Building climate tools for local decision makers

Background

Cal-Adapt provides peer-reviewed climate data and climate tools for California. These are used by state and local agencies in climate risk assessments and adaptation planning. The project is a collaboration between California state agencies, university and private sector researchers.

My Work

I was hired to update Cal-Adapt climate tools using the LOCA downscaled CMIP5 data produced for California’s Fourth Climate Change Assessment. I converted the legacy Django website to a hybrid architecture consisting of static pages and interactive climate tools to take advantage of modern front-end JavaScript tooling and data visualization libraries.

In collaboration with Cal-Adapt’s clients, stakeholders and science advisor, I designed and built several climate tools that integrated climate data from the Cal-Adapt API and other sources. Several tools are designed as exploratory dashboards using D3 and Mapbox that enable users to explore and download data for their area of interest. I used Jupyter and ObservableHQ notebooks to prototype visualizations and Figma mocks to prototype design elements.

For the last 2 years, I led the effort to update the technology stack used for building the website and to develop content to orient new climate data users. We used IBM’s Carbon Design System with the Svelte framework to update and redesign the Cal-Adapt website. I was a key player in developing content to create an “onboarding” ramp for new or less technical users who are not familiar with climate science (Get Started). I analyzed Cal-Adapt’s email support archive to make a list of frequently asked questions (FAQs) and technical terms (Glossary) and helped in writing comprehensive answers and definitions.

My favorite part of this amazing 8.5 year journey has been connecting with and helping local planners, researchers and climate practitioners across California use Cal-Adapt tools and data through email support and workshops.

Credits

Co-developed with the teams at the Geospatial Innovation Facility, UC Berkeley and Eagle Rock Analytics.