Global Climate Change and Transportation Infrastructure: Lessons from the New York Area

Global climate change (GCC) is now well known, and its impacts are a stark reality. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), changes in global climate in the 20th century, whether from human or natural causes, are already reflected in numerous indicators for atmospheric chemistry, weather, biological, physical and economic conditions, and members of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) working groups have rated the probability of those changes as either actually occurring or at least likely to occur. The estimated impacts of these changes under varying scenarios are in many cases pronounced, and the ability to cope with these impacts varies considerably depending upon the capacity of individuals, groups and institutions to adapt.