The INCA Task Force has identified the need for discussion on important tools, methodologies, guidelines, and assumptions for assessment. USGCRP and the NCA team are actively soliciting input on the following topics:

· Knowledge Management, Metadata, and Peer Review:  managing data, archiving, quality assurance /  control, peer review, qualifications for inclusion of data in official Assessment documents; documentation of sources; chain of custody of information.

· Communications and Engagement:  Ensuring consistent messages, encouraging co-production of information between government and stakeholders, coordination with other federal climate-related programs, design of documents and tailored communications with a variety of partners.

· Economic and Alternative Valuation Techniques and Metrics for Climate Change Impacts, Adaptation, and Mitigation:  Ways of evaluating the effectiveness of adaptation and mitigation options using tools that acknowledge non-monetary values and inter-generational benefits.

· Vulnerability Assessments: Identification of approaches to evaluating the relative vulnerability of ecological and social communities and approaches to prioritization of risk across sectors and regions.

· Planning for Regional and Sectoral Assessments: Methods to ensure consistent approaches to building regional and sectoral components of the assessment.

· Role of International Climate Impacts and Responses, and their Implications for the United States:  The ways in which the NCA will consider the implications of stresses that are generated elsewhere in the globe and to consider the global context for the NCA process.

· Scenarios for Climate Change Assessment:  Methods for the development and use of consistent projections of possible future conditions for use within NCA activities.

· Climate Change Modeling and Downscaling:  Perspectives related to selecting model and downscaling outputs and approaches for their use in NCA activities. This includes socioeconomic, land use, and other model types and outputs, in addition to climate model outputs.

· Monitoring Climate Change and its Impacts: Selecting from existing monitoring and observing systems and a variety of impact reports to design an integrated, ongoing monitoring system for the NCA. This includes establishing a long-term, consistent approach to documenting climate impacts and trends (including developing indicators of, e.g., impacts to the built environment and energy sectors, impacts on and responses of natural systems, socio-economic and public health trends, and disasters and extreme events).