Program Description

The objective of the Climate and Ecosystems Program is to understand and predict the consequences of climate variability and change on marine ecosystems. The program accomplishes this by coupling observations with information from retrospective and process studies in order to detect the impacts of climate on marine ecosystems and build an understanding of climate-ecosystem relationships. The goal of the program is to develop forecasts of changes in fishery, coastal, and coral-reef resources in response to climatic changes. The forecasts provide users and managers of ocean and coastal resources information they require to adapt to changing climate regimes.

Changing climate is among the most significant long-term influences on the structure and functioning of marine ecosystems and must therefore be accounted for to insure healthy and productive ocean environments. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) must understand the effects of climate on marine ecosystems in order to meet its responsibilities under numerous mandates regarding the management of living marine and coastal resources. The Climate and Ecosystems Program was created to address this issue by monitoring changes in coastal and marine ecosystems through a network of in situ and remote observing systems and by developing biophysical indicators and models that meet the needs of marine resource managers to adapt to predicted climate-induced changes in fishery, coastal, and coral reef resources. The program is intended to be a national program with projects in regions where there are ecologically and economically significant coastal and marine resources impacted by climate variability and change.