Climate Programs

The Northwest Climate Science Center (NW CSC) combines academic expertise with federal resources to advance climate science development and delivery for managers and policy makers in the Northwest region. The NW Climate Science Digest is a monthly newsletter that compiles climate science journals and publications for wider access.

Categories: climate change, climate science, planning

The Department of the Interior Northwest Climate Adaptation Science Center (NW CASC) was established to help safeguard the natural and cultural resources of Idaho, Oregon, Washington and surrounding river basins. We are a federal-university partnership that produces relevant and accessible science on climate change impacts and adaptation actions for Northwest natural resource managers and policy-makers. This University-Federal partnership allows access to a broad range of scientific expertise, production of high-quality science and the leveraging of funds, resources and facilities.

Categories: climate science, climate change, adaptation, mitigation, planning, vulnerability assessment, research, programs, map

The National Tribal Environmental Council (NTEC) is dedicated to working with and assisting tribes in the protection and preservation of the reservation environment. NTEC has programs that include training drinking water operators, advancing air quality management policies and programs, and providing tribal technical resources for addressing pesticide issues and concerns. NTEC's membership is open to any federally recognized tribe throughout the United States, and currently has 186 member tribes.

Categories: Environmental Protection, Reservations

The Climate Change Response Program provides basic science information on the effects of climate change, and describes the approach the NPS plans to take to manage uncertainty and potential impacts to NPS parks.

Categories: Research, Mitigation, Adaptation

This program is dedicated to working with Indian tribes, Alaska Natives, Native Hawaiians, and national organizations, to preserve and protect resources and traditions that are of importance to Native Americans by strengthening their capabilities for operating sustainable preservation programs. The Historic Preservation Fund supports two grants programs: Tribal Historic Preservation Officers (THPO) and the Tribal Heritage Grants. These two grant programs provide much needed assistance to Native American communities interested in protecting their cultural heritage.

Categories: Cultural Preservation

This report, published December 2016, sets out a vision and broad approach for managing impacts to and learning from cultural resources under modern climate change. This connects major directions for action from the NPS Climate Change Response Strategy (2010) and the NPS Director’s Policy Memo Climate Change and Stewardship of Cultural Resources (2014) to create four overarching Goals for cultural resources and climate change.

Categories: climate change, planning, policy, adaptation, mitigation, cultural resource,

"This site is for anyone interested in working with Indigenous peoples and long-term (hundreds of years) local residents for stewardship of ecosystems. It provides information, resources and discussion for those interested in considering both traditional knowledge and western science. please contact us to submit information for the website for consideration. We honor and respect Mother Earth's caretakers and desire to learn time-tested ways of stewardship."

Categories: Traditional Ecological Knowledge, National Parks Management

In response to this need, the North Pacific Landscape Conservation Cooperative and US Fish and Wildlife Service Region 1 has initiated a Landscape Conservation Design initiative for the Lower Columbia River and adjacent coastal shoreline - "Blueprint for a Climate-Resilient Landscape." This partner-driven, multi-stakeholder effort is an integrated, collaborative, and holistic process that is grounded in the interdisciplinary science of landscape ecology, the mission-oriented science of conservation biology, and the art of design. The process results in a science-based, spatially-explicit product that identifies targets of interest to partners, articulates measurable objectives; assesses current and projected landscape patterns and processes; and identifies a desired future condition, conservation and development trade-offs, and implementation strategies.

Categories: Conservation, Adaptation, Landscape-scale Conservation

The Washington-British Columbia Transboundary Climate-Connectivity Project engaged science-practice partnerships to identify potential climate impacts on wildlife habitat connectivity in the transboundary region of Washington and British Columbia, and adaptation actions for addressing these impacts. This gallery includes data gathered or created as part of this project, as well as accompanying reports describing key findings for 13 case studies (including 11 species, a vegetation system, and a region).

