[Federal Register Volume 75, Number 172 (Tuesday, September 7, 2010)]
[Notices]
[Pages 54403-54406]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2010-22229]
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OFFICE OF SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY POLICY
U.S. National Climate Assessment Objectives, Proposed Topics, and
Next Steps
ACTION: Notice of Publication of National Climate Assessment (NCA)
Objectives, Proposed Topics, and Next Steps and Request for Public
Comments.
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SUMMARY: The purpose of this notice is to enhance the value of the
National Climate Assessment (NCA), a project of the U.S. Global Change
Research Program, by engaging people who are interested in climate
issues and requesting specific input on the outline for the next NCA
synthesis report, to be delivered to Congress and published in June
2013. This notice refers to the NCA Objectives, Proposed Topics, and
Next Steps (http://globalchange.gov/hat-we-do/assessment/notices).
Public comments received on these documents will be evaluated and, if
appropriate, used to inform the NCA structure and process. Updates on
the NCA structure and process will be posted on the NCA Web site
(http://globalchange.gov/what-we-do/assessment) as they are available.
Comments will also be provided to the Federal Advisory Committee for
the NCA, the ``National Climate Assessment Development and Advisory
Committee,'' when it is constituted this fall. All comments will be
collated and posted on the NCA Web site.
Response Instructions: The White House Office of Science and
Technology Policy and the U.S. Global Change Research Program are
interested in comments on the NCA Objectives, Proposed Topics, and Next
Steps. When submitting your response, please indicate the (1)
Objectives, (2) Proposed Topics, or (3) Next Steps heading to
[[Page 54404]]
which you are referring. Please be specific and concise.
Responses to this request should be submitted by 11:59 p.m. Eastern
Time on October 8, 2010. Responses to this request must be submitted
electronically at http://globalchange.gov/what-we-do/assessment/notices.
Responses to this notice are not offers and cannot be accepted by
the Government to form a binding contract or issue a grant. Information
obtained as a result of this request may be used by the government for
program planning on a non-attribution basis. Do not include any
information that might be considered proprietary or confidential.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Any questions about the content of
this request should be sent to Emily Cloyd, U.S. Global Change Research
Program Office, 1717 Pennsylvania Ave., NW., Suite 250, Washington, DC
20006, Telephone (202) 223-6262, Fax (202) 223-3064. Additional
information regarding this request can be found at http://globalchange.gov/what-we-do/assessment/notices. Questions and responses
may also be sent by mail (please allow additional time for processing)
to the address above.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
What is the NCA? The National Climate Assessment (NCA) is being
conducted under the auspices of the U.S. Global Change Research Program
(USGCRP), pursuant to the Global Change Research Act of 1990, Section
106, which requires that: ``On a periodic basis (not less frequently
than every 4 years), the Council [the National Science and Technology
Council], through the Committee [the Global Change Research Committee],
shall prepare and submit to the President and the Congress an
assessment which--
1. Integrates, evaluates, and interprets the findings of the
[USGCR] Program and discusses the scientific uncertainties associated
with such findings;
2. 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
3. Analyzes current trends in global change, both human-induced and
natural, and projects major trends for the subsequent 25 to 100
years.''
Assessments serve an important function by providing the scientific
underpinnings of informed policy. They also serve as progress reports
by identifying advances in the underlying science, providing critical
analysis of issues, and highlighting key findings and key unknowns that
can improve policy choices and guide decision making related to climate
change. The approach that is envisioned for this NCA is a comprehensive
assessment of climate change, impacts, vulnerabilities and response
strategies within a context of how communities and the nation as a
whole create sustainable and environmentally sound development paths.
This new NCA will differ in multiple ways from previous U.S.
climate assessment efforts (http://globalchange.gov/what-we-do/assessment/nca-reports). For example, it is more focused both on
supporting the Nation's activities in adaptation and mitigation and
also on evaluating the current state of scientific knowledge relative
to climate impacts and trends. Additionally, it will build on the
recommendations of previous NCA efforts by implementing a long-term,
consistent process for evaluation of climate risks and opportunities
and providing information to support decision making processes within
regions and sectors.
