Climate Observations and Services
Assessments and Services
What is requested?
As part of the FY2002 request for Climate Observations and Services in the Oceanic and Atmospheric Research budget activity, NOAA is requesting $2.5 million to expand assessments and services in climate. This is a combination of the Regional Assessments, Education and Outreach and Climate Change Assessments components. The climate products and their dissemination form the most crucial part of NOAA's climate services. This is a major thrust of the program this year and emphasizes the iterative development of climate information with users on the regional, national, and international scales. The co-production of information with users, taking into account that users must consider many different stresses besides climate, is a hallmark of the development of this activity.
Why do we need it?
Regional and local levels are where the impacts of climate variability from season-to-season or year-to-year manifest themselves. Ongoing regional assessment programs in the Northwest, California, the Southwest, the intermountain West, and Florida have been central in bringing climate information to bear on regional concerns. These regional assessments involve science synthesis across disciplines, bridging the gap between climate and societal issues, and development of decision support services. For example, results from the Southwest assessment considering historical droughts in aquifer recharge have now become a major point of attention in revising Arizona's 1980 Groundwater Management Code. In the Northwest, bringing water managers to the table with scientists to consider the agricultural, hydropower and environmental implications of an ongoing drought that may extend more than one year has been the role of yet another assessment group.
At the national and international scales, the environmental assessments have become the primary tool to deliver information and knowledge on decadal-to-centennial climate change to governments, industry, the scientific community, and the general public. NOAA researchers have played leadership roles in the series of international state-of-understanding assessments of climate change and its impacts (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change - IPCC), and NOAA research results have served as important input to the 1990, 1995, and 2001 reports. These reports have provided essential scientific information for policymakers in the U.S. and abroad. NOAA participation in the international Ozone Assessments and the U.S. National Assessment of Climate Change has been an important component to the success of these activities.
What will we do?
At regional scales, the goal is the use of climate information by regional and local decision-makers to maximize economic gain and minimize harmful impacts. This initiative addresses all aspects of the process by:
- strengthening existing successful university-based, regional integrated assessments and creating new ones;
- initiating an ambitious education program for NWS field meteorologists and developing the tools for an effective customer outreach program; and
- providing for an expanded role for the Regional Climate Centers.
In the national and international arenas, NOAA will build on its successes from the Ozone, IPCC and U.S. National Assessments. Other assessments being proposed are Arctic Change, and the Science of North American Fine Particles (U.S., Canada, Mexico). NOAA will:
- contribute a leadership role in the National Assessment of surface-level ozone and fine particles for the United States, Canada, and Mexico;
- complete the first draft of the circum-Arctic assessment of what is known about climate variability in the Arctic and how this variability affects ecosystems and human activities;
- interpret for key U.S. regions the major findings on fine-particle and ozone levels, and how choices associated with one influence the others;
- provide governments, industry, and the general public a summary of the major findings of the IPCC assessments on climate change; and
- contribute to a follow-on to the U.S. National Assessment.
What are the benefits?
For the regional service programs, in addition to the clear payoff from the "two-way street" of learning how to put relevant climate information into the local decision making needs and vice versa, there are other benefits for NOAA's regional assessment program. For example, the ongoing assessments maintain linkages with what will be evolving information and needs. For the national/international assessments, NOAA's substantial involvement in the process will strengthen the process' outcome, provide NOAA with the direct involvement that yields spokesperson status regarding the findings, and establish a broadening set of personal linkages with the customers of the information.