Scientists Create a New Roadmap for U.S. Climate Assessments

A new paper outlines the research needed to fill gaps left by the absence of high-quality national climate assessments in the United States. The roadmap covers everything from comparing observed climate trends with model projections to tracking emerging risks and adaptation efforts.

What the climate assessment roadmap covers

The paper also highlights areas where climate science has advanced in recent years. Climate modelers, for example, have begun experimenting with machine-learning-based simulations and methods for producing models with higher spatial resolution.

Scientists and policymakers must also keep pace with rapid changes in the real world. U.S. climate policy remains a chaotic and fluid target, while local governments and communities continue developing climate adaptation and emissions-reduction strategies.

Renewable energy is becoming cheaper and more widely deployed, but the rapid growth of AI data centers has significantly changed expectations for U.S. electricity demand. These shifts create new questions for future climate and energy assessments.

Why regional climate research matters

The paper explores how future assessments can reflect and build on the regional focus used in past national climate assessments. Looking more closely at individual parts of the United States can connect climate science to local conditions and make its findings more relevant.

Alaska provides one example. Researchers are studying how permafrost thaw may contribute to wildfires and how those fires can release heavy metals such as mercury into surface waters.

Climate impacts do not stop at national borders

Working outside a federally coordinated U.S. National Climate Assessment could also allow researchers to look beyond the country’s borders. Future analyses might expand to Canada or examine how trade connects climate impacts in the United States with effects in other parts of the world.

The publication will be followed by additional papers addressing these topics and potentially others. “We see this roadmap as seeding and accelerating distributed synthesis efforts rather than launching a centralized research program,” Melisa Kenny, the paper’s lead author, told Ars. “The goal of the paper is to synthesize current scientific understanding of key topics to support networks of climate assessment efforts occurring at state, local, sector, or other scales.”

A distributed future for U.S. climate assessments

Groups producing climate assessment reports can rely on the U.S. Climate Collection even in the absence of comprehensive, high-quality national climate assessments. The collection could help support research and reporting at the state, local, regional, and sector-specific levels.

Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 2026. DOI: 10.1175/BAMS-D-26-0305.1

The Future of the Earth, 2026. DOI: 10.1029/2025EF007336 (About DOI).