National Academies Press: OpenBook
« Previous: Executive Summary
Suggested Citation:"Introduction." National Research Council. 2013. A Review of the Draft 2013 National Climate Assessment. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18322.
×

Introduction

The Global Change Research Act (GCRA) mandates that a National Climate Assessment (NCA) be produced every four years, as a report to the President and the Congress. Carried out under the auspices of the U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP), the NCA is an important effort to periodically inform the American people about the effects of climate change across U.S. regions and key sectors, to project major trends for the subsequent 25 to 100 years, to evaluate the current state of mitigation and adaptation activities, and to highlight key gaps in our knowledge. NCA reports were produced in 2000 and 2009; and a 2013 report is now in development. This document contains an evaluation of the draft 2013 report.

The National Research Council (NRC) has a long history of convening expert groups to provide independent advice and review for the USGCRP and its main program elements, including the NCA. A new committee to advise the USGCRP was convened in mid-2011, and from that committee a subsidiary panel was created with the specific charge of reviewing the draft 2013 NCA report. This panel is composed largely of members of the parent committee, but augmented in areas of key relevance to the NCA.

This Panel to Review the National Climate Assessment was specifically asked to consider the following questions:

 

1.    Does the report meet the requirements of Section 106 of the GCRA1?

2.    Is the report responsive to the nation’s needs for information on climate variability and change in a global change context, their potential implications, and the potential effects of different response options?

3.    Are the key messages and graphics clear and appropriate from a communications perspective?

 

 

1 SEC.106. SCIENTIFIC ASSESSMENT: On a periodic basis (not less frequently than every 4 years), the Council, through the Committee, shall prepare and submit to the President and the Congress an assessment which

•    integrates, evaluates, and interprets the findings of the Program and discusses the scientific uncertainties associated with such findings;

•    analyzes the effects of global change on the natural environment, agriculture, energy production and use, land and water resources, transportation, human health and welfare, human social systems, and biological diversity; and

•    analyzes current trends in global change, both human- induced and natural, and projects major trends for the subsequent 25 to 100 years.

Suggested Citation:"Introduction." National Research Council. 2013. A Review of the Draft 2013 National Climate Assessment. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18322.
×

4.    Are there any critical content areas missing from the report?

5.    Are the findings documented in a consistent, transparent and credible way?

6.    Does the research needs chapter address the most important gaps in existing knowledge?

7.    Does the sustained assessment chapter provide an appropriate path to support the development of a sustained assessment process within USGCRP that engages regional and sectoral communities of interest?

 

The Panel conducted this evaluation during the same 12-week period that the draft NCA report was undergoing public review. To carry out this work, the Panel members held one in-person meeting and had a variety of additional exchanges via email, webinar, and phone—to share and debate their views on the NCA report and develop consensus answers to the Task Statement questions. Given the very short time allowed for this review, the considerable length of the draft report, and the great breadth of topics covered, it was not feasible for each Panel member to carefully review the entire document. Rather, the Panel relied on the expertise of just a few members to provide the primary review of specific chapters. The Panel then considered the chapter-specific comments collectively, to help develop their evaluation of the report as a whole.

This document provides the Panel’s consensus responses to the Task Statement questions listed above. With a report as large and diverse as this one, the answers to these questions were naturally a complex mix of positive reactions for some parts of the report and less positive reactions for other parts. Appendix A of this document presents a large collection of comments and suggestions focused on specific chapters, statements, figures, etc.. Because the Panel did not have time to collectively discuss each of these individual comments, they are not presented as true consensus findings or recommendations.

The Panel focused primarily on offering practical suggestions that could feasibly be addressed in the short time that the NCA authors will have to revise the document. But this inevitably spills over into more broad-based considerations about the fundamental approaches used in certain parts of the draft report, about the way the NCA enterprise is framed and designed, and about the nature and scope of USGCRP research that underlies the NCA findings. Thus some suggestions will likely need to be viewed as longer-term advice that may be applied in future NCA assessments.

We wish to acknowledge the tremendous amount of work that has gone into the preparation of the NCA report, and likewise to acknowledge that this NCA has been a significantly more ambitious effort than previous National Climate Assessments, in terms of the scope of topics addressed and the breadth of outreach/engagement processes involved. We offer our congratulations to the NCA leadership and authoring teams for their accomplishments thus far, and our sincere hope that the suggestions offered herein will aid their efforts.

