NOAA’s Climate Ready Nation and the Role of the Eastern Region Climate Team: A Report

NOAA has been assessing the ways individuals conduct climate services as part of their goal to build a Climate Ready Nation. In doing so, we are assessing the work of the Eastern Region Climate Team (ERCT), a group that formed over 15 years ago to address the need for increased collaboration within climate services across NOAA’s line offices and funded partners.

NOAA leadership requested this review to understand how climate services work is conducted in the Eastern Region, how the team works with one another and with regional end-users, and how this team will inform the structure and function of NOAA’s Climate-Ready Nation Initiative. This assessment aims to highlight the group’s successes in climate services over the years, as well as the challenges they are facing, and the opportunities the team foresees in the future. It also attempts to capture and describe the team’s collaborative and interdisciplinary nature, a characteristic that is essential to the delivery of climate services and achieving a Climate-Ready Nation.

This presentation will cover the methods used to gather information from members of the ERCT as well as the general contents of the report, including one case study that showcases a specific example of the work completed by the ERCT. This case study will focus on the collaborative nature of the group by highlighting the Projected Intensity-Duration-Frequency (IDF) Curve Data Tool, an extreme rainfall tool that was developed by members of the ERCT. Through the ERCT’s network, it was successfully utilized and improved by multiple end-users across the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic regions.