|
An old saying expresses the thought that "climate is what you expect, weather is what you get." But what can we expect from the climate of the United States, and the whole world, in the coming decade - or even in the next century and beyond? As all life on Earth depends on a favorable climate to survive, that's an important question, a question that researchers at NOAA are trying to answer.
NOAA's research laboratories, Climate Program Office, and research partners conduct a wide range of research into complex climate systems and how they work. These scientists want to improve their ability to predict climate variation in both the shorter term, like cold spells or periods of drought, and over longer terms like centuries and beyond.
NOAA researchers will continue their consistent and uninterrupted monitoring of the Earth's atmosphere that can give us clues about both long-term and short-term changes in the global climate. Central to NOAA climate researchers is to improve understanding of the human and natural drivers of climate change, observe climate change, gain a better insight into the climate processes and attribution, and estimate projected future climate change. The data collected worldwide by NOAA researchers aids our understanding of, and ability to, forecast changes in complex climatic systems.
Using ever more powerful and sophisticated computer systems, NOAA researchers are working on numeric modeling of climate systems that will help improve the accuracy of climate forecasts.
NOAA's goal is to "understand and describe climate variability and change to enhance society's ability to plan and respond." NOAA relies on its federal, academic, private, and international partners to achieve this goal so that our climate services can provide decision makers with a predictive understanding of the global climate system and to "translate" this information so the public can incorporate the information and products into their decisions.
|
"Are we barreling down a runaway route toward climatic catastrophe, or will the future bring relatively benign changes that will not threaten society?
The accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere will almost certainly cause Earth's surface temperature to rise. But we do not know how quickly the planet will warm or how that warming will affect different regions of the globe.
Answers to such questions will only come through intense research into the mysteries of Earth's climate system."
-- from Reports to the Nation on Our Changing Planet
|
