Predictability of Earth's Climate

Institute Of Global Environment And Society, Rockville MD

Investigators

Abstract

Intellectual Merit This renewal project will work towards an understanding of the predictability of Earth's current climate fluctuations on seasonal to decadal time scales using state-of-the-art, comprehensive models of the global atmosphere, world oceans and land surface. The PIs will investigate how seasonal to interannual predictability is altered as climate changes. This is a major addition to their ongoing research and an essential element of understanding the impact of global climate change on regional climate, because the effects of global climate change that are most relevant to a region will be manifested through changes in the occurrence of natural climatic phenomena. The PIs will enhance their previous work by investigating the realizable predictability of the total climate system. In particular, they expect to establish quantitatively what seasonal and regional climate variations can be predicted, in the current climate and in a changing climate. Since regional climate variations in a changing climate are largely manifestations of changes in the natural modes of variability, this research is crucial to the Nation's efforts in climate change science. Broader Impacts COLA, as a part of the Institute of Global Environment and Society shares the fruits of its research work with society as a whole, and has a long-standing commitment to serve the research and educational communities as well as the global society. COLA investigates the actual climate system, utilizes actual global observations and uses the same complex models for predictability research that are used for actual, routine climate prediction. Therefore, COLA research is directly beneficial to the improvement of climate forecasts for many sectors of society, including agriculture, energy, water resources, and human health, among others. The contributions to teaching, training and learning include involving graduate students in the research activities and using both conceptual and state-of-the-art climate models in the classroom to aid in teaching. COLA scientists have also contributed to enhancing the infrastructure for research by establishing institutional collaborations; providing analytic software tools to enable a very large number of students and other researchers to make direct use of climate data; and ensuring the broadest and most timely distribution of its scientific results through the print and web-based distribution, through public lectures throughout the U.S. and abroad, and through other media outlets.