Climate Projections for Islands Trust Area

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Climate Projections for Islands Trust Area 
March 2020 
 
Photo: Tree eclipsed sun, Carla Funk   
 
Prepared by: Pinna Sustainability  

Climate Projections for Islands Trust Area         March 2020 
Pinna Sustainability   2 
Table of Contents 
Table of Contents 2 
Introduction 3 
Methodology 3 
Climate Indicators for Islands Trust Area 6 
Summary 6 
Projections Indicators 6 
Climate Projection Tables Details 7 
Summer Temperature Indicators 8 
1.1 Annual Hottest Day 8 
1.2 Days over 25°C 10 
1.3 Days over 30°C 12 
1.4 Growing Degree-Days 14 
1.5 Growing Season Length 16 
Winter Temperature Indicators 17 
2.1 Warmest Winter Day 17 
2.2 Coldest Day 19 
2.3 Frost Days 21 
2.4 Ice Days 23 
Precipitation Indicators 24 
3.1 Seasonal Precipitation 24 
3.2 Maximum 1-Day Total Precipitation 26 
3.3 Maximum 5-Day Total Precipitation 27 
3.4 1-in-20 wettest day 28 
3.5 Wettest Days 29 
3.6 Dry Spells 30 
Ocean Indicators 32 
4.1 Sea Level Rise 32 
4.2 Ocean Surface Temperatures 33 
4.3 Ocean Acidification 33 
4.4 Ocean Deoxygenation 34 
Regional Impacts 35 
Recommendations 38 
 
  

Climate Projections for Islands Trust Area         March 2020 
Pinna Sustainability   3 
Introduction 
Rising temperatures, changes to seasonal precipitation patterns and more extreme weather 
events are challenging the unique ecosystems of the Salish Sea. With a mandate to preserve 
and protect the islands, it is important for Islands Trust to understand how climate change will 
continue to challenge terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems, and use this information to inform the 
Islands Trust Conservancy’s conservation planning initiatives and property securement and 
management actions. 
This summary report provides climate projections and potential impacts for the Islands Trust 
Area to support decision-making around how to adapt future acquisition and stewardship of 
land to appropriately consider climate change. The first section offers key indicators of 
temperature and precipitation that display how conditions are expected to change within the 
Islands Trust Area’s land, waters and surrounding ocean in the 2050s and 2080s.
1
 The second 
section describes how these projected changes are expected to impact biodiversity, as well as 
terrestrial, aquatic and oceanic ecosystems.   
Methodology 
This summary report provides regional and site-specific past and future values for climate 
indicators based on an ensemble of 12 global climate models developed by the Pacific Climate 
Impacts Consortium (PCIC) that describe climate projections. The climate projections presented 
in this summary report are based on a “business as usual” greenhouse gas emission scenario, 
using the Representative Concentration Pathway of 8.5 (RCP8.5) within these models.  
The projection data was accessed from two different sources:  
1. Regional data from PCICs database. This source includes the data for Region 1, and maps 
for the Area which are offered throughout this summary report. This data is not p

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