02 October 2009

Creating a National Climate Service

System would help people and organizations plan for climate variations

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Today, in the United States and worldwide, there is no official source for authoritative and accessible information that communities need to understand, mitigate, and adapt to climate change. To help communities, businesses, and regional governments plan for climate variations, the United States is in the process of establishing a National Climate Service.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, called NOAA, is leading the process and establishing partnerships across many federal agencies that focus on geography, fish and wildlife management, agriculture, environmental protection, energy, transportation and other areas. Federal representatives also collaborate with universities, state and local agencies, nongovernmental organizations, and the private sector.

The key to a useful climate service is relevant information from observations and data collection. The idea of a climate service goes back 20 or 30 years, according to NOAA’s Climate Program Office. Today, improved scientific analysis has led to more certainty about climate change. People also know more about climate change and how they might be affected by it.

Thanks to improvements in science, planners are starting to use climate predictions in their decisionmaking. Predictions made in the timeframes of 20, 30, and 50 years could be very useful as regions consider how to adapt to climate change.

Like anything to do with the weather, the science behind climate modeling and prediction is not perfect, due to the complexity of the earth’s climate system. Nevertheless, NOAA, along with partners in government, business, and academic areas, has developed a range of programs designed to deliver scientific information to regional and local decisionmakers in formats they can use. Some examples include NOAA’s Regional Decision Support effort, or RDS, to accelerate the climate program’s interaction with those who need climate information. The efforthelps NOAA support decisionmaking through research and assessment, and delivering local and regional climate services.

One example of this cooperation is the joint effort by NOAA and Columbia University in New York to create the International Research Institute for Climate and Society. This one-stop source of regional and global climate information combining in-house and external information sources is used by policymakers around the world to minimize impacts from climate variations like El Niño. The Institute provides global seasonal outlooks, El Niño forecasts, and seasonal hurricane outlooks.

This successful partnership has generated a lot of interest in the international community about how communities of decisionmakers all over the world access climate knowledge and learn to use it. The third World Climate Conference, recently held from August 31 to September 4 in Geneva, focused on climate change adaptation, climate prediction and information services.

The challenge for the international community is to coordinate climate information, especially for countries that don’t yet have the ability to produce information. NOAA has a memorandum of understanding with India to work in the area of climate information. More and more countries are interested in developing better prediction and observation systems and then translating that information into benefits for society.

This podcast is produced by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of International Information Programs. Links to other Internet sites or opinions expressed should not be considered an endorsement of other content and views.

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