To enable National Climate Assessment (NCA) authors to do the in-depth analysis necessary to make the Fourth National Climate Assessment (NCA4) most useful, the U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) provided author teams with an array of data tools and scenario products. This appendix contains additional information on some of the materials available to NCA4 authors in developing their chapters. While designed in part with NCA4 authors in mind, this suite of “Tools for Informed Decision-Making” is intended to support the day-to-day work of resource managers, community planners, and scientists across the country.
Since the completion of the Third National Climate Assessment (NCA3) in 2014, a major focus of work among USGCRP and its affiliated agencies has been to establish a process to continually add to and improve the knowledge and resources available to decision-makers seeking to address climate risks. The motivation for and benefit from that process is to evolve the NCA from being a periodic snapshot of the state of climate science into a sustained effort that is not only responsive to changing conditions but also allows for the continuing incorporation of newly developed products and research. Beyond being useful for NCA4 authors, these tools also represent a mechanism for ongoing development and updating of materials. Such a continuous process could make assessment products more valuable for connecting research with decision-making, thus facilitating evaluation of the state of knowledge and establishing rigorous ways of documenting and responding to changes over time.
The “Data Tools and Scenarios Products – Appendix 3” publication is available as a downloadable PDF at nca2018.globalchange.gov.
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