Suggested Citation:"Introduction." National Research Council. 2013. A Review of the Draft 2013 National Climate Assessment. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18322.
×
Page 3
Suggested Citation:"Introduction." National Research Council. 2013. A Review of the Draft 2013 National Climate Assessment. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18322.
×
Page 4
Next: Answers to Task Statement Questions »
A Review of the Draft 2013 National Climate Assessment Get This Book
×
Buy Ebook | $34.99
MyNAP members save 10% online.
Login or Register to save!
Download Free PDF

As mandated by the Global Change Research Act (GCRA), the U.S. Global Change Research Program is currently producing a "National Climate Assessment" (NCA). The NCA is a report to inform the President, the Congress, and the American people about the current state of scientific knowledge regarding climate change effects on U.S. regions and key sectors, now and in the coming decades. This document contains an evaluation of the draft NCA report, presented through consensus responses to the Panel's Task Statement questions, and through a large collection of individual Panel member comments and suggestions for specific chapters, statements, figures, etc. While focusing primarily on practical suggestions for immediately improving the current draft, the Panel also raises some broader considerations about fundamental approaches used in certain parts of the NCA report, and about the scope of USGCRP research that underlies the NCA findings. Some suggestions can be viewed as longer-term advice for future versions of NCA work.

This NCA has been a significantly more ambitious effort than previous assessments, in terms of the scope of topics addressed and the breadth of public engagement processes involved. Some of the important new areas include the use of "traceable accounts," the articulation of needs for future research and a vision for an ongoing assessment process, the outreach efforts to help various stakeholders define their climate-related information needs, and the initial (though incomplete) effort to assess the current state of climate change response activities around the nation. Given the current state of the science and the scope of resources available, we believe the NCA did a reasonable job of fulfilling its charge overall. Although more needs to be done to fully meet the nation's needs for information and guidance, such needs cannot be met without an expanded research effort on the part of the USGCRP and future assessments.

The Panel suggests that the NCA report would be improved by addressing the numerous specific problems and concerns and the more cross-cutting issues raised in the consensus answers to the Task Statement questions—which include, for instance, the need to:

1. provide a clear overarching framework for the report that helps readers understand climate change as part of a complex system with interacting physical, biological, and human social/economic dimensions, and offers practical guidance on using iterative risk management strategies to make decisions in the face of large uncertainties;

2. clearly acknowledge how climate change affects and is affected by other types of major global environmental changes and other societal developments;

3. offer an explicit discussion about the uncertainties associated with the regional model projections presented in the NCA draft;

4. take full advantage of the e-book format planned for this document through strategic use of hyperlinks among different parts of the report and other innovative approaches that help guide the experience of the NCA's diverse audiences.

As the nation continues to engage with the threats, opportunities, and surprises of climate change in its many manifestations, the 2013 NCA should prove to be a valuable resource, as a summary of the state of knowledge about climate change and its implications for the American people.

  1. ×

    Welcome to OpenBook!

    You're looking at OpenBook, NAP.edu's online reading room since 1999. Based on feedback from you, our users, we've made some improvements that make it easier than ever to read thousands of publications on our website.

    Do you want to take a quick tour of the OpenBook's features?

    No Thanks Take a Tour »
  2. ×

    Show this book's table of contents, where you can jump to any chapter by name.

    « Back Next »
  3. ×

    ...or use these buttons to go back to the previous chapter or skip to the next one.

    « Back Next »
  4. ×

    Jump up to the previous page or down to the next one. Also, you can type in a page number and press Enter to go directly to that page in the book.

    « Back Next »
  5. ×

    Switch between the Original Pages, where you can read the report as it appeared in print, and Text Pages for the web version, where you can highlight and search the text.

    « Back Next »
  6. ×

    To search the entire text of this book, type in your search term here and press Enter.

    « Back Next »
  7. ×

    Share a link to this book page on your preferred social network or via email.

    « Back Next »
  8. ×

    View our suggested citation for this chapter.

    « Back Next »
  9. ×

    Ready to take your reading offline? Click here to buy this book in print or download it as a free PDF, if available.

    « Back Next »
Stay Connected!