ROAD TO CLIMATE RESILIENCY: THE AT&T STORY
ROAD TOCLIMATE RESILIENCY:THE AT&T STORYClimate change is one of the world’s most pressing challenges,and weather events associated with climate change pose asignificant threat to the safety of communities and infrastructureeverywhere. Because AT&T believes businesses can be part ofthe solution, it is pushing for progress by working with the U.S.Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory to help pavethe way toward greater climate resiliency and by the developmentof AT&T’s Climate Change Analysis Tool. Using data analysis,predictive modeling, and visualization, this tool enables AT&T toreact to climate changes by making the adaptations necessary tohelp increase safety, service, and connectivity for its employees,customers, and communities. Being the first in the telecomindustry to publicly embark on such an effort, AT&T understandshow difficult it is to access usable climate change data. That is whyAT&T and Argonne will also be making the climate data that powersthe tool available for public use. By sharing this data, AT&T andArgonne hope to enable others—such as municipalities, utilities,and universities—to become more climate resilient.Copyright 2019 AT&T Intellectual Property. All rights reserved.
CLIMATE CHANGE OVERVIEWClimate change affects peoples’ daily lives in many ways. For example, people may notice unseasonablywarm or unpredictable weather, or pay higher food prices at their grocery stores. The Universal EcologicalFund (FEU-US) released a report linking food availability and price increases to severe climate-relatedevents such as more frequent and intense droughts and flooding.i People may also hear climate changediscussed around the globe, and scientific research such as the 2018 Intergovernmental Panel on ClimateChange (IPCC) report warns that the world must cut carbon emissions 45% below 2010 levels by 2030 orrisk irreversible effects to the environment.ii Throughout the world, people are experiencing the effects ofclimate change in their own backyard with the destruction of homes, businesses, and cities in the wake ofclimate-related weather and natural disasters. This will continue as the future impacts of climate changewill include a rise in temperatures and sea levels, changes in precipitation patterns, more droughts andheat waves, more intense hurricanes, and continued artic ice melt.iiiNotably, the way recent natural disasters have impacted infrastructure and human life has beenunprecedented. From 2016–2018, the southeastern region of the U.S. endured catastrophic hurricanesincluding Matthew, Irma, Maria, and Michael.The 2,975 deaths that occurred in Puerto Rico because of Hurricane Mariaplace Maria among the top-five deadliest disasters in U.S. history.ivHurricane Irma is the strongest hurricane on record globally, withsustained winds of 185 mph for more than 36 hours.v2017 was the costliest year ever as damage to U.S. infrastructure resultingfrom natural disasters totaled 306.2 billion in cumulative damages.viThe number of extreme weather events causing at least 1 billion in economic losseshas increased from 21 in the 1980s and 38 in the 1990s, to 92 from 2007 to 2016.viiThe southeastern U.S. faces a trend of increasing precipitation—alreadyexperiencing a 27% change in precipitation levels from 1958 to 2016.viiiAs these numbers compound upon each other, factoring climate resiliency into current and futureinfrastructure projects becomes increasingly critical for communities, and companies like AT&T.Vulnerable regions such as the southeastern U.S. face a persistent need for proactive resilienceplanning. Anticipating, adapting to, and recovering from the impacts of climate change will onlybecome more difficult and costlier in the future if left unchecked. That is why responsible companies,communities, and institutions are analyzing risks to protect their employees, assets, and customerexperiences in the face of climate change.2ROAD TO CLIMATE RESILIENCY: THE AT&T STORY
AT&T HUMANITARIAN SUPPORT FORRECENT CLIMATE-RELATED EVENTSAT&T has donated over 5.2 M in humanitarian aid to supportcommunities impacted by natural disasters in the U.S. from2014–2018. Nearly one-third ( 1.6 M) of AT&T’s humanitarian aid was directedto southeastern states impacted by natural disasters. More than half ( 3.7 M) was in response to climate-related events,such as floods and hurricanes.AT&T and its employees have provided an additional 5.4 M in aid tomore than 5,700 U.S.-based employees impacted by weather-relatedevents through employee relief funds since 2011.