Thinking Strategically The Appropriate Use of Metrics for the Climate Change Science Program (2005) / Chapter Skim
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Executive Summary
Executive Summary
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At the request of the James Mahoney, director of the Climate Change Science Program and chair of the Subcommittee on Global Change Research, the National Research Council's Committee on Metrics for Global Change Research was convened to 1. provide a general assessment of how well CCSP objectives lend themselves to quantitative metrics; 1
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discuss possible limitations of quantitative performance measures for other areas of climate change and global change research. The committee approached its task first by examining the experience of industry, federal agencies, and academia with implementing metrics, and then by formulating possible metrics for a wide range of CCSP objectives.
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Demands for higher levels of accuracy and specificity, more frequent reporting, and larger numbers of measures than are needed to improve performance can result in diminishing returns and escalating costs. The nearly continuous assessments of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, for example, have the potential to provide only incremental improvements in policy guidance while imposing a heavy burden on the scientific community.
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Adjustments to the measures will be required as program managers gain experience and the program itself matures and evolves. For example, the CCSP strategic plan places greater emphasis on scientific assessments, decision support, and short-term outcomes than USGCRP plans and requires a greater breadth of metrics.
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This observation and subsequent tests led to a surprising conclusion: a general set of metrics can be developed and used to measure progress and guide strategic thinking across the entire CCSP. The general metrics recommended by the committee are given in Box ES.1.
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3. A functioning peer review process in place involving all appropriate stake holders, with (a)
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2. The program has benefited society in terms of enhancing economic vitality, promoting environmental stewardship, protecting life and property, and reducing vulnerability to the impacts of climate change.
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Attention must also be paid to developing an evaluation system to score each of the metrics and to aggregate different types of measures. CONCLUSIONS · Meaningful metrics can be developed for most aspects of the CCSP, from enhancement of data networks to increases in public awareness of climate change issues.
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· Although some metrics can measure short-term impacts (e.g., CCSP payoffs scheduled to occur within two to fours years) , it may take decades to fully assess the substantial contributions to the global debate on climate change being made by the CCSP and its predecessor USGCRP.
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