GAO Examines Possibility of Centralized Climate Service

Federal strategic planning efforts to streamline climate change preparedness are challenged by a lack of coordinated data sharing, which may require the creation of a new federal climate service, according to a Government Accountability Office (GAO) audit report presented Wednesday to the Senate Subcommittee on Oceans, Atmosphere, Fisheries, and Coast Guard. The report, Climate Change Adaptation, Federal Efforts to Provide Information Could Help Government Decision Making, highlighted two central challenges: translating climate data such as projected temperature and precipitation changes into information that officials need to make decisions, and justifying the current costs of adaptation with limited information about future benefits.  GAO discussed several potential federal actions that federal, state and local officials identified as useful to inform adaptation decision making. These included state and local climate change impact and vulnerability assessments and “the development of processes and tools to access, interpret and apply climate information.” One possible solution to these challenges, the report noted, was the creation of “a federal service to consolidate and deliver climate information to decision makers to inform adaptation efforts.”...more