How climate change may impact coastal events such as flooding is being considered by the NY Climate Impacts Assessment. Credit: Mary Austerman/NYSG

Contacts: 

Rebecca L. Shuford, Ph.D., New York Sea Grant Director, E: rebecca.shuford@stonybrook.edu, P: 631-632-6905

Katherine Bunting-Howarth, Ph.D., J.D., New York Sea Grant Associate Director, E: keb264@cornell.edu, P: 607-255-2832

Mary Austerman, NYSG Great Lakes Coastal Community Specialist, E: mp357@cornell.edu, P: (315) 331-8415

Kara Lynn Dunn, NYSG's Freelance Great Lakes Publicist E: karalynn@gisco.net, P: 315-465-7578

— Edited by Amanda Stevens, NYSERDA

Newark, NY, May 4, 2022 - New York Sea Grant Director Rebecca Shuford, Ph.D., and New York Sea Grant’s Great Lakes Coastal Community Development Specialist Mary Austerman are serving on New York’s Climate Impacts Assessments technical working group teams. New York State Governor Kathy Hochul announced their appointment to the teams in November 2021. The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) leads the project that is conducting research into how the warming environment will impact New York communities, ecosystems, and economies.

“Climate change is here, it’s real and no state has felt its impact more than New York. From hurricanes like Sandy and Ida, to seven feet of snow in Buffalo, we have seen our weather continue to grow more extreme each year,” Governor Hochul said in making the announcement of the Climate Impact Assessments project teams.

Shuford and Austerman are serving on two of eight technical working groups that will ultimately suggest science-based strategies to prepare for and adapt to climate change.

Shuford, headquartered on Long Island, is a member of the Ecosystems Technical Working Group. Austerman, based in Wayne County, will serve with the Society and Economy Technical Working Group. New York Sea Grant Associate Director Katherine Bunting-Howarth is serving in a sector advisor’s role with the Society and Economy working group.

“New York Sea Grant is pleased to provide its unique resources to this science-based analysis of what New Yorkers might expect from climate change and to help communicate the assessment findings and adaptation strategies to residents, businesses, organizations, and community leaders in ways that are relevant, easy-to-understand, and actionable,” said Shuford. 

The project also has technical working groups focused on agriculture, buildings, energy, human health and safety, transportation, or water resources. Each working group has its own diverse group of advisors, representing local, regional, state, and federal members of government, NGO, academic, nonprofit, and citizen groups. 

The final peer-reviewed Climate Impacts Assessment is expected in 2023. Watch for updates at nysclimateimpacts.org.


More Info: New York Sea Grant

New York Sea Grant (NYSG), a cooperative program of Cornell University and the State University of New York (SUNY), is one of 34 university-based programs under the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Sea Grant College Program.

Since 1971, NYSG has represented a statewide network of integrated research, education and extension services promoting coastal community economic vitality, environmental sustainability and citizen awareness and understanding about the State’s marine and Great Lakes resources.

Through NYSG’s efforts, the combined talents of university scientists and extension specialists help develop and transfer science-based information to many coastal user groups—businesses and industries, federal, state and local government decision-makers and agency managers, educators, the media and the interested public.

The program maintains Great Lakes offices at Cornell University, University at Buffalo, SUNY Oswego and the Wayne County Cooperative Extension office in Newark. In the State's marine waters, NYSG has offices at Stony Brook University and Cornell Cooperative Extension of Nassau County on Long Island; at Brooklyn College, with New York City Department of Environmental Protection in Queens and at Cornell Cooperative Extension in NYC and Elmsford and Kingston in the Hudson Valley.

For updates on Sea Grant activities: www.nyseagrant.org has RSS, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube links. NYSG offers a free e-list sign up via www.nyseagrant.org/nycoastlines for its flagship publication, NY Coastlines/Currents, which is published quarterly.