EPILOGUE
CDC is uniquely positioned within NOAA's emerging climate services. Through its diverse research in climate diagnostics and analyses, CDC is an extensive user of new and enhanced climate forecasts and products. Participation in the NOAA-CIRES western water regional integrated science assessment project engages CDC in research to identify gaps between climate information and societal needs, and to develop decision support services that make climate information and products more useful. Finally, as an experimental provider of climate services, CDC is developing the infrastructure and expertise to provide improved access to climate and weather products for use by the scientific research community and less traditional users.
CDC will continue to develop experimental research products that meet the needs of both the scientific research community and less tradition users of climate information and forecasts. To ensure improved regular and systematic communication of needed climate information, CDC will work to formalize partnerships within NOAA and outside of NOAA. Within NOAA, enhanced interactions with OAR (e.g., GFDL and ETL), NESDIS (WRCC and NCDC) and NWS (NCEP/CPC and RFCs) will ensure the development of experimental climate monitoring and forecast products that can be used by, and then transferred to, operational distribution centers. As climate science matures, there is a greater awareness in society of the importance of climate, and the emerging role for climate information in decision-making related to energy, forest fires, air quality and human health, and water resources management. Although these are national issues, there is a growing recognition that providing an improved scientific basis for public planning and policy decisions will require regionally specific climate information and products designed to meet local, state, and regional interests. In collaboration with WRCC, CDC will continue to expand the links between fundamental climate research and regional applications to society-relevant problems, including the timely and routine transfer of data, products, and information to current and future user communities. Enhanced partnerships between CDC and university-based regional climate assessment activities, as well as identified stakeholders in the West, will be essential to accelerate the increased flow of climate information to support decisions. In-house research at CDC will continue to work directly with active, or potential, users of climate information to improve the understanding and usefulness of climate information while identifying areas for research to develop new and improved experimental climate products. In addition, CDC research will be expanded to identify the possible impacts of climate variability on public health and to develop climate products that better forecast and monitor potential public health crises.
Contributed by: G. Bates, H. Diaz, R. Dole, M. Hoerling, S. Jain, L. Matrosova, M. Medovaya, M. Newman, C. Penland, R. Pulwarty, X. Quan, A. Ray, A. Roubicek, P. D. Sardeshmukh, R. Schweitzer, J. Scott, C. Smith, R. Webb, K. Weickmann, C. Winkler, and K. Wolter.