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Front Matter

and the private sector. Contributing Authors were requested to provide special input to the Lead Authors to help with specific issues of the assessment.

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The first Lead Author Meeting was held in Washington, DC in April 2016, to refine the outline contained in the SSC-endorsed prospectus and to make writing assignments. Over the course of 16 months, 6 CSSR drafts were generated, with each successive iteration—from zero-order to fifth-order drafts—undergoing additional expert review, as follows: (i) by the writing team itself (13–20 June 2016); (ii) by the SSC convened to oversee report development (29 July–18 August 2016); (iii) by the technical agency representatives (and designees) comprising the Subcommittee on Global Change Research (SGCR, 3–14 October 2016); (iv) by the SSC and technical liaisons again (5–13 December 2016); (v) by the general public during the Public Comment Period (15 December 2016–3 February 2017) and an expert panel convened by the National Academies of Sciences (NAS, 21 December 2016–13 March 2017); and (vi) by the SGCR again (3–24 May 2017) to confirm the Review Editor conclusions that all public and NAS comments were adequately addressed. In October 2016, an 11-member core writing team was tasked with capturing the most important CSSR key findings and generating an Executive Summary. Two additional Lead Authors Meetings were held after major review milestones to facilitate chapter team deliberations and consistency: 2–4 November 2016 (Boulder, CO) and 21–22 April 2017 (Asheville, NC). Literature cutoff dates were enforced, with all cited material published by June 2017. The final (fifth-order) draft including the Executive Summary was compiled in June 2017, and submitted to the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP). OSTP is responsible for the Federal clearance process prior to final report production and public release.

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The Sustained National Climate Assessment

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The Climate Science Special Report has been developed as part of the USGCRP’s sustained National Climate Assessment (NCA) process. This process facilitates continuous and transparent participation of scientists and stakeholders across regions and sectors, enabling new information and insights to be assessed as they emerge. The Climate Science Special Report is aimed at a comprehensive assessment of the science underlying the changes occurring in Earth’s climate system, with a special focus on the United States.

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Sources Used in this Report

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The findings in this report are based on a large body of scientific, peer-reviewed research, as well as a number of other publicly available sources, including well-established and carefully evaluated observational and modeling datasets. The team of authors carefully reviewed these sources to ensure a reliable assessment of the state of scientific understanding. Each source of information was determined to meet the four parts of the internal quality assurance guidance provided to authors (following the approach from NCA3): 1) utility, 2) transparency and traceability, 3) objectivity, and 4) integrity and security. Report authors assessed and synthesized

Subject to Final Copyedit

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28 June 2017