Overview of the National Climate Assessment (Invited Presentation)

The presentation will provide an overview of the 2014 National Climate Assessment (NCA). The NCA was developed over a four year process and included hundreds of scientists. It assesses the science of climate change and its current and future impacts on various United States regions and sectors. The report highlights 12 over-arching findings, and reports on 10 U.S. regions and 13 societal sectors and cross-sectoral issues, such as agriculture, water resources, energy, and transportation. The assessment further presents some of the responses that are underway and planned, including both adaptation and mitigation actions, and decision support. The final chapters of the report speak to research needs for future assessments, and the need for sustained assessments. The NCA included a new method of providing on-line traceablility of scientific findings to the data and information source from which they were derived. The NCA was made available electronically as well as in a condensed highlights report, and it meets the US Global Change Research Act mandate which calls for a National Assessment every four years.