A RISA perspective on climate services: the CLIMAS experience

The Climate Assessment for the Southwest (CLIMAS) is one of eight Regional Integrated Sciences and Assessments (RISA) funded by the NOAA Office of Global Programs. The foundation of CLIMAS science and outreach is knowledge exchange between the generators and users of climate information. CLIMAS knowledge exchange and climate services are predicated on iterative engagement with stakeholders through consecutive assessments, including: decision maker needs and context assessment; response assessment (evaluation of the ability of science on short- and long-term time scales to meet user needs); collaborative research and product development (research team collaboration and/or stakeholder-team collaboration); diffusion (testing and preliminary evaluation); product delivery, extension, and operations; post-implementation assessment (evaluation of usefulness, usability, potential improvements, next steps). From the CLIMAS perspective, effective climate services includes a combination of research (basic science, as well as applied), process (workshops, partnerships), data and information provision, product development, decision support; and extension (engagement and iteration with user groups). The high falutin sounding stuff mentioned above probably sounds self-important and abstract, so this presentation will illustrate some of the aforementioned with examples from CLIMAS applied climate projects on fire, forecast evaluation, knowledge transfer, drought economic impacts, and spatial snow estimation. The presentation is intended to stimulate discussion on collaborative climate services in the United States.