This volume is an outgrowth of a project undertaken by the Environmental and Societal Impacts Group (ESIG) for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Office of Policy Analysis to identify societal responses to extreme climate-related events in North America.

Background, Concepts, Overview -- Introduction -- Human Impact on Climate: The Evolution of an Awareness -- Politics and the Air Around Us: International Policy Action on Atmospheric Pollution by Trace Gases -- Grappling for a Glimpse of the Future -- Statistics of Climate Change: Implications for Scenario Development -- Impact Assessment by Analogy: Comparing the Impacts of the Ogallala Aquifer Depletion and CO2-Induced Climate Change -- Case Studies -- Great Lakes Levels and Climate Change: Impacts, Responses, and Futures -- The Rising Level of the Great Salt Lake: An Analogue of Societal Adjustment to Climate Change -- Future Sea-Level Rise and Its Implications for Charleston, South Carolina -- Institutional Response to Sea-Level Rise: The Case of Louisiana -- Climate Variability and the Mississippi River Navigation System -- Climate Variability and the Colorado River Compact: Implications for Responding to Climate Change -- Climate Change and California: Past, Present, and Future Vulnerabilities -- Analyzing the Risk of Drought: The Occoquan Experience -- The Ogallala Aquifer and Carbon Dioxide: Are Policy Responses Applicable? -- Public and Private Sector Responses to Florida Citrus Freezes -- Forecasting by Analogy -- Summary