New York Climate Exchange Summit Confronts the Gap Between Data and Action

Scientists have more climate data than ever. Fewer people know what to do with it.

That disconnect sat at the center of The New York Climate Exchange's second annual Climate Solutions Summit, held April 17 at IBM in New York City, where Stony Brook University, its partners and cross-sector practitioners gathered to examine how research becomes resilience.

"Collaboration is really not just at the heart of the exchange," said Amanda Lefton, commissioner of the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, during a keynote address. "It's really the only way that we're going to effectively address climate change."

Lefton grounded the conversation in what she called a "measured and data-driven approach" to resilience. She said that while identifying problems is a necessary first step, the real value lies in application. "Data is so powerful and important to help us make better decisions about how we're going to address this," she said.

She pointed to two specific state initiatives: an urban heat island mapping project and the Flood Safe New York initiative. Both, she said, exist to protect disadvantaged communities from the compounding risks of extreme heat and frequent flooding.

The summit's broader consensus held that climate data must remain human-centric, with affected communities involved in shaping the tools designed to serve them. Kevin Reed, chief climate scientist for the New York Climate Exchange and associate provost and professor at Stony Brook University, said The Exchange seeks to position itself as a connective institution sitting at the intersection of research, policy and the neighborhoods most exposed to climate risk.

The challenge conference-goers named is more than simply producing more data. It is building the trust, the tools and the relationships that allow data to move.

During a fireside chat, focusing on what happens between the moment data is collected and the moment it reaches the public, Reed, Paul Shepson, dean of Stony Brook's School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences, and New York University professor Yuliya Parshina-Kottas described a structural barrier that limits scientific reach.

"The way in which scientists traditionally share their data isn't through visualizations," Reed said. "It's through the sharing of data files with complex formats that are not even interpretable by almost anybody besides a really small subset of scientists that work on that data."

"The New York Climate Exchange, in working with its partners, is really interested in thinking about new ways to share data or collecting data in a way that could be shared with more broadly with our network," he added.

Reed argued that the field must move toward multiple modes of communication, including AI-driven chatbots and interactive visualizations, to reach audiences with different needs and contexts.

He also cautioned against assuming that technological acceleration is sufficient on its own. Speed and reach matter, but they do not replace the deeper work of community engagement.

Melissa Finucane, inaugural William and Jane Knapp Endowed Infinity Chair at Stony Brook, pushed that point further. "We can build the most sophisticated climate tools imaginable, but if the communities who need them most didn't help shape them, we've already failed," Finucane said. Her work focuses on how people perceive and respond to risk, and she noted that trust is often the missing variable in climate communication efforts.

Shepson pointed to growing partnerships between Stony Brook researchers, The Exchange and its partners as evidence that the distance between data collection and policy application is narrowing.

The Governors Island Environmental Observatory, for example, will provide local, real-time air quality information and explain the benefits of reducing greenhouse gas emissions on air quality and human health, while engaging visitors "in community science aimed at expanding datasets that connect environmental factors and quality of life."

"This long-term observatory will serve as a beacon of progress and hope for the economic, human health, ecosystem health and climate change benefits [for New York]," Shepson said.