Exploring the NCA5 Interactive Atlas
The Fifth National Climate Assessment (NCA5) introduced an Interactive Atlas - here’s a quick look at what data and information is included, and how to use it!
If you’re not sure what NCA5 is, check out my other post from today for a quick overview! Otherwise, keep reading to learn about the Interactive Atlas.
Image: Map of Change in Days over 95 degrees F in NCA5 regions, made by Hailey Robe using NCA5 Interactive Atlas
The Interactive Atlas takes three parts: Climate Maps, Climate Stories, and Climate Data. I’ll go through each of these three sections below.
Climate Maps
To access the Climate Maps section, I went to the Interactive Atlas landing page, clicked “Climate Maps,” then clicked “Open Atlas Explorer.” This brought me to a blank map of the United States, with a toolbar at the bottom:
Here’s what each of the options do:
Open map: allows you to overlay a thematic map (includes options such as Change in Annual Precipitation, Change in Mean Summer Temperature, etc)
Map layers: shows you all the layers you have added to your map
Add layer: pretty self-explanatory, allows you to add a layer to your map (includes options such as watershed boundaries, population variables, etc)
Legend: shows a simplified version of the visible layers and how to interpret them
Save: again, self-explanatory, but you can save and export your map!
So, for example, I wanted to create a map that would show the change in mean summer temperature in Colorado as it relates to disadvantaged communities.
I started by zooming in on Colorado using the +/- controls on the left side.
Then, I clicked “Open Maps” in the toolbar at the bottom, which opened this window. I will select “Change in Mean Summer Temperature.”
Here, you can see what it looks like now that the “Changes in Mean Summer Temperature” map has been overlaid. Notice the Map Layers option in the toolbar on the bottom - I have clicked that, opening the box on the right of the screen; but notice the number 4 in the corner of the Map Layers option, which indicates that there are four layers or options that you can apply.
Next to each layer on the right (“Global Warming Level 1.5 deg C,” “Global Warming Level 2 deg C,” etc) there is a visibility option, represented by the eye icon. You can click the eye icon to toggle visibility of each layer - right now, out of the four layer options, I have only applied the “Global Warming Level 2 deg C” layer.
Now, I’m going to click the “Add Layer” option in the bottom toolbar. That opens this screen; I’ll choose the “Justice40 Tracts” layer to add by clicking the plus sign on the left.
Here’s what we’re looking at now. You can see the darker colors overlaid with the yellows and browns; this represents “census tracts in the U.S. and its territories that meet the Version 1.0” of the Justice40 criteria (for more information about certain layers, you can click on the “i” icon in the right-side popup).
Note: You can also click on any area on the map to pull up more information. You can see on the bottom right of this popup that it is showing “1 of 2” slides; the first slide shows information on the Justice40 data (you can scroll down for the rest of the information) and the second slide shows information about the 2 deg. C warming map we are using. If we had more layers applied, you would be able to scroll to read more about those too.
For a really simplified view, you can click on “Legend” in the toolbar instead of “Layers” to see a display like this one.
Okay, let’s save our map! I clicked “Save” on the bottom right of the toolbar and selected that I would like to save the legend along with the map. I then selected the map area with my mouse. That brings up this screen, where I can give the map a title and download it.
Here’s the final result! We have the title I entered at the top, with the legend on the left and map on the right.
This was a super easy way to make a map (it looks like this has been developed with Esri software, which is great) and very easy to learn. The results of the map are clear and easy to read - in Colorado, the change in mean summer temperature will be pretty even across the state (between <2 and about 3 degrees F) under a 2 degree global warming level. The eastern part of the state will warm a little more than the rest.
The communities that will be most affected by warming are located mostly in the south and southeast of the state, so when combined with the warming data, we might say that the southeastern part of the state will warm the most and have the most difficulty adapting to the warming.
That’s a pretty big generalization, but this map is useful to determine this high-level trend! To make it more detailed, we would just need to dive a little deeper into the data, which we could do with the “Climate Data” information at the end of this post, or by clicking “More Information” on any of the layers.
Climate Stories
To access the Climate Stories section, I went back to the Interactive Atlas landing page, clicked “Climate Stories,” then clicked “Open the Story.” This brought me to this landing page for a storymap.
Scrolling down this page takes you through several examples of really beautiful maps filled with summaries, infographics, and key takeaways that accompany the full NCA5 report. There isn’t a tool included on this page, but the storymap makes reading more interactive and visually appealing, and there are some more resources at the end!
Climate Data
Finally, we’ll discuss the Climate Data section. Again, I went back to the Interactive Atlas landing page, clicked “Climate Data,” and then clicked on the “Climate Projections” map to open this section.
That takes us to a page with information about each dataset shown in the images above, which you may recognize from the Climate Maps tool. This page contains super-detailed information about how the data was collected, analyzed, and depicted; you probably wouldn’t need to know this if you’re just making some maps out of curiosity, but if you’re using the Atlas for research or writing a grant, you would need this information. It’s also cool that the NCA5 team intends to add more datasets over time!
Ultimately, the Interactive Atlas is an awesome set of tools to accompany the NCA5. I am excited to see if/how the Climate Maps section might mesh with the Climate Resilience Toolkit, or if it is a standalone tool. In either case, it’s exciting that the Atlas is so user-friendly, even for beginners in climate data!
