“Today, no nation can find lasting security without addressing the climate crisis. We face all kinds of threats in our line of work, but few of them truly deserve to be called existential. The climate crisis does. Climate change is making the world more unsafe and we need to act.”
– Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin in an address to the Leader’s Summit on Climate, 22 April, 2021.
Global temperature rise since the late 19th century—most of it concentrated in the last 40 year–has led to historically high temperatures with 2016 and 2020 tied for the warmest year on record (NASA 2021). Climate change impacts such as increased drought and flooding are happening with greater frequency while sea level rise and polar ice melt are increasing in both pace and and magnitude (Reidmiller et al. 2018).
Climate change is already causing significant shifts in the distribution of species and in distribution and structure ecosystems (Pecl et al 2017). In many cases, these shifts are already irreversible—with increasing ecosystem shift predicted in the coming years (Grimm et al. 2013). Using a “climate envelope” approach that correlates species’ occurrences with climatic and environmental variables Zarnetske et al. (2012) predicted that by 2050, 15 to 37% of species will be faced with extinction.
Increasingly, the complex management challenges posed by the interplay of climate change, ecosystem function, and land use are seen as a challenge that will require efforts across traditional ecological, conservation, and social disciplines (Bonebrake et al. 2018). To succeed in this context, natural resource managers of DoD lands will require both accurate and current scientific information and a knowledge of the wider environmental and social landscape within which DoD installations are embedded. The recent resource, ‘Climate Adaptation for DoD Natural Resource Managers: A Guide to Incorporating Climate Considerations into Integrated Natural Resource Management Plans’ (Stein et al. 2019) (https://www.denix.osd.mil/nr/dodadaptationguide/) represents a central reference for understanding and addressing the many challenges of climate change on DoD lands.