Use CMRA to Explore Exposure

Exposure is the presence of people, assets, and ecosystems in places where they could be adversely affected by hazards. CMRA can help you understand how your assets’ exposure may be changing by considering climate conditions in the past, present, and projected future.

Maps and prepared data tables can help you document how changing climate conditions may expose the assets you care about to harm. Local climate champions, sustainability managers, and climate adaptation practitioners can download and include this information in climate plans and grant applications. Watch a tutorial video on how to use CMRA and the Assessment tool. 

The CMRA Assessment Tool

At the heart of the CMRA portal is the Assessment Tool, an interactive application that provides statistics, maps, and reports on climate conditions for every county in the United States.

In the tool, enter your location and examine the statistics or maps to understand how your exposure to climate-related hazards is projected to change. Access the Complete Report to view prepared data tables documenting past, present, and projected conditions related to common climate hazards.

Open the User Guide below to walk through the basic steps of using the application to understand climate exposure in your community and across the country.

Guidance for using climate projections

Climate projections can provide useful information when making decisions about the future, but they do have limitations. When using information from CMRA, be aware that:

  • Values reported in the CMRA Assessment Tool are 30-year averages. They reflect that annual values are projected to occur both above and below the averages reported in the tool.
  • When checking future conditions, pay attention to the full range of projections rather than focusing only on the average. Consider the most extreme projections as plausible climate futures, especially for high-risk projects.
  • Climate projections are not the same as weather predictions. Projections are based on stated assumptions about future emissions of greenhouse gases and other policy choices—they do not attempt to predict the timing of events such as storms, droughts, or El Niños.
  • Global climate models represent humanity's best tool for exploring the evolution of our planet's climate. Models have successfully projected the direction and magnitude of global climate change since the 1970s.