Adam Smith

Adam Smith is Climate Central’s Senior Climate Impacts Scientist, leading the redevelopment of the U.S. Billion-Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters research. His work will integrate with other Climate Central programs, including Climate Matters, Climate Services, engagement, and event attribution.

Smith brings two decades of experience from NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information—Climate Science and Services Division. For 15 years, he served as the lead scientist for NOAA’s U.S. Billion-Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters program. In this role, he integrated and quality-controlled data from more than a dozen public and private sources to improve disaster cost frameworks. His research also incorporated socioeconomic exposure and vulnerability data to better understand how weather and climate extremes drive physical, social, and economic impacts—particularly on vulnerable populations.

Smith also led NOAA’s Industry Proving Ground (IPG) projects, working closely with the private Re/insurance sector to meet their hazard information needs. This included developing tools such as the U.S. Storm Events Database enhancement, a U.S. sub-billion-dollar disaster framework, and the Event Footprint Catalogue, all informed by industry recommendations.

He has briefed the Science for Disaster Reduction working group on U.S. disaster costs and served as NOAA’s expert representative on U.S. disaster loss data in support of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (2016–2024). Additionally, Smith contributed to the American Meteorological Society’s Committee on Financial Weather Risk Management (2015–2024) and the interagency Hazards and Natural Capital Accounting Working Group.

Internationally, Smith has represented the U.S. on research teams and expert panels for organizations such as the World Meteorological Organization, the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction, the International Science Council, and Integrated Research on Disaster Risk, helping to develop and refine global disaster impact frameworks.