On 29 March 2011, the White House announced that Dr. Thomas Armstrong will be the new Director of the newly created USGCRP National Coordination Office. Dr. Armstrong comes to the position having most recently served as the Senior Advisor for Climate Change at the Department of the Interior, where he was a key figure in the development of the Department’s climate-change-related policies, organizational elements, and budget strategies. He has also acted as  the Vice Chair for Adaptation Science on the National Science and Technology Council’s Subcommittee on Global Change Research (SGCR), the steering body of the USGCRP. In this role,  Dr. Armstrong has been an active participant in the program’s restructuring and the drafting of the new strategic plan and has worked to identify key priorities in the field of adaptation research and oversee the seamless integration of these goals into the larger evolving vision of the program.  For the full White House announcement, see http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2011/03/29/strengthening-our-understanding-changing-planet.

The Department of Commerce and NOAA are pleased to announce the publication of "National Climate Assessment Development and Advisory Committee; Request for Nominations and Notice of Meeting." The Notice requests nominations of qualified individuals to the National Climate Assessment Development and Advisory Committee (NCADAC) and advises the public of an upcoming meeting of the NCADAC, pending final approval of its members. The meeting will be held in the Washington, DC metro area on April 4-6, 2011.

The Federal Register Notice, which includes instructions and guidelines for submitting nominations, is available here. Nominations are due by March 16, 2011.

Biographies of proposed nominees of the NCADAC are available here.

Updates on the April 4-6, 2011 meeting and location will be available here.  

The agenda is available here.

The National Climate Assessment Knowledge Management Workshop report (September 2010) and the Regional and Sectoral Workshop report (November 2010) are now available for download on the NCA website.

Introduction

The United States Global Change Research Program, in cooperation with the Department of State, request expert review of the Special Report on Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation (SREX) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

On behalf of the U.S. Department of State, thethe U.S. Global Change Research Program is coordinating the solicitation of comments by U.S. experts to inform development of an integrated set of U.S. Government comments on the report. The Global Change Research Program Office will coordinate collation of U.S. expert comments and the review of the report by panels of Federal scientists and program managers in order to develop a consolidated U.S. Government submission. Expert comments must be received via the internet-based application by Midnight, Eastern Daylight Time, 7 March 2011 to be considered for inclusion in the U.S. Government submission. An expert reviewer may also be asked to participate in the government review organized within his or her own country. In such a case, he/she should submit comments either as an individual or as part of the government review, but not both. 

If you wish to make comments on the draft, but do not want to contribute them as part of the U.S. Government review, please visit the following URL: http://ipcc-wg2.gov/extremes-sr/review/registration/. Visitors to that URL will be able to send an email to request a user name and password as an unsolicited expert reviewer. The IPCC will provide you with a user name and password once it has reviewed each request.

Because the report is still in draft, distribution of the materials for review will be through a password-protected website. This draft will undergo extensive revision based on comments received from many experts and governments. IPCC practice is that drafts of IPCC reports are not published until they are final. In making the document available for review by U.S. experts, we are requesting reviewers to indicate that they understand and will respect this practice.

If you wish to review the draft document, please visit: http://srex.globalchange.gov. There you will find additional instructions about the review process and how to submit comments. To receive a copy of the draft report for review, you will be asked to register with your first name, last name, institutional affiliation and email address. You will also be asked to accept a user agreement before submitting your request.

Background on the IPCC

The IPCC was established as an intergovernmental body under the auspices of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) in 1988. In accordance with its mandate and as reaffirmed in various decisions by the Panel, the major activity of the IPCC is to prepare comprehensive and up-to-date assessments of policy-relevant scientific, technical, and socio-economic information for understanding the scientific basis of climate change, potential impacts, and options for mitigation and adaptation. More information about the IPCC can be found at http://www.ipcc.ch. 

The IPCC develops a comprehensive assessment spanning all the above topics approximately every six years. In addition to these comprehensive assessments, the IPCC periodically develops Special Reports on specific topics. The Preparation of Special Reports follows the same procedures as for the Assessment Reports. Governments develop and approve plans for reports, and nominate scientists and experts as lead authors and reviewers. Authors prepare the reports, which go through several stages of review, following which member governments at a session of the IPCC accept them. Member governments also approve the executive summaries of the reports (known as a "summary for policy makers") in detail at the time that they accept the overall report. Principles and procedures for the IPCC and its preparation of reports can be found at the following web sites:

• http://www.ipcc-wg2.gov/AR5/extremes-sr/extremes_documents/ipcc-principles-appendix-a.pdf
• http://ipcc.ch/organization/organization_procedures.shtml

Background on the Report

In April 2009, the IPCC approved the development of a special report on "Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation (SREX)." The SREX is being developed under the leadership of the IPCC Working Group II. This report will exclusively focus on events and disasters that are related to climate change. The IPCC 4th Assessment Report identified and demonstrated the usefulness of taking a risk perspective in order to identify ways in which civil society can promote sustainable development while reducing the risk of climate-related damages and taking advantage opportunities that climate change will offer. This Special Report aims to assess policies, measures and tools and practice for managing the risk of extreme events to advance effective adaptation.

All IPCC reports go through two broad reviews: a first-order draft for experts, and a second-order draft for experts and governments. The IPCC Secretariat has informed the U.S. Department of State that the second-order draft of the SREX is available for expert and government review on February 7.

The approved outline of the report has a total of nine chapters. The early sections of the report discusses new dimensions in disaster risk, exposure, vulnerability and resilience, the determinants of risk, and changes in climate extremes and their associated impacts on the natural environment, human systems and ecosystems. The following section of the report discusses risk management at the local, national and international including cross-scale integrations. The report then outlines synergies between disaster risk management and climate adaptation as critical components for a resilient and sustainable future. The report closes with cases studies on extreme events, vulnerable populations and settings, and management approaches.

As part of the U.S. Government Review of the SREX, the U.S. Government is soliciting comments from experts in relevant fields of expertise. The Global Change Research Program will coordinate collection of U.S. expert comments and the review of the report by panels of Federal scientists and program managers in order to develop a consolidated U.S. Government submission. Expert comments received within the comment period will be considered for inclusion in the U.S. Government submission. Instructions for review and submission of comments are available at http://www.globalchange.gov/srexreview. 

To be considered for inclusion in the U.S. Government collation, comments must be received by midnight March 7th, 2011. Comments submitted for consideration as part of the U.S. Government Review should be reserved for that purpose, and not also sent to the IPCC Secretariat as a discrete set of expert comments. Comments should be submitted using the Web-based system at: http://srex.globalchange.gov/