The Fall 2023 Interagency Workshop on Assessing U.S. Regional Climate Data for Decision Making

The ambitious and ever-evolving climate modeling community research activities are loosely connected to the practical, urgent needs for localized information that a growing community of decision makers have. Distilled information from regional climate projections can inform the mitigation and adaptation choices to address the impacts of climate change at local levels when it is accessible. The establishment of a community of practice that includes both producers and consumers of regional climate projections can make this connection robust.

This presentation summarizes a workshop held in the fall of 2023 at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. The goal of the workshop was to survey existing downscaled climate data products, discuss plans for future products, and build an assessment framework to advance the use of such products, all to advance their use for decision making. The workshop served as a point of coalescence for community collaboration and a launching point to bolster the delivery of high-resolution (<14 km) climate products that are fit-for-purpose across sectors and regions within the U.S. The workshop united multiple federal agencies, private entities, and academic partners, representing a breadth of regional climate data producers and data users. The topics at the workshop covered the production and distribution of regional climate data products, choice of metrics and diagnostics for evaluating regional climate data products, use of ensembles, and characterizing uncertainties in future projections. These topics were designed to inform and guide employing regional climate data products for decision making and identify critical knowledge gaps to improve the Nation’s ability to adapt to a changing climate.