Dear Participant,

Over the past several months, we have been laying the groundwork to initiate a national assessment that examines the vulnerabilities of the United States -- its ecological systems, its major economic sectors, and its social infrastructure -- to climate variability and change. We envision a process that includes a broadly defined research and stakeholder community; that considers the nation's vulnerabilities to climate variability and climate change in the context of other important environmental stresses and current concerns; and that accounts for region to region differences as well as common themes across regions.

We have made considerable progress in developing the framework of this process through the regional workshops and a special planning meeting at the Aspen Global Change Institute this past summer. We now envision that the national assessment process will include regional assessments (which will build on the products of the regional scoping workshops), sectoral assessments (which will examine key issues at a national scale), and a synthesis of these outputs (which will address overarching questions).

We have asked you to come to the U.S. Climate Forum to solicit your insights and recommendations about what questions you would like to see addressed, what creative ways you can suggest for synthesizing information, and how we can achieve broad stakeholder participation in the national assessment process. We anticipate that this Forum will have a considerable influence on the way in which we proceed in this process.

In this mailing, we are providing further background on the consequences of climate variability and change, information on the regional workshop series, and packets on the breakout groups. We have tentatively assigned you to a regional and a sectoral breakout group, based on the preferences you specified in your reply form. We have generally honored your first choices, except in cases where a group had become so large that we felt there would not be adequate time for everyone to offer their perspectives. To date we have had an overwhelming response to our invitations with over 300 positive responses.

In reviewing the packets on the breakout groups, and specifically the scoping papers on the regions and sectors, please keep in mind the following four questions that have guided our process, with particular emphasis on what is missing or not adequately emphasized in our write-ups:

• What are the current stresses and issues for the sector or region? Are there present day stresses on the sector or region that we have not covered? Have we identified the most important stresses?
• How will climate change and variability exacerbate or ameliorate existing problems? Are there additional consequences on the sector or region that we have not covered? Have we identified the most important consequences?
• What are the priority research and information needs? Are there additional information needs that we have not addressed? Do we adequately indicate the obstacles to information transfer? What are your key questions and information needs? What is the information that could help you and your constituents make decisions about risk, priorities, and responses?
• What coping options exist that can build resilience and possibly assist the climate change problem? Are there additional coping options that we have not covered? Are you already engaged in formulating or implementing coping options and are these discussed?

Please consider these questions for both your region and the sectors of interest to you. Your views on these issues are very important to us -- we have planned the Forum agenda to allow sufficient time in breakout groups so that participants can voice their ideas and engage in discussion.

We appreciate your participation in the Forum and look forward to an interesting and productive meeting. Thank you again for joining us in November.

Best regards,
 

Jerry Melillo

Chair, U.S. Climate Forum Steering Committee

Co-Director, The Ecosystems Center, Marine Biological Laboratory