The objective of this session is to offer perspectives on how climate-focused networks utilize interdisciplinary approaches and provide services to support agroecosystem resilience and adaptive capacity, thereby reducing climate risk. A common thread that often links these efforts is ensuring that agricultural and natural resource professionals have the tools, resources, and knowledge they need to manage their land given changing environmental conditions and increasingly extreme weather and climate events. We invite participants to learn more about how these collaborative networks and organizations are reducing climate risk on agricultural and forested landscapes by sharing examples of research, application needs, challenges, and solutions.

The objective of this session is to offer perspectives on how climate-focused networks utilize interdisciplinary approaches and provide services to support agroecosystem resilience and adaptive capacity, thereby reducing climate risk. A common thread that often links these efforts is to ensure that agricultural and natural resource professionals have the tools, resources, and knowledge they need to manage their land given changing environmental conditions and increasingly extreme weather and climate events. We invite participants to learn more about how these collaborative networks and organizations are reducing climate risk on agricultural and forested landscapes by sharing examples of research, application needs, challenges, and solutions.

Volume II, Impacts, Risks, and Adaptation in the United States, is expected to be released in late 2018. Drawing on the physical science described in Vol. I, this assessment focuses on the ecological, societal, and economic aspects of climate change and variability for 10 regions and 17 national topics. Particular attention is given to observed and projected risks and impacts, with additional chapters on adaptation and reducing risks through emissions mitigation. Throughout its regional and national topic chapters, NCA4 Vol. II provides examples of actions underway in communities across the United States to reduce the risks associated with climate change, increase resilience, and improve livelihoods. NCA4 Vol. II has an increased focus on regional information and includes a new standalone chapter addressing the U.S. Caribbean. In addition, the report includes new chapters on air quality, climate effects on U.S. international interests, complex systems and multiple stressors, and an international appendix that looks at national assessments around the world.

NCA4 Vol. II was developed by more than 300 authors from across the country representing many different disciplines and region-specific expertise. The assessment is written for a broad audience, and is intended to help inform decision-makers, resource managers, planners, and all who are interested in better understanding the effects of climate change on the United States.

This session will highlight the findings of NCA4 Vol. II, related tools and initiatives, and examples of how climate assessments may be used to inform resilience planning and adaptation. Presentations will also explore new approaches to assessment and showcase new tools to assist in the assessment and decision support processes.

Presentations are particularly encouraged on topics such as cloud-based open data access strategies, scalable solutions for data analytics, artificial intelligence and machine learning applications, serverless workflows and their utility in facilitating data usage, improving search and discovery of cloud-based data, and enhancing understanding of data meaning through community-based approaches.

By understanding linkages between droughts and human health, we can properly prepare our public health agencies for the health impacts associated with droughts, which, in turn, can reduce health risks and save lives. We seek abstract submissions that investigate the linkages between the physical drivers of drought to the impacts on human health. We encourage submissions to not only be related research, but also applications, such as by public health officials, of such knowledge to reduce health impacts, as well as research that connects to other related climate hazards (such as heat waves and wildfires) connected to public health.

• How do you manage an organic, slow growing relationship when you're working with end-users, within the constraints of a typically static fixed term funding environment?  
• What does it mean to finish a project when your customer's requirements have changed in the meantime? 
• What happens when an end-user wants something that's not 'novel' or 'publishable'?  
• How can everyone win in this situation and what are the unexpected positives?

  What happens when it goes wrong?  
• Is there a better word than "end-user"? 
• We often learn more from failure than success, but how do we attack this?

The 21st century has already brought numerous weather extremes to Phoenix, ranging from 120 degree Fahrenheit temperatures to record flooding. Recognizing that Phoenix conditions could become the new normal in other parts of the world, this region has long embraced its sandbox role. City officials and researchers are actively seeking to understand the processes for these hazards, their impacts on urban infrastructure, and how they affect the population to increase urban resilience, especially among the vulnerable and underrepresented groups (low-income, elderly, native peoples, etc.).

The study of extreme events in light of cascading negative effects as well as feedback loops within weather hazards requires interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary collaboration. We welcome contributions that address extreme heat, drought, flooding, monsoonal weather patterns, and wildfires as they impact urban infrastructure, transportation, design and planning, risk perception, the energy-food-water nexus, and livability of cities.

Presentations are particularly encouraged from researchers studying Phoenix, but we also welcome presentations from research teams studying other desert cities (e.g., Dubai, Israel, Kuwait, Sydney, Melbourne).

The 21st century has already brought numerous weather extremes to Phoenix, ranging from 120 degree Fahrenheit temperatures to record flooding. Recognizing that Phoenix conditions could become the new normal in other parts of the world, this region has long embraced its sandbox role. City officials and researchers are actively seeking to understand the processes for these hazards, their impacts on urban infrastructure, and how they affect the population to increase urban resilience, especially among the vulnerable and underrepresented groups (low-income, elderly, native peoples, etc.).

The study of extreme events in light of cascading negative effects as well as feedback loops within weather hazards requires interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary collaboration. We welcome contributions that address extreme heat, drought, flooding, monsoonal weather patterns, and wildfires as they impact urban infrastructure, transportation, design and planning, risk perception, the energy-food-water nexus, and livability of cities.

Presentations are particularly encouraged from researchers studying Phoenix, but we also welcome presentations from research teams studying other desert cities (e.g., Dubai, Israel, Kuwait, Sydney, Melbourne).

