Catalyzing Innovations With Observations: Building What We Need, Not What We Have.

Critical observations are needed to address a large range of important societal issues including severe storms, droughts, floods, extreme heat events, food security, and freshwater availability in the coming decades. The current climate observing system was not planned in a comprehensive, focused manner required to adequately address the full range of weather, water and climate needs. A new approach to planning the observing system of the future is needed to identify our most critical needs and engage the innovators from the public, private and academic communities to design observing systems to meet those needs. As as starting point, we can identify several societally important topics that span weather, water and climate which can not be addressed with current observations. These include melting ice and global consequences; clouds, circulation and climate sensitivity; carbon feedbacks in the climate system; understanding and predicting weather and climate extremes; water for the food baskets of the world; regional sea-level change and coastal impacts; and near-term climate prediction. For each issues, observations are needed for long-term monitoring, process studies and forecasting capabilities. The authors are ready to address how critically important conversations could unfold in the international community to identify the most critical observational needs that require innovation and investments to address properly.

Past, targeted investments in specific climate questions have resulted in tremendous improvements in issues important to human health, security, and infrastructure.