A primary goal of this NCA is to establish permanent assessment
capacity both inside and outside of the Federal government. The NCA
will be an ongoing process that draws upon the work of stakeholders and
scientists across the country. Assessment activities will result in the
capacity to execute ongoing assessments of vulnerability to climate
stressors, observe and project impacts of climate change within regions
and sectors, develop consistent indicators of progress in adaptation
and mitigation activities, and allow for the production of a set of
reports and Web-based products that are useful for decision-making at
multiple levels.
Strategic planning for the NCA began in early 2010 with the
circulation of the first strategic plan outline in January, 2010. This
outline served as a basis for strategic planning input meetings in
Chicago in February, 2010. In addition, NCA staff convened a listening
session with regional, State, and local participants following the
National Adaptation Summit in May, 2010. More information about the
process to date, including workshop outcome summaries, is available
from http://globalchange.gov/what-we-do/assessment.
Objectives
NCA Vision: The vision for the NCA incorporates recommendations
from the National Research Council, feedback from previous assessment
processes, and the results of the workshops and listening session
described above. It has been developed within the Interagency National
Climate Assessment (INCA) Task Force, which includes members from all
13 USGCRP agencies and departments and additional agencies and
departments whose work is relevant to the NCA (http://globalchange.gov/what-we-do/assessment/nca-participants). The NCA will continue to
solicit input from a broad range of individual stakeholders, decision
makers, and concerned citizens to ensure that its vision and
implementation is responsive to their needs.
The overarching goal for the broad climate science program within
the U.S. government is to inform and enhance our ability to respond to
changing climate in a multi-stress context. The primary vision of the
NCA is a continuing, inclusive national process that: (1) Synthesizes
relevant science and information; (2) increases understanding of what
is known and not known; (3) identifies needs for information related to
preparing for climate variability and change and reducing climate
impacts and vulnerability; (4) evaluates progress of adaptation and
mitigation activities; (5) informs science priorities; (6) builds
assessment capacity in regions and sectors; and (7) builds societal
understanding and skilled use of Assessment findings. The NCA will be a
sustained and integrated process that is responsive to climate
assessment needs and meets the requirements of the Global Change
Research Act, is based on the best available science, and is
authoritative, transparent, and accessible.
NCA Key Objectives: In order to achieve its vision, the NCA has
established seven overarching, cross-cutting objectives:
Objective 1: Create a sustainable assessment process that
involves networks of participants in regions and sectors across the
country in addition to engaging Federal scientists in multiple
agencies. The reports that will be generated will be viewed as a
``time-slice'' through an ongoing evaluation effort. This process will
enable national, regional, sectoral or topical reports to be created
over time as needed to serve important policy and science objectives.
Objective 2: Establish an ongoing, national-scale,
consistent and replicable approach to assessing current and projected
climate impacts and climate-related risk in the context of other
stressors. This includes examining the integrated effects on ecosystems
and ecosystem services, social and economic
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systems, and American civil society and institutions. The intent of
this effort is to identify opportunities and risks associated with
changes in climate conditions. An ongoing component will be work
towards attribution and explanation of events and trends that are
observed in the climate system.
Objective 3: Within this broad ongoing assessment, nest
more specific investigations of regions and topics that have high
priority due to existing or anticipated climate stresses, generally in
the context of a variety of other concerns. The number and scale of
these specific nested investigations, as well as the time frame and
responsibility for completing products related to them have not yet
been determined.
Objective 4: The NCA office will perform a central
coordination function while depending on a distributed process and
inclusive engagement with partners both inside and outside of the
Federal government to meet NCA goals. Although it is the role of the
Federal government to conduct a national climate assessment and to
provide the support needed for regional efforts, it is neither
appropriate nor possible for the Federal government alone to conduct
the totality of this undertaking . This distributed approach will also
maximize the likelihood that national climate assessments will continue
over time. However, the Federal government must play a leading role in
cross-regional and international aspects of the NCA.
Objective 5: To the extent possible, depend on regional
networks and a variety of public and private partners to do the
``ground-truthing'' of scientific findings, and depend on Federal
monitoring programs for larger scale or more comprehensive assessments
and evaluations. The intent is to have the National Climate Assessment
become the ``connective tissue'' that ties these efforts to Federal
science programs.
