Pardee Center Director’s Work Featured by BU Research

Pardee Center Director Anthony Janetos is featured in a recent BU Research article about his work to develop a National Climate Indicators System to help policymakers with decisions related to preparing for and responding to the impacts of climate change. Titled “Building a Better Barometer,” the article describes the interdisciplinary effort that Prof. Janetos is leading to build a comprehensive system of indicators that highlights important data related to “everything from agriculture to human health to fresh water to coastal vulnerability to transportation infrastructure.”  A pilot set of indicators is expected to launch this spring, and the work was presented by his colleague Melissa Kenney, an environmental decision scientist at the University of Maryland, at the recent meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in San Jose, California.

Prof. Janetos served on the external federal advisory committee and also as a co-convening lead author on the mitigation chapter for the third National Climate Assessment Report, a Congressionally-mandated report that reviews the impacts of climate change on the United States. When that report was released in May 2014, Prof. Janetos participated in White House briefings for the media and Congressional staff about its findings, as well as several other media interviews about the report.

Prof. Janetos has played a role in all three of the National Climate Assessments, serving on the Federal Advisory Committees for each, as a co-chair in the first assessment, and as a lead author on ecosystem impacts  in the second. In addition to his work on the National Climate Assessment report and related National Climate Indicators System, he also served as a co-coordinating lead author for the Second Working Group chapter on regional contexts for the fifth report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which was released in 2014.