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Leadership/Members

Christa Peters-lidard (Lead), NASA Goddard Flight Center

Pierre Gentine (Co-Lead), Columbia University

Michael Barlage (Co-Lead), UCAR

Dennis Lettenmaier (Co-Lead), University of California Los Angeles 

Mission

The OAR Climate Program Office’s Modeling, Analysis, Predictions and Projections (MAPP) Program organizes the Drought Task Force to coordinate the activities of researchers supported through the MAPP/NIDIS Fiscal Year 2017 grant competition "Advancing drought understanding, monitoring and prediction”. The goal of this research initiative is to advance the understanding of drought causes and predictability as well as drought modeling, prediction, and monitoring capabilities. This initiative builds on two previous MAPP Drought Task Force efforts, and decades of preceding research on drought, hydroclimate, and related modeling.

The core membership of the Task Force is comprised of MAPP/NIDIS-funded investigators from universities, NOAA, and other Federal centers and laboratories. Membership in the Task Force can also include invited scientists and other individuals from across the community with interest and expertise in Drought Task Force research areas.

Through monthly teleconferences, the Task Force provides a formal mechanism for PIs to communicate, coordinate, and collaborate. Via the Task Force, PIs share new datasets, methodologies, and results. There can also be emergent opportunities to synthesize collective efforts through technical reports, review articles, or journal special collections and engage with the rest of the community via workshops and meeting sessions. Preceding iterations of the Drought Task Force have a rich history of leading such activities. The Task Force also facilitates collaboration with other relevant activities inside and outside of NOAA, including international Drought research and activities.

The Drought Task Force is a three-year effort starting September 2017.

Terms of Reference

• MAPP Program Management has selected one lead scientist and three co-leads for the Task Force.
• The Task Force leads, with input from the broad Task Force membership, provide scientific leadership and establish activities for the Task Force. MAPP Program management provides programmatic guidance on Task Force activities as needed, working with the leads.
• All PIs supported through the NIDIS/MAPP fiscal year 2017 drought competition are expected to participate in the Task Force as described in their proposals. Otherwise, participation in the Task Force is by invitation.
• Most of the Task Force work will be conducted remotely via telecons or virtual meetings, or through meetings of opportunity.

 Other Links

• Projects
• MAPP Task Force Concept
• Advancing NIDIS Objectives

Research Objectives

In the following we describe the issues underlying our key research objectives in more detail.