Transportation planners can employ climate data to draw meaningful conclusions about the future. In fact, the Gulf Coast Study recommends that transportation decision makers in the Gulf Coast should begin immediately to assess climate impacts in the development of transportation investment strategies. The study also found, however, that transportation planners need new methodological tools to address the longer time frames, complexities and uncertainties that are inherent in projections of climate phenomena. Such methods are likely to be based on probability and statistics (i.e., risk assessment techniques) as much as on engineering and material science.