Alaska
The assessment will be both qualitative and quantitative, focusing on fisheries, transportation, forestry, subsistence, and wildlife. Transportation affects virtually all aspects of life in Alaska. Impacts of climate change and variability on wildlife will affect subsistence, tourism, recreation, and the environment. These key issues may have implications for the Alaskan economy. The assessment team has constructed climate scenarios from a combination of GCM models and observed data trends. They will focus especially on socioeconomic impacts and on outreach, particularly to native communities.

Appalachians-Central and Southern
Through a broad survey of the interests of government, NGOs, and businesses, this assessment team will define key areas to assess. Currently, the team is focusing on forests, water, and energy. In the context of these issues, the assessment team will also examine commerce, ecosystems, human health, air quality, and tourism as well as the impact of policies which are targeted at climate related phenomena.

California
The assessment team plans to identify key sectors through the engagement of the Steering Committee members. Team members envision a long-term assessment effort which will involve model integration and business participation. The team is focusing on water, health, forests,
agriculture, coastal, and urban areas and has identified four priority research areas: integrated regional impacts modeling project, ecological systems impacts assessment, communities and infrastructure impacts assessment, and business and economic impacts.

Eastern Midwest
One of the main areas of focus for this assessment team is the effect of climate change on agriculture in the region and how agriculture can adapt to these changes. They have divided their region into twelve sub-sections in order to more thoroughly examine this issue. They are using the Century 4.0 as a crop production model and the Purdue Crop Livestock Linear Program (PC/LP) model for the analysis of farm level decisions. The team would also like to address direct impacts and the impacts of adjustment policies and intend to engage stakeholders from a wide range of sectors.

Great Lakes
Using the overlay approach for most sectors, the assessment team has divided the assessment into two levels. In level I, information will be compiled from recently completed studies. In level II of the assessment, they will use GCM output, other climate change scenario information and the information compiled in level I to assess the impacts of regional climate change. Impact model simulations for corn, soybeans, and dairy will be performed. Data from climate change scenarios will be used to input into the GLERL Great Lakes Advanced Hydrolic Prediction Suite of models to assess the impacts of climate change on the Great Lakes.

Great Plains --Central
The assessment team will conduct a quantitative assessment in which stakeholders will be meaningfully engaged. The analysis will cover the Great Basin region and the north, south, and central Great Plains, thus providing data to other National Assessment regions. The team will focus on water agricultural modeling, agricultural land use/adaptation, ranching and rangeland production systems, and conservation areas. Using scenarios and analog studies, an evaluation of ecosystem and agronomic responses to climate changes will be conducted. A steering committee will form which will include stakeholders from many sectors.

Great Plains-Northern
This assessment team intends to motivate actions to reduce the consequences and seize the opportunities of climate change. In order to achieve this goal, the assessment team will next take steps to compile more detailed regional scenario information. The team is focusing on agriculture, forestry, grasslands, education: K-12 and informal, water, extreme weather events, teacher training, information creation and distribution. They would like to hold annual workshops for the next three years to maintain stakeholder involvement. Information which results from these workshops would be passed on to the extensive network of stakeholders that is developing.

Great Plains-Southern
Emphasizing a long-term perspective on broadly based issues, workshop coordinators intend to focus on the impacts of climate variability and change on water, agriculture, and energy. The workshop will focus on three hydrologic systems: the Rio Grande, the Texas-Gulf drainage, and the Arkansas-White-Red drainage basin. They would like to assess the impacts of drought and water abundance on an array of economic sectors and land uses. In the context of assessing these impacts, they will be looking at urban and community issues. The use of the historical record and other data will be important to the region; however, acquisition of data may be difficult due to the sparse data locations. The workshop will be held by the end of 1998.

Gulf Coast
The assessment team plans to focus on wetland ecosystems, bottomland forests, fisheries, health, water and air quality, and urban problems. The team will expand outreach to stakeholders through extensive media, organization of town meetings, a focus on educational programs, and the maintenance of an active web site. The key experts will be designated to lead the assessment of each sector and to develop sectoral teams.

