Noaa Climate Program

This study recommends a definition of "decision support" that emphasizes communication rather than translation and a strategy by which the small NOAA Sectoral Applications Research program can advance decision support. The book emphasizes that seasonal climate forecasts provide fundamentally new kinds of information and that integrating this information into real-world decisions will require social innovations that are not easily accomplished. It recommends that the program invest in (a) research to identify and foster the innovations needed to make information about climate variability and change more usable in specific sectors, including research on the processes that influence success or failure in the creation of knowledge-action networks for making climate information; (b) workshops to identify, catalyze, and assess the potential of knowledge-action networks in particular resource areas or decision domains; and (c) pilot projects to create or enhance these networks for supporting decisions in climate-affected sectors. It recommends that evaluation of the program be addressed with a monitoring approach.

To better understand our climate system, it is important that we have climate data records (CDRs)-time series of measurements of sufficient length, consistency, and continuity to determine climate variability and change-that possess the accuracy, longevity, and stability to facilitate credible climate monitoring. In 2004, the National Research Council (NRC) published Climate Data Records from Environmental Satellites to provide the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) with initial guidelines on how to develop and implement an effective CDR program. NOAA used this book to draft a plan for a new Scientific Data Stewardship (SDS) program, and then asked NRC to review it. The new program will be responsible for processing, archiving, and distributing observations from satellite and supporting ground-based platforms for monitoring, diagnosing, understanding, predicting, modeling, and assessing climate variation and change. The NRC review outlines several ways in which to improve NOAA's draft plan, most importantly by clarifying advisory mechanisms, providing more detail about how NOAA will coordinate with important partners in generating CDRs, articulating how the program will prioritize its activities, and developing ways to realistically project future costs. However, the draft plan is sound overall and NOAA should immediately begin implementing the SDS program while revising the plan as recommended in the book.