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Climate portal projects future risk models for local governments, utility administrators
From wildfires in the west to east coast flooding, climate change is rapidly changing landscapes across the United States. The Climate Risk and Resilience Portal (ClimRR), a new online climate risk and resiliency portal launched by the Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA), AT&T and the U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory, gives local governments an accessible toolkit with which they can project future changes via complex scientific modeling.
“Harnessing the power of our supercomputers, we are making cutting-edge climate data available to the public sector and local planning officials to help them better understand local climate change risks and take the needed actions to become more climate resilient,” said Paul Kearns, director of the Argonne National Laboratory.
Intended to help improve America’s preparedness for future climate extremes, the ClimRR portal provides data points including temperature, precipitation, wind and drought conditions. Other risk factors, such as wildfire and flooding, will be added in the coming months, according to a joint statement issued by the organizations. Initially, AT&T commissioned the Argonne National Laboratory to create the model as a way to predict climate impacts on its own cellular infrastructure. FEMA was brought on board to add additional data that made the modeling relevant for public infrastructure.
“Resiliency can’t be built in a vacuum,” said Charlene Lake, chief sustainability officer at AT&T. “Our world is interdependent. We want other organizations and communities to see where they’re potentially vulnerable to climate change and take steps to become resilient. That’s why we’re excited to make our data publicly available and to work closely with FEMA and Argonne to get it into the right hands.”
The project was announced last month by federal administration officials along with Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego and Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava ahead of the 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference, which is being held this week in Egypt.
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