A primary goal of this project was to increase practitioners' capacity to access, interpret, and apply existing climate and connectivity models to their decision-making. For this reason, many of the data layers included in this gallery have been reproduced with slight modification from existing sources; detailed information on original data sources can be found in the metadata provided with each layer.

Categories: Data-set, Climate Modeling, Landscape-level Climate Impacts, Scientific Data

Established in 1983, the Northeast Regional Climate Center (NRCC) is located in the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Cornell University. It serves the 12-state region that includes: Connecticut, Delaware, Massachusetts, Maryland, Maine, New Hampshire,
New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, and West Virginia. Major funding is provided through a contract with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The Center's staff works cooperatively with the National Climatic Data Center, the National Weather Service, state climate offices, and other interested scientists in the Northeast to acquire and disseminate accurate, up-to-date climate data and information.

Categories: Research, Climate Science

The U.S. Climate Resilience Toolkit provides scientific tools, information, and expertise to help people manage their climate-related risks and opportunities, and improve their resilience to extreme events. The site is designed to serve interested citizens, communities, businesses, resource managers, planners, and policy leaders at all levels of government.

Categories: Climate change, tribal programs, Adaptation, Mitigation

The U.S. Climate Resilience Toolkit provides scientific tools, information, and expertise to help people manage their climate-related risks and opportunities, and improve their resilience to extreme events. The site is designed to serve interested citizens, communities, businesses, resource managers, planners, and policy leaders at all levels of government.

Categories: Climate change, tribal programs, Adaptation, Mitigation

SoundToxins, a diverse partnership of Washington state shellfish and finfish growers, environmental learning centers, Native American tribes, and Puget Sound volunteers, is a monitoring program designed to provide early warning of harmful algal bloom events in order to minimize both human health risks and economic losses to Puget Sound fisheries.

Categories: shellfish, Harmful Algal Bloooms (HABs), finfish, aquaculture

The Maritime Heritage Program seeks to support research into seafaring traditions and the preservation of maritime folklore and knowledge. Understanding the true human dimensions of our protected marine areas is incomplete without an awareness and recognition of the special cultural ties these areas have to indigenous seafaring cultures. Gaining an awareness of the great variety of human connections to the sea can help us all become better stewards of our ocean resources.

Categories: Cultural Preservation, Coastal

This website provides extensive digitized data on the US coasts. While the need for good data forms the foundation of the website, the basic premise behind the effort is the understanding that data alone are not enough. Most people need help turning these data into information that can be used when making important decisions about coastal management. The Digital Coast does just that with data, training, tools, stories from the field and other resources.

Categories: Coastal, Management, Research

Many governmental organizations, particularly on the local and state levels, are not fully equipped to address the challenges associated with flooding, hurricanes, sea level rise, and other coastal hazards. It is for this reason the NOAA Coastal Services was created.The Center brings NOAA products and services to these entities, and develops new products and services as well. The Center’s core areas of expertise include geospatial technologies; training; and social science. Products and services developed by the Center include data, tools, training, and technical assistance.

Categories: Coastal, Infrastructure

To address challenges ecological, climate related and management challenges to our coasts, the Office of Ocean and Coastal Resource Management’s (OCRM) six divisions oversee a number of programs that assist states in managing, preserving, and developing their marine and coastal resources. OCRM activities include working with states and territories to conserve and protect coral reefs, operate a system of National Estuarine Research Reserves, and implement the National Coastal Zone Management Program, as well as developing a system of marine protected areas.

Categories: Coastal, Management

Improvements to state and territory coastal management programs are encouraged through this program. The focus is on nine enhancement areas: wetlands, coastal hazards, public access, marine debris, cumulative and secondary impacts, special area management plans, ocean and Great Lakes resources, energy and government facility siting, and aquaculture. The program was established in 1990 under Section 309 of the Coastal Zone Management Act.

Every five years, states and territories review their programs to identify priority needs and opportunities for improvement. The programs then work with NOAA to develop multi-year improvement strategies that focus on one or more of the priority enhancement goals.

