Climate profiles tailored to communities

To address demand for climate information that is useful for adaptation planning and decision-making, a group at the University of Arizona has been experimenting with the creation of Community Climate Profiles for communities in the Southwest. CCASS research scientist Alison Meadow and Dan Ferguson, director of the Climate Assessment for the Southwest (CLIMAS), describe this effort in the spring 2017 issue of Rural Connections.  These Profile documents provide summaries of historic and recent climatic conditions, as well as information about climate change, focused on a particular area that can help communities complete the first step of adaptation planning: gathering and interpreting climate information. The Profiles have been designed to be relevant to a specific geographic and social context, tailored to meet users’ needs, and transparent in terms of the data used and applicability of the information they contain.  Read the article at http://wrdc.usu.edu/files-ou/publications/our-climate-meadow-rcspr2017.pdf