**Employee relief funds refer to programs paid by the AT&T Foundation Employee Disaster Relief Fund andthe AT&T Employee Relief Fund. Visit https://employeerelief.att.com for more information.THE ROAD TO CLIMATE RESILIENCYAT&T knows businesses can play a role in theglobal collaborative effort to address climaterelated change. It is committed to helping care forthe planet and is working to help mitigate climateimpacts. For example: In 2015, AT&T set a 10x carbon reductiongoal to enable carbon savings 10 times thefootprint of its operations by 2025.ix Since 2010, AT&T has implemented more than83,000 energy efficiency projects, resultingin annualized savings of 575 million for thecompany.x By the end of 2017, AT&T reduced fleetemissions by 174,403 metric tons of CO2,reduced the size of its domestic fleet by 1,100vehicles, and has committed to reduce itsfleet emissions 30% by 2020.xi AT&T is also one of the largest corporatepurchasers of renewable energy in thecountry as demonstrated by its investmentsto help deliver up to 820 megawatts (MW) ofwind energy per year. If AT&T is successful,the clean energy produced will enable areduction in greenhouse gas emissionsequivalent to taking more than 530,000 carsoff the road a year. xiithe resiliency of its business, its customers, andits communities. From adapting how the companychooses where to place new infrastructuresuch as fiber and cell sites, to enhancing currentnetwork redundancy in disaster-prone areas,the climate planning and adaptations AT&Tundertakes today will help boost its climateresiliency for years to come—and help thecompany deliver on its commitment to safety,service, and connectivity. But how are the mostneeded adaptations determined? This is thestory of how AT&T worked with Argonne NationalLaboratory to derive cutting-edge forecast dataand developed its Climate Change Analysis Tool tomap those climate forecasts onto AT&T facilitiesand infrastructure to help AT&T make smarter,climate-informed decisions and better serve itscustomers and communities.More information on AT&T’s climate mitigationefforts can be found in AT&T’s annualsustainability reporting.However, in today’s changing environment, AT&Trecognizes it must take steps now to help ensure3ROAD TO CLIMATE RESILIENCY: THE AT&T STORY
“WITHOUT ADAPTATION,CLIMATE CHANGE WILLCONTINUE TO DEGRADEINFRASTRUCTUREPERFORMANCE OVER THEREST OF THE CENTURY,WITH THE POTENTIAL FORCASCADING IMPACTS THATTHREATEN OUR ECONOMY,NATIONAL SECURITY,ESSENTIAL SERVICES, ANDHEALTH AND WELL-BEING.”The Fourth National Climate Assessment, the U.S. Global Change Research Program’smandated report to United States Congress and President4ROAD TO CLIMATE RESILIENCY: THE AT&T STORYXIII
AT&T’S CLIMATE CHANGE ANALYSIS TOOLI. RESILIENCY ASSESSMENTThe idea: create a tool that can visually layerAT&T’s physical asset data upon future climateimpact data to help AT&T ensure safety, service,and connectivity in current and future buildplans. The pursuit of this tool was spearheadedby Shannon T. Carroll, Director of EnvironmentalSustainability at AT&T. In his role with thecompany’s Corporate Social Responsibility(CSR) team, Carroll works across the businessto strengthen its environmental businesspractices. “We knew it was time for AT&T totake a deep dive into what we were doing as acompany to plan for the long-term impacts ofclimate change,” says Carroll on taking the firststep of conducting an assessment of AT&T’sclimate resiliency practices. “We received anindependent, unbiased, and credible point ofview. It provided validation of some thoughtsand challenged others, which is a good thing.”KEY FINDINGS OF RESILIENCY ASSESSMENT:AREA OF FOCUSSTRENGTHRECOMMENDATIONExpand long-term planningto include and account forclimate changeAT&T’s data, analytic, andtechnological resourcesLeverage capabilities todevelop a climate risktool to enable long-termclimate resiliency5ROAD TO CLIMATE RESILIENCY: THE AT&T STORY
II. KEY PLAYERS(AT&T & Argonne National Laboratory)As the opportunity to improve resiliency became clear from the assessment, Carroll:1.2.Formed a climate resiliency project team spanning across AT&T, including:Shannon T. CarrollDirector of Environmental Sustainability, Corporate Social ResponsibilityAntoine DifflothDirector of Data Insights, Chief Data OfficeMichelle McHughLead Project Manager, Chief Data OfficeEdmond Abrahamian, PhDPrincipal Data Scientist, Chief Data OfficeJohn BoydGeographic Information System (GIS) Lead, Strategic PlanningJoshua DaltonGeographic Information System (GIS) Engineer, Technology DevelopmentColin ProfittSenior Network Planning Engineer, Infrastructure Optimization and ImplementationChris MalteseSenior Business Manager, Technology OperationsSteve PouposDirector of Advanced Technology Support, Technology OperationsVictor DevitoArea Manager Regulatory Relations, Strategic PlanningJessica PhamProject Manager/Communications Manager, Chief Data OfficeEngaged external third party climate experts from Argonne National Laboratory (Argonne) tosupply AT&T with the climate data needed for the project, including:Rao Kotamarthi, PhDChief Scientist and Department Head, Atmospheric Science and Climate ResearchJiali Wang, PhDAtmospheric and Earth Scientist, Atmospheric Science and Climate ResearchEugene Yan, PhDPrincipal Scientist in Earth Science, Applied Geosciences and Environmental ManagementJulie Bessac, PhDAssistant Computational Statistician, Mathematics and Computer ScienceKeith RobertsResearch Associate, Atmospheric Science and Climate ResearchAlissa JaredResearch Associate, Applied