Categories: Land, Coastal

The mission of NOAA's National Marine Sanctuaries is to serve as the trustee for the nation's system of marine protected areas, to conserve, protect, and enhance their biodiversity, ecological integrity and cultural legacy.

Categories: Coastal, Conservation

The National Ocean Service (NOS) translates science, tools, and services into action, to address threats to coastal areas such as climate change, population growth, port congestion, and contaminants in the environment, all working towards healthy coasts and healthy economies.

Categories: Coastal, Management

This initiative focuses on American Indians and Alaskan Natives who have origins in any of the original people of North America, and who maintain cultural identification through tribal affiliation or community recognition. Program Managers provide advice and guidance on matters affecting the employment, advancement, retention and external participation of Native American in all NOAA programs and activities. Outreach efforts for employment and to community organizations must be specific and designed around equal trust, commitment and collective communication with tribal government officials.

Categories: Administration

NOAA's research laboratories, Climate Program Office, and research partners conduct a wide range of research into complex climate systems and how they work. These scientists want to improve their ability to predict climate variation in both the shorter term, like cold spells or periods of drought, and over longer terms like centuries and beyond. NOAA researchers will continue their consistent and uninterrupted monitoring of the Earth's atmosphere that can give us clues about long-term changes in the global climate. The data collected worldwide by NOAA researchers aids our understanding of, and ability to forecast changes in, complex climatic systems.

Categories: Research

The NOAA Climate.gov web portal provides science and services for a climate-smart nation. We offer a public-friendly point of entry to NOAA’s and our partners’ diverse portfolios of climate data and information. Our goals are to promote public understanding of climate science to make our data products and services easy to access and use for decision-making, to provide climate-related support to the private sector and the Nation’s economy, and to provide quick access to data and information for individuals with very specific questions.

Categories: Climate, Education

Environmental stewardship, long-term economic development and responsible use of America’s coastal, ocean and Great Lakes resources are at the heart of Sea Grant’s mission. Sea Grant is a nationwide network (administered through the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration [NOAA]), of 32 university-based programs that work with coastal communities. The National Sea Grant College Program engages this network of the nation’s top universities in conducting scientific research, education, training, and extension projects designed to foster science-based decisions about the use and conservation of our aquatic resources.

Categories: Conservation, Research, Education

The National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is a national leader on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The Climate Program Office manages NOAA funding of high-priority climate science. The newly reorganized Climate Service will allow NOAA to provide a reliable and authoritative source for climate data, information, and decision support services and to more effectively coordinate with other agencies and partners.

Categories: Research

Up-to-date information and research on drought in the Four Corners area is available through NIDIS.

Categories: Emergency Response, Research, Education

Drought is one of the most costly natural disasters affecting the U.S.The National Integrated Drought Information System (NIDIS) was established in 2006 (NIDIS Act) to help begin to move society from a reactive response to drought to a proactive stance. NIDIS was envisioned to be a dynamic and accessible drought information system that provides users with the ability to determine the potential impacts of drought and the associated risks they bring, and the decision support tools needed to better prepare for and mitigate the effects of drought.

Categories: Research, Education, Emergency Response

The National Wildlife Federation’s (NWF) Tribal Lands Conservation Program is working with tribal partners to collaborate on climate change solutions. The NWF’s partnerships with tribes on climate change include meetings and workshops, policy development, natural resource management planning and monitoring, and the formation of an Intertribal Climate Coalition.

Categories: Conservation, Natural Resource Management

By tracking critical western resource issues through public hearing and comment processes, linking to relevant news and opinions, providing thorough but concise primers on applicable laws, and offering users a simple form by which to submit comments electronically to respective decision-making bodies, RLCH is a one-stop shop for interested citizens to learn, discuss, and participate in environmental policy decisions effecting western communities.

Categories: Environmental Law, Policy

EcoAdapt’s mission is to create a robust future in the face of climate change. EcoAdapt brings together diverse players in the conservation, policy, science, and development communities to reshape conservation and resource management in response to rapid climate change.

Categories: Conservation, policy, Science, Development