A Workshop in Risk-Based Framing of Climate Impacts in the Northwest Implementing the National Climate Assessment Risk-Based Approach

The National Climate Assessment (NCA) is a report that summarizes and communicates the current understanding of climate change science and impacts in the United States. The Global Change Research Act of 1990, Section 106, requires a quadrennial national assessment on climate culminating in a NCA report that a) integrates, evaluates, and interprets the findings of the US Global Change Research Program and discusses the scientific uncertainties associated with such findings, b) analyzes the effects of global change on particular sectors, and c) analyzes current trends in global change, both human-induced and natural, and projects major trends for the subsequent 25 to 100 years (USGCRP). The Northwest NCA Risk Framing Workshop was conceived as a way to bring together carefully selected experts from the region to engage in a discussion of climate impacts through a risk frame, separately assessing the likelihood and consequences. The objectives of this integrative workshop were three-fold: 1) discuss and rank the likelihood and consequences of climate risks to the northwest region, 2) provide opportunity to help inform the NW chapter of the NCA, and 3) build capacity for a long term, sustained regional assessment process.