UNMC College of Public Health Dean Ali Khan, MD, MPH, and Jesse Bell, PhD, a professor in the UNMC Department of Environmental, Agricultural and Occupational Health in the college, are among a diverse group of nationally recognized experts selected as authors on the congressionally mandated Fifth National Climate Assessment (NCA5).
In 1990, Congress established the U.S. Global Change Research Program, which is comprised of 13 agencies that work together to understand forces shaping the environment and their impacts on society. Similar to the recent climate assessment released by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the program is tasked with producing a periodic National Climate Assessment, a report that summarizes the impacts of climate change on the United States, now and in the future. The first assessment was released in 2000. The newly selected team of experts will synthesize climate science research that has been published since the Fourth Assessment in 2018. The NCA5 is expected to be released by the White House in late 2023.
"It is an honor to be selected as an expert to work on this important federal report," Dr. Bell said. "Our climate is rapidly changing, and it is important for us to understand how these changes are impacting the United States. By better understanding the climate threats we face, we can take action to prepare our communities and reduce costs."
Dr. Khan is co-chair of the UNMC-Nebraska Medicine Executive Sustainability Council and Dr. Bell is the Clair M. Hubbard Professor of Water, Climate and Health and director of the Water, Climate and Health Program at UNMC and at Daugherty Water for Food Global Institute.