The Third National Climate Assessment has provided a basis for understanding change, informing decisions, and communicating about climate, not only on a national scale but also at the regional, state, and local levels. For example, a number of USGCRP agencies are incorporating the Third NCA into their regional-scale science and decision support programs (see related Highlight 15). NOAA and partners have developed regionally tailored guides based on the Third NCA for educators teaching climate (see related Highlight 25). USGCRP supported a series of scenario-
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Highlights
Since 1989, the U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) has submitted annual reports to Congress called Our Changing Planet. The reports describe the status of USGCRP research activities, provide progress updates, and document recent accomplishments
In particular, Our Changing Planet highlights progress and accomplishments in interagency activities. These highlights represent the broad spectrum of USGCRP activities that extend from Earth system observations, modeling, and fundamental research through synthesis and assessment, decision support, education, and public engagement. Highlights describe the state of science at the time of publication of each yearly report, and may not reflect more recent advances in understanding. The date of publication of the source report is noted on each highlight page.
When the Third National Climate Assessment was released in May 2014, it made headlines in national and international media, local news outlets in every region of the country, and Federal, NGO, academic, and trade publications. The thousands of stories, blog posts, op-eds, and even comedy shows that have mentioned the Third NCA attest to its expansive reach, suggesting that the report is both in demand and accessible. But how can its success be measured, and how can that success be improved upon in the next quadrennial NCA?
As a first step in answering
Scenarios are descriptions of plausible future conditions—either narrative or quantitative—that provide a basis for analyzing potential impacts of and responses to global change. Scenarios are not predictions or forecasts; rather, they are tools to understand how future conditions might evolve under a range of possible decisions. By providing detailed examples of how different factors could change and interact, scenarios constrain uncertainty and offer valuable input for assessments. USGCRP is working toward scenarios of change that can feed into the
With leadership by EPA, NOAA, and HHS agencies including CDC and the National Institutes of Health (NIH), USGCRP is continuing development of its Climate and Health Assessment, a contribution to the sustained assessment process that will support the next quadrennial NCA report. The USGCRP Climate and Health Assessment will address the need for a more definitive understanding of climate impacts on public health, as called for in the President’s Climate Action Plan. It will synthesize
Following on a draft edition released in March 2014, the Working Group II (WGII) of the IPCC recently delivered its full contribution to AR5, the IPCC’s latest authoritative global assessment of climate change. The product of years of work by leading experts from around the world, the WGII contribution is a thorough examination of the worldwide impacts of climate change and the opportunities for response. It is organized into two report volumes
USGCRP agencies are at the center of a new initiative to advance climate education, literacy, and training in the United States. Led by OSTP, the interagency Climate Education and Literacy Initiative aims to connect students and citizens with the best-available scientific information about climate change. Agencies will apply their individual expertise to this unified Federal effort—for example:
The National Park Service will develop a
Citizen science—or the engagement of volunteers in scientific investigations—is a fast-growing field. By collecting data on natural phenomena such as the timing of bird migrations and plant flowering—sometimes from their own backyard—citizen scientists provide essential baseline information about key environmental indicators, in addition to strengthening their own awareness of and connection to their local environment. Citizen science has long been an important component of scientific endeavors and public engagement at USGCRP agencies such as DOI (particularly NPS and
...USGCRP has become a crossing ground for Federal health communities considering the risks of climate change. To expand the reach of this engagement within and beyond the Federal Government, USGCRP agencies supported a number of outreach events over the past year focused on climate and health (see related Highlight 13). As one example, USGCRP engaged a broad spectrum of health stakeholders around the release of the Third National Climate Assessment, disseminating key messages about health impacts through various networks, sharing supplementary resources, and
Philanthropic organizations can play a pivotal role in how communities strategize around education, housing, transportation, public health, and other social issues that link to the environment. These organizations are in a unique position to build synergy between Federal, local, and private efforts to improve climate literacy and help communities minimize and prepare for the consequences of climate change. As part of an ongoing tri-agency collaboration, program managers from NSF, NOAA, and NASA have been acting as government liaisons in bi-monthly meetings
Thunderstorm clouds play an important role in regional atmospheric dynamics, modulating such factors as air pollution, acid deposition, and—critically for climate models—precipitation and the balance of heat throughout the atmosphere. To date, in part because of the computing power constraints associated with running models at high resolutions, it has proved challenging to model in detail the effects of thunderstorm clouds on the solar radiation that drives the climate system.
Recognizing this opportunity for improvement, scientists with EPA, NOAA, and