Metropolitan East Coast
Focusing on the interaction between knowledge, knowledge production, and policy making, the assessment team will develop an action plan for the region. Through the iteration between the production of impact scenarios and stakeholder review, they will refine the assessment, time frames and action plans. The team will concentrate on water resources, air resources, land use, coastal marine, human health, ecosystem services, urban environments, and infrastructure. They also intend to develop a regional climate impacts network.

Middle-Atlantic
The assessment will be structured as an open process which encourages stakeholder and researcher involvement. The Center for Integrated Regional Assessment (CIRA) framework will be used as an assessment approach. The assessment will focus on five sectors: water, coasts, health, forests, and agriculture as well as cross-cutting issues such as biophysical (ecosystem) impacts and human impacts (socio-economic), with a qualitative overview and a quantitative assessment. Case studies focusing on different locations and types will be used to illustrate the
potential impacts of climate change on the region.

Native Peoples, Native Homelands
The assessment team plans to provide a framework for the articulation of the concerns of native peoples. The team intends to view the Earth holistically as a living system, focusing on the impacts of climate change and variability on water, human health, ecosystem/wilderness,
sovereignty/cultural integrity, subsistence, and emergency response. The workshop is scheduled to be held October 29-November 1 in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

New England
The assessment team would like to facilitate the development of a dynamic partnership among regional research, service, industry, and end-user communities that apply research methods and technologies. To foster this partnership, they will develop an effective outreach program to address important regional climate change and variability issues and concerns and promote information transfer and public awareness. The assessment team will reach out to business and industry leaders from the recreation and tourist industries as well as leaders in agriculture and the energy and utilities industries. They will also focus on government resource management, human health, and natural resources.

Pacific Islands
Water availability and quality are important issues in this region as islands are more limited in sources of water than other areas. The impacts of extreme events and the impacts of other climate-related coastal hazards are particularly important to assess because of the implications for community planning, economic development and public safety. Changes in terrestrial/coastal and marine ecosystems also produce a wide array of implications and hence will be another focus of the assessment team. The team will form critical partnerships to develop, communicate, and use enhanced information to understand and respond to climate variability and change.

Pacific Northwest
The assessment team is looking at the impacts of variability and change on how natural systems and human systems interact. They are using a sophisticated regional model driven by GCM and will base their approach to the assessment upon climate dynamics. Their previous work has focused more on variability, but they are now placing more emphasis on the study of change and thresholds. They are specifically interested in the affects of the El Nino-Southern Oscillation on seasonal-interannual timescales and the Pacific Decadal Oscillation on inter-decadal timescales on region. The assessment team has done in-depth study of forestry, water, agriculture, marine ecosystems, and coastal issues. The team will continue studying these issues as well as begin to assess the impacts on health and energy.

Rocky Mountains and Great Basin
The assessment team will work with focus groups to study water resources, climatology, and other sectors to develop probability scenarios. The focus groups will hold workshops which will produce scenarios and position papers. Ecological modeling will be conducted jointly with the Great Plains. Emphasizing the importance of montane snowpacks in the region, the team will assess the effects of water availability and timing on cultivated agriculture and ranching, skiing and tourism, natural ecosystems, and urban and industrial use.

South Atlantic and Caribbean
The workshop coordinators emphasize that education can be used as a method of transforming research findings into practical knowledge. They will draw on rich cumulative experience in vulnerability analysis, hazard assessment, hazard mitigation, and emergency management. They will also focus on lessons learned during the response and recovery phases of several disasters to include empirical knowledge in the socio-economic aspects of climate scenarios. In an area which is highly vulnerable to coastal hazards and known for a high level of coastal development, coastal impacts and impacts on the tourism industry have emerged as important issues as well as the impacts of climate change and variability on urban areas.

