Caucus Chair:
Robert Dale, CEM

Caucus Vice Chair:
Brian Veach

Board Liaison:
David J. Alamia, MPA, CEM, IAEM-USA Region 6 President, iaem.R6@iaem.com

Staff Liaison:
Sharon Kelly, sharon@iaem.com

IAEM-USA members interested in participating in this caucus should email the caucus staff liaison and tell them how you can contribute to or learn from this committee's important work.

Purpose Statement | Caucus Goals | Activities | Caucus News
Climate Change Documents | Climate Change Webinars | Weather Documents | Weather Webinars
Members Only: Caucus Minutes

Purpose Statement

The purposes of the IAEM-USA Water & Weather Caucus are:

• To assist emergency managers in understanding the potential impacts of climate change and how to address climate adaptation.
• To reduce the impact of adverse weather by providing educational and training resources for emergency managers.

Caucus Goals

• To provide a conduit between emergency management practitioners and the weather and climate change communities.
• To serve as a voice for emergency managers in the climate change discussion.
• To assist in creating policies, procedures, and best practices related to hazardous weather and climate change adaption.
• To examine new technologies in the weather industry and evaluate their value to emergency managers.
• To provide emergency managers with the latest social science research related to public information campaigns, alert and warning messages, etc.
• To suggest areas of research in weather and climate change for students in emergency management related academic fields.
• To serve as a source for meteorological and climatological subject matter experts to IAEM members and boards.

Activities

An ad hoc committee was officially approved on Apr. 15, 2014, and effective January 2015, this committee became the IAEM-USA Climate, Water & Weather Caucus. During the May 2022 IAEM-USA Board Meeting, the caucus was renamed as the IAEM-USA Weather Caucus. Conference calls will be held bi-monthly, with an in-person gathering at the IAEM-USA Annual Conference. The group will consist of two subcommittees: one dedicated to climate change issues, and the other dealing with weather-related concerns. Webinars with climate and weather experts will be held periodically and will be open to all IAEM members.

Caucus News

June 24, 2020, 2:00 p.m. EDT
Climate Central and IAEM Workshop: “Covering Disasters Workshop: Extreme Heat 2020"

register online
Climate experts, health professionals, meteorologists, community planners and veteran reporters will discuss rising temperature trends and how to cover potentially deadly heat while COVID-19 protocols are in place. One-hour workshop includes live Q&A. Panelists will include: Iris Hermosillo, meteorologist, ABC15, Phoenix; Zeke Hausfather, climate scientist, Berkeley Earth, and contributor to Carbon Brief; Kristie Ebi, professor, Environmental and Occupational Health, Global Health, University of Washington; Julia Kumari Drapkin, CEO, ISeeChange; Maanvi Singh, West Coast political reporter, The Guardian; and Molly Peterson, reporter, KQED, Los Angeles.

• New Alliance Focused on Reducing Harm from Extreme Environmental Events Announced at AMS Annual Meeting (06 Feb 2017) The formation of a new public-private partnership of stakeholders focused on reducing societal harm from extreme environmental events, the Alliance for Integrative Approaches to Extreme Environmental Events, was announced on Jan. 24 at the American Meteorological Society (AMS) Annual Meeting. This community-initiated and community-governed framework will bring together a broad group of collaborators – including researchers, operational practitioners, federal agencies including the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, non-profit organizations, philanthropists and entrepreneurs – to improve holistic understanding, prediction of and response to severe and hazardous weather. In addition, the Alliance will facilitate interdisciplinary research, and its associated transition to practice, in ways that advance the community’s collective agenda. To learn more about the alliance, see the press release and a one-page overview available on the group’s website.
• The IAEM-USA Climate, Weather and Water Caucus Requests IAEM-USA Member Participation in Survey (20 Apr 2016) The IAEM-USA Climate, Weather and Water Caucus, in collaboration with researchers from Florida State University, requests that emergency managers participate in a survey. The survey examines emergency managers’ experiences in dealing with climate and water issues within their positions. It hopes to determine both the level of planning and possible best practices related to climate change and sea level rise in the emergency management community. In addition, it is suspected that while political leaders grab the public spotlight in advancing various sides of the issue, those in the emergency management trenches are left to find creative ways around the difficult clashes between climate science and climate politics. Participation in the survey is confidential. Names will not be revealed in any reports, and contexts will be concealed so that others will be unable to surmise the setting of any story participants choose to share. Please participate today. Your experiences can help inform the work of other emergency management professionals in IAEM, and we anticipate that the research will generate insights and promising practices that enhance the effectiveness of emergency managers everywhere.
• Climate Science Day Will Take Place on Capitol Hill, Feb. 9-10, 2016 (13 Jan 2016) Are you interested in the science, societal impacts, and public policy around climate change? If so, keep reading. Climate Science Day is a non-partisan event that includes more than a dozen scientific organizations, comprising multiple branches of earth and atmospheric sciences, ecology, food and agriculture, and economics. It is organized by the member organizations of the Climate Science Working Group (CSWG); this year marks the first attempt to include an Emergency Management perspective. Unlike many visits to Capitol Hill, this is not advocacy: we’re not asking for money, votes, or specific policy – just to use us as resources. We want to provide Congress the best possible access to objective information on climate change and its potential impacts as context for policy decisions. The CSWG organizers will prepare and assemble multi-disciplinary teams for Hill visits. We’d like to add EM practitioners to the groups; not as IAEM representatives, but as resources on what preparing for climate change can mean. This is a great opportunity to interact directly with Congressional members and staff, and to learn more about the public policy arena.
  
