America's Climate Choices is a coordinated set of activities convened in response to a request from Congress to "study the serious and sweeping issues associated with global climate change, including the science and technology challenges involved, and provide advice on actions and strategies the nation can take to respond." Expert committees were assembled to assess options and write consensus reports. Collectively, the America's Climate Choices reports provide a broad, action-oriented, and authoritative set of analyses to inform and guide responses to climate change across the nation.Across the United States, impacts of climate change are already evident. Some extreme weather events have become more frequent and intense. The proportion of precipitation that falls as rain rather than snow has increased across the western United States and Arctic sea ice has been reduced significantly. Sea level has been rising faster than at any time in recent history, threatening the natural and built environments on the coasts. Even if emissions of greenhouse gases were substantially reduced now, climate change and its resulting impacts would continue for some time to come.To date, decisions related to managing resources and protecting people and infrastructure have been based on records in the recent past, when climate was relatively stable. Adapting to the Impacts of Climate Change calls for a new paradigm-one that considers a range of possible future climate conditions and impacts that may be well outside the realm of past experience.Adaptation requires actions from many decision makers in federal, state, tribal, and local governments; the private sector; non-governmental organizations; and community groups. However, current efforts are hampered by a lack of solid information about the benefits, costs, and effectiveness of various adaptation options; climate information on regional and local scales; and a lack of coordination. Adapting to the Impacts of Climate Change emphasizes the need for a national adaptation strategy that provides technical and scientific resources, incentives to begin adaptation planning, guidance across jurisdictions, shared lessons learned, and support of scientific research to expand knowledge of impacts and adaptation.