The University of Colorado Boulder (CU Boulder) has been selected by NOAA to host a cooperative institute focused on Earth system research and data science.
The new Cooperative Institute for Earth System Research and Data Science (CIESRDS) will conduct collaborative research in support of NOAA’s mission to understand and predict Earth’s changing environment from the deep sea to the outer edge of the atmosphere, and to manage and conserve America’s coastal and marine resources.
Massimo Ruzzene, acting vice chancellor for research and innovation and dean of the institutes at CU Boulder, said, “We’re thrilled to continue CU Boulder’s highly productive partnership with NOAA through our joint institute.
The WMO’s Systematic Observations Financing Facility (SOFF) has officially begun operations, providing funding to strengthen weather and climate observations, improve early warning systems, protect livelihoods and underpin climate adaptation for long-term resilience.
SOFF is a key building block for a new initiative spearheaded by António Guterres, UN secretary-general, to ensure that early warning services reach everyone in the next five years. It looks to address the long-standing problem of missing weather and climate observations from least developed countries (LDCs) and small island developing states (SIDS).
In support of the Paris Agreement, SOFF will strengthen the international response to climate change by filling the data gaps that limit climate knowledge.
The US Government has allocated nearly US$3bn in Bipartisan Infrastructure Law funds to NOAA over the next five years to address the climate crisis and strengthen coastal resilience and infrastructure.
NOAA will invest funds in the areas of habitat restoration, coastal resilience, and climate data and services.
Gina M Raimondo, US commerce secretary, said, “The climate crisis is affecting every community in the US and impacting our nation’s economy,” said Raimondo. “The funding from NOAA will be used to support transformational projects that will help communities, especially underserved communities, build up local climate resilience and climate-ready infrastructure.”
Rick Spinrad, NOAA administrator, said, “This funding provides NOAA and its partners with a historic opportunity to invest in the climate smart infrastructure of the future.
Work has concluded on a six-year, C$10m (US$7.7m) project to strengthen the quality and availability of impact-based forecasts and services to support communities in Southeast Asia, the Caribbean and the Pacific.
Funded by Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC), the project was launched in 2016 under the framework of the Climate Risk and Early Warning Systems Initiative (CREWS). It supported capacity building of national meteorological and hydrological services (NMHSs) to provide more accurate and timely forecasts, including effective, risk-informed multi-hazard early warning services to vulnerable populations in 35 countries.
The Building Resilience to High-Impact Hydro-Meteorological Events Through Strengthening Multi-Hazard Early Warning Systems in Small Island Developing States and Southeast Asia (Canada CREWS) project fulfilled three key objectives: strengthen coordination and communication between multi-hazard early warning systems stakeholders; enhance the capacities of WMO regional centers and participating NMHSs to forecast severe weather, flash floods and coastal inundation; and provide regional and in-country technical assistance to NMHSs to develop and deliver impact-based products and services.
The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has inaugurated its newest weather and climate Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) Cray supercomputers in Virginia and Arizona.
Supplied by General Dynamics Information Technology (GDIT), the new supercomputers provide a significant upgrade to computing capacity, storage space and interconnect speed of the US Weather and Climate Operational Supercomputing System.
Gina M Raimondo, US secretary of commerce, said, “Accurate weather and climate predictions are critical to informing public safety, supporting local economies and addressing the threat of climate change. Through strategic and sustained investments, the US is reclaiming a global top spot in high-performance computing to provide more accurate and timely climate forecasts to the public.”
Rick Spinrad, NOAA administrator, said, “More computing power will enable NOAA to provide the public with more detailed weather forecasts further in advance.
Climate change. It’s a subject that is starting to come up in conversations about all aspects of our lives. Are flood defenses high enough? How can we plan cities for the future? Are some areas of the world going to become unsuitable for human habitation?
The science on climate change is clear: the climate is changing. Climate scientists around the world are continuing to refine their understanding of the drivers and impacts of climate change. However, these results often end up in scientific publications or global assessment reports that can be inaccessible to those without technical training.
The most recent report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), for example, was a staggering 3,949 pages long – and that’s just the section on the science of climate change.
Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) has launched a new set of online tools that will provide the agricultural sector with specific weather and climate information to help make critical business decisions.
BoM’s latest Forewarned is Forearmed products will help improve productivity and profitability by allowing users to drill down to their location to view the chance of unseasonal and extreme rainfall and temperature in the weeks, months or seasons ahead.
Matthew Coulton, BoM’s general manager of agriculture and water, said the tools were informed by farmers’ day-to-day needs and developed in consultation with the agricultural sector.
The WMO’s Executive Council has approved two major strategic proposals to ensure that early warning services reach everyone across the globe in the next five years and to establish a greenhouse gas monitoring system.
The decisions are part of a series of measures agreed by the Executive Council at its June 20-24 session to strengthen weather, climate, water and environmental services.
Prof. Petteri Taalas, WMO secretary-general, said, “These flagship initiatives will strengthen WMO’s commitment to the international agenda on climate action and disaster risk reduction and will play a pivotal role in informing climate change mitigation and adaptation to increasingly extreme weather.
