The social sciences in climate assessments in the United States

This article looks at the inclusion of the social sciences in recent climate assessment reports from national and sub-national jurisdictions (state, territory, district) of the United States. It compares and contrasts interdisciplinary integration based on three criteria: inclusion of societal topics; the use of social science frameworks, theory, and literature to interpret findings; and processes of knowledge production. National and sub-national climate assessments serve different societal purposes and decision-making goals, and are produced in distinct knowledge governance contexts. While climate focused social sciences are increasingly incorporated into assessments, the nature of this incorporation varies across assessment types. The greatest advancements for interdisciplinary integration in the Fifth National Climate Assessment are in the robust treatment of economics, equity and environmental justice, and social systems and the addition of core concepts to the climate lexicon. In sub-national assessments, alternative organizational formats open up space to examine climate-society interactions for sectoral or geographic topics of interest. However, their analysis often is limited to vulnerability mapping and dollar values instead of the broader social and economic systems that shape climate drivers, hazards, impacts, and responses. Most social sciences are present in climate impacts chapters. There is opportunity to engage additional social science in analysis of climate hazards, drivers of climate change, mitigation and adaptation efforts, and the underlying social causes of vulnerability. Better integration of the social and biogeophysical sciences can help assessments expand the language of climate response and universe of potential interventions, enabling them to inform decision-making at national to local scales.