We need information that can help now because while we wait for a climate service and perfect information that science desires, we'll be a decade farther along.  If NOAA wants to spend money on a climate service (and I have doubts about this, feeling an interagency effort is best) then it needs to do a better job communicating what it has. 

The tide gauge records, which we use in our adaptation work along the mid-Atlantic, have no user friendly climate frame.  So we have to cobble together charts of storms of record to show increasing inundation threats from surges, normalized to present sea level, and presented in feet above MHHW.

Other information needs to be similarly framed, using existing sources.  For example, shifts in growing zones are on the websites of garden and tree organizations, clearly showing a warming.  Other indicators showing shifts in bird ranges, etc. are out there.  These are things people relate to, not another peer reviewed article that narrows the range of error on the various climate change scenarios.

Funding needs to leave NOAA to be effective - in other words, extramural funding will get to the people who are working on the ground in various states now.  Keeping money inside NOAA, as happens too often, will not move us as fast as we need to move

Collaborations are critical, as is flexibility.  Entrepreneurial and opportunistic motivations are needed.  By this I mean, any effort needs to take advantage of situations as they arise and put resources in the hands of folks working on the problem on the ground.  We have made more progress following a nor'easter last fall than we have made in three years of work prior convincing coastal communities of the need to plan for sea level rise.

Strategic partnerships are needed - with affected sectors.  NOAA stating the risk to shoreline businesses from failure to adapt is not compelling.  A shoreline business talking about the losses they face and the expenses they are incurring (increased insurance, loss of business days, etc.) is compelling.

Working with what we have while trying to do better gets us started now.  The policy process at the local government level (where most of the adaptation work will be implemented) cannot handle data with lots of significant figures to the right of the decimal.  Today, the local and regional governments are working at powers of ten - data at that scale, presented by a trusted and effective messenger (not NOAA) is all they need to start moving.

Flexibility, strategic partnerships, user friendly data, working with what we have today - all start us moving while we get it perfect.