It must be Climate Geek Christmas, because there’s a new service available from the NOAA:
NOAA Reorganizes With Eye Toward Assessing Effects of Climate Change:
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration launched a new climate service today, a reorganization effort aimed at improving long-range assessments of climate change, sea-level rise and severe weather.
The effort is aimed at providing long-term forecasts to assist fisheries managers, farmers, state governments, renewable energy developers, water managers and others.
Commerce Secretary Gary Locke likened the new climate shop to the 140-year-old National Weather Service, recounting how weather forecasting helped citizens prepare for the blizzard that slammed the mid-Atlantic region last weekend.
“This will provide a single point of contact, a one-stop shop for businesses and government that need NOAA’s high-quality forecasting for making predictions,” Locke said. “They turn to the Weather Service for making predictions in the short range, now we need the climate service … because increasingly climate change is affecting everyone’s bottom line.”
The NOAA initiative would bring together existing climate science, currently spread through various branches at the agency. Thomas Karl, currently director of the National Climatic Data Center, would serve as transitional director of the climate service, which would also have six regional directors.
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Scientists and government officials have discussed for years possibilities for a National Climate Service, akin to the Weather Service. Efforts heated up in recent years. The George W. Bush and Obama administrations both endorsed the concept, and lawmakers on Capitol Hill have taken a stab at bills to authorize the service.
The administration’s fiscal 2011 budget request includes $1.5 million for the new NOAA climate services portal.
The initiative’s site is Climate.gov, and it already has quite a bit of good material (check the “Understanding Climate” tab).
While it’s obviously very early in this effort’s lifetime, I think it’s an excellent idea. Leveling the access to climate information by making as much of it as possible available through a single, user-friednly interface is a Very Good Thing.