Southeast
Using linked ecophysiologic, hydrologic, and economic models along with climate change scenarios, the assessment team is conducting quantitative assessments on both agriculture and forestry which will be coordinated with other regions to ensure coverage of the entire southeastern U.S. The effects of climate variability and change on ground-level ozone production, air quality, and non-attainment as well as on stream flow, runoff, and water quality compliance will be assessed using historical and climate scenarios. The team will examine the cross-cutting effects of water and extreme climate events on these sectors.

Southwest-Colorado River Basin
Water, health, and urbanization have emerged as key issues in the region. Utilizing tree-ring analyses, team members will examine the consequences of extreme events and climate variation over the past 500 years in an attempt to evaluate what the effects of these events would be if they were to occur today. The team will continue outreach to stakeholders through their web site and on-line discussion group. They will coordinate with ongoing regional research activities to expand the scope of their assessment. For example, in collaboration with the Institute for Study of Planet Earth at the University of Arizona, they will analyze the contemporary climate impacts in parts of New Mexico and Arizona.

Southwest-Rio Grande River Basin
The assessment team will collaborate closely with the Southern Great Plains region and work to identify the areas of greatest vulnerability in the region, especially those which may affect the health and water sectors. They will use climate scenarios to assess the impacts of climate change on surface water availability and the implications that the availability may have for urban and agricultural interests.

Agriculture
The agriculture sector is primarily focused on issues associated with national and regional agricultural production and economic implications. The assessment team will consider the financial vulnerability of farmers and farming regions, coping strategies that may be utilized to manage the impact of climate change, and possible impacts of climate change on environmental factors. Some of these potential changes that will be examined are soil erosion, wildlife habitat, livestock waste, and agricultural chemicals. Finally, the assessment will examine the impact of the international agricultural market in the context of climate change.

Coastal Areas and Marine Resources
The assessment team is focusing on potential climate impacts within the broad coastal zone. These include: sea-level rise and impacts such as coastline erosion or infrastructure damage; changes in freshwater delivery, including the impacts on salinity and nutrient loading; the intensity and frequency of coastal storms; ocean currents; and ocean temperatures. Models will be used to project sea-level changes and other coastal phenomena. Logical inferences and case-studies based on observations of climatic variability impacts may be used when climate models do not effectively address important variables. Outside input will be sought through regional interactions, review activities, and through brochures to interested parties.

Forests
The forests sector will concentrate on potential physical and chemical atmospheric changes and the related impacts of socio-economic shifts on forest structure and function. Specifically, this sector will look at forest productivity, forest tree diversity, forest carbon sequestration, and forest hydrologic change. Experimental literature, derived data, and model simulations will be incorporated into the analysis. The assessment team will develop alternate impact projections and adaptation strategies. Continental-scale models will be used as the basis for the assessment. When more detailed regional models of forest response exist, comparisons between regional and continental predictions will be conducted. Drafts will be placed on the web site for comments.

Human Health
The assessment team is concerned with identifying at-risk populations. As such, this sector is focusing on the possible implications of climate change on health, the provision of health care, and health-related services. The specific vulnerabilities due to heat stress, respiratory
disease, vector-borne disease, and water-borne/water-mediated diseases will be the target of the analysis. The assessment team will apply scientific literature, agency reports/contacts, ongoing research, and limited models to assess the potential vulnerabilities in human health. A general analysis and regional case studies will be completed.

Water Resources
The water resources sector is focusing on water quality and human health, extreme events, ecosystem function and health, water management and socio-economic impacts, water use/quantity/resources. All of these issues will be analyzed in the context of how potential climate change impacts may be related to other stresses. The assessment process is being incorporated with professional review through the auspices of a special symposium and journal issue of the American Water Resources Association. Stakeholders from the regions and other sectors attended a Water Workshop in Palm Beach, Florida from September 14-16 where they identified cross-cutting issues and developed assessment priorities.