National climate change service in America's future?

National climate change service in America's future?
mongabay.com
November 28, 2006

Prominent climate researchers have advocated the creation of a national climate service to understand and forecast climate. The recommendation is made by six members of the University of Washington's Climate Impacts Group in this week's early edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"Unlike the National Weather Service, which forecasts weather up to a week in advance and sometimes two weeks in advance, a national climate service ideally would help with forecasts of climate fluctuations that might be expected anywhere from three months to a year," explained a statement from the University of Washington, "Forecasts from a National Climate Service could give months of advance warnings to water and power managers, private industries and those charged with human safety when the probabilities for such things as flooding and drought appear to be changing from what is typical."

At a cost of several hundred million dollars, the agency would project 100-year scenarios of climate change for specific regions. The service would look at both "'climate variability,' the natural seasonal to decades-long variations in climate, and the effects of 'climate change,' the changes brought about by increasing amounts of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, largely because of human activities."

Warm ocean waters fuel hurricanes, and there was plenty of warm water for Katrina to build up strength once she crossed over Florida and moved into the Gulf of Mexico. This image depicts a 3-day average of actual sea surface temperatures (SSTs) for the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean, from August 25-27, 2005. Every area in yellow, orange or red represents 82 degrees Fahrenheit or above. A hurricane needs SSTs at 82 degrees or warmer to strengthen. The data came from the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer (AMSR-E) instrument on NASA's Aqua satellite. The GOES satellite provided the cloud data for this image. Image Credit: NASA/SVS.

"Nature is prodding us to do this," says Ed Miles, a professor of marine affairs at the University of Washington and lead author of "An approach to designing a national climate service."

The report says that climate forecasts could enable society to prepare for climate-related events, minimizing costs and damage. They cite the example of the forecast of an El Niño in 1997-98 which helped California to prepare for increased risks for flooding.

"Despite the increasing predictability of climate, information on predicted climate and climate impacts is not typically used well," the authors write. "The true strength of a national climate service is the regional focus of the service. Experience has shown that connections between climate scientists and stakeholders are most effective at the local, regional, statewide and multistate scales at which stakeholders operate."

This article is based on a University of Washington news release.

Recommend this article? Comments?
Digg this article | Hugg this article | Contact

News options

News index | RSS | News Feed

Advertisements:

Organic Apparel from Patagonia | Insect-repelling clothing

MONGABAY.COM
Mongabay.com seeks to raise interest in and appreciation of wild lands and wildlife, while examining the impact of emerging trends in climate, technology, economics, and finance on conservation and development (more)

CONTENTS

Rainforests
Tropical Fish
News
Madagascar
Pictures
Kids' Site
Languages
Topics | RSS
Newsletter
Green Shopping
About
Contact
Archives
Interns
Help