Geosciences and Environmental ManagementMark PicelResearch Associate, Atmospheric Science and Climate ResearchThomas Wall, PhDSenior Infrastructure & Preparedness Analyst, Decision and Infrastructure SciencesWHY ARGONNE?After internal and external research and assessments, AT&T chose to partnerwith Argonne because of their expertise and access to: climate models that are high-res, are physics-based, and project locally andregionally relevant climate impacts extensively evaluated datasets on topography, land cover, and surface water supercomputing resources that reduce processing times and provide crucialclimate simulations a multidisciplinary team of scientists and engineers in climate science,environmental science, radar data analysis, inland and coastal hydrology,advanced statistics, infrastructure modeling and engineering, anddecision science6ROAD TO CLIMATE RESILIENCY: THE AT&T STORY
III. SCOPEA project scope was solidified to begin developing a tool that would help AT&T analyze and visualize futureclimate change impacts in regions within the U.S. Due to this region’s susceptibility to Atlantic hurricanes,AT&T narrowed the scope to four priority states within the southeastern U.S., and Argonne deliveredforecast data that predicted the likelihood and level of severity for four priority climate impacts.xivSCOPEUnderstand the impact of climate change on AT&T’s products and services and create a tool to visualizeclimate change impacts on AT&T assets by:1.Better understanding the climate risk and resiliency challenges of a company withsignificant infrastructure investment2.Creating climate datasets to address the risk profiles relevant to AT&T’s business3.Developing actionable high spatial resolution climate data products for usein AT&T’s Climate Change Analysis Tool4.Identifying research and data gaps for continued development of climate dataand science products to address identified risks and resiliency challengesPRIORITY STATESPRIORITY CLIMATEIMPACTSN O RT H C A R O L I N AInland Flooding Causedby Increased PrecipitationSO U T HCAROLINAAdditional Coastal Flooding Causedby Sea Level Rise and Hurricane SurgeGEORGIAHigh-Intensity Winds (Non-Hurricane)F LO R I DAHigh Intensity Winds (Hurricane)7ROAD TO CLIMATE RESILIENCY: THE AT&T STORY
IV. SCIENTIFIC APPROACHES1. ToolsArgonne used three major regional-scale climate environment models to deliver on the project scope:a.The Weather Research and Forecasting Model (WRF) was developed by the National Centerfor Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and was used to create the foundational dataset ofdynamically downscaled historic and future climate information over North America.b.The WRF-Hydro (Version 5) Model was run at a spatial resolution of 200 meters usingthe output generated from the WRF downscaled climate output to simulate historic andfuture inland hydrology and flooding. “The 200m spatial resolution of the WRF- Hydro simulations was informed and enabled by a number of factors, including the types of floodrisks of greatest concern to AT&T, the availability of baseline input data for the hydrologicalsimulations, and the availability of advanced computational resources. The 200m spatialresolution generates sufficiently detailed outcomes to inform local decisions, whilemaintaining statistically robust outcomes needed for extreme value analysis,” said RaoKoramarthi, Chief Scientist and Department head at Argonne.c.The ADvanced Hydrodynamical CIRCulation Model (ADCIRC) was used to perform coastalflooding simulations, with input from the WRF downscaled climate projections andhistorical data for the recent major hurricane events to drive those simulations. ADCIRCuses unstructured gridding and extremely high resolution (approximately 50 meters).To develop its high-resolution, regional climate model projections for North America (WRF Model),Argonne dynamically downscaled existing global climate model simulations that were developedfor the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fifth Assessment Report(AR5). This global climate dataset is known as the CMIP5 repository.The CMIP5 global climate data was regionally downscaled for a business-as-usual carbon emissionscenario, known as RCP 8.5, and a second case, known as RCP 4.5, that is closer to the Paris Agreement(2015). Under RCP 8.5, it is expected that the total atmospheric concentration of CO2 will be more thandouble current concentrations by 2100.2. Computational PowerArgonne is home to world-class high-performance computing systems, which allow Argonneclimate scientists to run large-scale climate simulations in an exceptionally short amount of time.Computations for the project were performed on leadership computing facilities operated by the U.S.Department of Energy at Argonne and at the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center.These simulations project future climate on an hourly basis, decades into the future. For example,simulating one year of future climate in the four priority states would require more than 4,000 hoursof computation time on a standard computer. On the AT&T project, Argonne made use of more than30 years of data for future climate in the four priority states. While the total computing time was inexcess of 50 million core hours, when run on Argonne’s supercomputers, it was completed in a matterof months.The hydrological simulations for inland flooding were performed using a version of the WRF-Hydro model, using Argonne supercomputing resources.8ROAD TO CLIMATE RESILIENCY: THE AT&T STORY
