Improving the Effectiveness of U.S. Climate Modeling http://www.nap.edu/catalog/10087.html
Executive Summary
BACKGROUND AND CHARGE The U.S. research community is a world leader in the study and understanding of climate and climate variability. Modeling capabilities are being applied to the study of anthropogenic impacts on the climate system, such as those resulting from additions of radiatively active constituents to the atmosphere, and from slow natural variations of climate. Short-term climatic variations, such as those occurring with the El Niùo/Southern Oscillation, are becoming better understood and may be increasingly predictable as a result of the observations and modeling by this community. This skill of predicting short-term climate variations and the information gained to better understand natural variability and the response to natural and anthropogenic perturbations is of great societal, ecological, and economic value for future planning. Recently a key use of climate models has been the production of legally mandated climate assessments (the U.S. National Assessment) and assessments required by international agreement (the assessments of long-term climate change performed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the Ozone Assessments called for by the Montreal protocols). Regional assessments to characterize climate impacts on a more local scale are increasingly in use, as they become valuable for planning purposes in both the public and private sectors. Recognizing the societal importance of climate modeling, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the National Science Foundation (NSF) requested the Climate Research Committee (CRC) of the National Research Council (NRC) to investigate the current state of 1 Copyright Š National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.