A paper by University of Washington researchers and co-authors at eight institutions across the West aims to explain this wide range, and provide policymakers and the public with a framework for comparison. The study, funded by NOAA through its Regional Integrated Sciences and Assessments program and its National Integrated Drought Information System was published in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society.

In a study funded in part by the NOAA Climate Program Office's MAPP program, researchers have constructed a 700-year record of the climate phenomenon known as El Niño that may be the most accurate ever made.

Today, NOAA announced Wayne Higgins, Ph.D., as director of NOAA’s Climate Program Office.  Higgins, who has spent much of his career at the forefront of weather and climate prediction for NOAA’s National Weather Service, starts his new position July 28.