Fourth National Climate Assessment
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Fourth National Climate Assessment (NCA4) 2017/2018 is a 1,500 page two-part congressionally mandated report by the
U.S. Global Change Research Program The United States Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) coordinates and integrates federal research on changes in the global environment and their implications for society. The program began as a presidential initiative in 1989 and was codified by ...
(USGCRP)—the first of its kind by the
Trump administration Donald Trump's tenure as the List of presidents of the United States, 45th president of the United States began with Inauguration of Donald Trump, his inauguration on January 20, 2017, and ended on January 20, 2021. Trump, a Republican Party ...
, who released the report on November 23, 2018. The climate assessment process, with a report to be submitted to Congress every four years, is mandated by law through the
Global Change Research Act of 1990 The Global Change Research Act 1990 is a United States law requiring research into global warming and related issues. It requires a report to Congress every four years on the environmental, economic, health and safety consequences of climate change ...
. The report, which took two years to complete, is the fourth in a series of National Climate Assessments (NCA) which included NCA1 (2000), NCA2 (2009), and NCA3 (2014). Volume 1 of NCA4, "Climate Science Special Report" (CSSR) was released in October 2017. In the CSSR, researchers reported that "it is extremely likely that human activities, especially emissions of greenhouse gases, are the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century. For the warming over the last century, there is no convincing alternative explanation supported by the extent of the observational evidence." Volume 2, entitled "Impacts, Risks, and Adaptation in the United States", was released on November 23, 2018. According to NOAA, "human health and safety" and American "quality of life" is "increasingly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change". Like the previous reports in this series, the NCA4 is a "stand-alone report of the state of science relating to climate change and its physical impacts". The authors say that without more significant mitigation efforts, there will be "substantial damages on the U.S. economy, human health, and the environment. Under scenarios with high emissions and limited or no adaptation, annual losses in some sectors are estimated to grow to hundreds of billions of dollars by the end of the century." While the CSSR is "designed to be an authoritative assessment of the science of climate change" in the United States, it does not include policy recommendations.


Background

President George H.W. Bush signed the
Global Change Research Act of 1990 The Global Change Research Act 1990 is a United States law requiring research into global warming and related issues. It requires a report to Congress every four years on the environmental, economic, health and safety consequences of climate change ...
into law on November 16, 1990, which established the
United States Global Change Research Program The United States Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) coordinates and integrates federal research on changes in the global environment and their implications for society. The program began as a presidential initiative in 1989 and was codified by ...
with a mandate to understand and respond to global change, including the cumulative effects of human activities and natural processes on the environment, to promote discussions toward international protocols in global change research, and for other purposes." Although the National Climate Assessment was mandated to release a report every four years, there have only been four reports since Global Change Research Act of 1990 was enacted.


NCA4 Authors

In the preparation of the NCA4, the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (abbreviated as NOAA ) is an United States scientific and regulatory agency within the United States Department of Commerce that forecasts weather, monitors oceanic and atmospheric conditio ...
(NOAA), one of thirteen federal agencies comprising the USGCRP team, was the "administrative lead agency." The other agencies included the
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, DOC, DOD, DOE, HHS, DOI, DOS, DOT,
EPA The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is an independent executive agency of the United States federal government tasked with environmental protection matters. President Richard Nixon proposed the establishment of EPA on July 9, 1970; it be ...
,
NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeeding t ...
,
NSF NSF may stand for: Political organizations *National Socialist Front, a Swedish National Socialist party *NS-Frauenschaft, the women's wing of the former German Nazi party *National Students Federation, a leftist Pakistani students' political gr ...
,
Smithsonian Institution The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums and education and research centers, the largest such complex in the world, created by the U.S. government "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge". Founded ...
, and the
USAID The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is an independent agency of the U.S. federal government that is primarily responsible for administering civilian foreign aid and development assistance. With a budget of over $27 bi ...
. The report was produced with the assistance of "1,000 people, including 300 leading scientists, roughly half from outside the government." The Federal Science Steering Committee (SSC) for the CSSR included representatives from NOAA, NASA, and DOE, USGCRP and 3 Coordinating Lead Authors.All Federal Science Steering Committee (SSC) members were Federal employees during the development of this report.


Process

The Obama administration released a review draft of the CCSR with a public review period running from December 15, 2016 through February 3, 2017.


