Inclusion of New Cross-Cutting Features in the Fifth National Climate Assessment

The Fifth National Climate Assessment (NCA5) is currently being developed, with an open public comment period expected to run concurrently to AGU 2022. Led by the U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP), the NCA captures current knowledge on climate science, impacts, and responses to climate change across the Nation, with the goal of supporting decision-making from a range of sectors.

While many of the topics in the table of contents are required by law, NCA5 is an opportunity to highlight recent advances in climate science and emerging topics of national interest. To capture these timely and relevant topics, a new feature has been added to NCA5 called "Focus On..." boxes." The topics of these focus boxes were identified by the NCA5 expert author teams themselves.

For NCA5 the topics highlighted in these Focus On... boxes are:

Compound and Complex Extreme Events

Western Wildfires

Covid-19, Pandemics, and Climate Change

Risks to Supply Chains

Blue Carbon

This poster will describe how these topics were chosen and highlight the goal of including discussion of these topics in a more structured way. Additionally, it will provide readers the tools needed to provide feedback to authors during public comment on how these topics are covered and integrated into the overall NCA5.