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.
A new resource ensures that Federal health and climate research is accessible to inform the Fifth National Climate Assessment.
In 2020, the CCHHG began an effort to identify and organize information on federally funded research activities on climate change and human health since 2016. This group, co-led by EPA and NASA, collated this information into a Federal climate change and health research compendium document to help inform authors of the Fifth National...
Interagency efforts ensure that social science expertise helps shape the Fifth National Climate Assessment.
USGCRP’s Social Sciences Coordinating Committee (SSCC) provides regular input into USGCRP’s sustained assessment process, including ongoing engagement with the academic social sciences community and recommendations for the further integration of social science topics into National Climate Assessments.
Fifth National Climate Assessment (NCA5) Webinar for Social Scientists. In October 2020, the SSCC hosted a public webinar for social...
Climate scenarios provide a consistent set of possible future conditions to inform analyses of the risks posed by climate change.
The Fourth National Climate Assessment (NCA4) assesses risks to the United States posed by climate and global change. Scenarios that represent a range of plausible future changes in key risk drivers, such as greenhouse gas emissions levels, weather and climate extremes, sea level, population, and land use, are used to guide NCA4’s evaluation of specific climate-related risks in regions and sectors across the...
An assessment of observed and projected climate trends in the United States forms the foundation for comprehensive analyses of climate-related vulnerabilities and risks.
USGCRP oversaw the production of the Climate Science Special Report (CSSR) as Volume I of the Fourth National Climate Assessment. CSSR assesses the state of knowledge on human-caused climate change, with a primary focus on the United States, including observed and future projected changes in temperatures, precipitation patterns, extreme...
Strong engagement efforts help ensure that USGCRP assessment products are relevant and accessible to users.
USGCRP recently finalized the fourth installment of the National Climate Assessment (NCA4). Volume I (the Climate Science Special Report, see Highlight 16) was released in November 2017, and Volume II (Impacts, Risks, and Adaptation in the United States) was released in late 2018. A technical input to the sustained assessment process, the Second State...
Recognizing the value of a wide range of expertise and experience in building its decision-support capacity, USGCRP has built engagement into the sustained-assessment process at multiple levels. Public comment periods, town-hall events, and calls for technical contributions encourage input from state, local, and tribal governments; academic institutions; the private sector; and the interested public. NCAnet, a network of organizations involved in the National Climate Assessment (NCA) and its communication, has grown to include more...