Public policy

While the CSSR is "designed to be an authoritative assessment of the science of climate change" in the United States, it does not include policy recommendations. On August 20, 2017, the Trump administration notified the 15-person Federal Advisory Committee for the Sustained National Climate AssessmentThe 15-person Federal Advisory Committee for the Sustained National Climate Assessment included "academics as well as local officials and corporate representatives." Ben Friedman, NOAA's acting administrator "informed the committee’s chair that the agency would not renew the panel" on August 18, 2017. that he was dissolving the Federal Advisory Committee. The Federal Advisory Panel translating the NCA's scientific studies and findings into actionable public policy that individual states could implement to reduce emissions. According to an August 20, 2017 article in the ''
Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...
'', the role of the Federal Advisory Panel for the National Climate Assessment was to assist "policymakers and private-sector officials incorporate the government’s climate analysis into long-term planning". The panel was tasked with translating dozens of studies and scientific revelations that constitute the National Climate Assessment into policy actions that states could use to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. In January 2018
Andrew Cuomo Andrew Mark Cuomo ( ; ; born December 6, 1957) is an American lawyer and politician who served as the 56th governor of New York from 2011 to 2021. A member of the Democratic Party, he was elected to the same position that his father, Mario Cuo ...
, Governor of the State of New York, part of a coalition of States, reconvened a modified and limited version of the science advisory panel chaired by
Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...
's Earth Institute's
Richard Moss Richard Moss (1823 – 2 March 1905) was an English brewer and Conservative politician who sat in the House of Commons in two periods between 1880 and 1892. Moss was the son of Richard Moss of the City of London. He was educated privately and w ...
. The States' panel cannot "replace federal support for science, including maintaining satellites and building better climate models" nor will it have any "sway over federal climate policy".


Key findings

An article in ''
The Atlantic ''The Atlantic'' is an American magazine and multi-platform publisher. It features articles in the fields of politics, foreign affairs, business and the economy, culture and the arts, technology, and science. It was founded in 1857 in Boston, ...
'' said that the report "warns, repeatedly and directly, that climate change could soon imperil the American way of life, transforming every region of the country, imposing frustrating costs on the economy, and harming the health of virtually every citizen." In the section on mitigation, the report says that without more significant mitigation efforts, there will be "substantial damages on the U.S. economy, human health, and the environment. Under scenarios with high emissions and limited or no adaptation, annual losses in some sectors are estimated to grow to hundreds of billions of dollars by the end of the century." The report cited a 2017 study, published in the journal ''
Science Science is a systematic endeavor that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe. Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earliest archeological evidence for ...
'', that estimated the economic damage to the U.S. economy in relation to increases in the
global mean surface temperature In earth science, global surface temperature (GST; sometimes referred to as global mean surface temperature, GMST, or global average surface temperature) is calculated by averaging the temperature at the surface of the sea and air temperature ...
(GMST). The report said that across the United States damages are "intensifying". The report which analyzed the "effects of climate change by U.S. region", emphasize that "poor and marginalized communities" will be the most negatively "impacted by the intensifying storms and weather patterns caused by global warming."


Volume 1

A 2018 CRS cited the October 2017 "Climate Science Special Report" CSSR: "Detection and attribution studies, climate models, observations, paleoclimate data, and physical understanding lead to high confidence (extremely likely) that more than half of the observed global mean warming since 1951 was caused by humans, and high confidence that internal climate variability played only a minor role (and possibly even a negative contribution) in the observed warming since 1951. The key message and supporting text summarizes extensive evidence documented in the peer-reviewed detection and attribution literature, including in the
IPCC Fifth Assessment Report The Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is the fifth in a series of such reports and was completed in 2014.IPCC (2014The IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) leaflet/ref> As h ...
."


Volume 2

According to Volume II, "Impacts, Risks, and Adaptation in the United States", "Without substantial and sustained global mitigation and regional adaptation efforts, climate change is expected to cause growing losses to American infrastructure and property and impede the rate of economic growth over this century." The
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (abbreviated as NOAA ) is an United States scientific and regulatory agency within the United States Department of Commerce that forecasts weather, monitors oceanic and atmospheric conditio ...
(NOAA) was "administrative lead agency" in the preparation of the Fourth National Climate Assessment.