Objective 6: Recognize the international context of
climate trends and efforts and help to support some of the U.S. inputs
to the IPCC. Adaptation and mitigation decisions within the U.S. have
impacts on other countries, and vice versa. Climate impacts occur
within economic and social systems that affect every country across the
globe. The NCA will lay the groundwork for a strategic approach to
engaging with internationalclimate assessment activities and with a
specific focus on North America.
Objective 7: Build a strong stakeholder engagement
process, based on mobilizing a regionally coordinated network of local
stakeholders and a nationally coordinated network of professional
associations to connect to a series of important sectors and various
levels of government. The stakeholder engagement process will rely on
both in-person and virtual (Web-based) interactions that will make the
assessment process accessible to the general public. Online tools, such
as Web pages, webinars, and online data sets will help to maximize
opportunities for education and communication and will make the data
and information collected for the NCA more useful.
Proposed Topics
The NCA is both an ongoing process of assessing the impacts of
climate change in the context of broader, baseline conditions and also
a periodic report that evaluates, integrates, and interprets these
impacts. For the next NCA synthesis report, due by June 2013, the
following topics are proposed in the initial outline for the product:
I. Background and Context for the Process: This section of the
report will contain information on the (1) Purpose (mission,
objectives, and intended audience); (2) Background (legal requirements,
explanation of previous rounds of assessment, and ways in which USGCRP
is responding to advice from the National Research Council); (3)
General scope for the NCA (global change and climate variability and
change, limitations of the process, and challenges); and (4) Assessment
process (timeline, methods and design, tools for assessing climate
change and impacts, dealing with uncertainty, sources of material, and
common lexicon/glossary of terms).
II. The Scientific Basis for Climate Change: This section of the
report will contain information on (1) What climate change is and what
it means for the U.S. (summarizing and interpreting the science, new
maps and projections, regional climate drivers and impacts, and climate
variability and change and climate extremes); (2) Current observations
of global change and projections of future changes (detecting the
impacts of climate change through a matrix for long-term assessment,
models and scenarios, and vulnerability assessment); (3) Overview of
research on human responses to climate change (adaptation and
mitigation) (4) Interpreting the science (assessing the value of
information and science and execution of decisions); and (5)
Uncertainty (scales of time, space, and decisions and prioritizing
which uncertainties are important to reduce).
III. Sectors: This section of the report will contain information
on the impacts of and responses to climate change in sectors. In
addition to introductory information (what a sector is and how sectors
are delineated), individual sectoral chapters under consideration
include: (1) Natural environment (ecosystems), (2) Biological
diversity, (3) Agriculture and forestry, (4) Land resources, (5) Water
resources, (6) Marine resources, (7) Air quality, (8) Energy production
and use, (9) Transportation, (10) Human health and welfare, and (11)
Human social systems (including impacts on cultures and cultural
resources).
IV. Regions: This section of the report will contain information on
the impacts of and responses to climate change in geographic regions.
In addition to introductory information (what a region is, how regions
are chosen), individual regional chapters under consideration include
those used in the 2009 Global Climate Change Impacts Report (http://globalchange.gov/what-we-do/assessment/nca-reports): (1) Northeast, (2)
Southeast, (3) Midwest, (4) Great Plains, (5) Southwest, (6) Northwest,
(7) Alaska, (8) Islands, and (9) Coasts; and a new region: (10) Arctic.
V. Integrated, Cross-Sectoral Issues: This section of the report
will contain information on climate change impacts in specific,
integrated issue areas. In addition to introductory information
(criteria for selecting integrated assessment topics and criteria for
selecting level of assessment effort), this section will include both
short case studies (distributed throughout the report) and individual
chapters. Topics under consideration include: (1) Water supply, energy,
and agriculture; (2) Biogeochemical cycles (e.g., carbon, nitrogen) (3)
Land use change, land cover, and human settlements (e.g., urban
environments, rural environments, and/or traditional use rights); (4)
Migratory species; (5) Tipping points, thresholds, and extreme events;
(6) Ecosystem services and human and natural systems trade-offs; (7)
Disaster, recovery, risk management, and perception; and (4)
International context: U.S./global systems interactions (e.g., trade,
migration, economics, food security, disaster preparedness and
response, water, and health).
