An important need in the climate modeling, observational and user communities is to be able to provide climate projections at spatial and temporal scales of utility to resource managers and decision makers. Coarse resolution global climate models (GCMs) were not designed for this purpose; however, improvements in model design, computing capacity, and various strategies are being developed for this purpose. An Aspen Global Change Institute (AGCI) session in 2006 proposed experimental design for the next round of coordinated climate change experiments that explicitly included short-term climate predictions to be performed for assessment by the international climate modeling community.
This workshop builds upon several recent efforts including an AGCI workshop last year on decadal prediction and several on climate change, natural variability, and extremes. This workshop also builds upon a 2004 workshop aimed at bridging the gap between the modeling, scenarios, and user communities at the regional scale. It directly is a follow-up to the decadal prediction workshop held last year with the aim of engaging the user community more directly in exploring climate modeling capability now and in the near future and how this capability can be integrated into resource management.
The major goal of this project was to bring together climate modelers and resource managers so that dialogue between these two groups could enhance the usefulness of model-based climate information for decision makers, a concept known as climate services. To this end, the Aspen Global Change Institute (AGCI) hosted a workshop in Aspen, CO, September 20-25, 2009 and was entitled, Advanced Climate Modeling and Decision-Making Support of Climate Services. Drs. Thomas Wilbanks (Oak Ridge National Laboratory) and Roger Pulwarty (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) co-chaired the meeting of about 35 participants. In attendance at the meeting were water resource managers from state and municipal water districts, such as the State of California and New York City, and climate modelers for leading research institutions, such as the National Center for Atmospheric Research and the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory. A national association of water resource managers interested in the ramifications of climate change for resource management called the Water Utility Climate Alliance (WUCA) supported and sent numerous representatives to attend the meeting. One participant and WUCA member, Laurna Kaatz, remarked that the AGCI workshop "was one of the most crucial and beneficial meetings between the applied science (drinking water) community and the research science (climate modeling) community." Following the meeting, Ms. Kaatz co-authored a report issued by WUCA entitled, "Decision Support Planning Methods: Incorporating Climate Change Uncertainties into Water Planning." The report serves as a guidebook to water managers facing future climate uncertainty and for multiple future outcomes. A meeting of this kind was seen as a crucial next step from a 2008 AGCI meeting that focused on developing the research design for decadal (10-30 year) prediction modeling efforts worldwide. In anticipation of greater skill in models and greater serviceability to user communities, this 2009 meeting initiated a conversation that informed the development of the NOAA Climate Services Office (launched in February 2010) and will continue to support the development of climate services in years to come. Resources from this meeting, including a presentation archive are available via the AGCI website: www.agci.org/programs/past_scientist_workshops/about_the_workshop/sciSess_details.php?recordID=261