Chapters (Volume 2)

Volume 2 of NCA4 has fifteen chapters: Chapter 1: Our Globally Changing Climate Chapter 2: "Physical Drivers of Climate Change", Chapter 3: "Detection and Attribution of Climate Change", Chapter 4: "Climate Models, Scenarios, and Projections", Chapter 5: "Large-Scale Circulation and Climate Variability", Chapter 6: "Temperature Changes in the United States", Chapter 7: "Precipitation Change in the United States", Chapter 8: "Droughts, Floods, and Wildfire", Chapter 9: "Extreme Storms", Chapter 10: "Changes in Land Cover and Terrestrial Biogeochemistry", Chapter 11: "Arctic Changes and their Effects on Alaska and the Rest of the United States", Chapter 12: "Sea Level Rise", Chapter 13: "Ocean Acidification and Other Ocean Changes", Chapter 14: "Perspectives on Climate Change Mitigation", and Chapter 15: "Potential Surprises: Compound Extremes and Tipping Elements". Chapter one provided an overview. "Risks are often highest for those that are already vulnerable, including low-income communities, some communities of color, children, and the elderly...Climate change threatens to exacerbate existing social and economic inequalities that result in higher exposure and sensitivity to extreme weather and climate-related events and other changes." Chapter 2, entitled "Our Changing Climate: Observations, Causes, and Future Change", reported on observed changes in the United States, such as "intensifying" and more frequent
atmospheric An atmosphere () is a layer of gas or layers of gases that envelop a planet, and is held in place by the gravity of the planetary body. A planet retains an atmosphere when the gravity is great and the temperature of the atmosphere is low. A s ...
rivers of rain that connect Asia with the United States, " gh temperature extremes", increasing "heavy precipitation events", retreating glaciers and shrinking snow cover, the decline of sea ice, warming, sea level rising and increasing
ocean acidification Ocean acidification is the reduction in the pH value of the Earth’s ocean. Between 1751 and 2021, the average pH value of the ocean surface has decreased from approximately 8.25 to 8.14. The root cause of ocean acidification is carbon dioxid ...
, more frequent flooding along the coastlines, lengthening growing seasons, and increasing wildfires.


