NC - Scientists' blog helps make NC climate, weather make sense ...
Two scientists in the Raleigh-based North Carolina State Climate Office were curious about how land, weather and water have shaped the geology, cultural history and climate of the coastal plain.
Associate Director Dr. Sheila Saia and Assistant State Climatologist Corey Davis, in collaboration with N.C. State’s Coastal Resilience and Sustainability Initiative, decided to take a deep-dive into the topic and find out.
To do this, they interviewed more than a dozen experts on topics like oceanography, geography, anthropology and climate science, then took what they learned and wrote the series, “Our Curious Coast” that they published in the office’s Climate Blog.
The series is broken up into the following five blog posts: geography and coastal climate, soils and agriculture, the ocean and our coastline, rivers and wetlands, and adaptation and resilience.
The series along with other weather and climate news written over the last decade are on the State Climate Office’s website.
Saia and Davis presented their findings during the recent N.C. Water Resources Research Institute annual conference at N.C. State University’s McKimmon Center in Raleigh.
For two days in March, professionals, students, consultants, local, county and state representatives and others shared new research, restoration, planning, stormwater management, hydrology, community engagement and more water-related topics. WRRI is a federal/state partnership funded by U.S. Geological Survey and the UNC System. Susan White is executive director of WRRI as well as for N.C. Sea Grant. The two programs regularly partner together, including on the conference.
Davis began the presentation by explaining that the climate office is a public service center for North Carolina, which means “we try to provide data or information or decision support” to answer weather- and climate-related questions.
One way the office does this is through its Climate Blog, he said, calling it a “timely avenue” to share weather news, monthly climate summaries and recaps of big events, both now and in the past.
“I really do think they’re very readable, very accessible, and actually may be a little bit fun,” he said, and, occasionally, they pursue a topic, which is how the series on the coast came to be.
Davis told Coastal Review last week that the “Our Curious Coast” series first started taking shape around seven or eight years ago as the result of discussions within the office.
