A variety of indicators are pointing toward an increased need for improved climate services capabilities at regional, state and local levels. As a rule the impacts of climate events are felt most acutely at the individual and local levels. A comprehensive program for national climate services needs to address all the physical scales at which impacts can occur, all the scales of climate behavior that can lead to those impacts, and possess the capacity to understand and describe the interactions across scale. The ability to address climate service issues at regional, state and local scales is currently quite uneven, with numerous disparities and gaps. A number of panels, organizations, workshops, and reports have called for increased emphasis and attention on the smaller and more local scales. Ongoing efforts to link climate services activities across these scales will be described, along with goals for near-term and longer-term improvements.
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