EOS-WEBSTER The US National Assessment

The US Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) established the National Assessment "to analyze and evaluate what is known about the potential consequences of climate variability and change for the Nation in the context of other pressures on the public, the environment, and the Nation's resources."

For more than two years, the USGCRP sponsored regional workshops and analyses, national analyses of different sectors, and a national synthesis of many of the important issues that arose in order to address this charge. The findings and recommendations of the National Assessment Synthesis Team were published in Overview and Foundation reports on "Climate Change Impacts on the United States: The Potential Consequences of Climate Variability and Change".

The US National Assessment used both historical climate and general-circulation model scenarios of future climate for understanding natural variability and outcomes based on specific assumptions about future climate.

Scenarios used:

Canadian Climate Center -- CGCM1 scenario:

increasing CO2 (IS92a global yearly dataset); 1895-2100

UKMO/Hadley Center -- HadCM2 scenario:

increasing CO2 (IS92a global yearly dataset); 1895-2099

Data products developed from the National Assessment. Thumbnail and full size images of climatological variables for the years 1895 through 2100 from the Canadian Center for Climate Modelling and the Hadley Center for Climate Prediction and Research.

Climate Variables:

Variable	Canadian Climate Model	Hadley Model
min. temperature	canadian min temp	hadley min temp
max. temperature	canadian max temp	hadley max temp
precipitation	canadian precip	hadley precip
solar radiation	canadian sol rad	hadley sol rad
relative humidity	canadian rel humid	hadley rel humid

Net Primary Production:

Model	Canadian Climate Model		Hadley Model
Biome-BGC	constant CO₂	increasing CO₂	constant CO₂	increasing CO₂
Century	constant CO₂	increasing CO₂	constant CO₂	increasing CO₂
Lund-Potsdam-Jena	constant CO₂	increasing CO₂	constant CO₂	increasing CO₂
MC1	constant CO₂	increasing CO₂	constant CO₂	increasing CO₂
TEM	constant CO₂	increasing CO₂	constant CO₂	increasing CO₂

Time series animations of climatological variables for the years 1895 through 2100 from the Canadian Climate Center and Hadley Center.

Each movie is approximately 9.0 megabytes in size and may take a long time to load, please be patient.

Variable	Canadian Climate Model	Hadley Model
min. temperature	canadian min temp.mpeg	hadley min temp.mpeg
max. temperature	canadian max temp.mpeg	hadley max temp.mpeg
precipitation	canadian precip.mpeg	hadley precip.mpeg
solar radiation	canadian sol rad.mpeg	hadley sol rad.mpeg
relative humidity	canadian rel humid.mpeg	hadley rel humid.mpeg

Net Primary Production:

Model	Canadian Climate Model		Hadley Model
Biome-BGC	constCO₂.mpeg	incrCO₂.mpeg	constCO₂.mpeg	incrCO₂.mpeg
Century	constCO₂.mpeg	incrCO₂.mpeg	constCO₂.mpeg	incrCO₂.mpeg
Lund-Potsdam-Jena	constCO₂.mpeg	incrCO₂.mpeg	constCO₂.mpeg	incrCO₂.mpeg
MC1	constCO₂.mpeg	incrCO₂.mpeg	constCO₂.mpeg	incrCO₂.mpeg
TEM	constCO₂.mpeg	incrCO₂.mpeg	constCO₂.mpeg	incrCO₂.mpeg

Additional time series animations of historical climate and future climate scenarios are also available courtesy the VEMAP Project.

EOS-WEBSTER's Role in the National Assessment

Historical climate data and future climate scenarios were used by the assessment teams to understand patterns of natural variability and scenario-driven approaches based on specific assumptions about future climate and socioeconomic conditions. EOS-WEBSTER provided access to the historical and scenario-based climate and modeling datasets for the regional and sectoral assessment teams. These data can be accessed through the US National Assessment Data collection.

National Assessment Synthesis Team Reports

National Assessment Home Page

Overview and Foundation Reports

New to using EOS-WEBSTER?
See our step-by-step instructions for searching and selecting EOS-WEBSTER data holdings.

US National Assessment Data Collection Data Guide
An overview of the data in the collection.

NAST Regions Gazetteer
Use the Gazetteer to subset the data by NAST region.

Select and order holdings from the National Assessment Data Collection
Use the filters to select specific data holdings from the US National Assessment Data Collection.

VEMAP
Learn more about the Vegetation Ecosystem Modeling and Analysis Project that developed the data.

VEMAP Data Collection
View and order data from the entire VEMAP Data Collection.

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