In many regions around the world, Regional Climate Outlook Forums (RCOFs) provide seasonal climate information and forecasts to decision-makers at regional and national levels. Despite having two decades of experience, the forums have not been systematically monitored or evaluated. To address this gap, and to better inform nascent and widespread efforts in climate services, the authors propose a process-oriented evaluation framework derived from literature on decision support and climate communication around the production and use of scientific information. The authors apply this framework to a case study of the Caribbean RCOF (CariCOF), where they have been engaged in a collaborative effort to integrate climate information and decision processes to enhance regional climate resilience. The authors’ examination of the CariCOF shows an evolution toward the use of more advanced and more diverse climate products, as well as greater awareness of user feedback. It also reveals shortfalls of the CariCOF, including a lack of diverse stakeholder participation, a need for better understanding of best practices to tailor information, undeveloped market research of climate products, insufficient experimentation and vetting of communication mechanisms, and the absence of a way to steward a diverse network of regional actors. The authors’ analysis also provides insight that allowed for improvements in the climate services framework to include mechanisms to respond to changing needs and conditions. The authors’ process-oriented framework can serve as a starting point for evaluating RCOFs and other organizations charged with the provision of climate services.
Author: Gerlak, Andrea K., Guido, Z., Vaughan, C., Rountree, V., Greene, C., Liverman, D., Trotman, A. R., Mahon, R., Cox, S.-A., Mason, S. J., Jacobs, K. L., Buizer, J. L., Meerbeeck, C. J. Van and Baethgen, W. E.
Published Date: 2018-02
Topic (s): social science
Publication Type: Journal
Download: Gerlak et al. 2018 Evaluation of Outlook Forums.pdf
Researchers funded by NOAA's International Research and Applications Project (IRAP) convened a workshop in San Juan, Puerto Rico on March 28-29, 2019, on building public health resilience to severe weather in a changing climate.
The purpose of the event was to identify opportunities for integrating weather and climate science into public health decision making, with a focus on Puerto Rico. A total of 29 participants attended the workshop, including representatives from civic organizations (e.g., Heart to Heart International), academia, federal and state agencies (e.g., NOAA/NWS, CDC, FEMA, EPA, PR Department of Public Health) and members of the interdisciplinary research team and their collaborators (University of Puerto Rico, University of Arizona, Tulane University, IRI, CIMH, University of Colorado).
Public health concerns influenced by weather and climate addressed by the workshop included respiratory diseases (e.g., asthma, COPD), heat stress-related diseases (e.g., cardiovascular disease), vector-borne diseases (e.g., dengue, Zika), and mental health. Stakeholders expressed a need for better access to tailored information for decision-making in public health and expressed a desire for disease surveillance and warning systems to be supported with climate information, for example, by establishing climate thresholds for disease transmission and outbreaks. Participants identified a suite of specific information needs that will be considered as candidates for the co-production of knowledge and decision support resources by the research team and their collaborators in the climate and public health communities. One example of an area being explored by the group is to augment, test, and/or provide feedback on existing heat-related tools developed in the medical community to support existing community efforts.
This activity represents one of six grants awarded by IRAP in FY 18 which are designed to inform planning and prevention focused on weather and climate-sensitive health risks to U.S. economic, development, scientific, and safety interests at home and abroad.
Author: Guido, Zack; Lichtveld M.; Wahid, F.A.; Sherman, M.; Duncan, B.; Henderson, J.; Mason, S.; Méndez-Lázaro, P.; Santos- Hernandez, J.; Allen, T.
Published Date: 2019-06
Topic (s): Public Health and Severe Weather
Publication Type: Workshop Report
Download: PuertoRico_WorkshopReport_20190328.pdf
Boundary organizations, knowledge networks, and information brokers have been suggested as mechanisms that help integrate information into decision-making and enhance interactions between the producers and users of climate information. While these mechanisms have been discussed in many studies in disparate fields of research, there has been little empirical research describing how they relate and support each other within studies on climate services. In this paper, two Caribbean Regional Climate Outlook Forums (CariCOFs) convened in 2014 are studied. CariCOFs facilitate the production of regional seasonal climate information and the dissemination of it to a diverse climate and socioeconomic region. Network analysis, key informant interviews, and small group discussions were used to answer two questions: 1) what are the barriers to using seasonal climate forecasts (SCFs) by CariCOF participants and 2) what are the iterative processes of information exchange that address these barriers? The barriers to using SCF include difficulty in demonstrating the value of the forecast to potential users, difficulty in interpreting and explaining the forecast to others, and challenges associated with the scientific language used in the information. To address these constraints, the convener of the CariCOF acts as a boundary organization by enabling interactions between participants representing diverse sectoral and geographic settings. This develops a network that helps build shared scientific understanding and knowledge about how different sectors experience climate risk. These interactions guide information brokering activities that help individuals communicate and translate climate information to facilitate understanding at local levels.
