The mission of the National Climate Change and Wildlife Science Center (NCCWSC) is to provide natural resource managers with the tools and information they need to develop and execute management strategies that address the impacts of climate and other ongoing global changes on fish and wildlife and their habitats.
Collectively, NCCWSC, the Climate Science Centers (CSCs), and Landscape Conservation Cooperatives (LCCs) form the cornerstones of DOI’s integrated approach to climate change science and adaptation, addressing the full range of natural and cultural resources. CSCs prioritize delivery of fundamental research, data products, and decision-support tools to meet the needs of the LCCs and other resource managers within their respective regions.
Assess and synthesize our state of knowledge about climate change impacts to DOI lands
- Determine priority gaps in scientific understanding of climate change impacts.
- Predict fish and wildlife population changes in response to climate change.
- Assess the vulnerability of species and habitats to climate change.
Work collaboratively with the resource management community to develop adaptation methodologies that minimize the effect of climate change impacts on the Nation’s fish, wildlife, and habitats.
- Generate predictive modeling and decision-support capability for resource managers about climate impacts to land, water, biological, and ecosystem resources.
- Standardize approaches to monitoring and link existing monitoring efforts to models of climate and ecological and biological response.
- Develop data management policies and practices to ensure that NCCWSC-generated data and research results are shared and interoperable with other climate initiatives.
Foster research that increases understanding of the interactions between climate and the physical, biological, and chemical forces that influence the structure and functioning of ecosystems and the goods and services they provide.
- Link physical climate models with biological and ecological responses at management-relevant tempo-spatial scales and ecological endpoints.
- Refine, apply and interpret watershed and ecosystem process models to assist the Nation’s natural resource managers in creating better climate change adaptation strategies.
- Link climate model output with models that predict ecological, habitat, and population responses to climate change.