Overview

The eighth official meeting of the U. S. National Assessment Synthesis Team (NAST) took place December 15-16 at the Westin St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco, CA. The meeting was chaired by Tony Janetos, Tom Karl, and Jerry Melillo, the Co-Chairs of the NAST.

Eleven of the thirteen members of the NAST participated in all or part of the meeting. There were also about 18 additional attendees.

Attendance

The following members of the Synthesis Team participated in the meeting:

• Eric Barron, Pennsylvania State University
• Virginia Burkett, U. S. Geological Survey
• Thomas Cecich, Glaxo-Wellcome, Inc.
• Katharine Jacobs, Arizona Department of Water Resources
• Tony Janetos, World Resources Institute (Co-Chair)
• Linda Joyce, USDA Forest Service
• Tom Karl, NOAA National Climatic Data Center (Co-Chair)
• Jerry Melillo, Marine Biology Laboratory, Woods Hole (Co-Chair)
• Granger Morgan, Carnegie Mellon University
• Edward Parson, Harvard,/Kennedy School of Government (by phone)
• Richard Richels, EPRI

Other attendees included:

• Peter Backlund, Office of Science and Technology Office (by phone)
• Rosina Bierbaum, Office of Science and Technology Office (by phone)
• Lynne Carter, National Assessment Coordination Office
• Robert Cherry, National Assessment Coordination Office
• Robert Corell, National Science Foundation
• Andy Dessler, Office of Science and Technology Office (by phone)
• Kris Ebi, EPRI
• Tom Ewer, Office of Science and Technology Office (by phone)
• Benjamin Felzer, University Corporation for Atmospheric Research
• John H. Gibbons, ex officio, attended, representing the ad hoc review panel of the President's Council of Advisers on Science and Technology,
• Paul Grabhorn, Grabhorn Associates
• Susan Hassol, Aspen Global Change Institute
• Michael MacCracken, National Assessment Coordination Office
• LaShaunda Malone, National Assessment Coordination Office
• Jonathan Patz, Johns Hopkins University
• Joel Smith, Stratus Consulting
• Melissa Taylor, National Assessment Coordination Office
• Tom Wilbanks, Oak Ridge National Laboratory

Welcome and Objectives

The meeting convened at 8:30 AM. The Co-Chairs of the Synthesis Team outlined the objective for the meeting as being to review the initial set of comments from the technical review and decide how to proceed to the next stage of the review process. The focus of the meeting was to be on the draft of the Overview report. They explained that this was the first full review draft and so it should be expected that there would be many comments to be worked.

Summary of Discussions

General comments on the technical review draft of Overview Report: Two sets of comments were provided to the NAST (prior to the meeting, the set of collated comments received by the initial comments deadline were distributed to the NAST; at the meeting, a supplementary compilation of additional comments received was handed out to the NAST).

General impressions: The initial discussion concerned each member's general reactions to the sets of comments received. Issues raised included: the need to improve the climate section, the need to better explain the use of scenarios, the need to work on the balance and tone of the report, the need to better address issues of uncertainty, the need to make sure the Overview and Foundation reports were in better concordance, placing the stress of climate change in the context of other stresses, the need to develop a stronger sense of the bottom line, the need to mention possible surprises, the need for more discussion on the process, on the need for better connecting to the issues raised in the regional and sector reports, market vs. non-market effects, need for the research chapter, need to better connect with stakeholders, better explain the context of the study, need to better define timeframes, need to make sure the report is objective, etc. In summary, there were issues raised about balance, tone, process, science, uncertainty vs. certainty, contents, treatment of adaptation, and research needs.

Discussion of various sections of the Overview Report: The various sections of the Overview Report were then discussed in turn. Issues raised by section included the following:

