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NOAA Climate Service
V. Ramaswamy and Chet Koblinski
WCRP JSC-31
Antalya Turkey
February 16, 2010
NOAA commits to
providing critical
assets in science and
service to a Federal
partnership
*
*
Security
Federal Response
to the nation’s
climate challenges
Forestry
Water
Partnerships &
Collaboration
NOAA’s Assets
Health
Information Delivery and Decision Support
NOAA uses its national and regional infrastructure to deliver climate services today
Infrastructure
Assessments of Climate Change and Impacts
NOAA is a leader in national and regional climate impact assessments
Over 70% of Federal IPCC AR4 WG1 authors were from NOAA
Global
Land
Management
Climate Change Research and Modeling
International award winning models of the global climate
Oceans
Climate Observations and Monitoring
NOAA operates over 90 observation and monitoring systems
NOAA is mandated to monitor and provide access to climate data and
information
DRAFT – FOR INTERNAL
DISCUSSION PURPOSES ONLY
3
Energy
12/03/2009 Other
*Representative Organizations & Sectors
Proposed NOAA Climate Service (NCS)
Questions
• What is the role of climate and Earth system research and
observations towards understanding, predicting and
providing the necessary information for climate adaptation,
mitigation and risk management?
• What is/are the contributions of your
programme/organization to the first question?
• What is/are the expectations from the WCRP in meeting
your organization/programme objectives/contributions?
• What is/are potential contributions of your
programme/organization to WCRP plans and activities?
1. What is the role of climate and Earth system research and observations
towards understanding, predicting and providing the necessary information
for climate adaptation, mitigation and risk management?
NOAA’s climate mission is to understand climate variability and change to enhance society’s
ability to plan and respond. Its objectives and capabilities are:
1) describe and understand the state of the climate system through integrated
atmosphere, oceanic, and arctic observations and maintains consistent, long-term
access to historical climate data;
2) understand, predict, and project climate variability and change from weeks to decades
to a century to attribute casual forces to climate effects; and
3) improve the ability of society to plan for and respond to climate variability and change
to evolving user needs by assessing climate impacts, supporting regional adaptation
strategies, and developing new products appropriate to evolving user needs.
NOAA is using these capabilities to build comprehensive science-based climate services to
inform the nation’s weather and climate sensitive industries, ecosystem services,
national security, and future climate adaptation and mitigation choices.
2. What is/are the contributions of your
programme/organization to the first question?
• Observations and Monitoring
– Climate System Observations (Satellite and In Situ)
• Atmosphere (Physical and Chemical), Ocean, Arctic
– Data Management and Information
• Research and Modeling
– Understanding Climate Processes
– Earth System Modeling. Predictions and Projections
– Analysis and Attribution
• Service Development
– Assessing Climate Impacts and Adaptation
– Climate Services Development and Delivery
Near-Term Enhancements
• Observations
– Satellites
• Solar irradiance, earth radiation budget, ozone profiling on
NPOESS
– Climate Reference Network
• Add 29 stations in Alaska
• Climate Change Modeling
– Reduce uncertainties in decadal variability, abrupt change,
and Arctic processes
• High Performance Computing for Climate Modeling
– New Installations at Oak Ridge and Fairmont, West Virginia
under construction with a goal of pflop capacity
Near-Term Enhancements
• Black Carbon
– Instrument development to measure aerosol
concentrations, optical and chemical properties
– Measure abundances, properties and effects
– Quantify emissions from sources
• Ocean Acidification
– Monitor OA at 20 deep ocean and coastal moorings
– Develop protocols for OA lab experiments on effects
on marine organisms
– Establish OA Program Office
Near-Term Enhancements
• Regional Services
– Select 6 Federal Regional Directors to begin
development of federal based regional services
• Assessment Services
– Build a permanent capability to produce climate
assessments at national and regional scales
• National, Regional and sector assessments
• Regional modeling and downscaling
• Technical support unit
Near-Term Enhancements
• Sector focused Services
– Coasts
• Coastal inundation hazards decision support
– Drought
• Develop regional early warning systems for Colorado
River Basin, California and Southeast US.
• Continue installation of soil moisture sensors around US
Near-Term Enhancements
• Information Services
– Prototype Climate Services Portal
– Develop Climate Model Data Portal for centralized
archive and access to selected seasonal to century
model based data sets, including re-analyses
• Data Services
– Develop Climate Data Records to transform raw
satellite data into unified and coherent long-term
environmental observations and products critical
to climate modelers and decision makers.
3. What is/are the expectations from the WCRP in meeting
your organization/programme objectives/contributions?
• Value of an international climate research enterprise vs
National implementation
– The major activity of WCRP should be to bring together international
scientists in sharing data and resources. Such activities are difficult for
individual national organizations.
– WCRP should provide a venue for scientists of multiple disciplines and
from different regions to cooperate to address issues at the
intersection of sciences.
• There needs to be a progression towards addressing the
challenges and concerns of society with respect to climate
change based on scientific basis. Further, increasingly, the
element of human dimensions will have to be considered.
• Balance Science Push vs User Pull
4. What is/are potential contributions of your programme/organization to
WCRP plans and activities?
NOAA is involved in most aspects of WCRP
NOAA’s Strategic Climate Goals
Continue to Build, Evaluate and Adapt NOAA’s Core Competencies in Three Key Strategic Areas:
1.
Delivery of Sustained & Effective Services
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2.
Promoting Collaborative Partnerships
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3.
Promote integrated service delivery at the national and regional scales;
Develop science-based climate information, products and decision support tools needed for informed
decision making;
Expand sustained engagement, dialogue and collaborations with users to build a robust service-centric
program.
Use existing partnerships and networks, and address gaps as needed;
Commit to strong federal partnerships that promote effective leveraging of unique capabilities to meet the
nation’s needs;
Promote a thriving private sector to deliver diverse climate services to businesses and individuals.
Advancing Climate Science
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Build and sustain comprehensive observations and monitoring systems and provide state of the art
research, modeling, predictions, and projections;
Guide the evolution of NOAA’s science enterprise based on changing societal needs, new scientific insights
and continuous evaluation in collaborations with users, scientists and partners;
Link natural and socio-economic sciences to support decision-making.
The End