Strategic Goal 2: Increase Societal Resilience to Weather, Climate, and Other Atmospheric Hazards

Please enjoy selected scientific highlights by clicking on the thumbnail images below the "overview", or by using the arrows above to move page-by-page.

Scientific understanding of weather and climate has expanded dramatically, but the application of that knowledge to societal needs remains a grand challenge. Decision makers face an increasingly complex world as human population continues to grow and its associated impacts on the environment escalate. They need better information, tools, and systems to understand, and address, the effects of weather and climate. As the NSF's federally-funded research and development center, NCAR is in a unique position to partner with federal and state agencies to identify and pursue high priority weather and climate information needs for decision-making and to develop the tools decision makers need to plan for hazardous weather events, to improve operational weather forecasting, and to adapt to subtle but long-lasting changes in our climate.

NCAR efforts in this area include:

Priority 1: Investigating Weather and Climate Information Needs and Decision Making

While decision makers in virtually all sectors of the economy could benefit from improved weather and climate information, they often have little idea of what is currently available and how it could benefit them.... Read more about this priority

Societal Impacts Program


Incorporating Climate Change Information in Water Utility Planning


Priority 2: Building Capacity for Coping with Weather and Climate Hazards

NCAR scientists work in partnership with their stakeholder communities to research, build, and transfer state-of-the-art decision support information, tools and systems.... Read more about this priority

REFRACTT


Developmental Testbed Center


Climate Change, Seasonality and Environmental Hazards


Priority 3: Establishing New Connections with Researchers from Developing Nations

Many of the most interesting and important Earth system processes are global in scale and can only be effectively pursued with cooperation among nations and collaborative research efforts among institutions from many countries.... Read more about this priority

ISTP (International Symposium on Tropospheric Profiling)


Building Capacity in Developing Countries


Priority 4: Supporting and Conducting Regional-Scale Investigations of Climate and Weather

As climate change and societal vulnerability to severe weather becomes more apparent, decision makers want to know what changes are likely to occur in particular places... Read more about this priority

NARCAPP