• Executive Summary: Discussion about the Executive Summary focused on key issues to cover, the treatment of the health issue, on the importance to give the issue, on ecological significance being a big issue, on the need to treat international couplings, on potentially exceeding limits, on relating the national economic effects to local consequences, on transition impacts, etc.
• Climate: Many comments had come in. Issues raised included the possible treatment of a longer period into the past (back to 420,000 years); better explaining the term scenarios; being careful of sounding overconfident; adding materials on surprises; on the use of the word "projection" rather than "prediction"; on the need to make clear that we do have confidence in some findings; the need to describe emissions scenarios; internal consistency; concerns about having the results of only two models (a limitation based mainly on resources); adding more on 20th century trends; etc.
• Ecosystems: Many comments had come in. Additional issues raised in discussion included the need for greater treatment of CO₂ fertilization; the need for a stronger conclusion that natural ecosystems are at risk; on explaining the levels of confidence; on explaining the purpose of the ecosystem section; on the limitations of the present analysis; on the need for a summary box; etc.
• Socioeconomic: The main topics raised were the need for more context and introductory information, and more on the societal implications of changes.
• Northeast: A number of issues were raised in the comments, including the balance of negative and positive effects, a request to rank vulnerabilities, in sufficient coverage of the consequences of mean temperature change, the omission of treatment of agriculture, the need for discussion of uncertainties, etc.
• Midwest: The main issues raised by reviewers seemed to be a possible lack of consistency between the Overview and Foundation chapters, manufacturing related issues seemed to be ignored (they were not covered in the regional assessments), issues about precipitation events, treating issues relating to recreation, treating agricultural shifts, etc.
• Southeast: The main issue discussed concerned the new information on the heat index and suggestions that people of the Southeast could adapt.
• Great Plains: The submitted comments mentioned a number of items, including editorial, the need for clarifications and additions, etc. Specific issues discussed included the treatment of the VEMAP results, whether sand dunes that were now inactive could become active, water pricing, past adaptations to change, and land use change associated with adapting.
• West: The submitted reviews suggested a range of issues to address.
• Pacific Northwest: comments in the technical review set were summarized
• Alaska: It was suggested that the draft was perhaps too definitive
• Native: A clear need was to work to make the chapter more closely related to climate change impacts. A later review from a person in the Bureau of Indian Affairs also raised a number of challenging issues to address.
• Islands: The difficulty of treating the Pacific and Caribbean islands together in one chapter was mentioned by reviewers. The issue of sea level rise also needs to be more closely examined.
• Health: The health sector team expressed concerned about the process used to develop the Overview, suggesting that the NAST needed to have their concurrence on all changes; the Co-Chairs agreed better coordination was needed, but indicated that the Overview and Foundation reports were NAST reports. Discussion focused on one area where there were disagreements, namely the effects of climate change on air quality (including how to account for the potential improvements in technology and tightening of standards).
• Agriculture: Discussion concerned issues such as the limited treatment of adaptation, the omission of livestock, how to account for international couplings, etc.
• Water: A number of points were discussed. The water team is generally satisfied with the text.
• Forests: A number of issues were raised in the technical comments and many comments were received. Points discussed concerned the need for more synthesis, whether the chapter had an eastern bias, the role of humans in disturbance, the need for more experimental data to be cited, the lack of good enough connections to the ecosystem section, the need to talk more about feedbacks, etc.

Teleconference with OSTP: OSTP provided its perspectives on the comments that were submitted to the NAST for consideration. Among the points discussed were the need to explain the reasons that the models got different precipitation results, the need to reexamine the set of key issues, the need for Foundation report bottom lines to match the Overview, the research needs section needing to better present priorities, and a desire to see more examples of the use of observational trends and what-if analyses to balance the model focus.

Discussion of Possible Additional Topics: A number of issues were identified as needing to be treated. These included the issue of potential surprises, the potential commitment to future changes, the issue of intergenerational equity, issues of what would happen beyond 750 ppm of CO₂, etc. Possible surprises that were mentioned included changes in the ocean conveyor belt, in Arctic sea ice, in methane release, in Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, in the possibility of multiple stable states, etc. It was suggested that a new section on long-term/low probability/high consequence events might be needed. Also, it was felt it should cover the commitment being left to future generations.

Assignments

To accelerate progress on the review and revision, the chairs divided up responsibilities for working with the liaisons for the various chapters over the ensuing weeks:

• Tom Karl would coordinate for: Climate, Midwest, Pacific Northwest, Alaska, Native, and Water
• Tony Janetos would coordinate for: Ecosystems, Socioeconomic, Northeast, Islands, Health, Coastal, Next Steps
• Jerry Melillo would coordinate for: Ecosystems, Southeast, Great Plains, West, Forests, Agriculture

The proposed process for updating the report:

• Revisions to overview and captions should be emailed to Susan Hassol
• Revised chapters should be sent to Melissa Taylor
• Everyone needs to do a response memo to the comments for their section
• Every liaison needs to do a one page chapter summary covering key findings
• All NAST members were asked to review diagrams and captions
• It was agreed primary units would be English, with metric in parentheses.

Timetable

A proposed schedule was developed for moving to the next round of review. This schedule updates the schedule from August and incorporates time for the public comment period that was called for by Congressional legislation. Again, however, it was felt that the timetable was rather ambitious, given the schedules of NAST members and how much needs to be done.

Dec. 16-Jan. 14: Revisions to chapters and memo on revisions due to be submitted

Jan. 15-25: Additional editing

Jan. 20-30: Layout of next version

Jan. 31-Feb. 3: Find tuning by Co-Chairs and editors

Feb. 4-6: Production of copies

Feb. 7: Release for review to SGCR and experts appointed by PCAST ad hoc panel

Feb. 25: Comments due back in

March 8: Comments integrated into text

Public comment period would follow

Materials for or at the Meeting

Materials distributed for consideration at or at the meeting:

• November draft of the Overview Report
• Technical review drafts of the chapters of the Foundation Report; the agriculture and research chapters were not available at this time.
• Initial set of review comments from the Technical Review
• Supplementary set of comments from the Technical Review

Certification

I certify that these minutes accurately reflect discussions at this Meeting:

______________________________________________
Jerry M. Melillo, NAST Co-Chair