Communication, Education, and Engagement Division (CEE)

Our Vision

Americans’ health, security, and economic well-being depend on climate and weather. Every day, individuals, communities, and businesses grapple with environmental challenges due to unusual, extreme, or changing climate and weather conditions. According to NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information, since 1980, the U.S. has sustained 279 weather and climate disasters where overall damages/costs reached or exceeded $1 billion (including CPI adjustment to 2020). The total cost of these 279 events exceeds $1.825 trillion.

In 2020 (as of October 7), there have been 16 weather/climate disaster events with losses exceeding $1 billion each to affect the United States:

CEE leverages an array of cross-cutting initiatives to enhance climate science literacy and help individuals, communities, and businesses make informed decisions so they can increase their resilience to climate-related events, including extreme heat and precipitation.

Scientific and education experts have defined climate literacy as “the matrix of knowledge people need to understand enough about Earth’s climate system to address climate-related issues,” and it is fundamental to Climate.gov and other projects and initiatives of the CEE Division.

A climate-literate person understands how climate affects their life and livelihood, and how humans influence the climate system. A climate-literate person knows where and how to find and use climate data and information to manage climate-related risks and opportunities they face, and they know how to distinguish credible from non-credible sources of information.

As weather and climate disasters become more frequent, public demand for climate science and decision support is on the rise. Approximately 80% of decision makers say they seek data-driven answers to key questions for asset management.

The strength of public interest in NOAA Climate.gov is consistent. Public visits to NOAA Climate.gov have enjoyed 49% annual average growth since 2010. Subscribership to “This Week on Climate.gov,” our weekly e-newsletter, has grown 30% since August 2019. Social media engagement has climbed steadily on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. On the three platforms combined, NOAA Climate.gov has nearly 350,000 followers. Moreover, our team replies to an increasing volume of email requests for help in finding and using NOAA climate data; these requests have seen annual average growth of 50% since 2016.

A “public” is any segment of society that can be characterized by their needs for information, their motivations, and their information-seeking behaviors. The CEE team serves five priority publics:

• people seeking authoritative information about climate science to help them discuss and decide climate-related issues (i.e., decision-makers, managers of built environments and natural resources, and policy leaders including the White House and Congress);
• people seeking climate data for research and development (i.e., researchers, modelers, and engineers in government, academia, and business);
• people who want to know more about past, present, and projected climate conditions and the inner workings of climate science (i.e., the climate-interested public and students);
• people seeking resources to help them teach others about climate and needed skills (formal and informal educators); and
• people who report on climate in public media (i.e., broadcast meteorologists and journalists).