Exploring the Ocean Through Climate Indicators: What Do Research, Predictions, and Decision-makers Need to Know?

Abstract:

There are several new and ongoing efforts around communicating climate and global change and variability by developing Climate Indicators (e.g. the US Global Change Research Project's Pilot Indicators Program, the US EPA's Climate Change Indicators, and the Ocean Observations Panel for Climate State of the Ocean indicators). Indicators provide information tailored to identified stakeholders and facilitate monitoring status, trends, extremes and variability of important climate features or processes. NOAA's Climate Monitoring program is in the middle of a three-year initiative toward supporting research toward the development of Ocean Climate Indicators for research, prediction, and decision makers. These indices combine ocean observations, climate data and products from platforms like (but not limited to) the drifting buoy, Argo, satellite, and buoy arrays that provide fundamental observations that contribute towards climate understanding, predictions, and projections. The program is supporting eight distinct projects that focus on primarily regional indices that target varied stakeholders and outreach strategies – from public awareness and education to targeted model performance improvement. This presentation will discuss the diverse set of projects, initial results, and discuss possibilities for and examples of using the indicators and processes for developing them for broader science outreach and education, with an eye toward the aim of organizing the ocean climate and observing community around developing a comprehensive ocean monitoring and indicators system.