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Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2019. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Weather Climate and Society 11(3), (2019):465-487, doi: 10.1175/WCAS-D-18-0134.1., As states, cities, tribes, and private interests cope with climate damages and seek to increase preparedness and resilience, they will need to navigate myriad choices and options available to them. Making these choices in ways that identify pathways for climate action that support their development objectives will require constructive public dialogue, community participation, and flexible and ongoing access to science- and experience-based knowledge. In 2016, a Federal Advisory Committee (FAC) was convened to recommend how to conduct a sustained National Climate Assessment (NCA) to increase the relevance and usability of assessments for informing action. The FAC was disbanded in 2017, but members and additional experts reconvened to complete the report that is presented here. A key recommendation is establishing a new nonfederal “climate assessment consortium” to increase the role of state/local/tribal government and civil society in assessments. The expanded process would 1) focus on applied problems faced by practitioners, 2) organize sustained partnerships for collaborative learning across similar projects and case studies to identify effective tested practices, and 3) assess and improve knowledge-based methods for project implementation. Specific recommendations include evaluating climate models and data using user-defined metrics; improving benefit–cost assessment and supporting decision-making under uncertainty; and accelerating application of tools and methods such as citizen science, artificial intelligence, indicators, and geospatial analysis. The recommendations are the result of broad consultation and present an ambitious agenda for federal agencies, state/local/tribal jurisdictions, universities and the research sector, professional associations, nongovernmental and community-based organizations, and private-sector firms., This report would not have been possible without the support and participation of numerous organizations and individuals. We thank New York State Governor Andrew M. Cuomo for announcing in his 2018 State of the State agenda that the IAC would be reconvened. The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (Contract ID 123416), Columbia University’s Earth Institute, and the American Meteorological Society provided essential financial support and much more, including sage advice and moral support from John O’Leary, Shara Mohtadi, Steve Cohen, Alex Halliday, Peter deMenocal, Keith Seitter, Paul Higgins, and Bill Hooke. We thank the attendees of a workshop, generously funded by the Kresge Foundation in November of 2017, that laid a foundation for the idea to establish a civil-society-based assessment consortium. During the course of preparing the report, IAC members consulted with individuals too numerous to list here—state, local, and tribal officials; researchers; experts in nongovernmental and community-based organizations; and professionals in engineering, architecture, public health, adaptation, and other areas. We are so grateful for their time and expertise. We thank the members and staff of the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s Committee to Advise the U.S. Global Change Research Program for providing individual comments on preliminary recommendations during several discussions in open sessions of their meetings. The following individuals provided detailed comments on an earlier version of this report, which greatly sharpened our thinking and recommendations: John Balbus, Tom Dietz, Phil Duffy, Baruch Fischhoff, Brenda Hoppe, Melissa Kenney, Linda Mearns, Claudia Nierenberg, Kathleen Segerson, Soroosh Sorooshian, Chris Weaver, and Brian Zuckerman. Mary Black provided insightful copy editing of several versions of the report. We also thank four anonymous reviewers for their effort and care in critiquing and improving the report., 2020-05-21

Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2019. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 100(5), (2019): 897-908, doi:10.1175/BAMS-D-19-0130.1., As states, cities, tribes, and private interests cope with climate damages and seek to increase preparedness and resilience, they will need to navigate myriad choices and options available to them. Making these choices in ways that identify pathways for climate action that support their development objectives will require constructive public dialogue, community participation, and flexible and ongoing access to science- and experience-based knowledge. In 2016, a Federal Advisory Committee (FAC) was convened to recommend how to conduct a sustained National Climate Assessment (NCA) to increase the relevance and usability of assessments for informing action. The FAC was disbanded in 2017, but members and additional experts reconvened to complete the report that is presented here. A key recommendation is establishing a new nonfederal “climate assessment consortium” to increase the role of state/local/tribal government and civil society in assessments. The expanded process would 1) focus on applied problems faced by practitioners, 2) organize sustained partnerships for collaborative learning across similar projects and case studies to identify effective tested practices, and 3) assess and improve knowledge-based methods for project implementation. Specific recommendations include evaluating climate models and data using user-defined metrics; improving benefit–cost assessment and supporting decision-making under uncertainty; and accelerating application of tools and methods such as citizen science, artificial intelligence, indicators, and geospatial analysis. The recommendations are the result of broad consultation and present an ambitious agenda for federal agencies, state/local/tribal jurisdictions, universities and the research sector, professional associations, nongovernmental and community-based organizations, and private-sector firms., This report would not have been possible without the support and participation of numerous organizations and individuals. We thank New York State Governor Andrew M. Cuomo for announcing in his 2018 State of the State agenda that the IAC would be reconvened. The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (Contract ID 123416), Columbia University’s Earth Institute, and the American Meteorological Society provided essential financial support and much more, including sage advice and moral support from John O’Leary, Shara Mohtadi, Steve Cohen, Alex Halliday, Peter deMenocal, Keith Seitter, Paul Higgins, and Bill Hooke. We thank the attendees of a workshop, generously funded by the Kresge Foundation in November of 2017, that laid a foundation for the idea to establish a civil-society-based assessment consortium. During the course of preparing the report, IAC members consulted with individuals too numerous to list here—state, local, and tribal officials; researchers; experts in nongovernmental and community-based organizations; and professionals in engineering, architecture, public health, adaptation, and other areas. We are so grateful for their time and expertise. We thank the members and staff of the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s Committee to Advise the U.S. Global Change Research Program for providing individual comments on preliminary recommendations during several discussions in open sessions of their meetings. The following individuals provided detailed comments on an earlier version of this report, which greatly sharpened our thinking and recommendations: John Balbus, Tom Dietz, Phil Duffy, Baruch Fischhoff, Brenda Hoppe, Melissa Kenney, Linda Mearns, Claudia Nierenberg, Kathleen Segerson, Soroosh Sorooshian, Chris Weaver, and Brian Zuckerman. Mary Black provided insightful copy editing of several versions of the report. We also thank four anonymous reviewers for their effort and care in critiquing and improving the report.

Author Posting. © The Author(s), 2015. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of Springer for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Climatic Change 135 (2016): 187-201, doi:10.1007/s10584-015-1530-z., The Third US National Climate Assessment (NCA3) was produced by experts in response to the US Global Change Research Act of 1990. Based on lessons learned from previous domestic and international assessments, the NCA3 was designed to speak to a broad public and inform the concerns of policy- and decision-makers at different scales. The NCA3 was also intended to be the first step in an ongoing assessment process that would build the nation’s capacity to respond to climate change. This concluding paper draws larger lessons from the insights gained throughout the assessment process that are of significance to future US and international assessment designers. We bring attention to process and products delivered, communication and engagement efforts, and how they contributed to the sustained assessment. Based on areas where expectations were exceeded or not fully met, we address four common tensions that all assessment designers must confront and manage: between (1) core assessment ingredients (knowledge base, institutional set-up, principled process, and the people involved), (2) national scope and subnational adaptive management information needs, (3) scope, complexity, and manageability, and (4) deliberate evaluation and ongoing learning approaches. Managing these tensions, amidst the social and political contexts in which assessments are conducted, is critical to ensure that assessments are feasible and productive, while its outcomes are perceived as credible, salient, and legitimate.