An Urban Planner’s Guide to Climate Information

As the risks to communities from climate change becomes more pronounced, urban planners need access to better and more user-friendly forms of climate data for a variety of planning tasks ranging from benefit-cost analysis of infrastructure projects to scenario planning exercises to education of elected officials and the public. This report first provides a brief and accessible description of climate science, as well as non-technical explanations of the various types of climate data available, including observational data, climate model projections, and processed data such as reports and visualization tools. The second half of the report describes twenty-two sources of high quality, user-friendly climate data available for use by urban planners that can be useful for climate change mitigation and adaptation planning purposes.