Access a range of climate-related reports issued by government agencies and scientific organizations. Browse the reports listed below, or filter by scope, content, or focus in the boxes above. To expand your results, click the Clear Filters link.
The State Climate Summaries provided here were initially produced to meet the demand for state-level climate information in the wake of the Third U.S. National Climate Assessment. This 2022 version provides new information and extends the historical climate record to 2020 for each state. The summaries cover assessment topics directly related to NOAA’s mission, specifically historical climate variations and trends, future climate model projections of climate conditions during the 21st century, and past and future conditions of sea level and coastal flooding. Additional background information and links are given below.
The Western Governors’ Association and the U.S. Department of Agriculture are pursuing an effort to meaningfully address the large-scale infestation of invasive annual grasses on western forests and rangelands. One product of this effort is this toolkit for land managers working to combat the spread of invasive annual grasses in the West. The toolkit is comprised of a roadmap for invasive grass management, with new best management practices; case studies highlighting the application of these practices in Idaho and Wyoming; and a new geospatial data layer (which uses analytical tools to compile existing federal data) to help state and local managers assess invasive annual grasses within their jurisdictions while also offering opportunities to identify new cross-boundary collaborative projects. The roadmap and data layer are designed for easy integration into local management plans and can be tailored by state and local managers to reflect local data, knowledge, capacities, and priorities.
This guide is designed to help transportation practitioners understand how and where nature-based and hybrid solutions can be used to improve the resilience of coastal roads and bridges. It summarizes the potential flood-reduction benefits and co-benefits of these strategies, then follows the steps in the project delivery process, providing guidance on considering nature-based solutions in the planning process, conducting site assessments, key engineering and ecological design considerations, permitting approaches, construction considerations, and monitoring and maintenance strategies. The guide also includes appendices with site characterization tools, decision support for selecting nature-based solutions, suggested performance metrics, and links to additional tools and resources.
The Western Regional Action Plan was developed to increase the production, delivery, and use of climate-related information to fulfill the NOAA Fisheries mission in the region, and identifies priority needs and specific actions to implement the NOAA Fisheries Climate Science Strategy in the West over the next three to five years. The California Current Large Marine Ecosystem (CCLME) spans the entire west coast of the continental U.S. and has significant seasonal, inter-annual, and inter-decadal fluctuations in climate that impact the marine food-web and fisheries. The CCLME is highly important economically and ecologically. Commercial and recreational fisheries in the CCLME contribute significantly to the U.S. economy, and a host of fish, bird, and mammal species depend on the productive waters and lipid-rich food web of the CCLME for their annual feeding migrations. Migrant species include several million metric tons of hake and sardine from the waters off southern California, several hundred million juvenile salmon from U.S. West Coast rivers, millions of seabirds from as far as New Zealand (sooty shearwaters) and Hawaii (Laysan and black-footed albatrosses), and tens of thousands of grey whales from Baja California and humpback whales from the Eastern North Pacific. These feeding migrations allow species to load up on energy reserves as an aid to survival during their winter months in southern extremes of their distribution. Climate-related physical processes that disrupt the CCLME ecosystem may result in negative impacts to U.S. fisheries, migrant species, and the people and communities that depend on these living marine resources.
An analysis of 45 years of U.S. Forest Service records from the western U.S. show that the number of large fires on Forest Service land is increasing dramatically. The area burned by these fires is also growing at an alarming rate.
This report presents the common trends in how 12 local governments across the country developed and implemented stormwater policies to support green infrastructure. The local policies examined include interagency cooperation, enforcement and management issues, and integration with state and federal regulations. While a strong motivation for these policies and programs is innovation in stormwater management, many communities are moving past the era of single objective spending and investing in runoff reduction and stormwater management strategies that have multiple benefits. Green infrastructure approaches have a range of benefits for the social, environmental, and economic conditions of a community. Not only do these case studies include success stories for building a comprehensive green infrastructure program, but they also provide insight into the barriers and failures these communities experienced while trying to create a stormwater management system that includes more green infrastructure approaches.