3. Priority Climate Impactsa. Coastal floodingArgonne conducted climate environmental modeling to explore future impacts of warmseason tropical cyclones on coastal flooding. The primary goal of this work was to develop amodeling system that was capable of accurately simulating flooding along the coastline of thefour priority states. This modeling system was then used to explore how coastal flooding maychange given a projected warming global climate.Two tools were used as a coupled model to simulate the coastal environment (i.e. storm surgeand wave action) with an unstructured mesh and up to 50-meter resolution:i.ADCIRC was used to solve the non-linear, barotropic shallow water equations, whichrepresent tidal process and storm surges. ADCIRC uses an unstructured meshthat allows variable model resolution ranging from 50 meters along the shore to10 kilometers in the open sea. This unstructured mesh enhances the resolution ofcoastal flooding effects near the shore and reduces the computation time for thearea away from the shore.ii.The Simulating WAves Nearshore (SWAN) Model was coupled with the ADCRICmodel to solve phase-averaged wave processes that occurred during tropicalstorm events.Five land-falling hurricanes [Hugo (1989), Charley (2004), Irene (2011), Sandy (2012), Matthew(2016)] were simulated to identify relationships between historic climate and hurricane-relatedcoastal flooding.To explore how coastal flooding may change in the future, meteorological fields (sea-levelpressure and near-surface wind) from Argonne’s WRF climate model dataset were used asinputs for the hydrodynamical models to project hurricane-related flooding at mid-century inthe four priority states.9ROAD TO CLIMATE RESILIENCY: THE AT&T STORY
b. Inland floodingIn addition to coastal flooding, inland flooding resulting from heavy rainfall is a major concernto AT&T. The WRF-Hydro (Version 5) was employed to simulate the entire hydrological cycle inwatersheds across a region. The model used a range of inputs—from future climate variables(precipitation, temperature, humidity, wind, solar radiation) to topography and vegetation—toinform a physics-based model.With projected precipitation and other climate parameters as input across the region,WRF-Hydro computes the extent of inland flooding that can be expected, as well as othercharacteristics such as depth of surface water accumulation, stream flow and flood duration.c.Wind speedsArgonne conducted a statistical analysis on wind speed conditions under historic climateconditions and under future conditions, including the scenarios mentioned earlier (RCP 4.5 andRCP 8.5). Climate change will affect wind conditions in terms of intensity, frequency, and theduration of intense events.To quantify these changes, wind speed distributions and some commonly used statistics(mean, variance, quantiles) for historic conditions were compared with the same statistics forfuture conditions. In addition, statistical analysis methods specific to extreme events were usedto assess potential extreme future wind conditions. The study is based on the multiple regionalclimate model datasets generated by Argonne, previously discussed. Results of the studyindicate that changes in wind conditions occur according to seasons and geographical areas.10ROAD TO CLIMATE RESILIENCY: THE AT&T STORY
V. CHALLENGESTOOL INVESTIGATION: To deliver maximumbenefit from this project, a data visualization toolthat was able to integrate AT&T’s asset data withArgonne’s climate data was needed. “The toolneeded to have layering capabilities and supportfor topological and geolocational features, at aminimum. If this tool were not already availablein-house, we would have had to either build itfrom scratch or license it from a third party,” saidEdmond Abrahamian, Principal Data Scientistat AT&T. Fortunately, AT&T discovered a viableinternal tool compatible with Argonne’s platform.PROJECTING CLIMATE EXTREMES: Probabilitiesof climate extremes are projected using advancedstatistical analysis of the output of the physicalclimate models. Generally speaking, the statisticalconfidence in future projections decreases fartherinto the future. For example, there is greaterconfidence in predicting the 10-year or 25-yearextreme event than in predicting the 5
Understand the impact of climate change on AT&T’s products and services and create a tool to visualize climate change impacts on AT&T assets by: 1. Better understanding the climate risk and resiliency challenges of a company with significant infrastructure investment 2.
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