Sarah Champion

I am a formally trained atmospheric and climate scientist; however, in my current role, I lead interagency efforts with both national and international colleagues on data accessibility, transparency, and scientific reproducibility of National Climate Assessment data and scientific methods. In partnership with multiple technical experts, I am proud to have designed a first-ever, end-to-end Assessment metadata process and suite of tools which provide quality climate data and metadata to both policymakers and the general public alike, while simultaneously ensuring strict compliance with transparency, accessibility, and reproducibility requirements set forth by U.S. Federal Government mandates, such as the Information Quality Act and the Foundations for Evidence-Based Policymaking Act. This process and set of tools have now been used for six major Sustained Assessment reports, and now serves as the model for ensuring data transparency and scientific reproducibility for other Federal agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Energy, and the U.S Global Change Research Program, as well as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The accessibility to our quality controlled and detailed metadata serves as a gateway for policy and decision makers to make best use of the climate data, Assessment conclusions, and climate change projections in all levels of government and private sector initiatives on climate adaptation and resiliency.