This research element supports vulnerability assessment for climate adaptation (Glick et al. 2011) by focusing on the provision of best available climate information for the region in order to inform analysis of ecosystem exposure to change.  Climate in the North Central United States (NCUS) is driven by a combination that includes large-scale patterns in atmospheric circulation, the region’s complex topography extending from the High Rockies to the Great Plains, and geographic variations in water and surface-energy balance.  Hydroclimatic variability within the NCUS determines the sustainability of ecosystems in the region as well as the ecosystem goods and services they provide.  We propose, therefore, to use a diverse set of region-specific approaches for developing a hydroclimatology that is faithful to the full range of temporal and spatial scales of climate processes in order to evaluate efficacy of climate model simulations, provide interpretation of climate change mechanisms, and advance understanding of co-variability between climate, ecosystems, and species of interest to stakeholders.