia Marine Extension Service, in cooperation with Florida State University's Center for Ocean and Atmospheric Prediction Studies (COAPS), will focus on providing the information to area fisheries for field-testing to determine the effectiveness and efficiency of the climate products.

This website is called ‘Southeast Coastal Climate' and features a variety of interactive coastal climate tools. Instead of providing discrete climatologies, the tool emphasizes the significance of shifts in climate due to ENSO (El Nino Southern Oscillation). All of the stations, both terrestrial and marine, within 100 lm +/- of the coastline were used in the database for the tool. Temperature and precipitation data are presented either in yearly or monthly formats, with the ability for the user to select data for each ENSO phase. For a few select stations, wind roses and wind speed distributions were created based on hourly data. Historical information on hurricanes for the area will also be provided. The tool also interfaces with a tidal predictor that displays tide information for a number of ports, bays, and inlets through out the area of interest. A variety of marine data such as, sea surface temperatures, bottom ‘floor' sea temperatures, wave distribution graphics and general discussions on sea currents for the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic Ocean will be included.