This web map provides an overview of selected climate change hazard projections for Duke Energy’s service territory in North and South Carolina. It is an informational tool for Duke Energy stakeholders to understand potential climate change futures and the types of data that Duke is leveraging to understand and plan for physical climate change risks.
The scenarios and variables included do not reflect a selection of specific climate resilience planning scenarios by Duke Energy, nor do they reflect Duke’s climate change mitigation ambitions or preferences on greenhouse gas emissions policies.
Two greenhouse gas emissions scenarios were used: lower-end climate change (RCP 4.5 50th percentile / Intermediate-Low) and higher-end climate change (RCP 8.5 90th percentile / Intermediate-High). These scenarios provide lower and upper bounds on the range of potential future climate change risks.
Temperature and Precipitation: Temperature and precipitation variables are derived from an ensemble of 32 Localized Constructed Analogs (LOCA) statistically downscaled CMIP5 Global Climate Models (Pierce et al., 2014). Each projection “year” averages the 20-year period around the year of interest to minimize the influence of inter-annual climate variance. The historical baseline is 1991-2010, which aligns with the historical period used in the modeling.
Sea Level Rise: Sea level rise data are derived from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) sea level rise data portal. Historical 100-year high-water levels in the region are added on top of projected changes in mean sea level at each time period, under the “intermediate-high” and “intermediate-low” sea level rise scenarios developed by NOAA (Sweet et al, 2017). NOAA projections of sea level rise are relative to a 2010 baseline.
Note on Inland Flooding: Inland (i.e., non-coastal) flood designations are not included in this web map but are readily available at the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) web portal. Present-day FEMA flood zones represent a strong indicator of areas which may be at heightened flood risk under climate change, particularly in inland areas where sea level rise is less likely to alter floodplains.
This map includes county-level data from the U.S. Center for Disease Control’s Social Vulnerability Index (SVI). The SVI is expressed as a percentile value relative to all U.S. counties nationwide—with a score of 1 representing the highest possible vulnerability.
The CDC uses the SVI to “map communities that will most likely need support before, during, and after a hazardous event,” using census-derived demographic and socioeconomic data. This index is presented here for informational purposes only and is one of many potential methods of assessing community-level vulnerability.