The Department of Defense Climate Assessment Tool (DCAT): A Geospatial Platform for Assessing Military Exposure to Climate Change

The purpose of the U.S. military is to defend our nation from any number of threats and hazards. As noted in the Department of Defense’s Climate Risk Analysis, “climate change is reshaping the geostrategic, operational, and tactical environments with significant implications for U.S. national security and defense.” Climate change, while not a hard security threat like a malign international actor, is indeed a threat multiplier to defense readiness. This is why the Department published its Climate Adaptation Plan to ensure our military can operate under changing climate conditions, while preserving operational capability, and enhancing the natural and man-made systems essential to the Department’s success.

A key pillar of this adaptation plan is to enable climate-informed decision-making throughout the Department of Defense (DoD) across the Weather-to-Climate Continuum from days to decades. One of the primary ways the Department achieves this pillar at longer timescales is through the DoD Climate Assessment Tool, or DCAT: a screening-level geospatial climate index platform that uses historical and future climate projections to assess exposure to eight climate hazards, from coastal flooding, to wildfire and extreme temperature. DCAT uses rigorously tested and authoritative climate data (e.g., historical datasets, global climate model output), along with sophisticated data science to create overall climate hazard exposure scores for DoD locations.

Building on work by the United States Army Corps of Engineers for their Civil Works Vulnerability Assessment Tool beginning in 2011, DCAT has evolved to incorporate key science updates fit for the purpose of DoD missions and capabilities. DoD personnel can use DCAT to understand the effects of sea level rise at installations, helping to shape future planning and design. Readiness professionals can identify training bases susceptible to extreme temperatures and other climate hazards, taking the next steps to reduce future risk to our military personnel. Senior Defense officials can compare climate hazards within and across installations, better preparing them for projected climate exposure. Most recently, customized versions of the tool were developed for six partner nations in the interest of promoting security cooperation. Assessing climate exposure is just the first step in measuring and understanding system vulnerability. Planned work for DCAT includes enhancing its geospatial capabilities, continuously updating the climate data and science powering the tool, and expanding to link mission sensitivity and adaptive capacity for a truer representation of climate vulnerability in the DoD.

In this presentation, we will cover DCAT, the general science and methodology behind the tool, and some examples of how the tool is currently used to enable military resilience. We will also share an update on its future development.