A Review of the Draft 2013 National Climate Assessment (2013) / Chapter Skim
Currently Skimming:
Answers to Task Statement Questions
Answers to Task Statement Questions
Pages 5-20
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From page 5... ...
In addition, the draft report has gone beyond the explicit GCRA mandate in a few ways, which we find to be worthwhile and constructive additions to the report. For instance: it identifies research needs and knowledge gaps; it provides a vision for an ongoing assessment process; it examines mitigation and adaptation responses.
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From page 6... ...
The Panel suggests that this integrative effort would be enhanced if the report provided a clear overarching framework that helps people think about the complex problem of climate change within the broader context of global change. Although the current draft offers some framing concepts in later chapters of the report, this framing needs to be presented clearly from the outset to give the reader muchneeded context for the sector- and region-specific information that follows.
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From page 7... ...
Climate change is not a phenomenon happening in isolation, but rather it is embedded in a complex set of interacting global changes. The influence of human activities has grown over time to become a dominant driver of global environmental change, such that it is no longer possible to understand the earth's ecological and physical systems without a concomitant understanding of how human activities influence these systems.
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From page 8... ...
Perhaps the chapter title could even be revised from "Our Changing Climate" to something such as "A Changing Climate in a Changing World." The report could also reinforce this idea within each of the sectoral chapters by pointing to examples of how climate change impacts and response needs will interact with other key developments and priorities in that sector. This broader perspective may point to some "win-win" actions that help address multiple priorities simultaneously.
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From page 9... ...
As discussed later, many such needs cannot be met without expanded research efforts on the part of the USGCRP agencies or others. With regard to information on climate variability and change: The report does offer substantial information about current trends and future projections of key climate variables.
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From page 10... ...
With regard to information on the effects of response options: This is the first NCA report to explicitly evaluate the state of the nation's response efforts, and the Panel acknowledges that this sort of evaluation is a challenging undertaking and an important positive step. But the evaluation efforts fall short in some important ways, discussed below in the context of the three "response options" chapters.
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From page 11... ...
For instance, it could be called "Informing Decisions" or "Decision Support Tools and Processes,," or include a subheading such as "Models for bridging the gap between scientific understanding and decision making." Chapter 27 (Mitigation) : This chapter does go farther than the adaptation or decision support chapters in terms of actually assessing the adequacy of current response efforts (concluding that current mitigation efforts are "not close to sufficient")
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From page 12... ...
An issue that reaches across the different response chapters in the NCA report (decision support, mitigation, adaptation) is the need to draw upon fields such as anthropology, decision sciences, and psychology to gain important insights on the cognitive and social processes that affect how people may respond to the expectation of climate change and its impacts.
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From page 13... ...
General concerns are that some of the Key Messages are so vague or hedged in nature that they lack real meaning (e.g., see comments #7, 589) ; and that some Key Messages seem inconsistent in tone with or unsubstantiated by the underlying chapter text (e.g., see comments #19, 454, 529, 531, 552, 607)
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From page 14... ...
Much of this may draw the interest of specific stakeholders more than the casual visitors. For the civic-minded, there is the Hall of Public Choice, where the questions of mitigation, adaptation, research, and decision support are presented, in a way that stands back from political controversy while informing public debate.
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From page 15... ...
The comments in Appendix A point to an array of specific issues that the NCA authors may wish to consider. Some of these omissions were noted in the earlier discussion about the response efforts (decision support, mitigation, adaptation)
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From page 16... ...
The traceable accounts analyses presented at the end chapter are a valuable innovation over past NCA reports and will prove especially valuable if the NCA's e-book format allows readers to link back directly to the primary references and datasets. In most places, the draft does a good job of documenting the support for key findings.
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From page 17... ...
The Appendix A comments point to a variety of research needs that the Panel feels merit more consideration by the NCA authors. This includes some biophysical research topics, for instance, topics related to climate change impacts on ocean and coastal resources, characterization of the future frequencies and intensities of extreme events, and climate-driven infectious disease threats.
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From page 18... ...
Chapter 30 suggests that the sustained assessment effort would aim to "evaluate the nation's vulnerabilities to climate variability and change and its capacity to respond." This implies a different type of assessment than what has been presented in the 2013 NCA draft report. Yet the chapter also suggests that the sustained assessment effort would largely continue the same basic approaches being used in the 2013 NCA report.
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From page 19... ...
This effort to identify leading and best practices might initially be done as a stand-alone NCADAC report, but would ideally take the form of an ongoing system for tracking leading practices. It would be valuable to the sustained assessment process to ask these leading innovators to identify specific information and decision support tools they feel they need in order to do a better job in the future.
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From page 20... ...
The public comment period and this NRC review were designed precisely to help catch such problems and thus allow the NCA authors an opportunity to make needed corrections for the final report. However, the public comment draft is, by definition, a public document, and in this case it was widely reported on by the media (even if this media coverage was not actively sought by the NCA)
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