Research Priorities for Robust Climate Assessments in the United States

Scientific assessments play a critical role in synthesizing evidence to support evidence-based decision-making in many sectors and topics. For climate change, large-scale assessments like the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the United States (U.S.) National Climate Assessment (NCA) reports help many different users—from national government to local governments, Indigenous Peoples and communities, the private sector, the social sector, and the scientific community itself—navigate the complex field of climate risks, impacts, and integrated solutions. While co-creation with users is essential to developing actionable assessments, this paper lays the groundwork for future processes by identifying many advancing and emerging areas of relevant knowledge ready for assessment or additional near-term research. Drawing on the expertise of many scholars who were formerly tasked with producing the Sixth NCA and authors of other national or sub-national climate assessment reports, this paper highlights select U.S.-relevant topics in which research advances since the 2023 Fifth NCA make new syntheses particularly valuable for future national, sub-national, and sectoral climate assessments. It also identifies critical research topics in those select areas that would be useful for future climate assessment efforts. Overall, this research priorities roadmap aims to catalyze collaborations, research, and a network of climate assessments to synthesize the state of climate impacts, risks, and responses and to provide widely accessible and foundational information for sectoral, regional, and cross-cutting climate action plans and decisions in the U.S.