Building and Sustaining Assessment Capacity Across Scales

The Third U.S. National Climate Assessment (NCA3) was guided by a strategy that emerged from lessons learned from previous U.S. climate and other regional, national, and international assessment efforts. In particular, NCA3 aimed to build and sustain assessment capacity both among its scientific experts, authors and contributors as well as external user communities. The presentation will describe highlights of how this capacity was built up during the NCA3 and the degree to which it is being sustained since the release of NCA3. It will also offer lessons learned from NCA3 about the challenges and opportunities involved in building and maintaining assessment capacity over time.