Impact-Based Climate Risk Communication Toolbox

The world is already feeling direct impacts from climate change. From heat waves, to intense storms, to drought and flooding, it is becoming impossible to ignore the impacts we are experiencing knowing they will continue to progress. Adaptation will be necessary across all sectors, and government agencies have started rolling out climate preparedness initiatives like NOAA’s “Building A Climate-Ready Nation” strategic plan from 2022.

In order to support Climate-Ready Nation efforts, National Weather Service (NWS) state and federal partners were engaged to understand their respective climate information and education needs. Through in-person and virtual discussions, several themes relating to these needs emerged: an inconsistent understanding of the timescale that climate issues occur; lack of awareness of available climate information; an emergence of negative feelings associated with the topic of climate; a recognition of the lack of public knowledge of personal risk; and a desire for reactive, instead of proactive, responses for climate issues.

In an effort to address these climate perspectives, an “Impact-Based Climate Risk Toolbox” was developed. This new toolbox on climate change impacts is designed to consolidate the many resources available regarding climate data and climate projections produced by the federal government and private sector. These compiled resources are presented as an interactive ArcGIS Online StoryMap in order to effectively convey information and give impact-based context for climate change effects. The user can navigate through “Temperature”, “Precipitation”, “Drought”, and “Intense Storms'' categories to view maps, concise text descriptions, and photos. Through these categories, the user explores potential climate change impacts like electrical grid failure, sea level rise, heat related illness, and more.

After receiving in depth feedback from partners regarding the use of the “Impact-Based Climate Risk Toolbox”, the consensus is the tool can be used as a concise and engaging training module for the general public, NWS partners, or meteorologists alike. Our goal is to educate these groups about direct climate change impacts and to inform decision makers about potential climate related disasters.