When Weather Matters: Science and Services to Meet Critical Societal Needs.

摘要

This report represents a sense of the weather community as guided by the discussions of a Board on Atmospheric Sciences and Climate community workshop held in summer 2009. It is not a comprehensive assessment of the state of U.S. weather research and the transition of research findings and products into operations. Further, the report does not seek to address important issues uniquely related to climate research nor does it touch on intra- and interagency organizational procedures and practices. Instead, the report puts forth the committee’s judgment on the most pressing high-level, weather-focused research challenges and research-to-operations (R2O) needs, and makes corresponding recommendations. This report addresses issues including observations, global non-hydrostatic coupled modeling, data assimilation, probabilistic forecasting, and quantitative precipitation and hydrologic forecasting. The report also identifies three important, emerging issues—predictions of very high impact (VHI) weather, urban meteorology, and renewable energy development—not recognized or emphasized i n previous studies. Cutting across all of these challenges is a set of socioeconomic issues, whose importance and emphasis, although increasing, has been undervalued and under-emphasized in the past and warrants greater recognition and priority today.