Scientific Theme: Advanced Modeling and Observing Systems

CIRES in 2006-2007: Contributions to NOAA’s Strategic Vision
Contributions to NOAA’s Strategic Vision
Cross-cutting, interdisciplinary research priorities within CIRES complement NOAA‘s current Five-Year Research
Plan priorities, which aim to enhance the understanding and prediction the of Earth‘s environment. The Five-Year
Research Plan reflects NOAA‘s response to some of the nation‘s most challenging environmental needs, as
identified in the 20-Year Research Vision, and supports the four mission goal areas identified in the NOAA
Strategic Plan – Ecosystems, Climate, Weather and Water, and Commerce and Transportation. The following are
examples of CIRES research that supports NOAA‘s mission goals.
Ecosystem Mission Goal: Protect, restore, and
manage the use of coastal and ocean resources
through ecosystem based management.
CIRES contributes to the ecosystem mission goal through
observations and research on habitat, ecosystems, and
extreme events. Toward this goal, CIRES is a valuable
contributor to research on ocean temperature and climate.
CIRES researchers are diagnosing impacts of changes in
tropical sea surface temperature over the last 50 years, and
determining sensitivity to past and future temperature
changes in different parts of the tropical oceans. Using a
satellite retrieval method recently developed by ESRL
researchers, CIRES is creating a multi-year global oceanic data set of near-surface temperatures and humidity.
Crossing disciplines, CIRES is evaluating data on ocean warming to assess the possibility of abrupt climate change
over North America, and using global chemistry/dynamics models to examine the effect of future ship traffic in the
Arctic northern passages on Arctic pollution.
Ecosystem management includes the assessment of potential hazards based on the collection and interpretation of
environmental data. CIRES is developing a U.S. Tsunami Hazard Assessment that will describe tsunami sources and
estimate tsunami frequency based on historical and geological tsunami data.
Climate Mission Goal: Understand climate variability
and change to enhance society’s ability to plan and
respond.
CIRES is a respected leader in areas of climate science research
relevant to NOAA‘s climate mission goal. Researchers at CIRES
have contributed substantially towards climate observations,
analysis, and predictions; climate forcing; and climate effects on
ecosystems across various spatial and temporal scales. Basic
research at CIRES has advanced our understanding of observed
long-term climate variations and recent unexpected changes,
especially in the polar regions. Spatially, CIRES‘ vast research
spans from the sea surface, land, and ice to the lower and upper
atmospheres and space environment.
CIRES develops methods and processes for integrating multiple
types of climate research data, and making the data more
streamlined and accessible to facilitate interoperability within the scientific community for the purpose of
knowledge extraction, data quality control and validation, and trend detection. Tools are also being created for the
public and policy makers to increase access to climate science information and forecast products.
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