Thawing permafrost will significantly impact regulatory activities in Alaska that are conducted by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to protect human health and the environment. Many of those activities are in vulnerable rural lands predominantly occupied by Alaska Natives. Temperatures in Alaska-the largest and northernmost of the 50 states-are increasing disproportionately relative to the global average and at a markedly higher rate than in any other state in the Nation. Most land and surface waters in Alaska are underlaid by permafrost (or perennially frozen ground), which stabilizes infrastructure, serves community needs, and shapes ecosystems with unique environmental characteristics. The estimated that 16-24% of near-surface Alaskan permafrost could disappear by the end of this century. Permafrost thaw not only compromises critical infrastructure used in daily life (e.g., buildings, roads, and pipelines), but also alters movement of hazardous substances within the surrounding environment. Changes to permafrost characteristics and extent may release contaminants through multiple mechanisms which can pollute air, soil, and water, with unintended consequences to subsistence activities and the livelihood of local communities. This paper summarizes information gathered from semi-formal interviews conducted with EPA regulatory staff during late 2022 to glean the breadth of activities that would be affected by permafrost thaw, tabulate available data sources, and identify data and knowledge gaps. This information can be used to influence monitoring activities and future research that can inform EPA regulatory activities affected by permafrost thaw in Alaska.

Climate change is expected to impact individuals' recreational choices, as changing temperatures and precipitation patterns influence participation in outdoor recreation and alternative activities. This paper empirically investigates the relationship between weather and outdoor recreation using nationally representative data from the contiguous United States. We find that across most outdoor recreational activities, participation is lowest on the coldest days (<35 degrees Fahrenheit) and highest at moderately high temperatures (80 to 90 degrees). Notable exceptions to this trend include water sports and snow and ice sports, for which participation peaks at the highest and lowest temperatures, respectively. If individuals continue to respond to temperature changes the same way that they have in the recent past, in a future climate that has fewer cool days and more moderate and hot days, our model anticipates net participation across all outdoor recreation activities will increase by 88 million trips annually at 1 degree Celsius of warming (CONUS) and up to 401 million trips at 6 degrees of warming, valued between $3.2 billion and $15.6 billion in consumer surplus annually (2010 population). The increase in trips is driven by participation in water sports; excluding water sports from future projections decreases the consumer surplus gains by approximately 75 percent across all modeled degrees of warming. If individuals in northern regions respond to temperature like people in southern regions currently do (a proxy for adaptation), total outdoor recreation trips will increase by an additional 17 percent compared to no adaptation at 6 degrees of warming. This benefit is generally not seen at lower degrees of warming.

Integration of the social sciences into climate assessments enhances report content and actionable science. The literature has identified the benefits and challenges in achieving coequal intellectual partnerships between the social and biogeophysical sciences in climate research. Less has been written on how to rectify the issue in the particular institutional context of a climate assessment. This article uses qualitative research methods to analyze social science integration in the United States' Fourth National Climate Assessment. It presents findings from focus groups held with social science-and nonsocial science-trained report authors. It finds that knowledge governance, or the formal and informal mechanisms shaping how information is produced and used, and cultural worldviews about the role of social sciences in assessments and assessments in society, affected social science integration. Report authors' principal orientation toward the social sciences was as a means of achieving what they saw as the assessment's public function, namely, to support education, decision-making, and action. Author expertise, report framing, and knowledge systems were other key themes that emerged. Based on this analysis, we propose potential pathways toward coequal intellectual partnerships in assessments by expanding the diversity of chapter teams' expertise, enhancing connections between authors and society, reconsidering report framing, and broadening inclusion of knowledge systems. We also discuss the potential role of applying social science theories and methods throughout the report life cycle from framing and engagement to evaluation.

This case study explores how to add value to regional ocean condition forecast information by bringing awareness to the processes that govern decision-making and outcomes within the system. A modified mental models research approach is applied to examine differences and similarities in perceptions of risk and comfort with uncertainty between two interdependent communities, the ocean "data provider" and "end user," and how these perceptions impact accessibility and usefulness of data products. In this study, data providers are academic and agency scientists from institutions that provide ocean condition forecasts to public end users ( = 17). End users are members of the Oregon commercial-fishing community ( = 16). Comparisons reveal key differences and similarities related to the nature of each profession that impact perceptions of scale in time and space and reveal the ways that cumulative and intersecting risks and uncertainties act as key drivers in decision-making. Implications for expanding the current understanding of how ocean forecasts are produced and used include 1) highlighting the value of optimizing ocean forecast delivery tools based on end-user needs and information-seeking processes already in place, 2) identifying structural and cultural barriers within the data-provider network that prevent them from doing so, and 3) demonstrating the value of learning about both producers and users of scientific information and suggesting potential ways to structure cooperation and strengthen relationships between them by working toward a common desired outcome.

