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The Obama administration's Climate Data Initiative, unveiled Wednesday, is a bid to provide the public with as much federal data as possible about climate change.

With Congress shunning legislation to curb global warming, President Obama on Wednesday launched a new online resource to help businesses, citizens, and communities plan for climate change.

Staff writer

Noelle Swan writes for the national news desk at the Monitor. She previously worked on the Business and Family pages as a writer and editor.

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The Climate Data Initiative aims to ease access to federal data on climate issues including rises in sea level, storm surges, extreme heat, and drought. The hope is that Americans will use the data to create better public and private preparedness plans.

The website is a work in progress, with some components still under construction. For example, a click on the "coastal flooding" tab yields a description of what will be available, though there is no indication when the data will go live.

The Climate Data Initiative marks a next step on Mr. Obama's pledge last June to address climate change. The president and Democratic leaders have highlighted the issue several times in recent months, despite congressional opposition from most Republicans and red-state Democrats.

"Climate change is a fact," Obama said during his 2014 State of the Union Address. "And when our children's children look us in the eye and ask if we did all we could to leave them a safer, more stable world, with new sources of energy, I want us to be able to say, 'Yes, we did.' "

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Obama's Climate Data Initiative: Congress gridlocked? Empower the public.