The National Climate Assessment and Development Advisory Committee (NCADAC) recommended in 2013 that the NCA process “manage data to maximize utility and transparency.” The report also highlighted the importance of “developing a comprehensive web-based system to deploy and manage global change information and present it in a way that can be used by and benefit scientists, the public, and decision-makers.” To achieve these goals, the US Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) established the Global Change Information System (GCIS). GCIS coordinates and integrates information about changes in the global environment and related societal effects, with a focus on Federal information products.
The GCIS, which continues to be managed and curated by USGCRP, is an open-source, web-based resource designed for use by scientists, decision makers, and the public. It links together a network of information, including organizations, datasets, and research, especially those products maintained and disseminated by government agencies and organizations. GCIS serves as a key access point to assessments, reports, and tools produced by the USGCRP – and the native data underpinning all of them. In addition, the GCIS guides users to global change research produced by the 13 USGCRP member agencies.