Journal: Weather, Climate, and Society: http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/10.1175/WCAS-D-15-0076.1
Author: Guido, Zack. Valerie Rountree. Christina Greene. Andrea Gerlak. Adrian Trotman
Published Date: 2016-06
Topic (s): boundary organizations, knowledge networks
Download:
A cluster analysis is applied to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration daily outgoing longwave radiation anomaly fields over the Intra‐American Seas, for the May to November rainy season 1980–2009. Seven recurrent convection regimes are identified, each with distinct impacts on local rainfall. Three suppressed‐convection regimes prevailing throughout the season and in particular during the Mid‐Summer Drought are related to transient anticyclonic circulation anomalies and broad drying over the region. The remaining regimes are all related to enhanced convection and cyclonic circulation anomalies over the Caribbean. For one wet regime, the cyclonic anomaly is located over Central America, which increases moisture advection from the eastern Pacific and in turn rainfall over Central and South America to the disadvantage of northern regions of the Caribbean. The three other regimes are associated with a weaker Caribbean Low Level Jet along its southern branch stretching along the South American coast, while its northern branch is strengthened, exposing the Caribbean to more moisture advection from the northeast trade winds, enhancing convection and rainfall locally. These three wet regimes are related to northwestward‐propagating convective cells that can be traced in a composite sense to the southward incursion of baroclinic waves from the midlatitudes, and anticyclonic wave breaking. In addition, their frequencies are found to be higher during phases 1 and 2 of the Madden‐Julian Oscillation, suggesting a connection with easterly waves emanating from African convection. Relationships are shown between these three northwestward‐propagating wet regimes and historical floods in the Caribbean illustrating the potential value of the convective regime approach for ultimately improving regional predictions and disaster early warning on sub‐seasonal scales.
Author: Vigaud, N. and A.W.Robertson
Published Date: 2017-03
Topic (s): sub-seasonal convection variability; weather typing; tropical-midlatitudes interactions; IAS rainfall; Caribbean floods
This paper proposes a heat-wave definition for Bangladesh that could be used to trigger preparedness measures in a heat early warning system (HEWS) and explores the climate mechanisms associated with heat waves. A HEWS requires a definition of heat waves that is both related to human health outcomes and forecastable. No such definition has been developed for Bangladesh. Using a generalized additive regression model, a heat-wave definition is proposed that requires elevated minimum and maximum daily temperatures over the 95th percentile for 3 consecutive days, confirming the importance of nighttime conditions for health impacts. By this definition, death rates increase by about 20% during heat waves; this result can be used as an argument for public-health interventions to prevent heat-related deaths. Furthermore, predictability of these heat waves exists from weather to seasonal time scales, offering opportunities for a range of preparedness measures. Heat waves are associated with an absence of normal premonsoonal rainfall brought about by anomalously strong low-level westerly winds and weak southerlies, detectable up to approximately 10 days in advance. This circulation pattern occurs over a background of drier-than-normal conditions, with below-average soil moisture and precipitation throughout the heat-wave season from April to June. Low soil moisture increases the odds of heat-wave occurrence for 10–30 days, indicating that subseasonal forecasts of heat-wave risk may be possible by monitoring soil-moisture conditions.
Author: Nissan, Hannah; Katrin Burkart; Erin Coughlan de Perez; Maarten Van Aalst; Simon Mason
Published Date: 2017-10
Topic (s): climate prediction; seasonal forecasting; short-range prediction; emergency preparedness; policy
This study explores the predictive skill of seasonal rainfall characteristics for the first rainy (and planting) season, May–June, in Central America. Statistical predictive models were built using a Model Output Statistics (MOS) technique based on canonical correlation analysis, in which variables that forecast with the Climate Forecast System version 2 (CFSv2) were used as candidate predictors for the observed total precipitation, frequency of rainy days and mean number of extremely dry and wet events in the season. CFSv2 initializations from February to April were explored. The CFSv2 variables used in the study consist of rainfall, as in a typical MOS technique, and a combination of low‐level winds and convective available potential energy (CAPE), a blend that has been previously shown to be a good predictor for convective activity. The highest predictive skill was found for the seasonal frequency of rainy days, followed by the mean frequency of dry events. In terms of candidate predictors, the zonal transport of CAPE (uCAPE) at 925 hPa offers higher skill across Central America than rainfall, which is attributed in part to the high model uncertainties associated with precipitation in the region. As expected, dynamical model predictors initialized in February provide lower skill than those initialized later. Nonetheless, the skill is comparable for March and April initializations. These results suggest that the National Meteorological and Hydrological Services in Central America, and the Central American Regional Climate Outlook Forum, can produce earlier more skilful forecasts for May–June rainfall characteristics than previously stated.
Author: Alfaro, Eric J.; Xandre Chourio. Angel G. Munoz, Simon J. Mason
Published Date: 2017-11
Topic (s): seasonal climate prediction; precipitation; statistical models; MOS predictive schemes; canonical correlation analysis
The International Research and Applications Project (IRAP), Integrating Climate Information and Decision Processes for Regional Climate Resilience, advances research on adaptation and resilience to climate variability and change while also advancing the application of climate services. The project supports risk management through research-based improvements in design, development, and provision of climate information, particularly as they contribute to national and regional development goals.