  Schedule: An afternoon orientation briefing will take place Tuesday, Feb. 9. The Hill meetings will take place Wednesday, Feb. 10. A schedule of the 2016 event is posted in the IAEM Members-Only section.
  
  Interested? Please contact Jeff Rubin, jeff.rubin@tvfr.com, by Thursday, Jan. 21. Please include your name, contact info, and a summary (< 200 words) of your interest and relevant background. Please note that this is not an IAEM event. This information is being provided as a relevant topic and an opportunity for professional development. Individuals are responsible for their own travel arrangements.
• Learn about NDPTC/NDPC Training Courses at Jan. 20 Webinar (06 Jan 2015) The IAEM-USA Climate, Water and Weather Caucus is excited to announce a webinar with the National Disaster Preparedness Training Center (NDPTC) on Wednesday, Jan. 20, 3:00 p.m. EST. They are part of the National Domestic Preparedness Consortium (NDPC) and provide many weather, climate, and natural hazards-related training courses. Additionally, they offer training in social media usage, damage assessment, and much more. And as always with FEMA NDPC classes - these sessions are free! The webinar will give a brief introduction about NDPTC/NDPC, describe the courses, course scheduling/delivery procedures, AEM/CEM credits, instructors, and then close for questions. Some of the course offerings include:
  
  
  • Climate Adaptation for Emergency Services (Certification Pending)
  • Coastal Community Resilience (AWR-228)
  • Coastal Flood Risk Reduction (PER-305)
  • Hazardous Weather Preparedness for Campuses (AWR-332)
  • Hurricane Awareness (Certification Pending)
  • HURRIPLAN Resilient Building Design for Coastal Communities (PER-306)
  • Natural Disaster Awareness for Community Leaders (AWR-310)
  • Social Media for Natural Disaster Response and Recovery (PER-304)
  • Social Media Engagement Strategies (Certification Pending)
  • Social Media Tools and Techniques (Certification Pending)
  • Tornado Awareness (AWR-326)
  • Tsunami Awareness (AWR-217)
  • Volcanic Crises Awareness (AWR-233)
  • Winter Weather Hazards: Science and Preparedness (AWR-331)

The list of courses is long - feel free to peruse the Training Catalog and start the process of requesting training if you see something of interest!
Webinar info: http://tinyurl.com/ndptc-webinar
WebEx Meeting number: 627 123 498
Meeting password: gr2cMySZ
Join by phone: 1-650-479-3208 Call-in toll number (US/Canada)
Access code: 627 123 498

• IAEM-USA Adopts Climate Change Position Statement (22 July 2015) The IAEM-USA Board has adopted a new position statement, The Critical Role of Emergency Management in Climate Change Planning. “IAEM-USA strongly recommends comprehensive mitigation and adaptation strategies, integrated with existing processes such as hazard and land-use planning, as the only realistic path for resilience among individuals, communities, and our nation. In addition, IAEM-USA specifies that emergency managers have a critical role in this process and should be considered essential participants at all levels of government.” The statement specifically avoids the political controversy surrounding the topic, focusing on “the potential effects and the need to address them now, using objective assessment, strategic planning, and policy development,” and emphasizes that climate change “drives a range of effects, from discrete events like extreme weather to longer-term impacts that vary by location, such as drought, sea-level rise, regional energy vulnerabilities, increased wildfires, habitat modification, and emerging diseases.” The statement was developed by a sub-group of the new IAEM-USA Climate, Water, and Weather Caucus, intending to raise awareness among policymakers and practitioners, and to offer resources for IAEM members – particularly in light of FEMA’s recent requirement of climate-change considerations in state mitigation plans.

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