Benefits and Challenges of Regional, Decentralized, Socially Networked Climate Services

Section 3.1.4 of the Federal Framework and Action Plan for Climate Services recognizes the role of regional applied science and service organizations that work with stakeholders to build understanding around information needs and work to co-produce information that meets those needs. This presentation will consider climate services from the perspective of one of these programs, NOAA Climate Adaptation Partnerships, formerly known as Regional Integrated Sciences and Assessments (RISA). Through nearly 30 years of research and engagement, we continually evolve our understanding of the problem at the center of adaptation to climate impacts. Society doesn't lack good information to act upon. Rather, numerous social barriers have persistently blocked efforts to change. Diagnosing, disentangling, and overcoming these barriers requires network thinking. By cultivating healthy networks of decision makers, communities, any agencies, we can create better services, gather critical information about the support people actually need, foster peer-to-peer learning and action, and transform mindsets. While no one entity is in charge of adaptation, our collective impact can set the foundation for change at the appropriate scales. Climate services functioning at these levels have common governance challenges that arise where the difficult work of collaboration takes place. We will talk about process and representation challenges inherent in regional examples as well as how we can scale up, scale across, and scale deep for expanded impact.