Launching ClimRR and the Climate Resilient Communities Initiative
AT&T has a long history of preparing for natural disasters. But as extreme weather events are becoming more frequent and more severe, we knew more had to be done to help American communities become resilient as well. One major challenge was making high-quality climate data more accessible and usable.
In 2022, AT&T, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory (Argonne) and the U.S. Department of Energy’s Grid Deployment Office launched the Climate Risk and Resilience Portal (ClimRR). The site offers dynamically downscaled climate projections produced using Argonne’s supercomputer to process millions of calculations. ClimRR is based on peer-reviewed climate datasets and gives users highly localized projections in a nontechnical format for hazards such as temperatures, rainfall, wildfires and more.
ClimRR makes some of the most sophisticated climate science modeling in the world publicly accessible for free. The data in ClimRR can assist state, local, Tribal and territorial emergency managers and community leaders as they strategically invest in infrastructure and response capabilities to build resilience. The portal is designed to be easily integrated with data from FEMA’s Resilience Analysis and Planning Tool, allowing users to access information on community characteristics and social vulnerabilities. This enables local planners, emergency managers and public health officials to understand where limited resources will have the biggest impact in protecting against threats such as flooding and extreme heat.
While the ClimRR portal is a valuable tool for identifying future climate risks, communities need additional resources to analyze the climate data and develop mitigation strategies to address escalating hazards. With FEMA’s new requirement to incorporate forward-looking climate data into hazard mitigation plans, it is more important than ever that communities not only have access to information about future climate risks, but also understand how they can prepare their populations for such conditions.
That is why AT&T launched the Climate Resilient Communities Initiative. We collaborated with Project IN-CORE—a non-profit organization focused on technical support and consultation services for community resilience planning— and Argonne to provide selected communities with customized, hyperlocal analyses of climate risks using ClimRR data, as well as recommended mitigation strategies tailored to each community’s specific needs. Argonne’s climate experts also provided training to local/state government staff on how to use the ClimRR portal. And AT&T awarded funding to a non-profit organization in each community to help deliver on mitigation strategies—from allocating portable air conditioning units and fans to community members to delivering trainings to emergency management officials on cascading disasters.
So far, we have engaged 5 entities in the Climate Resilient Communities Initiative:
- City of Longmont, Colorado
- State Office of Emergency Management, Idaho (see here for more details on this project)
- Barren River Area Development District, Kentucky (see here for more details on this project)
- Albany County, New York (see here for more details on this project)
- Onondaga County, New York
Common Themes and Best Practices
While specific climate-related challenges and resource availability for mitigation actions vary by community, we identified several commonalities among them:
- Local leaders are experts. The best path to climate resilience is led, informed and executed by local communities. Learning directly from communities about challenges they are already facing—from harmful algal blooms to lack of air conditioning—gave greater meaning and context to the analyses. And each of the communities we engaged already had work underway to understand climate risks in their area and deploy innovative mitigation strategies. We were able to incorporate data layers these communities had already developed themselves—giving them a greater sense of ownership over the analyses and making it less daunting for them to review new data from ClimRR.
- Citizen science is key. Prior to joining the initiative, communities were already engaging with community members to 1) understand how climate change impacted them personally and 2) invite them to be part of the solution. For example, the City of Longmont recruited individuals to help measure temperatures across the city, while another encouraged community members to report algal blooms in local waterways. This citizen science approach not only improves data availability and tracking to inform mitigation strategies, but also empowers community members to take meaningful action to make a positive difference in their area. Aligning on the problem creates greater momentum and buy-in on the investments needed to build resilience.
- Examining climate risks in the context of social data offers rich insights. The communities we engaged were deeply concerned about climate impacts to vulnerable populations and were seeking guidance on how to best support these individuals. For example, by layering data about heat index with demographic data and housing data, we were able to identify specific neighborhoods that could be disproportionately impacted by climate risks—helping to inform targeted mitigation strategies.
- Flexibility in mitigation actions is important. While climate projections are a helpful tool to inform community planning, there is uncertainty involved in any estimations. With many communities already lacking resources to combat climate change, mitigation actions that require low investment but will have long-lasting, high impacts should be prioritized as a starting point. This will help ensure that resources are allocated more effectively so that when there is more certainty around future climate conditions, communities can focus on larger investments.
- Climate data insights can inform the allocation of federal funds. Communities might be eligible for federal funding for climate resilience projects across the country from sources like the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and the Inflation Reduction Act to strengthen their capacity for mitigation actions. Climate risk analysis can help guide decisions about how to use those funds. And communities should think strategically about how federal funding in other areas can strengthen their climate resilience. For instance, improving connectivity can spur progress in resilience and disaster preparedness, so local governments should consider spending stimulus and infrastructure funds on broadband expansion and other forms of connectivity if they face climate-related threats.
We also identified climate trends across the participating communities and in the U.S. broadly:
- Extreme heat may become more common. For some communities, summer extreme heat is an emerging concern that they historically have not had to grapple with, while for others, it is a continuing issue. It is important for communities on both sides of the spectrum to understand how extreme heat could impact their populations and how it could affect climate goals—such as those focused on energy—and develop nuanced response strategies based on their specific community risks and needs.
- Warmer winters could have pros and cons. In addition to hotter summers, warmer winters are anticipated across the U.S. in the future. In some communities, this is beneficial as fewer resources will be needed to address intense snowfall and winter maintenance, such as snowplowing. But for other communities, more frequent freeze-thaw cycles could result in inconsistent snowpack formation, increasing the risk of avalanches and drought risk later in the season. Fewer deep freezes in forested areas could also force communities to find other means of reducing beetle populations.
- Precipitation patterns may change. Most areas are projected to experience less frequent, more intense rainfall events in the future. This could have implications for pluvial (precipitation-based) flooding, water storage and agricultural practices.
- Compounding climate hazards pose unique challenges. Multiple climate risks interacting with and influencing each other could result in escalating impacts. For example, more intense rainfall could increase fertilizer runoff into waterways—which, when combined with higher temperatures, could result in more harmful and longer-lasting algal blooms, negatively affecting marine life.
Going Beyond Our Own Resilience Efforts
For years, AT&T has worked with Argonne to get the best available climate data and help make our network more resilient. We have future-looking climate projections on wind, drought, wildfire and flooding at the neighborhood level, up to 30 years in the future. With this data, we can take climate change into account as we plan for network buildouts, maintenance and disaster preparedness.
With the Climate Resilient Communities Initiative, we’re going beyond our internal resilience efforts to increase communities’ understanding of the climate risks they face, the people who could be affected, and the actions to take to continue to thrive amidst a changing climate. We encourage local leaders across America to prioritize resilience building today so they can keep infrastructure and people safe for years and decades to come. And through the ClimRR portal, AT&T and our collaborators are sharing the climate data that these leaders need to make informed decisions.
