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.
Climate migration—the preemptive movement of people and property away from areas experiencing severe impacts—is one way to improve climate resilience. This report reviews federal support for climate migration, examining the use of climate migration as a resilience strategy, federal support for climate migration, key challenges to climate migration, and how the federal government can address them. A literature review and interviews with climate resilience experts was conducted, with 46 stakeholders selected and interviewed in four communities that have considered relocation: Newtok, Alaska; Santa Rosa, California; Isle de Jean Charles, Louisiana; and Smith Island, Maryland.
The Alaska Regional Action Plan (ARAP) for the Southeastern Bering Sea 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 region over the next three to five years. NOAA’s Alaska Fisheries Science Center is responsible for marine resources in five large marine ecosystems—the southeastern Bering Sea, the Gulf of Alaska, the Aleutian Islands, the northern Bering and Chukchi seas, and the Beaufort Sea. The first ARAP focuses on the southeastern Bering Sea because it supports large marine mammal and bird populations and some of the most profitable and sustainable commercial fisheries in the United States. Climate-related changes in ocean and coastal ecosystems are already impacting the fish, seabirds, and marine mammals as well as the people, businesses, and communities that depend on these living marine resources.
Shaktoolik, a community on the eastern edge of Norton Sound in Alaska, faces considerable threats from erosion and flooding. The community decided to take a “defend in place” approach to erosion, allowing residents to remain at the current village site for the immediate future, although residents have indicated that they are interested in eventually relocating. This Strategic Management Plan provides the “blueprint” or framework for how the community and agencies will proceed to make Shaktoolik a more resilient community and to support their “defend in place” efforts.
This technical report focuses on sharing the collective efforts of the Inuit Circumpolar Council-Alaska, 146 Inuit contributing authors, a 12-member Food Security Advisory Committee, and many other Inuit who provided input and guidance to the process. The report aspires to strengthen the evidence base of (1) what Inuit food security is, (2) what the drivers of food (in)security are, and (3) identify information needed to conduct an assessment through the development of a conceptual framework. The assessment tool is designed to build the baseline of information needed to understand the Arctic environment and allow a pathway for assessments (food security, ecosystem, political, cultural, etc.) to link eco- and socio- components of sciences and indigenous knowledge.
Climate change is making the Arctic a greener, warmer, and increasingly accessible place for economic opportunity. However, climate impacts such as sea ice loss and rising ocean acidification are straining coastal community resilience and sound resource stewardship. NOAA's Arctic Action Plan outlines ways for scientists and stakeholders to share their progress regarding this vast, valuable, and vulnerable region.
This report describes a community-driven project built on efforts by Shaktoolik and other at-risk, mainly Alaska Native villages on the Bering Sea coast to adapt to potentially devastating effects of climate change. The project involved a multi-party approach to assist the community of Shaktoolik to make a decision whether to relocate or stay at the current location. The result is a well-defined process that may be replicated by other at-risk communities in the region. The final report documents lessons learned, adaptation methods for Shaktoolik, potential funding sources, and a step-by-step action plan to implement the community's decision.
The Alaska Climate Change Sub-Cabinet was established on September 14, 2007, to advise the state's governor on creating a comprehensive Alaska Climate Change Strategy. This document contains the recommendations of the Adaptation Advisory Group, which was charged with evaluating and developing options to adapt to climate change. The report also includes background about projected climate impacts on Alaska.
This plan—the first in Alaska—was developed by Homer's Global Warming Task Force and includes an inventory of greenhouse gas emissions from city facilities and community-wide, sets targets for reduction, and presents strategies for reducing emissions.