VI. Human Responses to Climate Change: This section of the report
will describe human responses to climate change and look broadly at how
the nation is meeting the challenges of climate change impacts without
evaluating individual actions. It will include case studies that
explore (1) Adaptation; (2) Mitigation; and (3) Interactions and
integration across adaptation and mitigation (e.g., management of
forests to sequester carbon and increase resilience,
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management of heat island responses, and transportation impacts).
VII. Future Scientific and Societal Needs: This section of the
report will contain information on (1) Science gap analysis for this
round of assessment; (2) Priorities for climate science investments
(including impacts and responses); and (3) Facilitating decisions
related to climate impacts and responses.
VIII. Appendices: One or more appendices to the report will provide
further information about tools, methodologies, guidelines, and
assumptions for the NCA, including (1) long-term data sets; (2) models;
(3) scales and interactions; (4) scenarios; (5) risk; (6) impact
assessment; (7) vulnerability assessment; (8) economic and alternative
valuation techniques; (9) dealing with uncertainty; (10) detecting
changes through monitoring and observations; (11) knowledge management
strategies; (12) communications and engagement; (13) interactions with
other types of assessments; and (14) building capacity within regions
and sectors for conducting and using assessments in the future.
Next Steps
The next steps in planning for the NCA include gathering inputs on
a number of issue areas to help define the NCA process and expectations
for its products. Public comments on the above NCA objectives and
proposed topics and on the following issue areas may be used by the
Interagency National Climate Assessment (INCA) Task Force and the
National Climate Assessment Development and Advisory Committee, an
advisory body being created at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration in compliance with the provisions of the Federal
Advisory Committee Act, in their discussion of plans for developing the
first draft of the this National Climate Assessment.
Issue Areas: The INCA Task Force has identified the need for
discussion on important tools, methodologies, guidelines, and
assumptions for assessment. USGCRP and the NCA team are actively
soliciting input on the following topics:
Knowledge Management, Metadata, and Peer Review: How to
manage data, archiving, quality assurance/quality control, peer review,
qualifications for inclusion of data in official Assessment documents;
documentation of sources; chain of custody of information.
Communications and Engagement: Ensuring consistent
messages about what we are trying to accomplish, encouraging co-
production of information between government and external stakeholders,
coordination with other Federal climate-related programs, design of
documents and tailored communications with a variety of partners.
Economic and Alternative Valuation Techniques and Metrics
for Climate Change Impacts, Adaptation, and Mitigation: Ways of
evaluating the effectiveness of adaptation and mitigation options using
tools that acknowledge non-monetary values and inter-generational
benefits.
Vulnerability Assessments: Identification of approaches to
evaluating the relative vulnerability of ecological and social
communities and approaches to prioritization of risk across sectors and
regions.
Planning for Regional and Sectoral Assessments: Methods to
ensure consistent approaches to building regional and sectoral
components of the assessment.
Role of International Climate Impacts and Responses, and
their Implications for the United States: The ways in which the NCA
will consider the implications of stresses that are generated elsewhere
in the globe and to consider the global context for the NCA process.
Scenarios for Climate Change Assessment: Methods for the
development and use of consistent projections of possible future
conditions for use within NCA activities.
Climate Change Modeling and Downscaling: Issues and
methodological perspectives related to selecting model and downscaling
outputs and approaches for their use in NCA activities. This includes
socioeconomic, land use, and other model types and outputs, in addition
to climate model outputs.
Monitoring Climate Change and its Impacts: Selecting from
existing monitoring and observing systems and a variety of impact
reports to design an integrated, ongoing monitoring system for the NCA.
This includes establishing a long-term, consistent approach to
documenting climate impacts and trends (including developing indicators
of, e.g., impacts to the built environment and energy sectors, impacts
on and responses of natural systems, socio-economic and public health
trends, and disasters and extreme events).
Ted Wackler,
Deputy Chief of Staff.
[FR Doc. 2010-22229 Filed 9-3-10; 8:45 am]
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