Building the Fifth National Climate Assessment through Process, People, and Purpose

The Fifth National Climate Assessment (NCA5), is the preeminent source of climate information for the United States. Development of the NCA5 was a significant and time-intensive process, bringing together over a dozen federal agencies and nearly a thousand authors, experts, reviewers, federal employees, and stakeholders over multiple years to contribute to the report.

By statute, the NCA is required to cover a huge swath of climate-relevant material, stretching across many scientific fields and communities, each with their own perspective and priorities. The NCA therefore represents a community of communities, weaving together groups of scientific experts who have their own ways of understanding data, interpreting user needs, and pursuing scientific inquiry. Despite the enormous challenge required to bring these widely varying perspectives together, the outcome - a useful and comprehensive summary of the state of climate science within the US, written to inform a non-technical audience about the risks they are facing under climate change- is a critical service to the country.

This talk will describe how the NCA5 engaged hundreds of scientists and stakeholders in collaboratively developing this report. It will also describe how NCA5 came into being and evolved, how users and stakeholders shaped the report and its mission, and how stakeholders can inform future choices about ongoing NCAs in the future.