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ASCE-NOAA Task Force Newsletter

September 2025 (Vol 2, No 9)

ASCE-NOAA 2025 Workshop Brief is Pending Publication 

The ASCE-NOAA 2025 Workshop in Brief was in the publication process when the federal government shutdown. Once the government reopens, the report summarizing the speakers from the insurance/finance industry, science and engineering fields, and local communities that came together to discuss risks, recent research, and the costs/benefits of community adoption of hazard-based building codes should be publicized soon afterwards. In the meantime, all the videos are available in the playlist on the YouTube site: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLKTTDX0F3fMA1LxEc2OfnDJYYiym6ExeI. 

October 7th Industry Proving Ground’s Temperature Workshop 

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) is hosting a virtual Architecture & Engineering Sector Temperature Workshop on October 7th from 12 to 3PM ET on Google Meet. The Temperature Workshop will allow industry professionals to connect with NCEI in order to discuss temperature-related information needs within the architecture and engineering sector. This collaboration will assist NOAA’s efforts to connect the industry with current resources and inform the development of new tools. Workshop topics will include:

  • New Air Freezing Index Work
  • Temperature Projection Data and Information Delivery
  • NCEI’s New Typical Meteorological Year Product
  • NCEI’s Climate Atlas Updates

If you are interested in attending this event, please register using this form. Should you have any questions, please do not hesitate to reach out to Morgan.Stahl@noaa.gov.

October 8-11, 2025: ASCE 2025 Convention - Inspiring Innovative Infrastructure

The ASCE 2025 Convention will be held in Seattle from October 8th to 11th with the theme of inspiring innovative infrastructure. The gathering not only showcases the diversity within civil engineering that ASCE represents but also features a program that is integrated, cross-cultural, technical, and educational in nature. New in 2025, ASCE is pleased to announce that the ASCE Convention will build upon the success of the 2023 INSPIRE Conference to bring a greater level of technical content to the Society’s flagship event. The convention topics include: system failures and recovery, strategic issues/public policy, and emerging technologies. More information is available at the event’s website: https://convention.asce.org/.

The September 9th ASCE-NOAA Task Force Meeting 

At the September 9th meeting, Robin Kemper and Jimmy Durkin of Zurich Resilience Solutions discussed the overlap of the ASCE-NOAA Task Force, the insurance industry, and the concept of resiliency. They reviewed the impacts of recent natural disasters on properties, communities, and broader regions. Loss lessons from those events and other takeaways were shared. The recording is available at https://youtu.be/p4sUBmHEmfs.

The remainder of the meeting covered the upcoming ASCE Convention 2025 and potential future topics for ASCE-NOAA Task Force based on the ASCE-NOAA Workshop 2025.

Committee on Adaptation to a Changing Climate Technical Notes Series

The Committee on Adaptation to a Changing Climate (CACC) is developing a series of articles on climate change issues in civil engineering practice intended to disseminate technical information to practicing civil engineers. Each of these roughly 800 word technical notes are geared towards busy practitioners, especially those with 5-20 years experience (i.e., in responsible charge). That said, these fact-based articles should be understandable to civil engineering students and be credible to climate change savvy, more experienced engineers. We encourage you to review and provide feedback on any of the CACC Technical Notes: https://collaborate.asce.org/communities/community-home/recent-community-blogs?communitykey=014d3b61-1dea-43e4-9d2b-58184ee08074. 

Task Force Webpage
Task Force Videos

Upcoming Meeting of the ASCE-NOAA Task Force on November 4th

While ASCE-NOAA Task Force will hold its meeting on November 4th from 12PM to 2PM Eastern, the presentations from federal employees will depend on the status of the federal government. Terri McAllister of National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) plans to present on the 2025 series of workshops with ASCE to address topics related to forward looking codes and standards to advance the science-basis for the design of building and infrastructure systems. The three sets of workshops were focused on future hazards, future load effects, and future engineering design guidance. Craig Musselman is the incoming chair of ASCE’s Committee on Adaptation to a Changing Climate (CACC). He plans to present opportunities for CACC to collaborate with the ASCE-NOAA Task Force. Hunter Jones of NOAA would discuss Intensity-Duration-Frequency (IDF) curves for temperature, such as the status of research and methods relevant to civil engineering and resilience.

If you are interested in following the activities of the ASCE-NOAA Task Force, use the above button for the recordings that are generally posted within two weeks of the meeting.

Related News from ASCE-NOAA Community

The ASCE-NOAA Task Force highlights activities and resources that may be of interest to civil engineers, climate scientists, and other resilience professionals. If you have suggestions for news items that may be of interest to the community, email Meghan Edwards at meghane@umd.edu.

The Monthly ASCE-NOAA Task Force Newsletter

The ASCE-NOAA Task Force plans to issue a regular newsletter, highlighting the ongoing work of the ASCE-NOAA partnership. ASCE-NOAA Task Force is still considering the frequency of the newsletters given the change of the task force meetings to every other month.

Each issue will provide a brief update on activities from the previous month, including a summary of the bimonthly meeting of the Task Force itself. Held on the second Tuesday of every other month, these Task Force meetings often include relevant briefings from various Federal programs, key ASCE committees, and third parties that can provide information and resources to support the effort to improve climate resilience through climate informed civil engineering practice. In addition to the brief summaries, the newsletter will provide links to recordings of these technical and programmatic summaries, including an extensive catalog of past presentations archived on a dedicated website, hosted by the University of Maryland’s Center for Technology and Systems Management at https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLKTTDX0F3fMBBFr2hH42zuX7t_fPcsEiG.

The newsletter will also include news items and links to program announcements of potential interest to our subscribers.

ASCE-NOAA Task Force Vision

To integrate the best available science of weather and climate into the next generation of ASCE codes, standards, and manuals of practice. To date, standards have assumed stationarity, that is, a static and unchanging climate. Extreme events have implications for our built environment – the one we have today and the one we want tomorrow. The result of the NOAA partnership with the ASCE should be an increase in the pace of climate adaptation and a reduction in design, construction, and maintenance costs, as well as the costs of climate-related natural disasters. For more information about the ASCE-NOAA Task Force, email Meghan Edwards at meghane@umd.edu.

ASCE-NOAA Task Force Co-chairs:

  • Bilal Ayyub, PhD, F. ASCE, University of Maryland Center for Technology and Systems Management

  • Amanda McCarty, NOAA, Climate Ready Nation Director

  • Dan Walker, PhD, A.M. ASCE, University of Maryland and EA Engineering, Science, and Technology, Inc. (PBC)

Key ASCE Representatives:

  • Jennifer Goupil, P.E., F. SEI, F. ASCE, ASCE Chief Resilience Officer and Managing Director of Structural Engineering Institute (SEI)

  • Brian Parsons, Managing Director, Environmental & Water Resources Institute (EWRI) and ASCE Chief Sustainability Officer

Key Government Participants:

Federal Emergency Management Agency, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, National Institute of Standards and Technology, and NOAA

To subscribe, email Meghan Edwards at meghane@umd.edu. 

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