The Assessment process has just gotten started, but thanks to the effort of a team of dedicated individuals, plans for the coming months are already underway!

What's first?

No later than late summer 2010, the Assessment staff plans to post the draft report outline, work plan, and overview of the National Climate Assessment for public comment.  A Federal Register notice will be forthcoming in August 2010. The purpose of the notice is to share our draft outline for the report due by June 2013, and ask for public comments on our outline and strategy for the Assessment. The comments will be shared with our Federal Advisory Committee once it is convened.  Then, in the coming months, a series of methodological workshops is also planned.  These workshops will be by invite-only, however, in order to keep interested stakeholders and up to date on the planning process, they will be announced via the National Assessment email list, and updated on calendar on this website, so please keep checking back here for further information.

One of the primary concerns of the National Assessment is responding to the needs of stakeholders.  That means, the National Assessment wants to hear from you.  What sort of information do you need about climate change?  What are your local adaptation and mitigation needs?  What kind of science could help you make better policy decisions?  What are your questions about the role and results of federal climate change research? If you have answers to these, or any other questions that might be addressed by the National Assessment, please contact program staff--we'd like to hear from you!