Reactions

In a November 26 scrum with reporters in Washington, DC, President Trump told reporters he had seen and read some of the report but he doesn't believe it. The White House dismissed the NCA4 as "inaccurate". White House spokesperson,
Lindsay Walters Lindsay Walters is an American spokesperson and former White House Special Assistant to the President and Deputy Press Secretary. Education Walters attended Archmere Academy and graduated from Drexel University, where she received a Bachelor o ...
said that the climate report was "largely based on the most extreme scenario". Walters called for future NCA reports to have a "more transparent and data-driven process that includes fuller information on the range of potential scenarios and outcomes". Katharine Hayhoe, an
atmospheric scientist Atmospheric science is the study of the Earth's atmosphere and its various inner-working physical processes. Meteorology includes atmospheric chemistry and atmospheric physics with a major focus on weather forecasting. Climatology is the study of ...
from
Texas Tech University Texas Tech University (Texas Tech, Tech, or TTU) is a public research university in Lubbock, Texas. Established on , and called Texas Technological College until 1969, it is the main institution of the five-institution Texas Tech University Sys ...
said that Walters' claim was "demonstrably false". Hayhoe confirmed that the report "considers all scenarios, from those where we go carbon negative before end of century to those where carbon emissions continue to rise". ''The New York Times'' reported "White House officials made a calculation that Mr. Trump’s core base of supporters most likely would not care that its findings are so at odds with the president’s statements and policies.”
Steven Milloy Steven J. Milloy is a lawyer, lobbyist, author and Fox News commentator. His close financial and organizational ties to tobacco and oil companies have been the subject of criticism, as Milloy has consistently disputed the scientific consensus on ...
, a climate-change denier who served on Trump's EPA transition team, called the report a product of the deep state, adding "We don’t care. In our view, this is made-up hysteria anyway." He noted that the Administration did not alter the report's findings but rather chose to release it the day after Thanksgiving "on a day when nobody cares, and hope it gets swept away by the next day’s news." An article in ''
The Atlantic ''The Atlantic'' is an American magazine and multi-platform publisher. It features articles in the fields of politics, foreign affairs, business and the economy, culture and the arts, technology, and science. It was founded in 1857 in Boston, ...
'' called the report "massive", a "grave climate warning", and a "huge achievement for American science". Both ''The Washington Post'' and ''Vox'' described the report as "major". The ''Post'' described it as the Trump administration's climate report. ''Vox'' news described it as "dire". A November 23, 2018 ''
Reuters Reuters ( ) is a news agency owned by Thomson Reuters Corporation. It employs around 2,500 journalists and 600 photojournalists in about 200 locations worldwide. Reuters is one of the largest news agencies in the world. The agency was estab ...
'' article published in ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' cited the NCA4: "With continued growth in emissions at historic rates, annual losses in some economic sectors are projected to reach hundreds of billions of dollars by the end of the century - more than the current gross domestic product (GDP) of many U.S. states." In July 2019 the ''Times'' cited the NCA4 in its own reporting to underscore the threat of sea level rise to the trillion-dollar coastal real estate market. Articles in ''Reuters''/''The New York Times'', and the ''BBC'', said that the warning issued by the 4th NCA "is at odds with the Trump administration's fossil fuels agenda." An article in '' The Hill'' described the report as "damning", 'sounding the alarm' on the impact of climate change and contrasted the findings of NCA4 with doubts about climate change science expressed by President Trump. An article in ''
The Verge ''The Verge'' is an American technology news website operated by Vox Media, publishing news, feature stories, guidebooks, product reviews, consumer electronics news, and podcasts. The website launched on November 1, 2011, and uses Vox Media' ...
'' called it a "bleak black Friday report." An article in the ''
Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the Un ...
'' said that the release of NCA4 was important in "tackling a misconception by many Americans that the changing climate doesn’t harm them personally." The report shows "how climate change is already affecting each one of us, whether we live in Texas or Minnesota or Hawai’i or Florida." Collin O'Mara, President of the
National Wildlife Federation The National Wildlife Federation (NWF) is the United States' largest private, nonprofit conservation education and advocacy organization, with over six million members and supporters, and 51 state and territorial affiliated organizations (includin ...
(NWF) issued a statement in which he called the timing of the Black Friday release by the White House of the NCA4 report—a month before its anticipated release—a "disgrace". O’Mara said that, "It’s an absolute disgrace to bury the truth about climate impacts in a year that saw hundreds of Americans die during devastating climate-fueled megafires, hurricanes, floods, and algal blooms."The White House announced on November 21 that it would be releasing the NCA4 report findings on Black Friday.Collin O’Mara, NWF President's press release November 21, 2018: "It’s an absolute disgrace to bury the truth about climate impacts in a year that saw hundreds of Americans die during devastating climate-fueled megafires, hurricanes, floods, and algal blooms. Releasing the National Climate Assessment on Black Friday won’t obscure the fact that authorities are still identifying bodies in California’s unprecedented megafires, Florida is still dealing with toxic algae outbreaks fueled by warmer water, and Americans are still picking up the pieces from Hurricanes Florence and Michael and Typhoon Yutu that were worsened by climate change. Following upon the recent IPCC report, this analysis is a clarion call for Congress to address climate pollution and community resilience with absolute urgency." In a November 23, 2018 press release, the
Union of Concerned Scientists The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) is a nonprofit science advocacy organization based in the United States. The UCS membership includes many private citizens in addition to professional scientists. Anne Kapuscinski, Professor of Environmenta ...
(UCS) described how the 1,500-page report was based on "the best available science" and serves to assist the U.S. in "understand ng assess ng predict ngand respond ngto" climate change. It "examines the climate and economic impacts U.S. residents could expect if drastic action is not taken to address climate change". Brenda Ekwurzel is a NCA4 Report Author and Senior UCS Climate Scientist. In May 2019, ''The New York Times'' reported that the Trump administration was planning to make changes in the climate modeling methods used to create the next report which is due in 2022. Rather than project impacts of change to the end of the century as has been done in the past, they will project only to 2040. The administration is also planning to create a climate change review panel that would question the conclusions of the 2022 report. The ''Times'' reported that
William Happer William Happer (born July 27, 1939) is an American physicist who has specialized in the study of atomic physics, optics and spectroscopy. He is the Cyrus Fogg Brackett Professor of Physics, Emeritus, at Princeton University, and a long-term memb ...
, who "would be a fringe figure even for climate skeptics", would head the panel.


See also

* National Research Council, report on climate change *
Presidential Climate Action Plan The Climate Action Plan is an environmental plan by Barack Obama, the 44th President of the United States, that proposed a reduction in carbon dioxide emissions. It included preserving forests, encouraging the use of alternate fuels, and increased ...
*
State of the Climate The ''State of the Climate'' is an annual report that is primarily led by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration National Climatic Data Center (NOAA/NCDC), located in Asheville, North Carolina, but whose leadership and authorship sp ...
* Climate security


Notes


References


External links


U.S. Global Change Research Program
Organizational website.
2018 NCA Report
{{Global warming, state=collapsed Climate change assessment and attribution Reports of the United States government Climate change in the United States Articles containing video clips