A Climate Services Vision First Steps Toward the Future (2001) / Chapter Skim
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4 First Step Toward an Effective Climate Service
4 First Step Toward an Effective Climate Service
Pages 39-57
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From page 39... ...
Climate information is and will be used in many diverse ways to support decision making, and a climate service should reflect this diversity. Its scope, therefore, should be defined by the temporal and spatial scales that make climate information useful.
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From page 40... ...
As the decisions vary over space and time, climate services should at once be responsive on the local level and integrative of all the wide-ranging and diverse influences on that place. Fundamental to the development of climate information that serves the needs of the nation is a commitment to a global observing system (NRC 1999b)
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From page 41... ...
scope of observations, forecasts, and projections mandates on the one hand that climate services be closely linked to the present activities of weather services and on the other hand that it develop a capacity to support IPCC-type assessments routinely. One important challenge of initiating a climate service involves understanding the nature of the climate assessment process, defining and institutionalizing the active role that a service should play in the process, and building in the flexible, ever-changing interfaces that should be maintained among the multiple players who will perform along the pathway from data to decision.
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From page 42... ...
These first steps are designed to promote climate services that are user-centric, that reflect the value of both statistical and predictive climate knowledge, and that promote active stewardship of climate information. The Board on Atmospheric Sciences and Climate (BASC)
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The National Research Council report (1998a) The Atmospheric Sciences Entering the Tuvenj-First Cef~t~ suggests that "the Federal Coordinator for Meteorological Services and Supporting Research should lead a thorough examination of the issues that arise as the national system for providing atmospheric information becomes more distributed." Following that statement and in consideration of the role of the federal coordinator, BASC suggests that the Office of the Federal Coordinator for Meteorology9 (OFCM)
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From page 44... ...
and could supply valuable information on climate variability and climate change in mountainous regions (the source of most of the West's streamflow) and greatly assist with regional reanalysis.
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From page 45... ...
The NRC (1999a) report Making Climate Forecasts Matter provides guidance on the nature of the interface: "Participatory approaches to delivering climate information might include structured dialogues between climate scientists and forecast users to identify the climate parameters of particular importance to users and the organizations that users might rely on for climate forecast information....
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From page 46... ...
For example, to test and demonstrate the utility and user acceptability of climate information data furnished in a real-time Webbased environment, the federal government could fund the user access charges for an already existing climate data networks, allowing the user community free access to the data stream. That would provide the managing agencies with an almost instant statistical compilation of the user activities that include such elements as the number of users and the number and context of user accesses.
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From page 47... ...
Related local climate services should also be encouraged. One possible mechanism would be for the federal government to establish a matching program for states and/or regional climate centers to develop a climate observing network.
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In many cases, the types and nature of the forecast or prediction products that should be provided through a climate service require additional efforts that promote a transition from research to operational efforts and new investments in modeling and modeling infrastructure. The recommendations in this section are derived from several recent National Research Council reports that outline needs for improvements in the climate observational and forecasting systems and for effective planning of the transition from research to operations.
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From page 49... ...
soil moisture, radiation, elements of land use, and boundary-layer profiles of temperature, humidity, and wind on regional and subregional scales to better predict surface hydrology and moisture conditions. The new instruments should obey the ten principles listed in Box 3-1 for climate observations that were adopted by BASC as part of the guiding principles for climate services.
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Furthermore, the current U.S. National Assessment of Climate Change Impacts demonstrates a demand for a host of specialized climate products that tie future climate projections more directly to specific decisions or vulnerabilities.
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Chapter 2, which describes the evolution of climate services in the United States, articulates a possible future of climate services that evolves from a weather service with an inherently short-term perspective to decision-centric climate services and eventually to environmental services that include climate information in the broader context of multiple stresses and spatial scales that range from local to global concerns. The recommendations suggest that the development of climate services in the United States should
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From page 52... ...
. These regional laboratories or centers are in many ways a regional subset of the objectives and guiding principles associated with climate services.
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The objective is to use field study to address deficiencies in understanding. The benefit of these intensive studies is maximized when they can be coupled with a highly developed, integrated set of sensors, with readily accessible spatial and temporal data within a regional information system and a predictive model framework that readily enables the entrainment and testing of new information from process studies.
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From page 54... ...
The regional vision described above is designed to address a broad range of current and future environmental issues by creating a capability based on integrated observing systems, readily accessible data, and an increasingly comprehensive predictive capability. With demonstrated success over a few largescale regions of the United States, this strategy will likely lead to a national capability that far exceeds current capabilities and permit the creation of a broader class of environmental services.
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From page 55... ...
In moving forward for climate-related services, attention should be paid to developing the infrastructure and staffing needed to develop and synthesize climate products based on diverse data sets. This recommendation follows directly from the guiding principle for climate services that if a climate service function is to improve and succeed, it should be supported by active research.
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From page 56... ...
Such programs should include education in the basics of climate science, identifying the needs of various user communities and creating and disseminating useful climate information for them. This recommendation follows the education and outreach mission of universities under the guiding principles for climate services (see Chapter 3~.
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From page 57... ...
FIRST STEPS TOW~RDAN EFFECTIVE CLIMATE SERVICE 57 provides increasingly competent services today. BASC believes that the principles discussed in this report represent the best practices of the various activities and that if applied across all levels of services local, state, regional, and national—would improve the overall climate services to the nation.
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