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Solar irradiance is a vital source of energy input for the Earth's climate system and its variability has the potential to mitigate or exacerbate a human-created climate. Maintaining an unbroken record of Total Solar Irradiance (TSI) is critical in resolving ongoing debates regarding the potential role of solar variability in influencing Earth's climate. Space-borne instruments have acquired TSI data since 1978. Currently, the best calibrated ...

Almost half the U.S. population lives along the coast. In another 20 years this population is expected to more than double in size. The unique weather and climate of the coastal zone, circulating pollutants, altering storms, changing temperature, and moving coastal currents affect air pollution and disaster preparedness, ocean pollution, and safeguarding near-shore ecosystems. Activities in commerce, industry, transportation, freshwater supply...

The U.S. Climate Change Science Program is in the process of producing 21 draft assessments that investigate changes in the Earth's climate and related systems. These assessments are designed to inform decisionmakers about the scientific underpinnings of a range of environmental issues, such as stratospheric ozone. This National Research Council report reviews one of these assessments, Synthesis and Assessment Product (SAP) 2.4, Trends in Emis...

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) collects, manages, and disseminates a wide range of climate, weather, ecosystem and other environmental data that are used by scientists, engineers, resource managers, policy makers, and others in the United States and around the world. The increasing volume and diversity of NOAA's data holdings - which include everything from satellite images of clouds to the stomach contents of fish ...

This National Research Council (NRC) report reviews a draft of the U.S. Climate Change Science Program (CCSP) Synthesis and Assessment Product 3.3, Weather and Climate Extremes in a Changing Climate, the 3rd in a series of 21 CCSP products addressing important topics related to climate change. The NRC report finds that the draft provides a good and thorough assessment of the important issues regarding extreme events over North America and how ...

This report reviews the U.S. Climate Change Science Program's new draft assessment product on characterizing and communicating uncertainty information for climate change decision making, one of 21 climate change assessment products that the program is developing to meet the requirements of the 1990 Global Change Research Act. Although the draft assessment is effective in discussing methods of characterizing uncertainty, it falls short in sever...

Launched jointly in 1997 by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) is a satellite mission that placed a unique suite of instruments, including the first precipitation radar, in space. These instruments are used to monitor and predict tropical cyclone tracks and intensity, estimate rainfall, and monitor climate variability (precip...

.".. workshop held July 12-13, 2004, at the J. Erik Jonsson Woods Hole Center in Woods Hole, Massachusetts."--Pref.

The nation's network of more than 130 Next Generation Radars (NEXRADs) is used to detect wind and precipitation to help National Weather Service forecasters monitor and predict flash floods and other storms. This book assesses the performance of the Sulphur Mountain NEXRAD in Southern California, which has been scrutinized for its ability to detect precipitation in the atmosphere below 6000 feet. The book finds that the Sulphur Mountain NEXRAD...

The report outlines key elements to consider in designing a program to create climate-quality data from satellites. It examines historical attempts to create climate data records, provides advice on steps for generating, re-analyzing, and storing satellite climate data, and discusses the importance of partnering between agencies, academia, and industry. NOAA will use this report--the first in a two-part study--to draft an implementation plan f...

Estimates of groundwater recharge and discharge rates are needed at many different scales for many different purposes. These include such tasks as evaluating landslide risks, managing groundwater resources, locating nuclear waste repositories, and estimating global budgets of water and greenhouse gasses. Groundwater Fluxes Across Interfaces focuses on scientific challenges in (1) the spatial and temporal variability of recharge and discharge, ...

During the past decade, scientists have learned much about the complex natural processes that influence climate variability and change, and our ability to model climate has increased significantly. We also have begun to better identify those parts of the climate system that are particularly important and not well understood and that therefore limit our ability to project the future evolution of Earth's climate. One of these critical areas is o...

Accurate prediction of convective storms 2- to 6-hours in advance is critical to selecting air traffic routes with minimal weather delays or diversions. This report summarizes the discussions of a workshop to explore present convective weather forecasting skill, strategies for improving that skill, ways to verify forecasts are accurate, and how to make forecasts useful to air traffic controllers, airline dispatchers, and pilots.

In 2001, the U.S. Global Change Research Program produced the report A Plan for a New Science Initiative on the Global Water Cycle. This report was designed to represent a research strategy and scientific plan for investigating the global water cycle, and its interactions with climate and for developing an enhanced understanding of the fundamental processes that govern the availability and biogeochemistry of water resources. The USGCRP manager...

The report explores how best to communicate weather and climate information by presenting five case studies, selected to illustrate a range of time scales and issues, from the forecasting of weather events, to providing seasonal outlooks, to projecting climate change.

The 1997 Conference on the World Climate Research Programme to the Third Conference of the Parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change concluded that the global capacity to observe the Earth's climate system is inadequate and is deteriorating worldwide. As a result, the chair of the subcommittee of the U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) requested a National Research Council study to assess the current status ...

The National Research Council's Committee on Atmospheric Chemistry (NRC/CAC) was established to serve as a focal point for NRC activities on issues related to atmospheric chemical change and its impacts on air quality, climate, stratospheric ozone depletion, and other related issues. The committee consists of 12 members with expertise covering the areas of tropospheric and stratospheric chemistry, urban/regional air pollution, modeling of clim...

During the 1980s and 1990s, the National Weather Service (NWS) undertook a major program called the Modernization and Associated Restructuring (MAR). The MAR was officially completed in 2000. No comprehensive assessment of the execution of the MAR plan, or comparison of the promised benefits of the MAR to its actual impact, had ever been conducted. Therefore, Congress asked the National Academy of Sciences to conduct an end-to-end assessment. ...

The research of the last decade has demonstrated that ecosystems and human systems are influenced by multiple factors, including climate, land use, and the by-products of resource use. Understanding the net impact of a suite of simultaneously occurring environmental changes is essential for developing effective response strategies. Using case studies on drought and a wide range of atmosphere-ecosystem interactions, a workshop was held in Septe...

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) uses precipitation data in many applications including hurricane forecasting. Currently, NOAA uses data collected from the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite that was launched in 1997 by NASA in cooperation with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. NASA is now making plans to launch the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission in 2013 to succeed TRMM, which w...