While the water balance approach encapsulated in PDSI has the advantage that it may be estimated with limited input data, issues with the approach, particularly the calculation of potential evapotranspiration (PET) have been widely reported (e.g., Sheffield et al., 2012).    Moreover, the atmospheric-centric formulation of PDSI ignores the feedbacks from groundwater, soils, and vegetation on the drought state.  For monitoring and forecasting seasonal to interannual variability of drought, it is critical to capture the effects of soil moisture and vapor pressure deficit on increased surface resistances that reduce ET primarily though stomatal closure (Milly 2016; Novick et al. 2016).   For longer-term climate projections of drought, recent work further suggests that ignoring the stomatal response due to increasing CO₂ in PDSI leads to an overestimation of future projected drought area, while other metrics that include actual ET (e.g., P-E) lead to dramatically reduced projections of future drought area (Swann et al., 2016).

There have been attempts to develop so-called “objective blends” that can mimic the USDM (e.g., Xia et al., 2014), but these efforts do not accurately reflect the response of vegetation to drought stress or the stomatal responses because the land surface models used in the North American Land Data Assimilation System (NLDAS) do not include prognostic vegetation states or represent VPD feedbacks and their controls on stomatal conductance.   Moreover, from a monitoring perspective, these models often do not reflect rapidly developing droughts like thermal remote sensing-based indices such as the Evaporative Stress Index (ESI; Otkin et al., 2013).  They also do not take advantage of other remotely sensed and in situ observations such as Soil Moisture from ground-based networks and SMAP and terrestrial water storage from GRACE.

With this context, the proposed theme for the Third NOAA MAPP Drought Task Force is Drought Monitoring, Early Warning, and Projection in the 21^st Century—Beyond PDSI.   We seek an objective drought index that reflects the state of drought science and includes modern observational systems and models.  Ultimately, a well-informed and objective declaration of the state of drought must integrate various measures.  We invite submissions related to all aspects of drought monitoring, early warning and projection.

While the water balance approach encapsulated in PDSI has the advantage that it may be estimated with limited input data, issues with the approach, particularly the calculation of potential evapotranspiration (PET) have been widely reported (e.g., Sheffield et al., 2012).    Moreover, the atmospheric-centric formulation of PDSI ignores the feedbacks from groundwater, soils, and vegetation on the drought state.  For monitoring and forecasting seasonal to interannual variability of drought, it is critical to capture the effects of soil moisture and vapor pressure deficit on increased surface resistances that reduce ET primarily though stomatal closure (Milly 2016; Novick et al. 2016).   For longer-term climate projections of drought, recent work further suggests that ignoring the stomatal response due to increasing CO₂ in PDSI leads to an overestimation of future projected drought area, while other metrics that include actual ET (e.g., P-E) lead to dramatically reduced projections of future drought area (Swann et al., 2016).

There have been attempts to develop so-called “objective blends” that can mimic the USDM (e.g., Xia et al., 2014), but these efforts do not accurately reflect the response of vegetation to drought stress or the stomatal responses because the land surface models used in the North American Land Data Assimilation System (NLDAS) do not include prognostic vegetation states or represent VPD feedbacks and their controls on stomatal conductance.   Moreover, from a monitoring perspective, these models often do not reflect rapidly developing droughts like thermal remote sensing-based indices such as the Evaporative Stress Index (ESI; Otkin et al., 2013).  They also do not take advantage of other remotely sensed and in situ observations such as Soil Moisture from ground-based networks and SMAP and terrestrial water storage from GRACE.

With this context, the proposed theme for the Third NOAA MAPP Drought Task Force is Drought Monitoring, Early Warning, and Projection in the 21^st Century—Beyond PDSI.   We seek an objective drought index that reflects the state of drought science and includes modern observational systems and models.  Ultimately, a well-informed and objective declaration of the state of drought must integrate various measures.  We invite submissions related to all aspects of drought monitoring, early warning and projection.

While the water balance approach encapsulated in PDSI has the advantage that it may be estimated with limited input data, issues with the approach, particularly the calculation of potential evapotranspiration (PET) have been widely reported (e.g., Sheffield et al., 2012).    Moreover, the atmospheric-centric formulation of PDSI ignores the feedbacks from groundwater, soils, and vegetation on the drought state.  For monitoring and forecasting seasonal to interannual variability of drought, it is critical to capture the effects of soil moisture and vapor pressure deficit on increased surface resistances that reduce ET primarily though stomatal closure (Milly 2016; Novick et al. 2016).   For longer-term climate projections of drought, recent work further suggests that ignoring the stomatal response due to increasing CO₂ in PDSI leads to an overestimation of future projected drought area, while other metrics that include actual ET (e.g., P-E) lead to dramatically reduced projections of future drought area (Swann et al., 2016).

There have been attempts to develop so-called “objective blends” that can mimic the USDM (e.g., Xia et al., 2014), but these efforts do not accurately reflect the response of vegetation to drought stress or the stomatal responses because the land surface models used in the North American Land Data Assimilation System (NLDAS) do not include prognostic vegetation states or represent VPD feedbacks and their controls on stomatal conductance.   Moreover, from a monitoring perspective, these models often do not reflect rapidly developing droughts like thermal remote sensing-based indices such as the Evaporative Stress Index (ESI; Otkin et al., 2013).  They also do not take advantage of other remotely sensed and in situ observations such as Soil Moisture from ground-based networks and SMAP and terrestrial water storage from GRACE.

With this context, the proposed theme for the Third NOAA MAPP Drought Task Force is Drought Monitoring, Early Warning, and Projection in the 21^st Century—Beyond PDSI.   We seek an objective drought index that reflects the state of drought science and includes modern observational systems and models.  Ultimately, a well-informed and objective declaration of the state of drought must integrate various measures.  We invite submissions related to all aspects of drought monitoring, early warning and projection.