NOAA is pleased to present the first IRAP report, entitled "Integrating Climate Information and Decision Processes for Regional Climate Resilience in the Caribbean". The report synthesizes a workshop held in Kingston, Jamaica, May 29-30, 2014, sponsored by NOAA and USAID, in collaboration with the Caribbean Institute for Meteorology and Hydrology.
Author: Guido, Zackry. James Buizer. Tim Finan. S Gavin. Andrea Gerlak. Lisa Goddard. Christina Greene. Richard Johnson. Diana Liverman. Simon Mason. Ángel Muñoz.
Published Date: 2014-05
Topic (s): climate information integration, regional resilience
Publication Type: Workshop report
Download: IRAP report _sm.pdf
Coffee leaf rust (CLR) is the most destructive coffee disease in the world (Luaces et al., 2011) and has negatively impacted coffee production since the late 1800s (McCook, 2006). CLR damages coffee plants and decreases yields, which in turn reduces labor, influences wages, affects market prices, and inhibits farmers’ ability to manage their farms. The cumulative effects reduce farmer income, affecting livelihoods and food security, and force some to abandon their farms or switch to different crops altogether (WCR, 2014).
In recent years, CLR epidemics have been particularly damaging in Latin American and the Caribbean (Avelino et al., 2015). In 2012–2013, CLR epidemics cost farmers in these regions an estimated $500 million in lost production alone (ICO, 2013) and led to reduced production for at least two years (Avelino et al., 2015). Efforts to minimize the impacts of future outbreaks have led to research on new coffee varieties and, in the case of Colombia, large-scale programs to replace susceptible varieties with more resistant ones (De Silva and Tisdell, 1988; Arneson, 2000; Avelino et al., 2015). Capacitybuilding efforts that enable better management also have been implemented (e.g. De Silva and Tisdell, 1988; Staver et al., 2001; Shiomi et al., 2002; Santamaria and Bayman, 2005; Jackson et al., 2012; Zambolim et al., 2016). These efforts will be aided by the development of early warning systems (e.g. Alves et al., 2011; Luaces et al., 2011; Perez-Ariza et al., 2012; Avelino et al., 2015) and decision-support tools (e.g. Meira et al., 2009; Cintra et al., 2011). The provision of climate-related information has been offered as a vital element in these efforts (Avelino et al., 2015).
The causes of and responses to CLR are complex and demonstrate the multi-faceted relationship between disease characteristics, environmental conditions, climate and weather triggers, and the human actions that promote or hinder the disease. Although there are many factors to consider when managing CLR, climate and weather information has the potential to help farmers with disease management, but has thus far been under used. This document is step toward assessing the state of knowledge roles of weather and climate in supporting the growth and spread of CLR. It draws from more than 50 peer-reviewed articles, reports, and presentations related to CLR and coffee management to provide a summary of the current state of knowledge on the climate and weather influences on CLR.
Author: Rountree, Valerie. Zack Guido.
Published Date: 2016-05
Topic (s): Coffee leaf rust, disease management, agriculture, climate
Publication Type: Fact sheet
Download: IRAP-fact-sheet_updated_26Jun16.pdf
The purpose of this mid-term review is to assess progress of the Global Framework for Climate Services (GFCS) implementation and the approaches and developments in the GFCS's evolution in order to measure the success of implemented activities and to provide guidance on improivements. Also, provide recommendations to inform implementation.
Author: Gerlak, A.; Z. Guido; C. Knudson
Published Date: 2017
Topic (s): climate services
Publication Type: Published report
The Gap Between Weather and Climate Forecasting: Sub-Seasonal to Seasonal Prediction is an ideal reference for researchers and practitioners across the range of disciplines involved in the science, modeling, forecasting and application of this new frontier in sub-seasonal to seasonal (S2S) prediction. It provides an accessible, yet rigorous, introduction to the scientific principles and sources of predictability through the unique challenges of numerical simulation and forecasting with state-of-science modeling codes and supercomputers. Additional coverage includes the prospects for developing applications to trigger early action decisions to lessen weather catastrophes, minimize costly damage, and optimize operator decisions.
The book consists of a set of contributed chapters solicited from experts and leaders in the fields of S2S predictability science, numerical modeling, operational forecasting, and developing application sectors. The introduction and conclusion, written by the co-editors, provides historical perspective, unique synthesis and prospects, and emerging opportunities in this exciting, complex and interdisciplinary field.
Author: Thompkins, A.; R. Lowe; H. Nissan et. al.
Published Date: 2018-10
Topic (s): Sub-seasonal to seasonal prediction; health
Publication Type: Book chapter
FY 2018-20
FY 2013-18
FFO Listing
Information Sheet
Webinar 1 (Dec 13)
Webinar 2 (Feb 14)
Lisa Vaughan Program Manager, International Research and Applications Project (IRAP) P: 1 (301) 734-1277 F: 1 (301) 713-0518 E: lisa.vaughan@noaa.gov
VACANT
Americans’ health, security and economic wellbeing are tied to climate and weather. Every day, we see communities grappling with environmental challenges due to unusual or extreme events related to climate and weather.