A decision framework is developed for quantifying the economic value of information (VOI) from the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellite mission for drought monitoring, with a focus on the potential contributions of groundwater storage and soil moisture measurements from the GRACE Data Assimilation (GRACE-DA) System. The study consists of: (a) the development of a conceptual framework to evaluate the socioeconomic value of GRACE-DA as a contributing source of information to drought monitoring; (b) structured listening sessions to understand the needs of stakeholders who are affected by drought monitoring; (c) econometric analysis based on the conceptual framework that characterizes the contribution of GRACE-DA to the US Drought Monitor (USDM) in capturing the effects of drought on the agricultural sector; and (d) a demonstration of how the improved characterization of drought conditions may influence decisions made in a real-world drought disaster assistance program. Results show that GRACE-DA has the potential to lower the uncertainty associated with our understanding of drought, and that this improved understanding has the potential to change policy decisions that lead to tangible societal benefits.

Dangerously cold weather threatens life and property. During periods of extreme cold due to wind chill, the National Weather Service (NWS) issues wind chill warnings to prompt the public to take action to mitigate risks. Wind chill warnings are based on ambient temperatures and wind speeds. Since 2010, NWS has piloted a new extreme cold warning issued for cold temperatures in wind and nonwind conditions. The North Dakota Department of Health, NWS, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention collaborated in conducting household surveys in Burleigh County, North Dakota, to evaluate this new warning. The objectives of the evaluation were to assess whether residents heard the new warning and to determine if protective behaviors were prompted by the warning. This was a cross-sectional survey design using the Community Assessment for Public Health Emergency Response (CASPER) methodology to select a statistically representative sample of households from Burleigh County. From 10 to 11 April 2012, 188 door-to-door household interviews were completed. The CASPER methodology uses probability sampling with weighted analysis to estimate the number and percentage of households with a specific response within Burleigh County. The majority of households reported having heard both the extreme cold and wind chill warnings, and both warnings prompted protective behaviors. These results suggest this community heard the new warning and took protective actions after hearing the warning.

Numerous mechanisms link outdoor weather and climate conditions to human health. It is likely that many health conditions are more directly affected by indoor rather than outdoor conditions. Yet, the relationship between indoor temperature and humidity conditions to outdoor variability, and the heterogeneity of the relationship among different indoor environments are largely unknown.

Coccidioidomycosis, or valley fever, is an infectious fungal disease currently endemic to the southwestern United States. Symptoms of valley fever range in severity from flu-like illness to severe morbidity and mortality. Warming temperatures and changes in precipitation patterns may cause the area of endemicity to expand northward throughout the western United States, putting more people at risk for contracting valley fever. This may increase the health and economic burdens from this disease. We developed an approach to describe the relationship between climate conditions and valley fever incidence using historical data and generated projections of future incidence in response to both climate change and population trends using the Climate Change Impacts and Risk Analysis (CIRA) framework developed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. We also developed a method to estimate economic impacts of valley fever that is based on case counts. For our 2000-15 baseline time period, we estimated annual medical costs, lost income, and economic welfare losses for valley fever in the United States were $400,000 per case, and the annual average total cost was $3.9 billion per year. For a high greenhouse gas emission scenario and accounting for population growth, we found that total annual costs for valley fever may increase up to 164% by year 2050 and up to 380% by 2090. By the end of the twenty-first century, valley fever may cost $620,000 per case and the annual average total cost may reach $18.5 billion per year. This work contributes to the broader effort to monetize climate change-attributable damages in the United States.

Acute kidney injury (AKI) and chronic kidney disease (CKD) are serious health conditions with an enormous global health burden. There is evidence to suggest that CKD rates are increasing within the United States despite declines in traditional risk factors for kidney injury and disease, disproportionately impacting certain populations. Changes in meteorological factors because of climate change may be partially responsible for this increase in kidney injury. This study evaluated the association between AKI and meteorological factors controlling for demographic and health factors among adults within the San Luis Valley, Colorado, a rural, biethnic agrarian community at increased risk for health impacts from climate change, over a 15-yr period. Relative humidity was a significant predictor of AKI controlling for age, sex, history of hypertension, and history of diabetes. Changing weather patterns may increase the risk of AKI and the subsequent development of CKD within the United States. These findings may help public health practitioners and medical professionals to identify populations at risk of incurring acute or chronic kidney injury as seasonal weather patterns change. Further research should investigate the role of heat, heat stress, and dehydration in developing CKD in the United States.