2012 Reports

National Climate Assessment Indicators: Background, Development, and Examples

Janetos, Anthony C.; Chen, Robert S.; Arndt, Deke; Kenney, Melissa A.

This paper establishes a rationale for developing a system of indicators for an ongoing national climate assessment process. It lays out a framework for a set of climate-related indicators that have an end-to-end character, e.g. they will provide information on greenhouse gases, variability and change in the climate system, status and trends of important sectors that are known to be sensitive to climate variability, and response strategies. Examples of potential indicators are shown in each category. These are by no means a final set of indicators, because an overall process for selection with participation from important stakeholders has not yet been undertaken. But even this initial set of possibilities reveals both where there is a substantial amount of well-documented information, and where there are important gaps that must be filled by subsequent research.